Lockheed Martin announces investment in Israeli cyber security to help protect the Occupation & Apartheid

J Post
American security contracting giant Lockheed Martin on Sunday announced that it and EMC will invest in “advanced technology projects” in the fields of cloud computing, data analytics and related cyber technologies in Beersheba’s technology park.
“Our goal is to foster applied research and continued growth in Israel’s technology sector,” said Lockheed Martin vice president of international engineering and technology John D. Evans. “We recognize evolving global needs, as well as the wealth of innovation taking place within Israel and its universities.”
The announcement comes ahead of Israel’s first cyber security conference, meant to promote the country as a hub of digital security.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who has been pushing cyber security as an economic driver, attended a special conference on the issue at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Friday.
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Israeli defence computer hacked via tainted email

JERUSALEM/BOSTON: Hackers broke into an Israeli defence ministry computer via an email attachment tainted with malicious software that looked like it had been sent by the country's Shin Bet secret security service, an Israeli cyber security firm said on Sunday.

Aviv Raff, chief technology officer at Seculert, said the hackers earlier this month temporarily took over 15 computers, one of them belonging to Israel's Civil Administration that monitors Palestinians in Israeli-occupied territory.

Raff told Reuters that Palestinians were suspected to be behind the cyber attack, citing similarities to a cyber assault on Israeli computers waged more than a year ago from a server in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

While the latest attack was conducted from a server in the United States, experts noticed writing and composition similarities with the earlier attack, he said.

Israeli officials declined to comment on Raff's findings. "We are not commenting on it, we don't respond to such reports," said one of the officials, Guy Inbar, a spokesman for the Civil Administration.

There was no immediate Palestinian comment on the report.

Securlet had not determined what the hackers did after the initial infection with "Xtreme RAT" software, Raff said. "All we know is at least one computer at the Civil Administration was in control of the attackers; what they did we don't know."

The Civil Administration is a unit of Israel's defence ministry that oversees the passage of goods between Israel and the West Bank and Gaza Strip, territories Israel captured in a 1967 war and which Palestinians want for a state.

The administration also issues entry permits to Palestinians who work in Israel.

DEFENCE CONTRACTORS ALSO HACKED?

Raff declined to identify the other 14 computers targeted by the hackers. An Israeli source who spoke on condition of anonymity said these included companies involved in supplying Israeli defence infrastructure.

Based on Raff's analysis the 15 computers were in the hackers' grip for at least several days after the Jan. 15 dispatch of the email, which included an attachment about ex- Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon who had just died.

Hacking activity has surged in the Middle East over the past three years as both governments and activist groups have targeted the military, other state agencies, critical infrastructure, businesses as well as dissidents and criminal groups in order to gain information about their operations and also disrupt them.

The email that burrowed into the Israeli defence ministry computer looked like it had been sent from the Shin Bet security service, Raff said.

Raff's firm was able to "sinkhole" the operation, tricking the Xtreme RAT software into communicating with servers that Seculert controlled in order to figure out which computers were infected and to deactivate the attack.

Xtreme RAT is a remote access trojan, which gives hackers complete control of an infected machine. They can steal information, load additional malicious software onto the network or use the compromised computer as a beachhead from which to conduct reconnaissance and attempt to gain deeper access into the network, Raff said.

Word of the cyber attack came a day before a three-day Israeli cybertech conference being held in Jerusalem, and just after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plugged Israeli technological advances at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Raff denied there was any irony in the timing of his warning so soon after Netanyahu's remarks. "Unfortunately there is no such thing as 100 percent safety either when it comes to physical risks or information security," he said.

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Microsoft Strikes Israeli Software

Bab·y·lon [noun] : In the Book of Revelation, the name of a whore who rules over the kings of the earth and rides upon a seven-headed beast. "Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and of the Abominations of the Earth." Revelations 17:5

Few people realize that Israel has conquered several internet and information-technology niche-markets. This is true to the extent that most American citizens are unwillingly to share their secrets with the State of Israel. Let me illustrate this with Babylon; on paper it looks like an inoffensive provider of online dictionaries. Yet in the big screenshot above, one can see the home page featured in most Bolivian internet kiosks. It is a Babylon search page, designed to look like a Google search page; note the odd code appearing in its address line (a long string of nonsense numbers and letters, in contrast look at the address of this page), that's the first sign something is wrong. The second sign appears while using it; the computer reacts slowly since it is busy sending data to its Babylonian masters. This happens despite Bolivians being unable to spend money on the web; Bolivian money is not a free floating currency and thus it is banned by the international financial system. This search page is defined as a default in the user's browser while installing Babylon's dictionary. Since the page looks like Google's, few users realize that their home page has been replaced, or that they had clicked on a button asking for this change while installing the dictionary. "Same, same" they say to themselves and begin telling Babylon everything about themselves. The following week, they buy a book named "French Cooking;" a few days later so that they won't be suspicious of the event, they get a pamphlet advertising a French restaurant near their home. In thanks for the blunt violation of privacy, the Babylonian masters in Israel get a few silver coins.

