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Israeli Infrastructure Proves Too Strong For Anonymous
Mephistophocles writes "Ever since the beginning of Operation Pillar of Defense, hackers have been working overtime to strike a blow against the Israeli government's computer systems, Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said Sunday. No fewer than 44 million attacks have been recorded since the operation began five days ago — with nearly all of them failing, thanks to the recent strengthening of computer defense systems in Israel. Speaking at a special press conference at the Government Computing Center in Jerusalem about the cyber war against Israel that has accompanied Hamas's rocket attacks, Steinitz said that hackers 'are trying to disable the symbols of Israeli sovereignty, to enter web sites and install anti-Israel content, thus compromising information and data and damaging the government's ability to serve the public.' Most of the attacks, he said, were against government sites, like the Prime Minister's Office site, and security-related sites, such as that of the Home Front Command, the body charged with informing Israelis on how to protect themselves in the event of an attack. Out of those 44 million-plus attacks on government and defense related sites, said Steinitz, only one succeeded – partially. One site, which he did not name, was 'wobbly for a few minutes,' but quickly recovered. Even though the government has been successful in warding off hack attacks, Steinitz said that government sites were fully backed up and mirrored, meaning that they could be replaced by a duplicate site instantly if the original site were compromised."
If it was necessary to keep the networks operating. These kids, like Assange, can be naive.
They are not homebrewn but smuggled from Iran through Egypt.
The Qassam series of rockets are certainly manufactured by the Palestinians. The longer range rockets are of Iranian, Chinese, and Russian origins.
When your defenses are tested on a regular and ongoing basis, they become very good. It's not like the attacks from Anonymous were the first nor will they be the last. Kudos to the people who created and maintain these systems.
It would be interesting to know if the Iraelis are doing something the rest of the world doesn't know about (chances are they wouldn't tell us but who could blame them?) or are just rigorously implementing standard computer and network security measures.
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
So, who's going to break the cycle of violence? If you meet violence with violence, you get more violence. Someone will have to meet violence with kindness, and you don't seem to think the Palestinians can do it. So shouldn't you be encouraging Israel to do so?
The only other alternative is the complete elimination of the Palestinian people. But by operaghost's logic, that would justify Palestinian aggression against Israel.
The real solution is to acknowledge that neither Jewish nor Muslim states have any right to exist. The only just government is secular and democratic. Create a secular and democratic state where both israelis and palestinians have equal rights to vote. Then they can fight their wars in parliament, and terrorism will be a law enforcement issue.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
This is Israel we're talking about folks... Of course they were going to be able to withstand these attacks. It's an offshoot of Israel's unparalleled second-strike capability mentality. It's all they have.
Can you think of any other country in the world that is so completely and utterly beset by constant regional threats and actually has the resources to do something about it? If there is any country that is going to build proactive and pragmatic redundancy into their national IT infrastructure to protect it from external threats (and do it right), it's Israel. They have a lot more to lose by doing it wrong.
Oh fuck right off. The Palestinian leaders were acting like arseholes and trying to kill Jews just for being Jewish before the state of Israel even existed. Haj Amin al-Husseini who was the Grand Mufti (religious leader) of the Palestinians (of Jerusalem to be precise) during the 1940s was buddies with notable people like Hitler, Himmler, and anyone who promised to find a gas chamber for every Jew. He actively encouraged the Germans, and worked to dissuade countries from accepting German Jewish refuges forcing them to return to Germany. ALL BEFORE A JEWISH STATE EXISTED, mother fucker. So don't try to tell me that the Jews started anything.
The Jews were the ones who promised no change in personal property or land or status would take place when Israel was formed, that the status quo shouldn't change, meanwhile their leader(s) and other Arab countries told the Palestinians to get out of the way and to go to the refugee camps while they "pushed the Jews into the sea" with their anti Semitic Arab brotherhood. Now they're sore losers and even the other Arab countries around there won't let them into their own countries because they have so many trouble makers.
Don't you know Egypt has a big fucking wall set up between them and Palestine too? And when the Palestinians knocked part of it down, the Egyptian army pushed them back in a repaired it. Notice the Muslim Brotherhood haven't opened up the border with Gaza any more than Israel since they were elected?
So just shut the fuck up until you learn to think on your own instead of running with the crowd in their nouveau cause du jour which they know nothing about, but will surely fuck some innocent people over to make themselves feel like they have a cause.
I don't give a rat's ass what anyone is. But dirt bags who hide in civilian neighbourhoods and continually fire rockets into other civilian neighbourhoods while screaming how they are so just and hard done by deserve what they get. And the people who don't turn them in deserve it too. You ever think that if these shit bags had ever once tried to be civil there wouldn't be any war there. You know there are a lot of Arabs who live in Israel, vote and even sit in parliament. Jews in the Arab countries have to keep their heads down and not 'rise above themselves'. Get a real education on the subject.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
The fact is they have had a nuclear capability for a while and have proven they are not trigger happy and they are capable of securing the nuclear weapons. Check out a map and see just how small a country it is. Any nuclear attack on Gaza or the West Bank would be the equivalent of nuking themselves.
They did use the threat of nuclear retaliation in 1973 but that was a ruse to get Nixon to take his head out of his ass and re-supply the IDF. They purposely let leak through unencrypted radio transmissions that they were activating their Samson plan which was the code for arming their nukes on their F-4's and Jericho missiles. Not that they really needed to do so since they had already pushed the Syrians and Egyptians back into their own countries. Nixon didn't want to get involved becuase at the time the Soviets were heavily invested with the Egyptians and Syrians and he was afraid of escalating the problem.
