The NSO group, a cyberespionage company notorious for their "Pegasus" spyware used by governments to spy on dissidents, journalists, and other high-level targets. For example, when Saudia Arabia tracked journalist Jamal Khashoggi before having him killed and dismembered in their embassy, they used the Pegasus spyware to track and spy on him.
Now NSO has apparenty yanked notoriously litigious Apple's chain one time too many.
Apple has a history of engaging in tactical litigation: lawsuits they know they can't win but will cost their targets spectacular amounts of money. They did this against Samsung more or less out of spite, and Qualcomm for abusive patent licensing practices. In both cases I have a difficult time finding sympathy for the defendents.
On a business level, Samsung is just vile. I personally know the presidents of two unrelated companies that Samsung refused to pay "because fuck you, that's why." Everybody in the cellular industry hates Qualcomm because they're the only company that forces you to purchase patent licenses with the chips they sell (everyone else includes the rights with the chips), and the terms they attach are downright abusive. Even Apple's harshest competitors were very quiety cheering them on through this battle.
The morality of this practice is certainly questionable, and in both cases the lawsuits cost both sides hundreds of millions of dollars. This went on when Apple had a quarter of a trillion dollars in cash (and equivelants) on hand, so it wasn't a big deal to them. The takeaway from this is that Apple doesn't blink at dropping a quarter to half a billion dollars in legal fees just to make a point.
This wil be an interesting case. NSO group has nowhere near the finances to withstand this kind of assualt. They're not a Samsung or a Qualcomm and all things being equal Apple's legal team would (right or wrong) be able to turn them into a smoking crater. However, many of the most vile governments on Earth rely heavily on their products. You name an oppressive regime (including US spy agencies and law enforcement), and they're on NSO's client list. There will probably be all sorts of back-channel deals and political pressure brought to bear. This could become gloriously ugly and vicious.
To further twist the knife, Apple dropped $10M in donations as well as a promise for technical and engineering support on white-hat hacking groups like Citizen Lab who has done fantastic work exposing NSO group and their dirty deeds. They have also promised to donate all proceeds from the lawsuit to white-hat groups that fight spyware companies.
I'll post some relevant articles in the comments.
Don’t worry!
His “very smart people” are totally right about things this time when it comes to trade.
There is zero - I repeat, zero - moral difference between the people who pushed for "experimenting" with lockdowns because "we have to do something!" and the people who push for "experimenting" with trade wars because "we have to do something!"
Musk is out.
Musk put himself in a corner where he can't rip into Trump and he has to play nice probably at least through the midterms, but just look at the guy's face and watch him refuse to give a straight answer here. He put a lot on the line with endorsing Trump and starting DOGE, and Trump absolutely stabbed him in the back. Trump's supporters will blame congress, but Trump has very openly and loudly endorsed all of the DOGE-defying moves that congress has made, and has viciously attacked the one congressman (Thomas Massie) who has stood against it.
The reason is simple: Trump cares about trophies. Cutting the budget is not a trophy. DOGE trying to take a chainsaw to government was a trophy, but as soon as DOGE became more of Musk's than Trump's trophy, Trump stopped caring about it because congress offered him a Big, Beautiful Bill as a trophy instead. Just like the FBI offered the opportunity to build a Big, Beautiful new headquarters building for them (Trump loves buildings!). ...
As comedy slowly slides into unfunny wokeness hell, the last comedian standing (assuming he doesn't drop dead first, I mean just look at the guy; he's a trainwreck) will be Doug Stanhope. He closed out his recent special "The Dying of the Last Breed" with this bit on how important it is that we be able to make fun of anything. Because making fun.
Language warning, duh.
Preliminary Q2 numbers for Argentina are in. This is still subject to adjustment but so far their preliminaries have been pretty accurate under the Milei administration.
Slashing spending works. Trump and Bessent are very optimistically projecting economic growth of 3% doing the opposite of what Milei is doing to deliver 7.6% - and climbing!