Amdocs - Ra'anana Center Piss Off!: How Drug Testing and Other Privacy Violations are Alienating America's Youth

Babylon is loose change in this market. An offshoot of Golden Pages, the Israeli business phone directory company, Amdocs develops, implements and manages software and services for business support systems, including billing, customer relationship management, and for operations support systems. If your phone company is AT&T, BT Group, Sprint, T-Mobile, Vodafone, Bell Canada, Telus, Rogers Communications, Telekom Austria, Cellcom, Comcast, DirecTV, Elisa Oyj, TeliaSonera or O2-Ireland, then Israel has access to much of your communications and bills, including credit cards numbers. Another key member is Check Point, a provider of software and combined hardware and software products for IT security, including network security, endpoint security, data security and security management. In other words, the supermarket near your home probably uses products from this giant to secure its transactions. Israel has access to all of them.

Babylon Dictionary Screenshot Privacy Lost: How Technology Is Endangering Your Privacy

This disturbing picture is completed by a plethora of small companies mimicking Babylon, in what is known as the "field of directing users," run by the mockingly called "Download Valley." The method of operation among all of them is similar; they develop freeware applications that cost users nothing to download and use, but that change their customers' computers secretly and viciously, like the dictionary application in the picture. Most customers of these companies are unaware that their computer browser settings are an asset that generates income for many companies (but not for them). This is done through the customization of web-searches through the manipulation of one of five assets: home page, searches in the URL bar, searches in a third-party installed toolbar, a new page tab and the page landed on after typing in a wrong URL. Eventually, this leads to sales and these companies get commissions on them. The second largest Israeli player after Babylon in this questionable industry is Conduit; the company distributes what is known as a "browser hijacker." The user customized browser-toolbars forcibly change the browser homepage and default search engine and revert to them when the user tries to restore them. Perion, the manager of the IncrediMail, Smilebox and SweetIM brands, is also a significant player. Smaller companies include VisualBee, Montiera, Fried Cookie Software, WebPick, Linkury, Bundlore, iBario and KeyDownload; the latter was founded by Hilla Ovil Brenner, the former CEO of WhiteSmoke. Despite the last group being small, it still makes $10 million per year. This is easy money; hijacking browsers is easier than developing a fair market of customers.

Microsoft Strikes

Despite their claiming differently, governments don't care about such thefts. Eventually, they get their taxes, be it from Google or Babylon. Thus, citizens have no chance of being protected by their government. Oddly enough, out of selfish considerations, giant corporations decided to help us, the people. (Is this the first time in history that this has happened?).

By now, most readers probably have a vague feeling of déjà vu. Where did they hear of similarly questionable behavior? Mark Zuckerberg admitted robbing the technologies and design principles that led to the creation of Facebook; he paid many millions to the robbed authors. There may be a common cultural background issue here. The browser-hijacking companies abovementioned are considered nothing but robbers by the giants developing our browsers. Microsoft and Google don't like them; every dollar earned by these robbers is one less dollar in their pockets. Their first reaction came in early 2012, when Google announced that it would not search within pornography or download sites through toolbars installed on a user's browser by an application they have downloaded. On October, Google changed its software downloading policy for those advertising on Google services, requiring advertisers to obtain the express permission of users—called "opt-in"—before downloading software. The Israeli companies subsequently reported between 15 and 20% losses in their revenues.

Hours before Christmas 2012, other giant reacted. Users of Microsoft's Internet Explorer were notified that the home page and other settings of the browser had been adjusted, so that external software would not be changed without the users' knowledge; the changes this time were aimed specifically at the practices of the abovementioned companies. Would Israeli browser-hijacking companies continue taking money from the pockets of the innocents?

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Thousands & Thousands To Lose Internet As FBI Shuts Servers

On July 9, thousands of Internet users worldwide could lose access after the FBI shuts down temporary DNS servers that replaced fraudulent servers operated by hackers.

Major companies and US government agencies are amongst those that could be blocked out, according to the Internet security firm IID.


The blackout will affect systems infected with the DNSChanger Trojan, a malware program that altered user searches and redirected them to pages offering fraudulent and, in some cases, dangerous products.
Last November the FBI arrested and charged six Estonian men behind the malware as part of Operation Ghost Click. These hackers were able to make a fortune off their project, raking in millions for ads placed on their fraudulent websites.
On the eve of the arrests, the FBI hired Paul Vixie, chairman of the Internet Systems Consortium (ISC) to install two temporary Internet servers that would prevent infected users from losing access to the Internet once the DNSChanger botnet was shut down. These users were advised to take steps to get rid of the malware on their computers, and the DNSChanger Working Group was set up by the computer industry and law enforcement to come up with a plan to phase out the surrogate servers.
The FBI was initially planning to shut down their provisional servers in March, but a US district court ruled the provisional servers were to remain operation until July 9.
Running the temporary servers for eight months has cost the FBI $87,000.
With the looming deadline approaching, estimates suggest up to 360,000 unique Internet addresses are still using the rogue servers, with most of them based in the US, according to federal authorities. Other countries with over 20,000 each include Italy, Canada, India, the United Kingdom and Germany. This is down from the over half a million addresses registered when the six hackers were arrested, but still enough to paralyze the functioning of important websites. At its peak several years ago, up to six million systems worldwide were infected with the malware.
The DNS system is a network of servers that translates a web address into a numerical IP address used by computers. Computers affected by the DNSChanger worm were reprogrammed to access rogue DNS servers that redirected them to fraudulent websites.

