A screenshot taken from Google Maps of the area involved in the Israeli/Palestinian conlict.
Every now and then, a controversial issue triggers a flood of online discourse. For our Noise Filter feature, the WHIR pans the raging rivers of opinion for shining nuggets of useful commentary.
(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — As Palestinians casualties are expected to have reached nearly 600 deaths since raids on the Gaza Strip began December 27 in retaliation against rocket attacks against Israel, a number of prominent Israeli websites have also fallen victim to the conflict, defaced by online militants.
The more than 50-year-old conflict between Israel and the Palestinians took a new direction when more than 300 Israeli websites were defaced in a period of 48 hours over the past weekend according to University of Alabama at Birmingham computer forensics research director Gary Warner, confirming reports from Iranian news network Press TV and many other news outlets.
Defaced sites included Ynetnews.com, the website of an Israeli daily newspaper known for its Zionist slant. The defaced site displayed a history of the Palestinian land occupation by Zionist settlers beginning in 1946.
While Warner insists that radical Muslim hacking not unprecedented, it is a relatively recent phenomenon, having begun with the defacement of Danish and American websites in February 2006 after the publication of cartoons about the prophet Muhammad. Defacements were again reported against Israeli and US websites after the bombardment of Lebanon by Israel in August of 2006.
Like any longtime disagreement, reactions to the latest Palestinian uprising have been heated on both sides.
The University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Gary Warner wrote in his blog, CyberCrime & Doing Time (garwarner.blogspot.com):
We’ve seen this type of Propaganda War before. The original cyber propaganda war was launched by Chinese hackers in May of 2001 after the collision of a Chinese fighter jet with a US Navy plane. Tens of thousands of US websites were defaced by Chinese hackers blaming the US for the incident. More recently the technique has been adopted by Muslim hackers, beginning with the defacement of thousands of Danish and American websites in February 2006 after the publication of cartoons about the prophet Muhammad, and against Israeli and US websites after the bombardment of Lebanon by Israel in August of 2006.
The often Leftist IndyMedia website reported:
Propaganda wars have escalated and are being fought on the new 21st century battlefield – the Internet – while at the same time entering a level of absurdity: Hackers working for the anti-Zionist solidarity movement have carried out electronic attacks on major Israeli websites, altering them with anti-war materials.
Globes Online, the English version of the Israeli business daily paper “Globes,” reported on the now defunct website “Help Israel Win,” that encourages Israel supporters to hack Hamas servers:
An Israeli Internet initiative is recruiting surfers for cyberwarfare to crash hostile websites. Help Israel Win is inviting users to download a file that can overload Hamas servers, causing them to crash. 5,000 people have joined this effort so far.
The website states, “We’re a group of students who are fed up sitting on the sidelines and seeing the residents of Sderot and communities near the Gaza Strip suffer. We set up this special project aimed at unifying the computer power of as many users as possible. The goal is to apply this ability to disrupt the activity of an enemy that seeks Israel’s destruction.”
Military affairs, technology and history writer James Dunnigan wrote a blog entry entitled “The Big War You Never Hear Much About“:
Iran has been trying to get Moslem [sic] hackers united against Israel. For two years now, the Hamas office in the capital of Iran, has sponsored a hacking contest. Whoever makes the most spectacular attack on the most important Israeli web sites (belonging to a government agency or one of the major political parties), wins a prize of $2,000. Not that a lot of Moslem hackers need much encouragement for this sort of thing. But the Islamic radical groups have noticed that they are not getting the best hacking talent, and the Israelis typically respond much more forcefully. It has been found, however, that a prize, and a formal competition, tends to bring in the more skilled, if less religiously radical, Moslem hackers.
MXLogic’s “Innovative attacks of 2008 may haunt coming year” blog posting reads:
Radical Islamic religious leaders have authorized the use of cyber fatwas as a new way to defend Islam, states DarkReading.com. This may shift the focus of cybercriminals in Europe to the Middle East, where these “cybercartels” may target U.S. financial institutions through cyberfraud scams.
Recently, there have been many cyber attacks tied to international conflicts, specifically with Islamic hackers defacing Israeli and American websites in retaliation for Israel’s bombing on the Gaza Strip.
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