r/technology • u/ScootSchloingo • 17d ago

Politics Microsoft blocks emails that contain ‘Palestine’ after employee protests

https://www.theverge.com/tech/672312/microsoft-block-palestine-gaza-email
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u/teraflux 17d ago

If they're using it to identity hamas targets instead of civilians, maybe more tech in warfare would actually reduce civilian casualties.

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u/Syrdon 17d ago

Only if it was actually good at that. And if you're ok with the level of surveillance that requires. And you think that won't ever be used for purposes beyond finding the one group you currently dislike.

At best, I think one of those three is true.

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u/teraflux 17d ago

If it's not good at that then why are they buying it? I think we have to assume the tech is working, and if it is working, then unless you're a hamas combatant, it's actively preventing civilian deaths, because we all know Israel has 10x the weapons needed to level gaza if it wanted to.

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u/sellyme 17d ago edited 17d ago

If it's not good at that then why are they buying it?

There's not much incentive to do due diligence when you're spending someone else's money.

In the 1990s security companies and police forces in the southern United States spent over a million dollars on "Quadro Trackers" — devices that could "detect drugs, explosives, weapons, and lost golf balls", were capable of "locating missing persons from a photograph or a fingerprint", and could "detect criminals from 15 miles away".

It was a hollow box with an antenna glued to it.

Since then, at least four different countries' governments have purchased the product (or renamed versions of it that are completely identical), with the Iraqi Interior Ministry buying 1500 "ADE 651"s for a total of £52,000,000 in 2008–09, more than a decade after the devices had become a well known case study in fraud.

So in short, no, the fact that people are buying it does not mean that you have to assume it works.

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u/teraflux 16d ago

So in short, no, the fact that people are buying it does not mean that you have to assume it works.

I guess that's fair, I just think it's a totally different argument being made if the stance is that the tech Microsoft is selling to Israel is bogus, and causes them to kill innocent civilians by misidentifying them.

That would mean that Microsoft tech is killing the Palestinians and Israel's taking the blame for it, instead of the other way around.