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

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."

Comments

How about spammers?

[ducomputergeek]

I mean, if suddenly a few of these turkey's start getting the business end of a small caliber pistol to the back of the head it wouldn't be that bad would it?

Re:How about spammers?

[DCTech]

Would that also include the likes of GroupOn and other sites who capture your email so they can spam you? It's the same matter, just legalized.

Re:How about spammers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes! How about making the senior executives at Groupon and the other asshole companies that have made the Internet a cesspool the subject of "shame" campaigns. Out them! They make money while causing a race to the bottom for business products and services. They get rich at everyone else' expense. Screw them!

Retaliatory action?

[vakuona]

What are they going to do, kill him?

Re:Retaliatory action?

[retech]

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.

Re:Retaliatory action?

[Fujisawa Sensei]

That's how Israel normally treats terrorists.

Re:Retaliatory action?

[lordandmaker]

You're a couple of decades late. These days Israel is ALWAYS the aggressor from what I hear.

Re:Retaliatory action?

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:Retaliatory action?

[dmesg0]

Israel is and always was the aggressor! They kill millions of innocent unarmed palestinians every day, use their heads to play soccer, and the rest of the bodies to provide blood for their matzos.

Absolutely everybody knows that.

Re:Retaliatory action?

[fred911]

Proving that the best defence (more times then not) is a quick and aggressive offence. Not to mention excellent intelligence.

Re:Retaliatory action?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you are a victim of propaganda and I am sad for you that you are so narrow minded. Do you even know where Israel is on a map? Do you know its history? Do you know what "Palestinians" are and really come from? Do you even understand the conflicts? Do you think you understand Islam? Or even Judaism for that matter.

Getting directly to the article and crime, first of all, this hacking was done for a mix of racial, religious, and political reasons. This would not have been done to another Arab country in this way. The hacker was very clearly a racist and a bigot. If you read Israeli newspapers, you will get much more coverage of the facts (suprisingly many israeli newspapers are left wing and anti-govt before you call bias). Moreover, how do you propose a nation handle what is a direct attack against its citizens. This is different than an attack on Twitter users world-wide, this is a nationally and racially target attack.

Secondly, last I recall, citizens in other countries don't fear being blown up, shot, kidnapped, and tortured by Israelis. There's always a bad egg in every basket, sure, but percentage wise Israelis are among the most humane, ethical, and moral people. Just ask all the illegal immigrants, many of whom come from places that vowed to destroy Israel. Israel may not allow them all to stay, but they at least take care of them, feed the, give them medical care. Conversely, those same people trying to stream across the Egyptian border are shot on sight by Egyptian forces. Just ask all the Jews who lived in Arab countries and are either dead or in Israel because they actually were in reality ethnically cleansed vs. the media side show we hear about from the Palestinians. Google Pallywood sometime to start.

I think you are confusing several different things from nazi hunting to terrorist home destruction. I also think you are naive if you think that many of these people are "innocent." While it is possible to have terrorists, murders, ammunition, rockets, and such in your home by force, it's normally not needed in the places you seem to be implying. I suggest you dig up a history book and you really will see who the victims are. And yes, the Israelis are primarily the victims. They are the ones with citizens living in fear, constant terror attacks, people like you with endless streams of incorrect and malicious rhetoric. Yes, there are also "Palestinians" that are victims. There are unfortunately cases of mistakes, collateral damage, and such. But they are more victims of their leaders who seek to oppress their own people for their own financial and political gains. Whether is direct in using people as human shields or indirect by brain washing and indoctrination of children, it is sick and I pity those people.

As far as money and weapons, you do realize that the enemies of Israel such as Egypt actually receive more US aid. If you are so worldly, you must also know that the Israeli people for a long time have not wanted the majority of the aid, and there is often calls by the government to end it. You would also know that much of the aid was a condition of Israel giving up the Sinai to Egypt, and something they didn't want to do and heavily regret today. In fact the Sinai is now quickly becoming one of the worst terrorist hot beds in the world, and has issues such as human smuggling under Egyptian rule. Additionally, the aforementioned peace with Egypt looks like it may be dissolved by the "democractic" Muslim theocracy that looks like it will seize control of Egypt. I feel sorry for Egyptians for once too.

