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Israeli Spyware Sold To Iran

Hugh Pickens writes "Bloomberg reports that Israeli trade, customs and defense officials say they didn't know that systems for performing 'deep- packet inspection' into Internet traffic, sold under the brand name NetEnforcer, had gone to a country whose leaders have called for the destruction of the Jewish state. Allot Communications Ltd., an Israel-based firm which reported $57 million in sales last year, sold its systems to a Randers, a Denmark-based technology distributor where workers at that company, RanTek A/S, repackaged the gear and shipped it to Iran. The sales skirted a strict Israeli ban that prohibits 'trading with the enemy,' including any shipments that reach Iran, Syria and Lebanon. Although Allot officials say they had no knowledge of their equipment going to Iran and are looking into RanTek's sales, three former sales employees for Allot say it was well known inside the Israeli company that the equipment was headed for Iran. 'Israel considers Iran quite possibly its greatest threat, and so the Israeli government would come down very strong against any company that exported to Iran,' says Ira Hoffman. 'Iran is also considered by the U.S. as one of its most strategic threats.' Israeli lawmaker Nachman Shai has called for a parliamentary investigation, and the country's Defense Ministry has begun to examine the report."

6 of 164 comments (clear)

  1. Stuxnet by BinBoy · · Score: 5, Funny

    Stuxnet 2.0 bundled free.

  2. Re:Oops! by slackware+3.6 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    More a case of oops I got caught. Just a greedy company trying to make more money and trying to get around the law. But it looks like they will probably have some consequences to deal with now.

  3. Clueless by Leonid99 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    From TFA:
    > The gear shipped to Iran, called NetEnforcer, can inspect pieces of data moving over a network. It can be used to eliminate spam or help network
    > operators prioritize or block certain types of traffic.

    It's not even funny -- it's not "spyware", it's just a traffic sniffer.
    Admittedly, they break the israeli law that prohibits trading with Iran, but it's hardly a threat to national security.

  4. Iran never called for Israel's destruction by kill-1 · · Score: 5, Informative

    The leaders of Iran never called for the destruction of Israel. I guess you're referring to Ahmadinejad's alleged "wiped of the map" statement. See here for what he really said. Although he really is a nutcase if he denies the holocaust.

  5. Not even a sniffer. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I've been using Allot's equipment for nearly 10 years now, from a lowly NetEnforcer 800 (with a throughput of only 200Mbps and I'm not even sure about that) to an array of SG-Sigma's (each capable of handling 120Gbps) and none of those had any sniffing capability. I really with it had, it would've saved me quite a lot of work.

    Oh, it can tell you that A amount of traffic is going from IP B to IP C using protocol D (and here's where the DPI lies, in its ability to identify L7 protocols) and allows you to rate-limit, based on various criteria, said traffic, but it just can't sniff it. There's no way a NetEnforcer be able to allert the authorities about the anti-islamic message you've just posted on a blog, believing you were anonymous.

    Some NetEnforcers could steer traffic based on definable criteria, say all HTTP traffic between private users and GMail, to a third-party equipment capable of sniffing that traffic, but that's as close as the NE comes to being a sniffer.

  6. Re:Oops! by hairyfeet · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The sad part to me is the Jewish people are in the same boat we are and are pretty powerless to stop the ultra right Zionists anymore than we are able to stop the powermongering neocons because their media is likewise controlled.

    I mean look at what is happening in the Repub race now that it looks like Paul might actually win a primary, the MSM are calling him everything but kiddie fiddler and I frankly wouldn't be surprised if he wins Iowa that they use that smear as well. I personally don't support many of his policies but i'll be the first to admit he was the only candidate that didn't come off as just another corporate shill. Oh and expect his votes to disappear in NH because its a Diebold state.

    In the end the warmongers in Israel and the USA will just keep starting wars because killing brown people is not only profitable but it keeps everyone focused on the boogeyman of the week instead of the raiding of the countries money supply and assets by the money men. they'll keep it up until there is not another brown person they can kill because they have stolen everything that isn't nailed down and then they'll take their blood money and hope the last choppers out while the countries burn.

    While I don't believe in God and the devil I DO believe in pure evil, vicious monsters that frankly wouldn't give a second thought to stomping babies if it furthered their agenda and sadly it looks like that is increasingly all we have in the corridors of power, truly evil malicious men.

    --
    ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.