Hacked Tehran Traffic Cameras Fed Israeli Intelligence Before Strike On Khamenei (calcalistech.com)
- Reference: 0180896954
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/03/03/0512224/hacked-tehran-traffic-cameras-fed-israeli-intelligence-before-strike-on-khamenei
- Source link: https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/syimwdmfzl
> Years before the air strike that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Israeli intelligence had been [1]quietly mapping the daily rhythms of Tehran . According to reporting by the [2]Financial Times (paywalled), nearly all of the Iranian capital's traffic cameras had been hacked years earlier, their footage encrypted and transmitted to Israeli servers. One camera angle near Pasteur Street, close to Khamenei's compound, allowed analysts to observe the routines of bodyguards and drivers: where they parked, when they arrived and whom they escorted. That data was fed into complex algorithms that built what intelligence officials call a "pattern of life," detailed profiles including addresses, work schedules and, crucially, which senior officials were being protected and transported. The surveillance stream was one of hundreds feeding Israel's intelligence system, which combines signals interception from Unit 8200, human assets recruited by the Mossad and large-scale data analysis by military intelligence.
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> When US and Israeli intelligence determined that Khamenei would attend a Saturday morning meeting at his compound, the opportunity was judged unusually favorable. Two people familiar with the operation told the FT that US intelligence provided confirmation from a human source that the meeting was proceeding as planned, a level of certainty required for a target of such magnitude. Israeli aircraft, reportedly airborne for hours, fired as many as 30 precision munitions. The strike was carried out in daylight, which the Israeli military said created tactical surprise despite heightened Iranian alertness. The Financial Times reports that the assassination was a political decision as much as a technological feat. Even during last year's 12-day war, when Israeli strikes killed more than a dozen Iranian nuclear scientists and senior military officials and disabled air defences through cyber operations and drones, Israel did not attempt to kill Khamenei.
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> The capability to do so, however, had been built over decades. Former Mossad official Sima Shine told the FT that Israel's strategic focus on Iran dates back to a 2001 directive from then-prime minister Ariel Sharon instructing intelligence chief Meir Dagan to make the Islamic Republic the priority target. What distinguishes the latest operation, according to the FT, is the scale of automation. Target tracking that once required painstaking visual confirmation has increasingly been handled by algorithm-driven systems parsing billions of data points. One person familiar with the process described it as an "assembly line with a single product: targets."
Further reading: [3]America Used Anthropic's AI for Its Attack On Iran, One Day After Banning It
[1] https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/syimwdmfzl
[2] https://www.ft.com/content/bf998c69-ab46-4fa3-aae4-8f18f7387836
[3] https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/03/01/1945208/america-used-anthropics-ai-for-its-attack-on-iran-one-day-after-banning-it
Incredible (Score:3, Informative)
Maybe Israel can locate the missing Epstein files and jail surveillance
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Have you checked Hunter’s laptop?
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That they would join in a project called "Operation Epstein Fury" suggests they would prefer access to the Epstein files remains obstructed. Look to the Israeli government for some entertaining spycraft (they are truly the best of the best) but don't look to them for help .
You have no idea (Score:2)
In other news, the committee tasked with finding a successor to Khamenei has been bombarded.
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> In other news, the committee tasked with finding a successor to Khamenei has been bombarded.
Those responsible for sacking the people that have just been sacked have been sacked.
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Note that in this kind of cases, white smoke, LOTS of white smoke, is not necessarily a good sign.
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I had read that the Iranians built a 4x succession plan to help with resilience. I’ve also read that Israel has killed at least two of the people layered into the 4x plan for several key positions eg defense minister and supreme leader. I bet some defence analyst somewhere is tracking it eg Jane’s but I’ve not looked
He was not hiding. (Score:1)
Everybody knew where he was.
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I didn't.
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Yeah, me neither. Who's this everybody they're talking about?
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Everybody know where they are.
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The point was to know that he would be at home and meeting with several other high officials. They not only killed him, but several of his most important subordinates. For all of that, decapitation strikes rarely work in practice. There is almost always someone waiting to take the old leader's place and it is rarely someone less radical. Khamenei appears to have been a weak leader. There is always the danger he will be replaced by someone more effective.
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The problem is that those high officials and subordinates included people that the US would want to take over. All this did was strengthen the hardliners, and make a power vacuum more likely down the road.
