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Israel, Palestine Wage Web War
An anonymous reader writes "A war has erupted on the Internet between Israel and Palestine, alongside the war being fought on the ground in Gaza. A new report claims that a group called the 'DNS Team' has defaced an Israeli Website, with anti-Israel graphical images — one in a series of instances of 'e-vandalism.' This sort of e-vandalism, says the author, is not only an inconvenience for Webmasters, but many of the images contain malware links and 'redirects or Flash links to Jihadist forums or blogs.' However, while the Jihadist forums are registered in Saudi Arabia, they are hosted by companies like Layered Tech and SoftLayer in Plano, Texas. On the Israeli side, 'A fascinating approach over the last few days is being made by an Israeli Website, "Help Israel Win," which provides a download so your PC can become part of a worldwide pro-Israeli botnet. So far 7,786 have joined, already a fairly powerful global computing force...'"
In before shitstorm.
Lets have a little bit of perspective and not put some web sites being trashed in the same category as bombs and missiles flying around. The world could do with a little less drama and over statements. Honestly, its OK, you are still important.
Too bad there's not two bot nets battling where you can watch the statistics. Sort of like live CNN war footage for the command line crowd.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
You've never installed a Windows-based operating system on one of your machines??
yea, if I'm going to waste my CPU cycles to donate to an online war, it will be something useful, like a war between Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie.
I wish all wars were web wars. The papers today said the Isralies killed dozens in a UN school, and that nowhere in Gaza was safe.
Go, web warriers! Go away, bullet and rocket warriors. He who lives by the RPG dies by the RPG.
Free Martian Whores!
It could be construed through participation in the botnet, since you are directly aiding in an armed conflict between two foreign powers, that you are in fact becoming an enemy combatant, esp if you look back on the old (now defunct) NSA munitions definitions of software. This happens all the time, but could cause you some difficulties if you need to make an insurance claim on system damage - some insurance companies might consider counter-attacks that damage your files/servers/etc to be acts of war, and outside your policy. Granted this would all have to be tested in court, but particpating in a war as a private citizen is generally discouraged, if not illegal in many cases.
meh
This is a natural extension of war now-a-days. This is akin to saying, "Soldiers Now Using Bullets in War".
If the dominant hand-held projectile weapon were still the musket, or people just still believed that, then yes, it would be news!
Anyway you may be interested in knowing that not but 5 months before, in the Russia/Georgia war the previous August, exactly the same thing was going on and an intrepid Slate reporter got involved in downloading botnet software from pro-Russian hackers.
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
theres also GIYUS (im not gonna link) they have 40,000 members regularly trolling on large forums and newspapers such as Guardian regarding any topic about Israel/Palestine
this been going on for long time
The Palestinian hackers blew themselves up after they hacked in to the Israeli website. Old habits die hard...
I'm a Jew and definite supporter of Israel, but some of your points are frighteningly mistaken.
"The cancer that is Islam"? Come on. Every religion has it's share of crazy fundamentalist quacks reading too much into parts of their holy literature - currently, the fundamentalists of Islam just happen to be a little more numerous and (considerably) more vocal than those of the other major religions. Look back in time - at one point, Christians had a little thing called the Crusades. Hindus in India have been known to form mobs and beat and kill their Muslim neighbors. As for Jews...well, some might even consider the current crisis an example of fundamentalism, though I vehemently do not.
Which leads me the next point: the fallacy that Jews somehow "don't really care that much about religion". What? Sure, they may not go out and scream "TO THE GLORY OF YWHW" before blowing themselves up in a crowded mosque, but that doesn't mean they don't have an incredible fundamentalist and mainstream religious fervor. Watch people rock back and forth in tears and prayer in front of the Wailing Wall and then tell me Jews in Israel "don't really care that much about religion."
"Haven't done shit since 1000 B.C. when they gave up the last of their rational humanistic thought. Sit on patches of oil and get fat." Oy vey. For one, there are Muslims outside the Arab world. For another, back to point one: stop generalizing. Just because a religion has a few (or even a lot) of nutjobs, doesn't mean that the religion itself is to blame.
The rest of your flamebait suffers the same problem. You say Muslims are savages. It would be more accurate to say some some Muslims are savages. It would be more accurate still to say some people are savages.
Such hatred! Gees, no wonder people are dying right and left
Jews: Isreal has the most gender-neutral society in the entire world.
Rank bullshit. perhaps the most gender-neutral in the middle east, I don't think anyone would argue with that, but I think you'll find most European nations (and nations who were settled by Europeans) to be far more gender neutral. In the US, the third in the Presidential sucession is a woman, speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.