Finally, if you did some research, you would realize the Israel is indeed one of the most humane armies in the world, if not the most humane with active conflicts. The US has killed far more civilians than Israel ever has, and in Israel's case the term civilian is usually heavily debatable or simply media propaganda (you are not a civilian if you are firing guns or parked in an area that was for 2 days announced it would be bombed/destroyed). Indeed, if you compare the U

Re:Retaliatory action?

[alphatel]

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.

Re:Retaliatory action?

[tomhudson]

Not necessarily. 3/4 of the people whose credit card numbers were stolen refuse to complain, because the thief is charging less on them than their kids were.

They want to contact this guy to see what he can do about their kids cell phone bills.

Re:Retaliatory action?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like how hundreds of Israelis are driven off their land and have their olive groves bulldozed so Palestinian settlements can be built on their land? (free of any other races or religions of course). Isn't that how it works?

Those poor poor Israelis, having to suffer with their billion dollars in aid so they can turn around and compete with the US.

Now the ultra-orthodox are taking over Israel so the rest of the population can reap the Jewish extremism they have fostered.

Re:Retaliatory action?

[timeOday]

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

Re:Retaliatory action?

[CapOblivious2010]

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

Decades??? Try Millenia!

Re:Retaliatory action?

[chrb]

Secondly, last I recall, citizens in other countries don't fear being blown up, shot, kidnapped, and tortured by Israelis.

Do citizens of Gaza and the West Bank count?

you do realize that the enemies of Israel such as Egypt actually receive more US aid.

Incorrect. Israel gets $3 billion per year. Egypt gets $1.3 billion. Israel has a population of 7.6 million. Egypt has 81 million. So per capita aid is many times higher for Israel.

Re:Retaliatory action?

[stanlyb]

20 millions russians. That's how many (at least) were killed...

Re:Retaliatory action?

[Hognoxious]

Cut their tongue out, sew it back on ... and then cut it out again!

Re:Retaliatory action?

[DrVomact]

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

Re:Retaliatory action?

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Critical of Israel != anti-semitic

Re:Retaliatory action?

[SplashMyBandit]

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.

Re:Retaliatory action?

[wagnerrp]

If they're killing millions of Palestinians every day, where are all these new Palestinians coming from? They must be rolling through the entire global population every decade or two. Surely such an untapped renewable resource could somehow be put towards power generation. Just think of all the energy stored in that biomass!

Re:Retaliatory action?

[ClioCJS]

Yea, but things had been settled for quite some time before the world wars caused the west to simply decide "oh by the way, we're going to insert a country right here, get out of your house, you don't own it anymore".

Re:Retaliatory action?

[makomk]

Israel actually went a step further than that - they made a terrorist their Prime Minister!

Re:Retaliatory action?

[BenJury]

> their ancestral homeland

Ah yes, and there we have it, when people bring their space fairies into the argument, you just know all logic and reason is lost.

Re:Retaliatory action?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for your input Mr. Bigot.

They moved out of Europe because some jackass killed 7 million of them in the 40s, but I'm sure they were the aggressor then.
Then they are constantly bombed by terrorists, again proving they are the aggressor.
Now Iran supplies rockets to neighbors who are constantly firing them into Isreal targeting preschools and the like, again proving they are the aggressor.
Also when they sent athelets to the olympics in Munic they were hunted down and killed, showing that they are the aggressor.

If it wasn't for anti-semetic bigots like you, Isreal would probably be living in peace with their neighbors. But as long as people like you and Jimmy Carter keep spewing hatred and lies about them it is apparently ok to kill Jews in Isreal because they "had it comming".

Re:Retaliatory action?

[JonySuede]

I will cite myself, with some emphasis added, citing Nietzsche in-another unrelated thread.

Re:Subcaste (Score:4, Interesting)
by JonySuede (1908576) on Friday January 06, @07:15PM (#38616880) Journal

the ubercast Nietzsche is talking about is not the one the Nazi understood...

