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Israel Says It Will Treat Online Credit Card Theft As It Would Terrorism

Posted by timothy on from the willing-to-donate-a-hammer dept.

In the wake of the online theft of at least 6,000 credit card numbers belonging to Israelis, Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said that "Israel has active capabilities for striking at those who are trying to harm it, and no agency or hacker will be immune from retaliatory action." Also at Reuters, with a few more details about the believed thief, known as OxOmar: "After Israeli media ran what they said were interviews conducted with OxOmar over email, the Haaretz newspaper said a blogger had tracked the hacker down and determined he was a 19-year-old citizen of the United Arab Emirates studying and working in Mexico."

18 of 422 comments (clear)

  1. Retaliatory action? by vakuona · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What are they going to do, kill him?

    1. Re:Retaliatory action? by retech · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Of course they'll kill them. Since Israel is ALWAYS the victim (sic) and the only way they can enact justice is to butcher the criminal and his family and his friends and his friend's families. And rightfully so. All those people were either active participants in the crime or had committed thought crime by inaction. They all deserve the same retribution. It's what Israel does best. I think we should send them more money because they are such a victim all the time they need more weapons.

    2. Re:Retaliatory action? by alphatel · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Here's 5 pence. Go and have your sarcasm detector adjusted.

      Seriously, only weeks after the US declares all terrorists will be held indefinitely without regard to citizenship. Pick up a CC you find on the street, expect to surrender your rights as an American.

      --
      When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
    3. Re:Retaliatory action? by timeOday · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The whole agression vs. retaliation dichotomy is pretty meaningless when talking about two sides that have been trading blows almost continually for decades.

    4. Re:Retaliatory action? by DrVomact · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'd reply, but I'm afraid the Mossad would treat me as a terrorist.

      --
      Great men are almost always bad men--Lord Acton's Corollary
    5. Re:Retaliatory action? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So I suggest you shove your snarky veiled anti-semetic, inaccurate, misinformed comment you know where.

      Critical of Israel != anti-semitic

    6. Re:Retaliatory action? by SplashMyBandit · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Kick ass post! Very well reasoned and accurate as far as I have seen as an open-minded foreign visitor (from New Zealand) to your country and your neighbours - even meeting some Hezbollah dudes in the Golan (who were total uncool arseholes in my opinion).

      I know you are just being modest for the uninformed, but from the statement "(suprisingly many israeli newspapers are left wing and anti-govt before you call bias)" I would remove the word "surprisingly". Anyone who has ever followed the Israeli points-of-view (in addition to others) couldn't miss the fact that Israel has a wide spectrum of opinions (a sign of a very healthy, open, and diverse society in my opinion).

      I hope that one day your neighbours value life and liberty as much as your countrymen do. Not all of the citizens of the world are fooled by the pro-terrorist propaganda, or the bullshit from their sychophants elsewhere.

    7. Re:Retaliatory action? by bjourne · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Do you ever in your nationalistic fervor reflect upon the fact that in the last major bout between Israel and Hamas in December 2008, 1200 Palestinians were killed and what, 2 Israelis were? All 1200 were terrorists so it doesn't matter? Why is it that for every one Israeli killed, hundreds of Palestinians die and Israel can still maintain an image of taking the high ground and being the victim?

      --
      Football Odds
  2. The new catch phrase apparently by nurb432 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Just call every crime terrorism.

    Sad really, as it 'normalizes' the true acts of terrorism. If everything is labeled terrorism, it becomes 'yet another crime' and is ignored.

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
    1. Re:The new catch phrase apparently by CapOblivious2010 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Imagine if your country had been declared war upon (by multiple other countries) the very the day it was founded. Imagine if your country had been in an existential war with most of these countries more or less continuously for over half a century. Imagine if your country suffered an average of about 3 rocket attacks PER DAY for 8 straight years. Imagine if those same countries send suicide bombers into your country about once a month on average, and those attacks intentionally killed many hundreds of innocent civilians, and wounded thousands more. Imagine that your country has nuclear weapons, but refrains from using them against it's enemies.

      Now imagine that no matter how you react, someone who doesn't live under these conditions accuses you of overreacting and not having any sort of perspective.

    2. Re:The new catch phrase apparently by maxwell+demon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The reason it's a big deal out there is because they don't have the kind of laws for consumer protection that we do.

      If the problem is insufficient consumer protection laws, wouldn't the right solution be ... wait for it ... better consumer protection laws?