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Blogging in print

Angy Essam spotted a fresh publishing experience

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Click to view caption

In 2010, five young friends established the Dawen (Blog) publishing house. Dawen is meant to give young writers and poets the opportunity to publish their work in various intellectual and creative fields. Since its founding, Dawen has aimed to break the barrier of fear erected in front of so many youths who find it difficult to publish their work in big publishing houses which focus more on the famous.

Mohamed Moufid, the managing director of Dawen and one of its founders, said the idea was the outcome of the cooperation of five young people. Their love for culture, writing and blogging, which is derived from the name of the house, was their main motive. "Profit was not their target," Moufid said. "They aimed to break barriers and destroy existing restrictions suffered by youths who have the talent and the desire to publish their work, often their first experience."

The people behind Dawen are Moufid, 29 years old, an accountant; Ahmed El-Bohei, also 29, also an accountant; Ahmed Salama, 25, a physician; Mustafa El-Husseini, 25, a broadcaster; and Ahmed Mehana, also 25, an owner of a documentary films company.

"We want to pull down all the traditional taboos and barriers that hamper young talents and create an independent personality to Dawen to make it different from any other publishing house," Moufid said.

Moufid explained that Dawen is not confined to youth but also deals with well known writers. "We published five books written by Nabil Farouk, Amr Salama and Ihab Fekri and a collection of poems by Khaled El-Sawi, as well as many other well known names."

Moufid added that more attention was naturally given to youth since they are Dawen's main target.

Moufid said they receive all work from youths on Dawen's e-mail "which is well known" as well as through its phone numbers on its official page on Facebook.

"In general, any work submitted to us should be sent first to the study committee to be read and to give us their opinion. The committee consists of two university professors, a journalist and two writers. Their role is to provide a detailed report identifying whether to accept work as well as the reasons for the acceptance or refusal."

"All what concerns them is that a book which has been given the green light should add value to the readers," Moufid said.

"One of the most important matters we are keen about is the language of the book. It should be easy and simple enough -- but of course not trivial -- in order to be understood by all people," Moufid said.

Among the books published is Shab Koshk (Kiosk boy) by young director Amr Salama, Ultras by Jimmy Hood and Ashab Al-Charisma (Charisma owners) by Ihab Fekri.

Moufid added that Dawen succeeded in providing a new type of writing: what he called confession literature. "It is a new form of literature introduced for the first time in the publishing world in Egypt. It intersects with biography literature from different angles. It is simply a biography but has a reflection on reality."

Dawen always tries to associate its work with reality, the street and public interest. "Our work focuses on affiliation, rejection of intolerance and issues related to the reality experienced by people," Moufid said.

One problem Dawen faces, according to Moufid, is that sometimes there is no specific system to deal with public libraries and theatres. "It is a common problem faced by many publishing houses." Another problem is that early on it encountered a bit of non-acceptance by some people because it is based on youth. The oldest is only 29.

"We are trying to create a new style in the world of writing and publishing in a society accustomed to a particular method and a pattern, that a book can only be published in a well known publishing house. But this way of thinking began to lessen after the house achieved great success and the work it released has recorded high sales. We raised topics of great value."

Said Moufid: "Good work presents itself and people accept it, whoever its publisher or author."

By Nader Habib

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Mossad: We don't need to tell anyone we're the ones responsible for Stuxnet, but just so you know, we're responsible for Stuxnet.

Israeli Mossad Agents: We Developed Stuxnet Computer Virus, Obama Trying To Take Credit For It To Bolster Election Chances…

I can’t imagine the Mossad is all that surprised a shameless hack like Obama is trying to take credit for their work by leaking bogus details to the NY Times that make him look tough on Iran as he tries to win reelection.

Israeli Spies Want Credit for Stuxnet

AP)

JOHN HUDSON

Israel's officials have a message for anyone praising the CIA for its sophisticated cyber attack on Iran: It was our baby. The Stuxnet computer worm, described by David Sanger in The New York Times last week as an invention by the Bush administration, was actually developed by Mossad, according to Israeli officials speaking with Haaretz journalist Yossi Melman on condition of anonymity:

The Israeli officials actually told me a different version. They said that it was Israeli intelligence that began, a few years earlier, a cyberspace campaign to damage and slow down Iran’s nuclear intentions. And only later they managed to convince the USA to consider a joint operation — which, at the time, was unheard of.