From Beyond good and evil:

What we nowadays call a “nation” in Europe is essentially more a res facta [something made] than a res nata [something born] (indeed sometimes it looks confusingly like a res ficta et picta [something made up and unreal]—), in any case something developing, young, easily adjusted, not yet a race, to say nothing of aere perennius [more enduring than bronze], as is the Jewish type. But these “nations” should be very wary of every hot-headed competition and enmity! That the Jews, if they wanted to—or if people were to force them, as the anti-Semites seem to want to do —could even now become predominant, in fact, quite literally gain mastery over Europe, is certain; that they are not working and planning for that is equally certain. Meanwhile by contrast they desire and wish––even with a certain insistence—to be absorbed into and assimilated by Europe. They thirst to be finally established somewhere or other, allowed, respected, and to bring to an end their nomadic life, to the “Wandering Jew.” And people should pay full attention to this tendency and impulse (which in itself perhaps even expresses a moderating of Jewish instincts) and accommodate it. And for this, it might perhaps be useful and reasonable to expel the anti-Semitic ranters out of the country.

They were poked for so many years by the Muslim world, and by the western world as the worst interlude ever, that it is only normal for them to strongly react when they are specifically attacked by people of a specific religion.

Re:Retaliatory action?

[slashchuck]

Really!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_technology_in_Israel

Re:Retaliatory action?

[bjourne]

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?

Re:Retaliatory action?

[slashchuck]

Motorola commercial cell phone was developed in Israel. Motorola has its largest development center in Israel Intel has four major development centers in Israel.

Microsoft has one of its three strategic development centers outside the US in Israel. It is based on several startup companies that Microsoft has acquired in Israel, which are now part of this development center. Most of Windows NT technology was developed in Israel.

AKAMAI technology was developed in Israel by Danny Lewin, its co-founder and CTO. Mr. Lewin was killed on 9/11 on one of the planes that hit the World Trade Center.

SAP AG, the enterprise software leader, has its larger development center outside Germany in Raanana, Israel. This center, called SAP Labs Israel, is also based on several startup companies that SAP acquired in Israel.

Checkpoint, the world leader in internet security and firewalls is an Israeli company.

The AOL Instant Messenger was developed in 1996 by four young Israelis.

Given Imaging, an Israeli company, developed the first ingestible pill-sized video camera, used for medical diagnostic without the need of an invasive operation.

The Israeli company M-Systems developed the USB-Flash Drives, used for portable storage all over the world. The company was recently bought by SanDisk, an American company, the world leader in the flash storage market, established by an Israeli.

IBM, Kodak, Cisco, HP, Google, Novell and many others, also have large scale research and development centers in Israel.

Re:Retaliatory action?

[ClioCJS]

I'm sorry, are people required to give a solution to posit a problem? Seems that attitude would thwart a lot of things (like math).

Re:Retaliatory action?

[dbIII]

Of course they don't, those in the Gaza and West Bank Ghettos are Untermenchen.
I like Israel, it's the closest thing in that part of the world that comes close to respecting the idea of law. What I don't like is that it's currently run by a bunch of corrupt fascists that think nothing of sending assassination squads to other countries under fake passports of those that think that Israel is their ally.

Re:Retaliatory action?

[19thNervousBreakdown]

Maybe someone who would think of a solution would never even look at it until somebody else points out a problem. There's a place in this world for us pessimists, godammit.

Re:Retaliatory action?

[matfud]

have to agree with this anon coward. Jews were hunted down and killed and it started quite a long time before WW2. The current problems are in part due to that; but mostly because the UK (along with the rest of the world) decided that a reparation for the holocaust (I don't like the way that name has been hi-jacked) created Israel. Yep stick a dispossessed ideological concept into the middle of one of the most fought over areas of the planet, call it a new country, and shout out "come all yea faithful". What the fuck did they think was going to happen?

The new catch phrase apparently

[nurb432]

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.