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That’s a huge oversimplification that is apparently driven by a desire for a narrative about bumbling and incompetent Americans. The truth is, killing so many senior leaders damages Iranian capability and capacity in several important ways. Above all, it reduces the competence and experience of the leadership who must make crucial decisions in the war. For example, it’s reasonable to see the attacks on the GCC states as a significant misstep by Iran. They inflict frankly paltry economic damage,
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Well, even the theocratic cretins know to not ever put everybody important into one place.
Re: He was not hiding. (Score:2)
You do not remember what happened the last time some power hungry megalomaniacs stepped up after a decapitation strike in a bloodregime, hm?
Not Good Enough (Score:2)
> Everybody knew where he was.
For an operation like this you need to know where he will be.
But why? (Score:4, Interesting)
Is anyone else puzzled about the logic behind hitting him now? Sure, there's some amount of supremacy nerd 'noone is beyond our reach' wank value to targeting someone through the CCTV system; but why hand a fairly unpopular theocrat who is already old enough that succession planning is an urgent problem basically the most PR-friendly death imaginable at the same time as you provide his government with a plausible argument along the usual 'need to take necessary measures during the current crisis' lines?
That's a more or less instant upgrade from 'increasingly pathetic reactionary with questionable public support' to 'martyred by jews and international zionism' for a guy who was otherwise not long on options for shoring up his popularity.
Re:But why? (Score:5, Insightful)
> Is anyone else puzzled about the logic behind hitting him now? Sure, there's some amount of supremacy nerd 'noone is beyond our reach' wank value to targeting someone through the CCTV system; but why hand a fairly unpopular theocrat who is already old enough that succession planning is an urgent problem basically the most PR-friendly death imaginable at the same time as you provide his government with a plausible argument along the usual 'need to take necessary measures during the current crisis' lines?
> That's a more or less instant upgrade from 'increasingly pathetic reactionary with questionable public support' to 'martyred by jews and international zionism' for a guy who was otherwise not long on options for shoring up his popularity.
Because Israel said so. That's all you need to know. Now Israel can play victim when someone does something to them, completely ignoring they're the one who's been attacking its neighbors for decades.
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Israel, on the day of its creation, was attacked by every one of its neighbors. And that happened several more times. Now, it has relations with most of its neighbors. The only neighbors it has trouble with now, are Iranian proxies.
Oh, if you're concerned about Russia's invasion of the Ukraine, note that Russia has been getting its drones from Iran. Taking Iran out of the equation cripples Russia's war effort. Taking out Venezuela was also a major blow to Russia.
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+ Israel tried multiple times to fix borders and make peace with Palestinian leaders. But each and every time Palestinians wanted all Israeli land for themselves and kept losing more ground.
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> + Israel tried multiple times to fix borders and make peace with Palestinian leaders
All while bulldozing the homes of Palestinians to build homes for Israeli's. Meanwhile Israel was never offering all the land they seized from the Palestinians back and was very rarely offering full sovereignty so these were hardly good faith peace offers most of the time.
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Yes, turns out Israel's neighbors weren't thrilled on a country being founded by the outgoing colonials for European Jews to colonize thus displacing the native Muslims.
This is why many Jews were against the creation of Israel at the time, it was always bound to piss off the locals.
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It’s always about the grift. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Push the brown people out to make room for a casino that will get built by unpaid contractors.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Donald_Trump_Gaza_Strip_takeover_proposal
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My question applies to the Israeli interests as well. I'm not pleased that we are obligated to pretend that they are an ally that is worth the trouble because of fundie lunatics; but I'm also unclear how their interests are served by killing the guy now; when it's basically a free set of rose-tinted glasses for him; rather than years ago when a succession crisis would have been much more likely or not at all to let the usually-undignified process of authoritarian geriatrics clinging to power take its course
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They had the oppurtunity all along, it's a matter of blowing everything up because a proxy group attacked you (H-Boys) or directly (last year). When Iran attacked as a state, all handcuffs were released. Blow it all up, no questions. Bye bye
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Well it keeps Netanyahu's constant corruption and bumbling of things off the front news pages.
Re: But why? (Score:2)
> Because Israel said so. That's all you need to know.
Can't believe "it's the Jews!" gets +5 here. Same any century I guess.