The irony of course is that both U.S. and Israeli officials spent years denying knowledge of who carried out the attacks, which reportedly destroyed thousands of Iran's centrifuges, ever since it became public in 2010. Now that it's out, it's time to claim credit! Of course, if you read Sanger's account, he certainly doesn't diminish the expertise of Israel's spies:

Israel’s Unit 8200, a part of its military, had technical expertise that rivaled the N.S.A.’s, and the Israelis had deep intelligence about operations at Natanz that would be vital to making the cyberattack a success.

Regardless, these Israeli officials say Sanger's account was too generous to the CIA. Amusingly, one of the officials tries to play it cool, in his remark to Melman:

My Israeli sources understand the sensitivity and the timing of the issue and are not going to be dragged into a battle over taking credit. “We know that it is the presidential election season,” one Israeli added, ”and don’t want to spoil the party for President Obama and his officials, who shared in a twisted and manipulated way some of the behind-the-scenes secrets of the success of cyberwar.”

Translation: We don't need to tell anyone we're the ones responsible for Stuxnet, but just so you know, we're responsible for Stuxnet.

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Rabbis want to know who is the most extremist in their war on smart phones & Internet

US haredim say goodbye to smartphones, internet

Haredim's war against World Wide Web intensifying with internet disconnection taskforces and ultimatums: Rid yourselves of smartphones, or find a new rebbe

Kobi Nahshoni

The haredi rabbis are intensifying their war on anything internetrelated and the Jewish brain is inventing new gadgets to deal with the dangers of the net.

Yeshiva students throughout the country are offering a new volunteer service to block laptops from connecting to wireless networks so users will not find themselves surfing the World Wide Web by accident.

Kosher Tech

Ultra-Orthodox to hold mass NYC event on Internet risks /Associated Press More than 40,000 haredim expected to pack New York Mets' stadium for first-of-its-kind gathering on how to use modern technology in a religiously appropriate way Full Story

The "internet disconnection charity" has been operating for several months and according to its founders it has assisted some 800 customers so far. In recent days, thanks to a major rally held by haredi rabbis in the US on the dangers of the internet, they have started to publish their services in haredi newspapers and have invited the public to call a hotline in order to disconnect their computers from wireless networks.

"There are many yeshiva students who purchase computers for the purpose of torah study and suddenly they discover that they brought the dangers of the internet into their home," one volunteer told Ynet.

  

The 'anti-internet' rally in NY (Photo: AP)

Last week's massive rally at the CitiField Stadium has become a launchpad for the war against the web in the US, a war which has been dormant for the last few years. The number one target on the haredim's most wanted list: Smartphones.

At the beginning of the week the rebbe of the Satmar hassidic sect laid down an ultimatum for his followers: Get rid of their smartphones within a month or find a new rebbe.

The spiritual leader reminded his followers of the rule forbidding the ownership of a computer with internet access. He noted that the only exceptions were for those using their computer to make a living – but even then, only a filtered internet service was permitted.

The rebbe then focused his ire on smartphones stating that any hassidic man whose job was connected to the yeshiva world or those who acted as 'holy vessels' i.e. work related to aspects of Jewish life, were not allowed to own a smartphone.

The rebbe then gave his followers a timeframe in which they would be allowed to rid themselves of their devices – they had one month to replace the smartphone with an acceptable device, failure to comply with his ruling would mean they would not be allowed to continue in their positions.

The only exception to the smartphone rule was for men who use their smartphones to earn a livelihood. This exception does not apply to women who are forbidden from owning a smartphone under any circumstances.

The Satmar rebbe: The phone or me (Photo:Yitzhak Weiss)

The smartphone ban is not something that can be taken lightly, at a recent wedding of a daughter of one of the leaders of the Satmar community in the US, the rabbi asked the witnesses to show him which phone they owned.

When one of the witnesses took out a smartphone he was banned from acting as a witness.

Apparently haredi rabbis are holding a competition among themselves over who can take the most extremist view on smartphones. Another wedding provided one yeshiva head with an opportunity to show just how far he was willing to go in order to rid the community of impure devices.

When he noticed a smartphone peeking out of a woman's purse and discovered it was the bride's phone – he destroyed it, without first seeking the bride's permission.

And while he is known as one of the more extremist yeshiva heads, the bride and groom are now afraid of approaching him with a request to reimburse them for fear that he will lecture them on their lack of 'kosher' phone.

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Did we all just get hacked to death by Israel?

 

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Yahoo! and Apple Join The Internationals and does not recognize Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem

Internet giant Yahoo! and the Apple computer firm have reportedly included East Jerusalem on a weather software application for iPhones, Israeli media reported.

According to the far-right Israeli news site Artuz Sheva, the previous program reportedly unified both sides of the city, despite the eastern part falling under territory occupied by Israel in 1967.

Now, users can chose between East Jerusalem or West Jerusalem when requesting weather updates. The news site reported that on the Yahoo! weather page, which is linked to The Weather Channel, one is offered two Middle East options when requesting weather information for Jerusalem – Jerusalem, Yerushalayim (IL), Jerusalem, and Palestinian Occupied Territories > West Bank, Jerusalem (PS).