Re:The new catch phrase apparently

[Morty]

They didn't say it is terrorism, they said they would use the same tools as for terrorism. That is, they know it's not terrorism, but think that the same tools would be useful.

Re:The new catch phrase apparently

[Oswald]

Well, TFA says the Israelis called these cyber-attacks, "a breach of sovereignty comparable to a terrorist operation, and must be treated as such." That's pretty close to calling it terrorism. Maybe they should pass a law making it "statutory terrorism".

Re:The new catch phrase apparently

[K. S. Kyosuke]

We'll see summary executions on the streets.

Although, this being a money-related crime, the executioners shall be wielding socks stuffed with lots of coins instead of axes.

Re:The new catch phrase apparently

[Yvanhoe]

Who cares it becomes common ? The goal is to use the legal shortcuts created for terrorism in as many cases as possible.

Re:The new catch phrase apparently

[EyelessFade]

I AM...THE LAW!

Re:The new catch phrase apparently

[cshark]

And you obviously don't know or understand anything about the way Israel handles things. Please don't say things like this unless you've had the some education on the subject, please.

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. Someone steals your credit card, and runs up a $30,000 tab, you pay it... or you go to jail. Period. So think about it this way. If someone effectively bombs your life, by taking your credit card, and shoots you with a debt you cannot pay and the ire of a state that takes debt VERY seriously... how is it not an act of terrorism? That's literally destroying someone's life.

What I'm wondering though, is if this means Israel will start negotiating with credit card thieves, and giving them what they want while getting nothing in return. We'll have to see.

Re:The new catch phrase apparently

[CapOblivious2010]

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.

Re:The new catch phrase apparently

[maxwell demon]

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?

Re:The new catch phrase apparently

[hedwards]

You do realize that the Israelis have killed far more innocent civilians than the various terrorist groups they're fighting, right? Also, you do realize that Israel regularly violates international laws. Not to mention their pillaging of Palestinian resources and starvation of the people in Gaza.

Of course Israel doesn't use Nuclear weapons, there's no way in hell that the US would continue to prop up their country if they went ballistic. Where exactly do you think they got those nuclear weapons.

At the end of the day it's terrorists versus war criminals anybody that claims some sort of moral high ground for the Israelis really needs to study up on the matter. When all is said and done, they're every bit as evil as the people they claim to fight.

Re:The new catch phrase apparently

[chrb]

the supposed civilian statistics thrown up by the palestinians are weighted EXTREMELY heavily towards males over the age of 14 and under 40.

And how do you account for the civilian statistics thrown up by the Israelis? Palestinian civilian casualities in the second intifada:

According to B'Tselem, of the 6,484 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces since the beginning of the Second Intifada, 3,036 did not take part in hostilities while 2,248 did so. The remainder (950 individuals) were either police officers killed at their police stations or otherwise uncertain as to whether they took part in the hostilities. 1,329 (20,5 percent) of those killed were minors. A further 53 Palestinians were killed by Israeli civilians.

B'Tselem is an Israeli non-governmental organization (NGO). It calls itself "The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories". The group was founded on February 3, 1989 by a group of prominent Israeli public figures, including lawyers, academics, journalists, and members of the Knesset.

B'Tselem is Israeli, it was founded by respected prominent Israelis, and it says 1329 Palestinian children were killed by Israelis in the second intifada, and that children were 20% of the total Palestinians killed. They also say that the majority of all Palestinians killed took no part in hostilities ie. most of the people killed by the Israeli military were civilians. Odd that you were moderated up to +5, when you offer no evidence for your personal opinion, and it is contrary to all the established evidence from both sides in the conflict.

Re:The new catch phrase apparently

[cffrost]

Why would a consumer, knowingly liable for all potential credit card fraud, possess a credit card with a $30k limit that he/she can't afford to cover?

Re:The new catch phrase apparently

[ShmuelP]

I just feel sorry for whomever it is that's living next door to the thieves when Israel overreacts. Israel isn't exactly known for keeping any sort of perspective on things. Kill one of their citizens and they'll kill dozens of your citizens with little to no concern for innocent civilians.

