Israel-based "AdFection"... Spyware vendors found a way to make targeted ads even worse- Israeli adtech outfit allegedly helped spyware vendors infect phones while enjoying Google's seal of approval

  Carly Page

The online advertising industry has found a new way to make itself even more unpopular, with one adtech outfit accused of helping spyware vendors infect people's phones without them even clicking an ad.

Researchers at Citizen Lab say they've uncovered the first publicly confirmed case of a zero-click mercenary spyware attack being delivered through targeted online ads, with devices at Al Jazeera among those infected.

The technique, dubbed "AdFection," turns advertising networks into a spyware delivery system. Simply opening a website or app can be enough to trigger the attack, with no suspicious links or downloads involved.

Israeli adtech firm Discover-Tech is allegedly behind the operation, according to researchers at Citizen Lab, which says the company acts as a middleman between the online advertising industry and multiple spyware and hacking vendors.

"We present technical evidence that the Israel-based company Discover-Tech, while purporting to be a legitimate advertising company, appears to be a front for large-scale ad espionage abuse," the researchers wrote. “In fact, it appears that serving as this bridge is Discover-Tech’s primary purpose."

Discover-Tech’s Controlium platform exploits the real-time bidding system that decides which ads appear on websites and apps. Every time someone loads a page, advertisers compete for available ad space and, in the process, receive information about the user's device and location. Discover-Tech allegedly used that data to identify specific targets and serve them malicious ads. 

One spyware vendor linked to the operation is Candiru, the Israeli developer now known as Integrity Labs. Citizen Lab traced attacks against at least 45 devices at Al Jazeera in 2024 and 2025 to Candiru spyware delivered through ads from Discover-Tech.

Discover-Tech didn't have to sneak into the advertising system, as Google and IAB Europe had listed the company as an approved vendor since 2020, apparently unaware of what it was Citizen Lab claims it was doing with that access.

Citizen Lab sifted through nearly four billion ad-bidding records and found Discover-Tech ads on more than 70,000 mobile apps and 120,000 websites between March and June 2026.

Some reached networks belonging to government agencies, defense organizations, and NATO. Researchers found no evidence that those organizations were infected, but they say the ads could have been used to profile devices on those networks.

The researchers said the operation also covertly directed millions of devices toward... READ MORE  https://www.theregister.com/security/2026/10/15/spyware-vendors-found-a-way-to-make-targeted-ads-even-worse/5303334

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Stanford students walk out of Sundar Pichai’s commencement speech... "According to Al Jazeera, the $1.2 billion Project Nimbus was signed between Google, Amazon and Israel in 2021. It aims to provide cloud computing infrastructure, A.I. and other technological services to the Israeli government and military.​"

MSN story by Owen Scott

6/15/2026 

Around 200 students walked out of the CEO of Google’s commencement speech at Stanford University, according to reports. ​

Other attendees could be seen blowing whistles and waving Palestinian flags, amid Project Nimbus, a scheme under which Google and Amazon provide the Israeli government with technological services. 

In footage obtained by an SFGATE reporter, students can be heard chanting “free, free Palestine,” as they left CEO Sundar Pichai’s speech.

“I must warn you all, this is only the second commencement speech I have ever given,” Pichai says in the video. “The first was literally in my backyard.”

​According to that same reporter, Pichai did not mention artificial intelligence in his speech. The topic had been mentioned in several commencement speeches by speakers throughout the year, leading to viral moments in which they were booed by the crowd... READ MORE  

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/general/stanford-students-walk-out-of-sundar-pichai-s-commencement-speech/ar-AA25G2aN

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Students who walked out of Pichai’s speech held their own “People’s Commencement,” featuring activist Mahmoud Khalil as the keynote speaker, according to SFGATE. 

Khalil had been detained for more than 100 days by Immigration and Customs Enforcement over his pro-Palestinian activism on Columbia University’s campus in 2024. ​

According to Al Jazeera, the $1.2 billion Project Nimbus was signed between Google, Amazon and Israel in 2021. It aims to provide cloud computing infrastructure, A.I. and other technological services to the Israeli government and military.​

Israel spending millions on online ad campaigns to deny Gaza famine: Report Israel spent $50M on deal with Google, X, other ad platforms to deny famine in Gaza, says new report: "Israel's strategy highlights the vulnerability of the international public to emotionally persuasive narratives and the challenges faced by fact-checkers and traditional journalists in countering them..."

A girl is crying while holding an empty pot in her hand as Palestinians in the Al-Mawasi area of Khan Yunis, Gaza on September 05, 2025.

İlayda Çakırtekin  | 16.09.2025 

ISTANBUL

Israel has spent 167 million shekels ($50 million) on a deal with platforms such as Google and US social media platform X, plus French and Israeli ad platforms, to deny the famine in Gaza, Spanish broadcaster RTVE said Tuesday based on a Eurovision News Spotlight report.

According to a joint investigation by Eurovision, Israel’s Exemption Committee in June approved an application by state-run ad agency Lapam to run public information campaigns worth $50 million with Google, X, and French and Israeli platforms Outbrain and Teads.