While Israel maintains that the part of Jerusalem occupied in 1967 falls within Israel's boundaries, the international community does not recognize Israeli sovereignty over the area which includes the Old City, Silwan, Sheikh Jarrah, the Mount of Olives, Shu'fat, Beit Hanina, Anata, and others which Palestinians hope to make the capital of a future Palestinian state.

Israel's Ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, expressed his disappointment with the fact that “Jerusalem, which has been united for 43 years, has been divided by the computer giant and the popular search engine,” Arutz Sheva reported.

Oren sent a letter of protest to both Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz and Apple CEO Steve Jobbs, adding that he and the rest of the Israel Embassy staff use the iPhone, the news site reported.

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Associated Press to Aggregators: We Will Sue You

The Associated Press board voted Monday to "pursue legal and legislative actions" against aggregators who use content without permission, a new shot across the bow of internet news sites in the war over how little use is "fair use."

The AP named no potential targets, yet speculation immediately turned to Google. While the search giant pays the AP to host full versions of wire service stories, it generally does not have contracts with AP member newspapers whose headlines it also aggregates on its news portal. The AP has also made no bones about pursuing individual bloggers, as it did the Drudge Retort last June.

Part of the initiative will be to "develop a system to track content distributed online to determine if it is being legally used" and new AP-controlled search pages.

As newspaper continue to founder and fail, the clear benefit of Google especially — to direct hordes of traffic back to the original site — is increasingly blurred by the anger and envy of newspaper executives over Google's ability to monetize aggregation at all while paying nothing towards content creation.

It has become virtually a populist notion among many in the industry that aggregators who scrape a headline and a paragraph are taking something of value, if not outright stealing, and not operating under a fair use exception even if they drive traffic to the source.

"We can no longer stand by and watch others walk off with our work under misguided legal theories," AP Chairman Dean Singleton said at the AP annual meeting in San Diego.

In recent days the rhetoric against Google has reached new levels, with News Corp Chairman Rupert Murdoch saying: "The question is, should we be allowing Google to steal all our copyright ... not steal, but take. Not just them, but Yahoo."

The AP has already sued aggregators. It filed suit against All Headline News in Jaunary, 2008, alleging that AHN was "simply a vehicle for copying news reports and misappropriating news gathered and reported by real news services such as AP." The case is pending.

In June of 2008 it told The Drudge Retort to remove seven headlines and story briefs from its site but settled the matter after an fierce backlash from bloggers and even (member paper) the Los Angeles Times, which called them "clueless."

In a twist of fate Google CEO Eric Schmidt will deliver a keynote Tuesday at the National Association of America's convention, where the AP board took today's decision. It will be streamed live at 10 a.m. PST at www.naa.org/annual09audio.

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Obama passing new law to allow searching of PC's, Laptops, and media devices : Are Supporters of Palestine in Trouble?

Does this go further then what Barack Obama is saying? The United States and especially Agents of Israel getting access to your files and material. I smell Censorship, what gets done when they start using these laws against those that support Palestine, Freedom, and Justice.

One can only imagine how thios is going to play out?

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SCREAMS OF ANTI SEMITISM THROUGHOUT THE BLOGESPHERE

The following was written by my Associate, David Baldinger. As an artist he is most interested in this particular issue.

Oliphant Channels Robert Minor

Pat Oliphant, syndicated editorial cartoonist, created a cartoon the other day that has Zionists everywhere screaming their usual accusations of ‘anti-Semitism’. Bravo, Pat, for being one of the few main stream media cartoonists to make a critical statement about the Israeli government’s over kill in Gaza. Anyone who dares criticize Israel is automatically labeled an anti-Semite so the charge has little meaning any longer.

I am surprised that no one has picked up on Oliphant’s reference to the great early 20th Century Communist cartoonist, Robert Minor (1884 - 1952). The Oliphant headless soldier is obviously not ‘NAZI’ imagery but that of the mindless soldier that Robert Minor called, ‘the perfect soldier’. This soldier dates from World War 1 USA and not NAZI era Germany. I suppose most can be forgiven for not knowing Minor’s work. He was a Communist after all. That’s a scary word for most Americans.

By Robert Minor, captioned Army Medical Examiner: “At last a perfect soldier!” (The Masses 8 (July 1916), back cover.)

Oh well, Zionists will scream and cowards will apologize as usual. Israel will continue building unlawful settlements and those settlers will continue to harass Palestinian school children. Murders of Palestinian farmers will continue to go unpunished. Hamas will continue to fire clunky rockets into Israel and Israel will continue to retaliate by obliterating Gaza. The cycle will continue as long as people of good conscience fear the Zionists and Hamas refuses to acknowledge Israel.

Source http://desertpeace.wordpress.com

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Google does not know that Arab and Palestinian Mothers Exist

Iqbal Tamimi

On the 21st of March the Arab world celebrates Mother’s Day. On this day also the length of the day becomes equal to the length of the night. Nature is sending us a hint of optimism that everything is possible and as much as we feel despair, there is an equal chance of hope.I thought of researching some photos from Google to celebrate women and their children. I started with "Mother and child" research in Arabic and I found all kinds of mother and child pictures available from every country and animals as well, including chimps and monkeys, but not one of an Arab woman or a Palestinian woman with a child.