Not according to Jonathan Sacerdoti in the New Statesman (most certainly not a pro-Israel publication). In fact, during Operation Cast Lead, Israel managed a better than 1:1 ratio (that is, one civilian per combatant killed). The UN estimate for similar assymetric warfare is 3:1 - that is three civilians for each combatant killed. And since then, they have done even better. In 2011, it was either 1:10 (Jane's correspondent in Israel) or 1:3 (Elder of Zion - factoring in numbers from PCHR).

Look for the actual facts, not mass media accounts. And as a rule of thumb, I'd discount hysterical claims right after an event, until they are actually examined. (Cases in point: the whole Muhammed al-Dura story, which was later shown to be a hoax, the supposed "massacre" of hundreds or thousands in Jenin that turned out to be 52 or 53, mostly combatants).

Re:The new catch phrase apparently

[slaad]

We'll see summary executions on the streets.

Although, this being a money-related crime, the executioners shall be wielding socks stuffed with lots of coins instead of axes.

Why would executioners wield socks stuffed with axes?

The original 0xOmar post on pastebin

[dmesg0]

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?

Re:The original 0xOmar post on pastebin

[vakuona]

God forbid that people ever be inconvenienced!

Re:The original 0xOmar post on pastebin

[tsotha]

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

Re:The original 0xOmar post on pastebin

[tsotha]

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

Re:The original 0xOmar post on pastebin

[10101001 10101001]

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.

Re:The original 0xOmar post on pastebin

[g8oz]

Fail. That is a politicized term as well. No blood, then no terrorism.

Re:The original 0xOmar post on pastebin

[SplashMyBandit]

Bullshit. 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. If the goal of the heist was not ordinary crime (take a little money) but solely to disrupt your families life then what crime is closest precent to that? that's right, terrorism.

To me it seems that your political views about "funding in a post 9/11 political environment" has overriden your human empathy. 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?". You should ask yourself this for every act of terrorism (physical or cyber), for every rocket fired into Israel (you'll get to ask this several times per day, although it is so common it won't make news elsewhere), or for every Palestinian home destroyed for settlers (see, injustice is not one-sided). Then you probably would be less inclined to dismiss the effect this has - it is not just some university pank. Even worse, it reflects the poisoned information being given to the youth of the Middle East.

Re:The original 0xOmar post on pastebin

[SplashMyBandit]

Ever lived without money? lost your life savings or had them stolen? with the inability to get credit due to problems in the past? what if your credit card was used to buy things from dodgy sites that showed up on your statements? what if this was done not to an isolated person but on a massive scale (a few percent of your citizens). Basically I think you are so dismissive of the effects of this only because it didn't happen to you personally. As I've said elsewhere, ask yourself what you would want yor government to do if this happened to YOU or your family. Then you might feel a little empathy.

Re:The original 0xOmar post on pastebin

[SplashMyBandit]

Imaging if someone took all your hard-earned money. Imagine you had a crap credit rating because of identity theft. Imagine someone did this not only to you, but to your family and to anyone else they could find in a systematic way. Imagine that the person did this not for financial gain (like Mafia would), or perverse jollies (as Aonymous would), but because they wanted to hurt your country and its citizens (as in, as a terrorist would). If YOU were affected how would YOU feel? Would you want to government to take action, not at the level of a stolen wallet but direct greater effort to seek out and seize those responsible (as the effort make for terrorism investigations) ?

That has nothing whatsoever to do with an "inappropriate love of money" (although perhaps suggesting this indicates an unhealth obsession with those who may have a "love of money" - and in case if may be a Christian I would suggest checking the Bible's often *misquoted* statement about this - the love of money is not the "root of all evil", it is the root of "all sorts of evil" [quite a difference!] - so there is nothing intriniscally evil about money, possessing it, or working hard to get it).

Re:The original 0xOmar post on pastebin

[amorsen]

I would want my government and my banks to fuciking FIX their CREDIT CARD SECURITY and their BANKING LAWS!

Re:The original 0xOmar post on pastebin

[tsotha]

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?"