IslamoSavages
Flamebait. Grow up, boy.
Jews: Have the right to a homeland
So do the Palestinians.
IslamoSavages: Wish to indoctrinate the world into the cancer known as Islam.
And Bhuddists sish to indoctrinate the world to Bhuddism and Christians (I'm one) want everyone to accept Christ as savior. Your point?
Jews: Act only in self-defense, strike from afar only at those whose fingers are on the trigger or detonator. Collateral damage is accidental.
Israel shells near UN school, killing at least 30
Savages, you say? Seventy dead innocents to kill two soldiers? That's barbaric. Israel should be ashamed of itself, if I was an Israli I'd be at the wailing wall in sackcloth and ashes begging God's forgiveness.
Jews: Don't really care that much about religion.
I see you've not met many Jews. The ones I know are very religious.
Jews: Leading contributors to cutting-edge science and technology.
Gates, Jobs, Torvalds, all Jews? Where do you come up with all this rank bullshit?
Damn it's hard to keep from responding to these damned trolls.
Free Martian Whores!
It should be noted that local Israeli media is strongly recommending to stay away from this website and not to download the software it is offering, citing reasons of the illegality of the action and the obvious possibility of your PC being hijacked for other purposes.
Sorry, I couldn't find a link in English.
http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3650277,00.html
This is one of the things that puzzles me. All of the battles launched by the Arabs began with, "We will be victorious and wipe Israel from the map, God willing." And yet they were unsuccessful in 1948 and 1973, and caught off-guard in 1967 when Israel attacked prior to a likely attack by the forces from three Arab nations. Hezbollah and Hamas repeatedly cite their mere survival as God showing them favor (despite the kill ratio of 50:1 or more enjoyed by the Israelis).
I understand the idea that they may perceive these as challenges from God to be overcome, but at some point, someone has to be thinking that maybe these are messages from God telling them that they're not going to win.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
Well of course there are going to be different strategies. The Palestinians don't have anything. They're being suppressed by Israel who is systematically cutting off all food, water, and medicine into the region with a huge military funded by the US.
Israel bombs the hell out of them and the Palestinians shoot a few rockets back and deface a couple websites.
It's interesting how the media treats this as well. "Israel retaliates against terrorist rocket attacks." We have situation where an entire group of people is being oppressed by one of the most well-funded militaries on the planet, can barely get their hands on a few rockets to defend themselves, or food to feed themselves, and when Israel breaks the cease-fire agreement the US media is sympathetic to Israel.
A fatwa has been issued, calling for the immediate murder of "Anonymous coward."
1) Start monetized blogs.
2) Copypasta some anti-Israel content.
3) Refer your blogs to giyus.org for listing on Megaphone.
4) Enjoy 15,000+ page impressions per day.
"There is nothing nice about Steve Jobs and nothing evil about Bill Gates." - Chuck Peddle
*before* the ceasefire ending Hamas fired almost 3000 rockets into Israel. I'd say they broke the ceasefire well before the IDF "provoked" them.
Many others report Israel broke the cease fire - the bottom line is that both sides have continued to fight. It's a red herring to suggest one side acted in an unprovoked manner - that's simply bogus.
Who shot first is irrelevant.
What is relevant is that Israel has been condemned by the United Nations more than 50 times for refusing to follow various agreed-upon conventions. Israel has been systematically driving the Palestinians off their own land and taking it over. That's a fact. That's not something you can accuse the arabs of doing. If you bulldoze someone's house. If you make them have to pass through armed checkpoints and hostile guards to get to work. If you break their cities into little pieces by building an illegal wall around their settlements, you shouldn't be surprise if some of these people react. The irony is that Israel is slowly committing genocide on the Palestinians and nobody's doing anything about it. The United States is funding the genocide to the tune of $6,000,000,000.00 a year now in an elaborate kickback scheme involving military defense contractors and the US's most powerful lobbying group: AIPAC. There's no motivation for Israel to make peace with its neighbors when war is profitable for them and for the American corporations that aid money gets funneled back to.
If the difference between a legitimate military campaign and terrorism is a plan
No. The difference is a matter of perspective and who controls communication resources.
A suicide bomber is merely a poor country's F-16.
I wished this sort of crap would stop.
I'll be the first to say that I dislike the entire notion of the US supporting Israel. Israel never needed to be created and certainly doesn't need the U.S.'s help to exist -- if it should exist, it would exist under its own power. But with all that said, it doesn't mean "I hate Jews."