Iran and it's proxies have killed hundreds of not thousands of Americans over the years. In US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq hundreds were killed by Iran backed militias which were supplied with Iranian weapons. Retaliation for that was the justification for the US strike to kill Iran's extraterritory general Soleimani who was still operating in Iraq in 2020. Iran has frequently harassed ships and threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz t
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>> Is anyone else puzzled about the logic behind hitting him now? Sure, there's some amount of supremacy nerd 'noone is beyond our reach' wank value to targeting someone through the CCTV system; but why hand a fairly unpopular theocrat who is already old enough that succession planning is an urgent problem basically the most PR-friendly death imaginable at the same time as you provide his government with a plausible argument along the usual 'need to take necessary measures during the current crisis' lines?
>> That
Re: But why? (Score:2)
Those neighbors luckily never attacked them and have not promise to wipe out the entire state, for decades.. you left wingers are so beyond reality, it is unbelievable.
One group would like to live in peace and attempted that thru some questionable means, while the other side of all the neighbors has sworn to wipe the first group out completely, first in Israel then everywhere on earth.
Why are you so against Israeli settlers? They are culturally enriching the region, they are immigrants, asylum seekers and m
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Opportunity knocked.
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Opportunity to further destroy America's credibility with the rest of the world?
Opportunity to put us in a position to be unable to assist allies such as Taiwan or Poland should they come under attack from our rivals?
Opportunity to unleash utter chaos on a region that has disproportionate economic impact on the rest of the world?
Some opportunity.
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The hope is that decapitating multiple layers of Iranian leadership, starting with Khamieni, will cause chaos, confusion and fallouts among the rest of the cadres. That might give Iranians a fighting chance, however slim that might be, to take control of their country.
Re: But why? (Score:2)
> Is anyone else puzzled about the logic behind hitting him now?
It was just 7 weeks ago the people across every strata of Iranian society were pouring out by increasing millions to protest his government and seemed like he was about to be ousted (to the point that many top government officials were wiring all their money out of the country in preparation for exile).
Then, also just 7 weeks ago, he ordered his forces to just... kill all of them. Machine guns fired into crowds. Survivors were found and executed at the hospitals. In one case they set a market on fire, trapp
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The problem with making a moral argument is that we (the US) famously have zero morals.
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If that was a serious question, here’s a reasonably dispassionate answer. It’s complicated. Lots of motivation for acting, both noble and ignoble: Epstein/wag the dog, Project 2025 and Christian nationalism, the Iranian regime and its proxies being severely weakened militarily and economically in the last couple of years, a long term strategic assessment by Western and GCC policy makers that Iran was a major destabilising threat in the form of nuclear ambitions, ballistic missiles and proxies. W
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> and Christian nationalism
I just saw an article that said there have already been about 100 complaints filed by NCOs whose commanding officers told them in meetings that the war was to set things up for Jebus to come back.
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I don't think the calculus on his death changed at all, and probably still favored letting him live. My understanding is that he's never been difficult to find, and his office was never particularly secure.
I think what did it is that he had an in-person meeting with around a dozen other top officials. While the balance might have said to leave him alive, the chance to take them out with one shot changed things.
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Definitely seems like a waste of resources to take out a guy past his natural life expectancy. I guess they thought it would be a catalyst for the system to collapse after the recent protests. Low odds of success, but the consequences of failure are also low. So what if there are some posters made of the guy with "martyr" written on them? If war is becoming an exchange of tons of drones and missiles it's better to attack before the enemy builds up its capacity
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One of the best questions about the this clusterfuck that all of this is. Maybe Trump though he'd get some cheap PR out of it like when Obama did Osama in.
Khomeini was at home doing his regular routine. He could have chosen to get in the bunkers, but he did not do so. It would appear he wanted to be martyred. He was also old, accomplished, and possibly outdated. And by staying alive he would have probably had to live through Israel bombing his family members instead.
What is important for what follows is tha
Re: But why? (Score:2)
Yea, because he really was lacking influence and his hyper toxic ideas were really not catching on AND he was not getting increasingly unhinged, murder by orders of magnitude more people than USUAL.
And there are not five other interests that were served very well by this strike.
I am as surprised as you they did not consult with you about this, you clearly know better..
Nice can of worms (Score:3)
Assassination of top leadership is now an accepted political standard. No war and capture and trial, just kill heads of state when the opportunity arises.
The reason that's been frowned upon isn't because some of these heads of state aren't monsters the world is better off without, it's because it makes things less stable and diplomacy more difficult.
It makes further assassinations more likely, which is bad for heads of state, but it also makes wars more likely, which is bad for everyone else.