YeYe

[wzzzzrd]

And in 3 years from now every western government will treat everything as it would terrorism.

Film at 11.

Awwww, poor guy.

[tsotha]

If he's strangled by a hotel maid we'll know what happened.

Not that I'll, you know, shed a tear.

This is not theft

[u17]

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.

Re:This is not theft

[Hentes]

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

True terrorism

[formfeed]

True terrorism is a criminal act that terrorizes beyond the actual incident. In my opinion, these things should also be added to that list:
High school mobbing.
Tail gating drivers.
The NY Yankees.
Clowns.

After all the advancements in cryptography

[StripedCow]

we still have an effectively broken payment system, and instead of fixing it, they are going after the symptoms...

Re:After all the advancements in cryptography

[SplashMyBandit]

Oh it could be fixed, but the banks don't want to do this. Much cheaper to write it off as "bad debt" than implement systems that would prevent this (and prevent people's lives from being disrupted/ruined). To be fair, most customers would give you their credit card details for the promise of a $100 voucher (they give away personal details all the time do things like phone credit etc). Customers also don't like even the slightest inconvenience even for much greater security (if more than one authentication method is involved).

Re:After all the advancements in cryptography

[AHuxley]

If every point of sale, transfer, bank network and card is well encrypted the GCHQ and NSA will be very unhappy.
For how long will they be able set and flood the world with very low cost weak crypto is the question.
http://cryptome.org/nsa-v-all.htm
Setting the Data Encryption Standard (DES) was the hint.

Re:Run to the USA to fund the murder of the purps?

[bored_engineer]

The average Israeli gets more USA federal tax dollars spent on them than the average USA citizen.

Can you support this? I went looking, and it seems that Israel receives about $3,000,000,000 in aid. With a population of about 7.8 million people, this works out to less than $400/person.

This page, the 2011 federal budget was about $3.5E12. If you focus on the social programs, retirement benefits and highway spending, then these account for about 68% of the federal budget. Dividing this total by a population of about 310 million people, I arrive at a total spending figure of about $7,700 per US citizen.

I've double-checked everything and can't see where I've made a mistake, other than in the arbitrary decision to exclude all defense, research and interest payments.

Shape of things

[PopeRatzo]

I'm pretty sure we can expect to see something similar in the US before long.

Anyone who hacks into an account, or uses the Internet for crime (such as filesharing) or disrupts corporate activity by protesting in a park, is going to be treated as a terrorist and considered an enemy combatant. After all, when you threaten profits, you threaten everything we hold sacred. Let's just see what happens to the Occupy people who dare protest at the GOP Convention outside of the specified "Free Speech Zone" later this year.

As we know, last week a bill became law that allows for "terrorists" to be held indefinitely without being charged. There already is a legal doctrine allowing assassination of citizens for being "terrorists".

The message is clear: You. Better. Behave.

Re:Run to the USA to fund the murder of the purps?

[slasho81]

The oft neglected fact is that US aid to Israel must be spent on US products and services. That money usually ends in the hands of military equipment manufacturers which employ US citizens who pressure their congressmen to continue to give that aid which is basically a subsidy for US factories of a very certain kind and location. Politics as usual.

Re:Israel bombing Palestinians for credit card fra

[SplashMyBandit]

No. They will soon flatten Gaza for the increasingly long-range rockets being fired every day from there. This probably doesn't make your news (probably only celebrity weddings and divorces, lol. If you check Israeli news from time to time (I check Ha'arertz to see the Israeli perspective) you will see that rockets or explosive planting attempts happen *every* day. This is why a smackdown will come.

Re:Run to the USA to fund the murder of the purps?

[HonestButCurious]

US FMF grants to Israel in 2011, divided by the population of Israel in 2011, ends up as $384 per capita. The 2011 US budget, divided by the population of the US in 2011, ends up as $11,897 per capita. That's ignoring the fact that Israel has to spend the FMF money in the USA, in effect subsidising the American military-industrial complex.

Protip: Don't post bullshit pseudo-statistics to Slashdot - we guys love our calculators.

