Notice where they are allowed to do this and where they are not. It’s in cities where these companies have the most political and economic influence.

The vast majority of people are unaware of the existence of such tools. It’s not unlikely that there were only a handful of people among the 1250 who replied who both knew about this and thought about using it here.

About 16, 17 years ago, I was briefly obsessed with browsing freely accessible webcams on the Internet. Most were surveillance cameras outside of businesses (some even with motorized controls!) and it was fun to explore the world that way: I saw sunrises in the Arctic Circle, busy Asian city streets, lots of interesting everyday moments from around the globe. Just harmless fun, right?

However, two cameras I stumbled upon made me stop this entirely: One was from an office in Russia, a hidden camera placed under a desk shared by several young women wearing short skirts. The other (thus the connection to the title) was a camera inside someone’s home, right above a baby sleeping in their crib. In fact, the entire house, every single room, was covered in cameras, all of them accessible to the world. I felt like the worst creep, even though I found both completely by accident.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Pick virtually any advanced technology or scientific field and there’s at least one lab or company right at the cutting edge in Israel. This country has very little natural resources, a small population, has been sanctioned and blockaded in one way or another since day one, so it was an obvious choice to heavily invest into education, research and high-tech manufacturing. That’s why the gap in capabilities and standard of living between Israel and its neighbors has been ever widening.

It’s very much comparable to Taiwan in this regard and the end result is similar: You’re likely owning a whole lot of devices with tech from both countries (at the very least tech based on patents from there) or have been unknowingly using it in some other fashion.

All of this took smart minds many decades to build up. Unfortunately, Netanyahu is squandering his nation’s potential with his selfish and criminal recklessness.