Israel demanded Google and Amazon use secret 'wink' to sidestep legal orders

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Alleged “wink” mechanism and how it works

  • Thread focuses on the reported Nimbus clause: Google/Amazon would make small “special compensation” payments to Israel within 24 hours of handing Israeli data to foreign authorities under gag orders.
  • Amount encodes the requesting country’s phone code (e.g., +1 → 1,000 shekels; +39 → 3,900; 100,000 if even the country can’t be revealed).
  • Many commenters find it technically crude (shared country codes, easy to spot in accounting records) and unnecessarily traceable compared with simple covert messaging.

Gag orders, warrant canaries, and criminality

  • Large debate over whether this is equivalent to breaking a gag order:
    • One side: any deliberate signaling (even via payments) is direct disclosure, not a subtle canary, and would clearly violate US non‑disclosure orders; some call it criminal conspiracy, obstruction of justice, even “treason” (though others note treason has a very narrow legal definition).
    • Other side: companies usually add “to the extent permitted by law” language; such clauses might be unenforceable where they conflict with local law, so firms could simply not pay.
  • Extended argument over whether this could also be prosecuted as fraud or just as other offenses (obstruction, wire fraud, conspiracy); no consensus.

Why Israel would want it

  • Suggested purposes:
    • Early warning so Israel can exert diplomatic pressure, disrupt investigations, or adjust operations.
    • A way to map where foreign investigations into Israeli data are occurring and spot intelligence “gaps.”
  • Others question the value: knowing only “country X requested some data” without details may not be that actionable.

Cloud, sovereignty, and the Nimbus context

  • Some ask why any state, especially one so security‑sensitive, would host critical data with US cloud giants instead of sovereign infrastructure or strong client‑side encryption.
  • Replies: governments are often very poor at running secure datacenters; cloud gives resilience and off‑site survivability; US aid often channels spend back to US vendors; cloud platforms are treated as dual‑use (civil/military).
  • Strong concern over clauses that reportedly prevent Google/Amazon from limiting Israeli surveillance, contrasted with reports that Microsoft refused some demands and lost the bid.

Credibility, enforceability, and realpolitik

  • Skeptics doubt major US firms would formally agree to blatantly illegal signaling, or that Israel could practically enforce it without exposing the scheme.
  • Others argue that simply drafting and signing such terms already evidences willingness to evade foreign legal regimes, and expect little real-world accountability, especially where Israel and US intelligence cooperation is involved.

Ethical and political reactions

  • Many comments express deep distrust of the major clouds and see this as confirmation of moral bankruptcy and US/Israel impunity.
  • Others zoom out: any small or mid‑sized country using multinational cloud providers risks its data being secretly accessed under foreign law, with or without “wink” mechanisms.