I thought of shifting to the English search in Google engine, again the Arab woman was not there at all. Is it possible that thousands of screaming mothers in Gaza next to their children’s corpses have been dropped from the memory of Google? Was this an intentional attempt not to include us as mothers from a general search? Mothers and children of remote areas I have never heard of were there in hundreds of pictures, but not one Arab woman with her child… not even one mother from Lebanon crying over her children during the attacks on South Lebanon, not one woman crying over her killed children in Iraq, not one photo of any Arab woman with a child in Darfur or Iraq.

Have we been condemned sterile? Are we denied the honour of being mothers by Google?

I would like to remind Google on Mother’s Day that Mary the Mother of Christ, who happens to be the most important icon of motherhood in history, is a Palestinian Mother. How come none of almost 2000 pictures of Palestinian Mothers and their killed children on the Net could not manage to find their way to Google’s engine?

Talking about conspiracy, I guess this one example shows how common it must be to manipulate the media. Imagine if every researcher of women and their children stumbled upon photos of thousands of Palestinian Mothers hugging their killed children - what that would that lead to? Yes, it will offer people an extra eye and a great chance to know that there are people oppressed and crying for help, this will move the hearts of people who have a clean conscious that they might spend some time to know why all Palestinian Mothers are stained with blood, and investigate why their children are laying there wounded or killed. People will start to wonder why there is no picture of children playing, drawing, flying a kite, enjoying a meal, smiling or studying. People might wonder why women’s pictures show mothers without homes, mothers cooking on open fires in the wild, mothers inside prisons, mothers who do harvest flowers in black so that another mother from the FIRST world can enjoy mother’s Day and get a beautiful bouquet of flowers gathered by another Mother in Palestine who could not afford to take a day off on Mother’s Day, because she is the sole supporter and provider of her family because men are either dead or in prisoners by Israeli authorities.

Happy Mother’s Day to all Mothers around the world, and a special Happy Mother’s Day for my heroines, the Palestinian and Arab Mothers.

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Zionist Swarms & Israeli orchestrated email campaigns

bmj.com — Sabbagh concludes that the BMJ was the target of an orchestrated campaign to silence criticism of Israel. And that is certainly how it felt. As well as almost 1000 emails to the editor, the BMJ ’s website received hundreds of electronic responses to the article itself as well as feedback generally critical of the journal’s decision to publish it.

Authors, editors, publishers, advertisers, and shareholders should ignore them

Karl Sabbagh’s article in our Analysis section (doi:10.1136/bmj.a2066) examines emails sent to the BMJ’s acting editor, Kamran Abbasi,¹ in response to a BMJ article criticising Israel.² In the article published in 2004, Derek Summerfield asked whether the death of an Arab weighed the same as that of a US or Israeli citizen. Behind this question was his claim that the Israeli army had killed more unarmed Palestinian civilians since September 2000 than the number of people who died on 11 September 2001. In addition, he alleged that the pattern of injuries suggested that Israeli soldiers had been routinely authorised to shoot Palestinian children in situations of minimal or no threat—a charge that was later corroborated by Israeli soldiers.³

Based on his analysis of emails, Sabbagh concludes that the BMJ was the target of an orchestrated campaign to silence criticism of Israel. And that is certainly how it felt. As well as almost 1000 emails to the editor, the BMJ’s website received hundreds of electronic responses to the article itself as well as feedback generally critical of the journal’s decision to publish it. The feedback messages began in earnest three days after publication and then streamed in, almost in alphabetical order of the senders’ names. Their wording was uncannily similar, with some authors seemingly ignorant of the article they were criticising—well described features of orchestrated campaigns.^{4 5} Some took us to task for covering the difficulties faced by diabetic Palestinians in Gaza; this issue had been raised not by the BMJ but by Diabetes Voice, which has no connection to the BMJ.⁶ We had been used to unfamiliar voices from unfamiliar places crowding in to debates on the Middle East before, but never on this scale.

Does any of this matter? Isn’t it just evidence that pressure groups have embraced electronic media as enthusiastically as everybody else? Shouldn’t we expect to receive thousands of critical emails where once we received dozens of critical letters—and not be swayed by the numbers? In his commentary, Jonathan Freedland recommends that we grow a thicker skin. In today’s wired world, wading into any controversial topic triggers a deluge of emails: "These days it simply comes with the territory."⁷

And yet orchestrated campaigns can succeed in closing down debate. The International Diabetes Foundation apologised for the article on Gaza, and the editor of Diabetes Voice (the foundation’s quarterly publication) resigned.⁸ Sabbagh sees a similarity between the campaign he describes and the one contributing to the demise of World Medicine. Michael O’Donnell, World Medicine’s editor at the time, describes in his commentary how that campaign "was directed not just at author, editor, and publisher but at World Medicine’s advertisers . . . and one of our major shareholders."⁹ Success of a campaign doesn’t require that a publication closes down or that an editor resigns or is sacked; it’s enough for the publication to succumb to the temptation "quietly to avoid the topic in future."¹

And it’s not only the small fry who are cowed. John Kampfner, chief executive of Index of Censorship, detected signs of caution in the BBC’s recent coverage of the Gaza conflict following earlier criticisms of pro-Palestinian bias¹⁰ (and this before the corporation refused to broadcast the Disasters Emergency Committee’s fundraising appeal for Gaza¹¹).