I know a lot of Jewish people and every single one of them have one thing in common -- they are not all the same!! Some think supporting Israel is important, some do not. Some will have a ham sandwich for lunch with you and some will not. Your own cultural and/or ethnic identity, whatever is may be, is not of "one mind" so why does anyone else expect this to be true of Jews? The same goes for anyone who thinks the people of the U.S. are just like Bush?
I say down with Judaism. I also say down with Christianity, Islam and every religion -- especially those that believe in invisible beings that created us and tell us how to live our lives. The evidence for Zeus is every bit as valid as the evidence for "God." Why do people have to believe in stupid stuff like that anyway?
There will always be reasons and excuses for one person to want to kill another. We don't need religion for that. But when religion becomes involved as a motivating factor, suddenly the problem becomes a LOT bigger, bloodier and more dangerous. So down with all of it I say... or... let them all kill themselves and leave us out of it.
Joke's on them. Allah is Jewish.
6. End up on the no-fly list
Why can't all fpga/microcontroller manufacturers just release free optimizing compilers???
We don't need religion for that. But when religion becomes involved as a motivating factor, suddenly the problem becomes a LOT bigger, bloodier and more dangerous. So down with all of it I say... or... let them all kill themselves and leave us out of it.
Right because Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot didn't really kill all that many people compared to say the Spanish Inquisition.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
I'm a Muslim and my lunch break is almost over so I can't really write as long of a post as I wanted.
I agree that this war needs to stop, Palestinians and Israelies need to sit down and freaking figure out how to not kill 600+ people over a weekend.
The solutions presented by both sides so far are ridiculous:
a) Throw them in the sea (Palestinian solution)
b) Exterminate them (Israeli solution)
Both sides are idiots, hard headed and are in serious need for an adult conversation.
As a side note to the GP regarding extremist Muslims (or as I like to call them douche bags), if they read Quran they'll stop this my god is bigger than your god bull, here's a quote:
Al Baqara (002.136)
Say (O Muslims): We believe in Allah and that which is revealed unto us and that which was revealed unto Abraham, and Ishmael, and Isaac, and Jacob, and the tribes, and that which Moses and Jesus received, and that which the prophets received from their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them, and unto Him we have surrendered.
P.S.: It's refreshing to see a post like yours on Slashdot :)
If you can't mod them join them.
Uh, they posted video of mortars being fired from that school last week. Was it currently being used? We have no way of knowing, but that's how all intelligence works.
Point being the elected government of Gaza was using a UN non-military building as a base of operations to launch attacks on a civilian populace.
According to the Israelis what happened was small arms fire coming from the direction of the UN school which in their opinion made it worth firing at. In short, according to the latest news reports, it appears that two Hamas fighters are dead at the cost of some 30+ kids and their care takers being killed as well. The sad thing is that many lives could probably have been saved over the last few days if the Israelis hadn't embargoed all sorts of medical equipment which has been piling up at the border for months. If Israel shot it self in the foot with the invasion and bombardment of Lebanon back in 2006 it is now shooting it self in both feet with this latest raid on Gaza. It is an awsome manifestation of the unshakeable US/Israeli belief that conflicts like this one are best resolved with the lavish over use of firepower but in the long run it won't do anything to end Hamas' resistance efforts. Even if Hamas is "cynically using civilians as a human shield" like the Israelis are claiming it still won't help Israel's cause very much in the long run. All the world will remember is the dead kids. I am no friend of Hamas but no matter how hard you try you won't succeed in making the sheer galactic stupidity of what Israel is currently doing in Gaza sound like a good idea.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
And what ... exactly ... is the alternative ? Here's the demand of hamas. Note that it's a repeat of an islamic "holy" text :
Moreover, if the links have been distant from each other and if obstacles, placed by those who are the lackeys of Zionism in the way of the fighters obstructed the continuation of the struggle, the Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to the realisation of Allah's promise, no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said:
"The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).
This is the constitution of hamas. The constitution every Gazan lives under. The constitution over 70% of Gazans have willingly accepted.
What, exactly, is your response to a statement like this, backed up with rockets ? Do tell what the alternative course of action is for israel.
And don't say "talking". They've been "talking" since 1948. Talking is something hamas only does when they're losing the war, and they never keep their promises. In fact since 1948 it's progressively gotten worse for Israel. Right now there are constant attacks on Israeli citizens. EVERY SINGLE DAY rockets rain down on sderot and other Israeli cities.