I'll get modded down, probably

[msobkow]

As much as I have a problem with the way the Israelis oppress the Palestinians and deny them fundamental human rights....

They're not wrong to call crackers who steal people's financial data terrorists.

The people whose credit is being damaged and whose money is stolen are NOT the ones who make decisions for the Israeli government. Nor were the people who had their info stolen by Anonymous in North America or Europe.

When you victimize the people at random, you are committing a terrorist act. You are punishing the innocent for the decisions and actions of the guilty who are not harmed in the LEAST when you victimize the people. Terrorism does NOT have to include death and murder.

True, there is usually less inflammatory legislation in place that can be used to prosecute crackers, but it's also largely ineffective, because it's classed as a "white collar" crime. "White Collar" is a smokescreen for "business crime" laws, with watered down penalties to avoid "hurting" the unethical business people who get caught in fraud, extortion, money laundering, ponzi schemes, and other scams. It downplays the number of people who are hurt by their actions. Financial crimes which hurt hundreds, thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of people should have much harsher punishments and jail time than they do.

Fines do not stop a business, nor do they punish the executives who made the illegal decisions. They're treated as a cost of doing business, and the company pays the tab because the executives are protected from financial damages by the very structure of a legal corporation. JAIL TIME FOR EXECUTIVES, not fines for companies! Their role as officers of the company does NOT protect them from personal prosecution for illegal management of a company. There is absolutely NOTHING in Canadian or US corporate law that says otherwise. It's just not done very often, because these buggers have DEEP pockets for lawyers to fight the charges tooth and nail.

Re:I'll get modded down, probably

[msobkow]

Ask Martha Stewart -- she's an example of someone who WAS jailed for her "white collar" crimes. It CAN be done. But with the rarity of it, when it does happen, the guilty are likely to claim they were "singled out" for special prosecution. At least Martha had the dignity to accept and serve her sentence gracefully instead of making any such claims.

That is just stupid

[gweihir]

Terrorists are not in it for money or financial gain, these scum are. Applying the wrong counter-strategy is just plain dumb. Not that I am surprises Israeli politicians are as dumb as the rest of them.

Re:Run to the USA to fund the murder of the purps?

[bored_engineer]

Hereis both support and dissent for Slasho81's position on where US aid to Israel goes. After looking at the link, and searching a bit more, I'd like to point out that Isreael's military imports far exceed the USA's .foreign aid to Israel. I don't necessarily support foreign aid to Israel, but I would like the facts of the support to be clear.

All part of the plan?

[debrain]

Those fabulous steps to Draconian governance from Western-style democracies are:

1. Establish a basis for circumventing human rights (eg "terrorism" or "piracy" or "national security", etc.);

2. Imbue state systems with financial gain from said basis (eg prison industrial complex, military industrial complex, etc.);

3. Have said systems lobby for increased funding and authority, encroaching on traditional authorities (eg policing, prosecutors, media, voting systems, etc);

4. Expand the application of the basis for circumventing human rights to other areas (eg immigration, child pornography, copyright violations, any other interests with lobbyists);

5. Enact laws that undermine the financing of political dissension, and undermine systems that may allow any discourse critical of the established government;

6. Engage in mass human rights violations, ghettoization, prison labour; State ignores human rights, imprisons or executes dissenters and acts with impunity and disregard for reason;

7. The state becomes a vehicle for despots supported by demagoguery. Non tenet anguillam, per caudam qui tenet illam.

Re:Bullshit

[Smauler]

Shut the fuck up, racist.

I'm fed up of being called racist because I'm critical of some country's policies. If you hadn't noticed, Syria is taking a bit more a bashing in the news than Isreal recently, and when I or other people comment upon that they get called anti-muslim.

I know you are spouting pro-Semitic, racist vomit, because you're not addressing any of the issues, you're just name calling, and dropping people into your well defined categories.

alternatively

[unity100]

israel can just stop fucking murdering foreign nationals in hotels in foreign countries, under the eyes of security cameras.

what am i talking about ? if you dont know what that was, just shut up, and educate yourself before talking politics.