Avoiding topics where medicine and politics collide is not an option for the BMJ. It’s not possible to remove medicine from politics or politics from medicine.¹² Nor is this what our readers want. In an online poll on bmj.com less than a quarter of respondents wanted less space devoted to political issues in the BMJ.¹³

Oxfam was describing conditions in Gaza as a "humanitarian crisis" a year ago.¹⁴ Since then Israel’s invasion of the Gaza strip has left 1300 Palestinians dead, 5500 injured, and much of Gaza in ruins. The journal cannot avert its gaze from the health and human rights consequences of this catastrophe, no matter how "political" the issue.

By the same token, the journal cannot ignore the effects on Israelis’ health of the indiscriminate rocket attacks fired against them, the proximate cause of the Israeli invasion of Gaza. But drawing attention to these health consequences can provoke responses as fierce as those to Summerfield’s original article—as our blogger, Mark Clarfield, has found.¹⁵ Similarly, both supporters and opponents of a boycott of Israeli academic institutions have found themselves vilified for their stance.^{16 17} On the vexed issue of Israel v Palestine, orchestrated campaigns can emerge from both extremes of the political spectrum.

The campaign that Sabbagh analyses was mostly over by the end of 2004—so why are we publishing his article four years later, especially as the world’s relationship with Israel has become more fraught? It’s partly because it took Sabbagh time to get hold of the responses and to analyse them, and it’s partly because we’ve devoted so much attention to the article given its "sensitive" nature. Compared with our usual articles, we sought more reviewers’ (and lawyers’) opinions and attempted to commission a wider than usual range of commentaries. We failed, however, to get one from the Board of Deputies of British Jews. The board shared its response to our invitation with the Committee on Publication Ethics, so that the committee could express its views about the article ahead of publication. The committee’s view was "that in this particular case the BMJ has offered you the choice to accompany the article with a comment, which we would say constitutes good editorial practice when dealing with controversial issues."

Michael O’Donnell reminds us that at the time Summerfield’s article was published, "the real world offered a host of sensitive issues: the invasion of Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, allegations of British involvement in CIA "rendition" and torture, to name but three."⁹ Yet medical journals have freely discussed these issues. "In the slightly unreal world of publishing," says O’Donnell, "the sensitivity of editorial decisions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is created by the orchestrated response—partly rational but, as Sabbagh shows, often malicious and personal—that writers, editors, and publishers fear they will provoke."

The best way to blunt the effectiveness of this type of bullying, counsels O’Donnell, is to expose it to public scrutiny. We have taken his advice and will try to follow Freedland’s too—to grow a thicker skin. We’ll give future orchestrated email campaigns as much credence as film producer Sam Goldwyn gave verbal contracts. He famously dismissed these as "not worth the paper they’re written on."

Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b500

Tony Delamothe, deputy editor, Fiona Godlee, editor

¹ BMJ, London WC1H 9JR

tdelamothe@bmj.com

Competing interests: None declared.

References

1. Sabbagh K. Perils of criticising Israel. BMJ 2009;338:a2066[Free Full Text]
2. Summerfield D. Palestine: the assault on health and other war crimes. BMJ 2004;329:924.[Free Full Text]
3. Urquhart C. Israeli soldiers tell of indiscriminate killings by army and a culture of impunity. Guardian 2005 Sep 6:13. www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1563255,00.html.
4. Editors. The Israel lobby [letter]. London Rev Books 2006;28 www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n08/letters.html.
5. Porter H. The enemies of free speech are everywhere. Observer 2006 Oct 15.
6. Tsapogas T. Poverty, stress and unmet needs: life with diabetes in the Gaza Strip. Diabetes Voice 2004;49(2):12-5.
7. Freedland J. Toughen up. BMJ 2009;338:b524.[Free Full Text]
8. Lèfebvre P, Silink M, Home P. Editor’s note—an apology. Diabetes Voice 2004;49(3):17.
9. O’Donnell M. Standing up for free speech BMJ 2009;338:a2094.[Free Full Text]
10. Kampfner J. Take care over caution. Guardian 2009 Jan 12
11. Thompson M. BBC and the Gaza appeal. www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2009/01/bbc_and_the_gaza_appeal.html.
12. Delamothe T. How political should a general medical journal be? BMJ 2002;325:1431-2.[Free Full Text]
13. BMJ. How political should a general medical journal be? [poll] www.bmj.com/polls/politics.dtl.
14. Oxfam. The Gaza strip: a humanitarian implosion. www.oxfam.org.uk/resources/policy/conflict_disasters/gaza_implosion.html.
15. Clarfield M. My surprise at fallout over dispatches from Israel. BMJ 2009;338:b722.[Free Full Text]
16. Hickey T. Should we consider a boycott of Israeli academic institutions? Yes. BMJ 2007;335:124.[Free Full Text]
17. Baum M. Should we consider a boycott of Israeli academic institutions? No. BMJ 2007;335:125.[Free Full Text]

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Gaza crisis spills onto the web

Cyberattacks are an extension of strong
feelings on boths sides of the conflict

By Flora Graham

A propaganda war is being waged on the internet between supporters of the Israeli and Palestinian sides in the current conflict in the Gaza Strip.