"Putting the parties down to talk it out" is dependant on there not being ANY group ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD that will not talk. If there is even one such group, no matter how small, that controls a state or even a city, the policy of "talking" is doomed. It can only work between civilized people. What do civilized people do ? First and foremost, they are true to their word.
Just because the overwhelming majority of Americans are reasonable people, true to their words, does not mean that every last human is reasonable. Just read the comments in this story made by muslims and my point will be amply supported.
Hamas does not keep to treaties. Nor does any other neighbour of Israel. The only muslim country that has EVER shown to keep to international treaties when under the slightest bit of pressure is Turkey, and that era in Turkey is coming to an end.
Until the security fence went up, thousands of people in Israel were killed by suicide bombs over the past ten years. This week is lopsided only if you ignore history.
And it's not a question of money. The Pals get plenty of cash grants from the U.N. and Saudi Arabia. They're not "desperate poor", they're one big welfare state. Heck, back in the day, Saddam Hussein was giving about $16,000 to each family of a successful suicide bomber. If Hamas weren't running Gaza, they would be trading with Israel and the world and actually making some money.
It's not a question of religion. There are over 5 million Jews in Israel but also over 2 million Muslims and quite a few Christians--all living together in peace. The Muslims have representation in government and the only difference is that they don't serve in the military (except for the Beduins).
It's more a question of land. The Pals want it, the Israelis won't give it, end of story.
Now what makes the situation more explosive is that the Iranians are exploiting the local Arabs to set up a military forward base in Gaza. They have taken Hamas fighters to Iran to train them in guerrilla tactics and missile tech. They are trying to duplicate their success with Hezbollah.
That is what this current fight is about--it's really Israel versus Iran, and you'll notice the local Arab governments have been unusually subdued. None of them wants Iran to gain another foothold in their back yard, and while they publicly condemn Israel as do the "useful idiots" in Europe, behind closed doors they are egging the Israelis on.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
Disclaimer for contextual reading of this comment: I am pro-Israel, anti-terrorism, and I really do think Israel wants peace and Hamas wants no-live-Jew-on-face-of-earth. This is not an anti-Jew post.
I used to think that but then I read some history and started following current events. I now think it's "Israel wants land (which hasn't belonged to them in >2000 years) and Hamas (who represent people that they took it from) wants it back". At one point I think that the majority of Palistinians would have settled for "Just don't take any more." but that has unfortunately passed.
You don't really buy the no-live-jew-on-the-face of-earth line do you? That's a bunch of rhetoric that you too would probably spout were you and your family evicted from your house/land.
Jews and Arabs (and christians for that matter) have lived peacefully together, in that area, for hundreds of years at a time. There's nothing intrinsic in either religion that can't tolerate the existence of the other.
As F$%#@ed up as Hamas is (and I in no way support their tactics), you simply can't move in, displace millions, and expect peace.
I have sympathy for the innocent victims on both sides but Israel as a nation is reaping what it sows.
Sadly, I see no humane solution.
I've noticed the American media is very consistent in using loaded, incorrect terminology to imply that Hammas "started it," while Israel is simply "retaliating." The simple truth is, it's a cycle of violence with no traceable origin (at least none that is still relevant). The side most to blame is the side quickest to escalate the existing cycle of violence. Factions in both sides have the will to inflict 100-1 casualties on the other, but only one side has the (US-supplied) means to accomplish this. But we have given Israel the power, without the responsibility. Americans must start taking responsibility for what our bombs are doing over there. But I doubt anything will change until a significant number of Arabs immigrate to the US.
If you're going to lump all the non-religious movements together, then you should do the same with the groups acting in support of some religious cause. Looking at it from that perspective, atheism per se has led to far less violence than religion.
Otherwise, if you want to classify the groups based on their actual motivation, then you should only count those who were killed in the name of atheism, or because of their non-atheistic beliefs. Political and social movements that just happen to have atheistic leaders should be grouped separately based on their goals. Again, the movements supporting specific religious beliefs and personality cults tend to dominate when it comes to violence, compared those populated by freethinkers.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
However, the US *can* lower the death toll by not pouring high-tech weaponry into Israel.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7799593.stm
Israel killed several Hamas members, Hamas responded with rockets, Israel responded with airstrikes and an invasion. This seems to be the same tactic Israel has been using for thirty years:
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/us_ints/ul-akins.html
There have also been talks of the US selling the Israelis our C-RAM (Counter - Rocket, Artillery and Mortar) systems (based on the naval Phalanx CIWS). It would take one to two dozen of them (Depending on if you wanted redundant backups) to completely cover the Gaza strip, from the outside. This would allow Israeli to intercept rockets, artillery and mortars before they ever leave Palestinian airspace.