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  3. The original 0xOmar post on pastebin by dmesg0 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Here is an excerpt from 0xOmar's original post on pastebin:

    It's first part of our release, my goal is reacing 1 million non-duplicate people, which is 1/6 of Israel's population.

    ...

    What's fun for us?
    - Watching 400,000 people gathered in front of Israeli credit card companies and banks, complaining about cards and that they are stolen
    - Watching Israeli banks shredding 400,000 credit cards and re-generate new cards (so costly, huh?)
    - Watching people purchasing stuff for theirself using the cards and making Israeli credit cards untrustable in the world, like Nigerian credit cards
    - and much more...

    The alleged goal is to hurt lots of random people without any personal gain. And what is the goal of terrorism?

    1. Re:The original 0xOmar post on pastebin by tsotha · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The goal of terrorism is, you now, terror, not "Aw crap, this is going to be a hassle."

    2. Re:The original 0xOmar post on pastebin by tsotha · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Uh huh. "Cyberterrorism" is a bullshit plea for funding in a post 9/11 political environment. It's not terrorism.

    3. Re:The original 0xOmar post on pastebin by 10101001+10101001 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The alleged goal is to hurt lots of random people without any personal gain.

      Read those lines carefully. The goals seems more than anything to hurt Israeli banks. That may or may not be for personal gain--one can presumably play the money market towards that end. The fact that lots of random people are hurt is an indirect consequence, not the objective goal.

      And what is the goal of terrorism?

      "the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes." Now, if the above is an attempt to cause Israel harm through its banks or to change the banking system through political acts...but even then, there's no violence involved and while the suggested interpretation of resulting events from the leak are intimidating and coercive, the fact that they're actually releasing the credit card details make it more than just a threat. So, no, overall, I'd guess the term you're looking for is the term "asshole". Sure, terrorists might be assholes, but not all assholes are terrorists.

      If anything, this sounds like a case of (a) if all you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail--and Israel sure likes it anti-terrorism hammer--and (b) just another example of political corruption where instead of punishing the banks for somehow fucking up so badly that the information was leaked online and calling for their heads (figuratively) they're more interested in calling for the heads (literally) of the people who exposed just how fucked up securing that data was--an act that is ultimately self-defeating if it were meant to protect those random people who are hurt as instead of using the opportunity for a very public, open expose on the issues with the banking system as a justification to fix those problems they've chosen to focused on attacking the messengers (evil bastards that they are) and leaving tons of other crooks to do the same thing in secret (although I guess Israel could always send its secret police into other countries to execute the crooks, but they can't advertise that as a deterrent, so that rather counters the whole idea that this is more a symbolic thing to draw attention to avoid future breaches).

      In short, this is why calling everything terrorism is fucked up. It solves nothing, blurs the evil that terrorism is, and demonstrates how beholden governments are to their people: those (people and organizations) with money and not the average person.

      PS - This doesn't mean I don't think the leakers shouldn't be punished both for the breach and the leak. But that doesn't justify any claim of terrorism nor the focus on the leakers seemingly over and above those that allowed the leak. Either Israeli banks are secure or they are not. If they're not--which seems to be demonstrated--and one's whole country is dependent upon them, I'd be more upset and focused on them failing in their duty than the countless evil or assholic people in the world who would exploit such businesses. I mean, there's an implied fraud given the reasonable expectations of what a bank is supposed to be, a firm that will securely hold your money; it's harder to be upset at the child/man/bastard who shows everyone the emperor wears no clothes.

      --
      Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
    4. Re:The original 0xOmar post on pastebin by tsotha · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If it was YOUR credit card, or your wife's, or child's (if you are older) then you would want your state to take action.

      Sure. I'd want the state to do what it takes to stop him, just like I want them to stop bank robbers and shoplifters.

      To me it seems that your political views about "funding in a post 9/11 political environment" has overriden your human empathy.

      No, not really. I recognize bureaucrats twist language in an effort to get funding.

      As in all such cases the best thing to do would be to put aside your political and worldviews for a while and ask yourself the very simple question, "What should be done if this happened to ME or MY FAMILY?".

      "What should be done?" isn't the same question as "Is this terrorism?"

  4. This is not theft by u17 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The original owners did not lose their credit card numbers. Therefore it's not theft, it's unauthorised copying! I'm surprised that this is pointed out so many times under articles about file sharing, but not in cases like this.

    1. Re:This is not theft by Hentes · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's not the accounts that get stolen but the money. Just like a train robbery doesn't mean a theft of trains.