The contracts, running from June 17 till Dec. 31, allocate 150 million shekels ($45 million) to YouTube and Google's ad campaign management platform Display & Video 360.

X also got 10 million shekels ($3.03 million) while French and Israeli ad platforms Outbrain and Teads got 7 million shekels ($2.12 million).

The report, titled "The new front of war: Inside Israel's digital 'hasbara' offensive," shows how Israel’s state-sponsored campaigns use social media, paid influencers, and military tours to shape the global narrative on Gaza.

Documents from 2018 to July 2025, revealed by the investigation, show that Lapam uses Google and Meta ad platforms to promote Israeli government narratives and counter critics of Tel Aviv’s policies and military operations through paid campaigns.

Last year, Lapam sponsored 2,000 ads, with 900 directed at domestic audiences and 1,100 aimed at international viewers in selected countries, the report said, citing the Google Ads Transparency Center.

The ad agency ran over 4,000 ads between Jan. 1 and Sept. 5, 2025, with half targeting international audiences.

Israel especially uses these campaigns to try to deny the famine in Gaza, "portraying a semblance of normalcy within the besieged enclave."   

Targeting critics

Lapam published dozens of ads on Google, YouTube, Teads/Outbrain, and X showing bustling Gaza markets to contradict the declaration of famine by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).

The investigation also found that another ad campaign backed by Lapam urged readers to spot "flaws and inconsistencies" in the IPC famine report.

Appearing above Google search results across several European countries – including Belgium, UK, Denmark, Sweden, and Germany – it steered users toward an Israeli government website.

The same day the IPC released its initial assessment, Lapam launched a multilingual video ad campaign on the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s YouTube channel showing busy markets and open restaurants in Gaza.

The investigation also found that between August and early September 2025, videos showing Gaza’s markets and restaurants garnered over 30 million views, driven not organically but through paid promotion via Google Ads across multiple countries.

Israel’s ad campaign also targets critics, including top search results for “UNRWA,” directing users to a government website that labels the UN agency for Palestinian refugees a “front for Hamas.”

Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, has also faced months of paid ads across Europe accusing her of being “anti-Semitic” for criticizing Israeli policies.

Eurovision said they sought comment from Google twice on its ad policies and Israeli government spending, but got no response.

"Israel's strategy highlights the vulnerability of the international public to emotionally persuasive narratives and the challenges faced by fact-checkers and traditional journalists in countering them," the report underlined.

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/world/israel-spending-millions-on-online-ad-campaigns-to-deny-gaza-famine-report/3689634 

  AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine, or at least fair and just laws and policies]

Amnesty International has released a list of global companies implicated in war crimes against Palestinians, providing Israel with technologies, equipment, or services that enable human rights violations. Despite international warnings, these corporations continue their activities, making them complicit in ongoing war crimes against civilians.

Amnesty International has released a list of global companies implicated in war crimes against Palestinians, providing Israel with technologies, equipment, or services that enable human rights violations. Despite international warnings, these corporations continue their activities, making them complicit in ongoing war crimes against civilians.

The Government of Israel has been running a smear campaign against Palestinians & UNWRA by buying ads on Google

Swiss humanitarian relief expert Philippe Lazzarini, heads UNRWA the UN agency responsible for aiding Palestinian refugees. "It is time to reach a political solution to this decades’ long conflict to end the suffering of civilians wherever they are." Philippe Lazzarini

 August 30,2024

Philippe Lazzarini

@UNLazzarini

The spread of misinformation & disinformation continues to be used as a weapon in the [Israel's] war in #Gaza. 

 

As part of its campaign to undermine & discredit @UNRWA, the Government of Israel has been buying ads on  @Google to block users from giving donations to the Agency + undertake a defamation campaign.

 

@UNRWA  is the largest humanitarian organization responding to the crisis in #Gaza. This does not just hurt the agency’s reputation but most importantly it puts the lives of our staff at risk. 

 

These deliberate efforts to spread misinformation should stop + be investigated. 

 

Companies including social media platforms continue to make profit through spreading misinformation. More regulations are needed to combat disinformation + hate speech. 

 

@WIRED  @UNRWAUSA

 

 

Israel Is Buying Google Ads to Discredit the UN’s Top Gaza Aid Agency

The UNRWA calls Israel’s strategy of promoting alleged misinformation “destructive.”

 

https://www.wired.com/story/israel-unrwa-usa-hamas-google-search-ads/

Middle East Targeting

"Employees at Google have publicly raised concerns about Israel’s use of a number of Google technologies, such as cloud computing and Photos, as well a perceived bias among management at its YouTube unit toward favoring Israel on content and monetization policies. “We’ve seen Israel creatively weaponize a lot of Google services,” says Josh Marxen, a Google Cloud software engineer who has protested his division’s contract with Israel, a deal known as Nimbus.