I find it a tad interesting that a few months before Israel gets near immunity to rocket attacks, they get 'fed up' and invade.
"Dictator Flakes. They WILL be delicious."
It's also lopsided if you reject the infantile reasoning that past deaths justify future murders.
A modern military force aggressively and methodically assaulting a primarily civilian region outside its national borders containing a few militias armed with crude explosives and rocks looks pretty lopsided to most rational people.
Israel is clearly violating the firm international law against collective punishment. It is killing and intimidating an entire population to punish it for the crimes of a few. If you think that this type of behaviour is acceptable, then I presume you also think that September 11 was acceptable insofar as the US has not exactly been an angel in its activities in the Middle East and therefore it was acceptable for a group from that region to exact revenge on defenceless US civilians? No? How odd.
Your comments about the Palestine being a "welfare state" also ignore the principal causes of that, namely Israel's control over passage into and out of Palestine and Israel's seizure of large sections of useful land within Palestine. Most countries would probably be welfare states under such circumstances. Your comments about aid are also laughable given that Israel is the world's largest recipient of foreign aid.
Until Israel removes all illegal settlements and withdraws to its original borders, it will not have the moral high ground in this debate. If it does that and is subsequently attacked, then it will have my full sympathy and will be justified in limited and properly targeted retaliation.
Read Pynchon.
Wrong. That's like saying not collecting stamps is a hobby.
Damn it; damn it; damn it: We have words; can't we please use them correctly?
Atheism is the belief that there is no god. That's what the goddamn word means. Agnosticism is the belief that one has no knowledge of God or his/her/its existence. Look at the damn word roots.
By definition, atheists are not agnostic, because they do claim knowledge: They assert that God does not exist. So the set of atheists and the set of agnostics are disjoint. They are also of course both disjoint from the set of theists.
OK? That's how it works. Atheists believe that the statement "God does not exist" is true; theists believe that the statement "God exists" is true. The end.
(Don't be offended: Calling atheism a belief in no way belittles it, and as a statement by itself is not equivalent to calling atheism "another religion." Beliefs in nonexistence can be quite justified. In math, we have theorems dedicated to showing nonexistence. And in real life, the belief that, say, purple unicorns do not exist is probably correct! But it's still a belief. That's what the words mean.)
If "theism" is a belief in a god or gods, then what is "atheism"? When something is asymmetrical, it is without symmetry. If something is amoral, it is without morals -- which is, please note, different than being immoral. The prefix "a-" simply means "without, or lacking". Ergo, in its simplest form, atheism is "without a belief in a god or gods".
It's certainly true that some atheists take a more positive view and assert that a god or gods cannot or do not exist. But at its root, atheism does not require this assertion -- simply not having a belief is sufficient to be classified as atheist.
This gets twisted around a lot in theological arguments; the atheist will sit back and sneer that the theist is the one making the assertion ("A god exists.") and is therefore carrying the burden of proof. The theist will counter that the atheist is also making an assertion ("A god does not exist.") and is thus just as burdened to prove his claim as the theist.
The reason theists like this argument so much is because they realise that they carry some burden of proof, because they acknowledge they are making an assertion about the nature of reality. Yet they also find it difficult to present any objective evidence to back their claim. This puts the atheist at an advantage, until the theist uses the above argument. Suddenly the atheist is faced with an impossible situation -- how do you prove something doesn't exist, especially when the something in question is a god?
No matter what the atheist says, the theist can claim that the god somehow manipulated the observation or outcome. And thus, the theist has now placed himself on superior ground in the debate, for while the theist may be able to dredge up a few interesting things the atheist can't explain, there is nothing the atheist can say which cannot immediately be explained away by the theist as some whim of the deity.
It is disingenuous at best and intellectually dishonest at worst to consider both of these stances equal in terms of burden of proof. There are people who genuinely believe that Reptilians from other planets walk among us and have infiltrated the highest levels of our governments. Should you encounter such a person, I suggest you don't engage them in dialogue, but if you did, you might ask what their proof is. Would you feel it fair if the Reptile Believer countered that you should have to prove there aren't Reptilians? Do you consider yourself some sort of active disbeliever in Reptilians, or just someone without even a passing interest on the topic?
I'm not trying to say which side is correct here, as both can make compelling arguments, but clouding the issue with incorrect definitions does nothing to advance the debate.
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