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Don't worry - the Board of Peace have you covered /s
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Now? How about, "through all of human history up until Carter, and then still everywhere else"? Carter, who got everything else wrong, probably got that wrong too.
And you do remember that Iran has been trying to assassinate Trump and a number of other American politicians, right?
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How does a country like Iran trying to assassinate people make normalizing assassinating heads of state a good thing? I'm really not sure how any of your post does in fact.
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> Assassination of top leadership is now an accepted political standard. No war and capture and trial, just kill heads of state when the opportunity arises.
Yup and I think we all expected more from a FIFA Peace Prize winner. /s :-)
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> Yup and I think we all expected more from a FIFA Peace Prize winner.
Undoubtedly they're now working on a War Prize for him.
Excellent example (Score:3)
This is an excellent example why even seemingly unimportant IT systems like traffic cameras or cheap webcams can have major security implications when hacked.
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And, on top of that, its not like we haven't had dozens of movies and TV shows warning us of exactly that! Yes, its only stories... until it isn't anymore.
Mh370 (Score:1)
And more than a decade later they still don't know where a big ass 777 went? Yah, right...
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No too many traffic cameras in the Indian ocean.
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We know where it's at. In the ocean.
Hmmm (Score:3)
Maybe they hacked the cameras or maybe they just leaked this story to protect the method they actually used. Which could be as simple as having a guy who moved in across the street.
Surveillance and laws (Score:2)
They're giving GREAT tools into the hands of good people...
Until they're in the hands of not so good people.
People are not careful enough in these regards.
War Powers Clause (Score:4, Informative)
Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the U.S. Constitution, grants Congress the power to declare war. Not the president. Expecting the Legislative branch to do their job is completely ridiculous at this point, but it's still worth remembering that theoretically, declaring war is not within the Executive branch's powers. Not that it has stopped any president for the last 80+ years - the last time the U.S. Congress formally declared war was during World War II, specifically on June 4, 1942, against Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania.
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Most of Congress doesn't want to get involved in that decision. For the same reason executive agencies make so many decisions that should be made by Congress.
A voting record might interfere with them getting reelected.
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It's probably not war, but a "special military operation".
alien intelligence turned to track YOU (Score:2)
That is what AI basically is - an alien intelligence. It is hard to visualize and be concerned about. This is why Anthropic did the right thing to require no domestic spying by the pentagon. Watching some scifi movies is the best way to see how things could play out. This is a plot point in a lot of movies but only a few emphasize the tracking aspect
1) Person of Interest - Samaritan arc
2) Captive State - aliens run world as a subjugated state, just how do you resist that? Very very craftily. free on YouT
Working Financial Times Link (Score:2)
[1]https://archive.is/oB9Dh [archive.is]
[1] https://archive.is/oB9Dh
And next.. (Score:2)
"Israel, if you're listening, maybe you can find the Clinton email server."
In other news, UK orders even more public cameras (Score:2)
UK will love the new means of oppression of thought-crime, eehhhhh I mean, improvement of population morale and truth!
Now they can directly filter out who must not be caught, and focus on the meanie online posters.
In other news (Score:4, Insightful)
Traffic Cams are being installed everywhere in the USA
Re:In other news (Score:5, Informative)
If only they were traffic cams, the Flock surveillance scanners provide license plate tracking and/or facial recognition. They aren't for monitoring traffic, they're for searching an individual's travels. They've been repeatedly used for stalking.
And they've been found to be woefully insecure.
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> There's never an assumption of privacy when you're in public. Note that "public" and "private" are different words.
Indeed. Government will soon have the capability to watch you and everyone else for every single second you are in public. Land of the free and all that lol.
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There is, however, the expectation that the government cannot legally track you absent reasonable suspicion.
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> There is, however, the expectation that the government cannot legally track you absent reasonable suspicion.
Since we are discussing cameras in the public view, if you are in public anyone can legally follow i.e. "track" you. Just because you don't like it, does not make illegal. Also the "government" can walk with you, talk with you, and even LIE to you (gasp).
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> just because you don't like it, does not make illegal.
Correct, but people still talk about it because they don't like mass surveillance and might seek to make it illegal. Which is their right in a democratic society.
Our ideas around expectations of privacy date to a time when it was not possible for the government to "walk with" every single individual 24/7 in every public place in the country. Now it is becoming technically possible. Not surprising that someone might want to update the laws.