The 73 war is probably the most humiliating loss the Arab countries have suffered in all their conflicts with Isreal. The Arabs had total surprise, overwhelming numerical advantages, Soviet wire guided anti-tank missiles, night vision scopes with IR targeting in their tanks (again thanks to the Soviets), and advanced first line SAM systems once again courtesy of the Soviets. They also came up with an ingenious way of tackling the gigantic sand berms using water cannons so their tanks could advance after crossing the canal. Too bad the Israelis held off 1000+ tanks off in the Golan Heights for 24 hours using only 37 Israeli tanks because of very poor tactical leadership on the Syrian side. They held long enough for reinforcements to arrive using the landscape, superb shoot and re-position tank tactics, and main gun range superiority. The Egyptians advanced without re-positioning their SAM coverage and thus became vulnerable to air attacks and they some how allowed the Israelis to float a temporary bridge across the canal and flank then en-circle the Egyptian army in the Sinai. I can only assume someone on the Egyptian side fell asleep during the Israeli crossing. The funny thing is the school books in Egypt make it sound like Egypt won that war when they clearly didn't.
If there is any Marshall plan in the middle east it should be left entirely to the Arab league not any western countries. The Arab countries have booted the Palestinians out of their countries and prohibited migration since day 1. They had pretty good reasons seeing as how the Palestinians in Jordan initiated a coup to remove the government as soon as they got there. The Palestinians were cheerleaders for Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait and after that war Kuwait evicted close to 100,000 Palestinians out of the country. Isreal is not and never has been the sole responsible party for palestinian suffering. It started with the inept British making promises to anyone who would listen to prop up their empire after WW1 and during WW2, Egypt abandon Egyptian citizens in the area now known as Gaza during their retreat in 67, and Jordan did the same thing resulting in the West Bank enclave.
The Iraqis and Afghan's have already had and wasted their Marshall Plan. In both cases the US and others removed the governments that were victimizing their own citizens and gave them a chance to rebuild their country in relative safety and they pissed it all away with in-fighting, bureaucratic corruption, and killing those trying to give them at least a fighting chance to build a better country. If the Japanese were able to swallow their pride and work with the US after WW2 I don't see how others could not do the same. Because this whole mess is more about Arab wounded pride than any land or religious disputes.
Of course if Israel offered Abbas everything on the Jordanian side of the Green Line (including Jerusalem), Abbas'd be able to crush Hamas like a bug. But Israel's internal politics mean that anyone who proposes that, or anything remotely like that, gets crushed in the next election.
In other words Israel isn't asking for a simple recognition of it's right to exist, it's asking for recognition of it's conquest of East Jerusalem (plus probably some more territory). That's a whole different kettle of fish.
You don't think their population would distance themselves from the crazies for a chance at a good life?
Let's take Iran as an example. Most Iranians would like an excellent life. They defy their government and install satellite dishes and understand what global (secular) civilization has to offer. They would like a piece of that. Unfortunately due to the 'velyat a faqir' the Iranian Government treats its citizens as wards of the state (that is, everyone is treated as if they were an orphan or mentally insane) and the government strictly controls what they can wear, what they can say, where they can do, who they meet. Besides the security services (nb: you never want to go to Evin prison, ever) the government enlists radical thugs called Basiji to brutalize anyone not following the government line. The people of Iran wanted to install democracy in 2009 after fraudulent elections and protested despite the brutality of the Basiji, but the government ruthlessly put down the protests and, shamefully, the West did absolutely nothing to support the large democracy movement. Iran wants to export this Shia-based system worldwide, whether you want it or not.
Now in Gaza the situation is similar, but not exactly the same. Most Palestinian just want a decent life - although they are prepared to forego one in order to destroy Israel (since it is commanded to kill Jews, Christians and unbelievers in many many places in the Qur'an and Hadiths; so they are just being good Muslims and obeying their scriptures; the 'bad' muslims are the one who refuse Allah's commandments to kill unbelievers [fortunately, many muslims are good people and defy their faith in this way]). Hamas used to be buddies with Iran but they fell out over Syria. Hama follows the Sunni branch of Islam so is opposed to the Shia branch of Iran (usually that would mean they would be mortal enemies; but they put this aside temporarily to eliminate Israel before spreading the 'Caliphate' to the rest of the World).
The Israelis are exactly as you describe. They already have McDonalds, TVs and a very very modern society. Their government is influenced by, but not controlled by the crazies (Hasidim) that cause much of the 'settler' issues in the West Bank. Otherwise, Israel is a normal 'Western' society and responds in what most Slashdotters would consider a rational manner to irrational circumstances. That is, people who will make temporary truces but don't recognize the UN resolution that recognizes Israel in the western Palestine region of the former Ottoman Empire (the eastern part is now called 'Jordan' and can be considered the true 'Palestinians'). Note: Palestine has never (yet) been an actual country, it was a Roman name for a region of their empire which has remained as a region/province in additional empires throughout history. Note also the bulk of what are reported by the media as 'Palestinians' actually are relatively recent immigrants from Egypt or Sudan (within a couple of generations). Curiously: when tracing family history back many Israelis have more generations born in Palestine than 'Palestinians' - this is an 'open secret' (eg. Yasser Arafat was actually of Egyptian decent; and Gaza was Egyptian in antiquity before it passed to the Ottoman Empire).
See, this is all pretty complicated. They may want McDonalds and new stuff but there is so much history of the area that just about anyone can make any claim. Only those who are prepared to look forward will make progress (eg. the Israelis) and those who get hung up on history (Hamas & Iran) will resist progress and modernity and instead cling (with force) to obsolescent ideas.