While Nimbus has drawn more widespread and public protest, some employees say they have fumed within Google about Israel’s ad campaigns in part because users have complained about them"

 [AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes or watch videos) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]

No Tech for Apartheid campaign ... Google fires 28 employees for protesting Israel cloud deal

STATEMENT from Google workers with the No Tech for Apartheid campaign on Google’s mass, retaliatory firings of workers  https://medium.com/@notechforapartheid/statement-from-google-workers-with-the-no-tech-for-apartheid-campaign-on-googles-indiscriminate-28ba4c9b7ce8

CNN News : Google fires 28 employees for protesting Israel cloud deal 

London CNN  — 

Google has fired more than two dozen employees who protested this week against the company’s cloud computing contract with the Israeli government.

The workers were dismissed after an investigation found that they had staged protests inside Google’s offices in New York and Sunnyvale, California. In Sunnyvale, they entered the office of Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian, according to a post on X by the group that organized the demonstration, No Tech For Apartheid.

Protesters held banners that read “No More Genocide For Profit” and “We Stand with Palestinian, Arab and Muslim Googlers.”

A Google spokesperson told CNN Thursday that the protests “were part of a long-standing campaign by a group of organizations and people who largely don’t work” at the company.

“A small number of employee protesters entered and disrupted a few of our locations. Physically impeding other employees’ work and preventing them from accessing our facilities is a clear violation of our policies, and completely unacceptable behavior. After refusing multiple requests to leave the premises, law enforcement was engaged to remove them to ensure office safety,” the spokesperson added.

“We have so far concluded individual investigations that resulted in the termination of employment for 28 employees, and will continue to investigate and take action as needed.”

 https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/18/tech/google-fires-employees-israel/index.html

 

 

Time: Google Fires 28 Workers Involved in Protests Over $1.2 Billion Israeli Contract

By Davey Alba and Julia Love / Bloomberg

April 18, 2024 2:05 AM EDT

Alphabet Inc.’s Google has fired 28 employees after they were involved in protests against Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion joint contract with Amazon.com Inc. to provide the Israeli government with AI and cloud services.

The protests, which were led by the No Tech for Apartheid organization, took place Tuesday across Google offices in New York City, Seattle, and Sunnyvale, California. Protesters in New York and California staged a nearly 10-hour sit-in, with others documenting the action, including through a Twitch livestream. Nine of them were arrested Tuesday evening on trespassing charges.

Several workers involved in the protests, including those who were not directly engaged in the sit-in, received a message from the company’s Employee Relations group informing them that they had been put on leave. Google told the affected employees that it’s “keeping this matter as confidential as possible, only disclosing information on a need to know basis” in an email seen by Bloomberg. On Wednesday evening, the workers were informed they were being dismissed by the company, according to a statement from Google staff with the No Tech for Apartheid campaign.

“Physically impeding other employees’ work and preventing them from accessing our facilities is a clear violation of our policies, and completely unacceptable behavior,” Google said in a statement about the protesters.... READ MORE

 https://time.com/6968385/google-fires-workers-protesting-israeli-contract-project-nimbus/

 

 

PLEASE NOTE ONLY BECAUSE OF GOOGLE I HAVE A LETTERS BLOG AND NOTES- Free Speech for Peace & Palestine 

& As always please go to the original links to read the stories in full... and remember that once upon a time brave Black heroes sat at lunch counters in violation of American laws & policies. I am not advocating stopping any one from doing their job, or jeopardizing your own job at any company. Just be smart, be kind, and be careful.

Palestine now recognised by greater power than US or Israel – Google

Palestine now recognised by greater power than US or Israel – Google

 

3 May 2013:

Internet giant follows UN in recognising statehood, changing home page tagline from 'Palestinian territories' to 'Palestine'

"Independence Day"... alternative views

via the Institute for Middle East Understanding: According to ISRAELI historians, in 1948 alone, 472 Palestinian towns and villages were destroyed by the newly proclaimed state of Israel. Palestinian churches, mosques, schools, cemeteries, farm, and homes were leveled. Responding to Google's "Independence Day" doodle on Google Israel, Palestinians drew up their own alternative highlighting the Nakba (catastrophe) of 1948 when Palestinians were ethnically cleansed to pave way for a state of Israel. 48 is the year of the Palestinian Nakba, or catastrophe. The key is symbolic of the homes Palestinians fled in '48 to which they are not allowed to return. The map is of historic Palestine. 

"...Where, after all, do universal human rights begin?

bring peace to all religions

UNTITLED

" "What I'd like to do someday..." is work to bring peace to all religions, so no one will fight. No one deserves to die because of their beliefs. If everyone got along, more problems could be solved." Morgan Forrest

Vote now on the 40 Regional Finalists!

Doodle 4 Google

Here is a display of our top 40 Regional Finalists. Public online voting on these 40 Regional Finalists is now open through May 13, 2011 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time (PT). This public vote will help determine the four national finalists, one per grade group (K-3, 4-6, 7-9, 10-12). You may only vote once in each of the four grade groups. On May 19, 2011 we will announce the national winner at an awards ceremony in New York. The national winner's doodle will appear on Google.com on May 20, 2011. For a list of the State Finalists that are not a part of this online voting round, please click here.