Activists have turned to defacing websites, taking over computers, and shutting down Facebook groups.

US Military sites, Nato, and an Israeli Bank have all been targeted.

Experts have warned users to be on the lookout for phishing emails and webmasters to ensure their servers are secure.

The hacking of security barriers for political or ideological reasons has been branded by some as hacktivism. And it is thought that as use of the internet grows, so too will the number of attacks.

Defaced

On 7 January, pro-Palestinian hackers defaced several high-profile websites, including a US Army website, and the Nato Parliamentary Assembly's website.

Calling themselves "Agd_Scorp/Peace Crew", they replaced pages with white space and a well-known photograph of a boy throwing stones at an Israeli tank in Gaza, and the Israeli, American and British flags with a red strike through them.

"Stop attacks u israel and usa ! you cursed nations ! one day muslims will clean the world from you!" wrote the hackers.

Dwight Griswold, the Nato Parliamentary Assembly's head of IT, says that the attackers persisted in attempting access for a number of days following the initial attack, adding that the intruders did not gain access to any of the Assembly's internal servers.

It's clear that it is a result of what happening in Gaza. We see it as part of the war. Yoav Keren Domain The Net Web tool offers debate on the Gaza conflict

"The fact is that it's always a cat and mouse game. There is no system that is impenetrable."

Hackers also hijacked the domain names of Israeli online news site ynetnews.com and the Israel Discount Bank. They rerouted visitors to a page showing anti-Israel messages with images of prisoners being abused in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Other approaches appealed to a web user's potential loyalties; a website called www.help-israel-win.com asked visitors to download and install a file that was later determined to be a trojan that could allow for remote access to and control of a computer.

The number of attacks has skyrocketed in Israel in the past few months, said Yoav Keren, chief executive of domain name registry Domain The Net.

"It's clear that it is a result of what happening in Gaza," said Mr Keren. "We see it as part of the war."

Israeli Arab and pro-Palestinian sites have also been targeted. Last year, hackers defaced three websites, replacing pages with the Israeli flag and the symbol of the banned far-right group Kach.

Speaking to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the manager of news website Arabs48.com Az-a-Din Badran said his site was "constantly suffering from repeated hack attempts".

Facebook fight

The battle also looms large on social networking site Facebook, where dozens of groups related to the conflict in Gaza have sprung up.

The JIDF say they do not engage in illegal activity

The clash flared up when a group using the logo of the Jewish Internet Defence Force (JIDF) took control of several of these groups.

They removed content and replaced it with statements supporting Israeli policy and criticising the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which controls Gaza, and replaced the groups' images with the JIDF logo.

Andrew Silvera, who is active on several pro-Palestinian groups on Facebook, was one of those targeted. He said that his account was hacked after he responded to a Facebook request from another user, inviting him to be an administrator of a similar group.

"As soon as I clicked it I realized there was something wrong with the link. It wasn't like a normal Facebook group.

"As soon as I pressed it, that was it, my account just vanished," he said. "They kidnapped my account."

Mr Silvera tried to contact Facebook about his account, but told BBC News that he had as yet received no reply.

Francesco Paris started a Facebook group criticising the JIDF's alleged behaviour online after he noticed that a group he wanted to join had been affected.

"I noticed that all of the discussion boards had been taken down, the description of the group had been changed to 'closed' and the tagline said something like 'Israel for life'," he told the BBC.

"The picture had a 'Jewish Internet Defence Force' [image], I had no idea what that was."

We are not hackers Jewish Internet Defence Force

After noticing that the content of several other groups had been similarly altered, he started his group.

Mr Paris said that he received Facebook messages that attempted to gather his account login information.

He provided the BBC with a copy of one of these so-called "phishing" emails, which has a link leading to a fake Facebook login page that asks for users login detail.

A spokesperson for the JIDF, who declined to be named, told BBC News that it is an advocacy group that fights anti-Semitism online.

The group would not confirm whether the Facebook groups were shut down by people affiliated with the JIDF.

"We are not hackers. We are also not involved with phishing. We do not break the law for our work," the spokesperson said.

The spokesperson pointed out that one of the groups included anti-Semitic cartoons and graphic images of injured and dead people and criticised Facebook for allowing "hateful, anti-Semitic, racist material and material which promotes Islamic terrorism and violence" to remain on the site.

"Despite thousands of our members reporting offensive material, Facebook does not seem to act."

Nato's Parliamentary Assembly site was also targeted

A spokesperson for Facebook said that the firm would not respond to specific alleged incidents, but that they were aware of the phishing attacks.

"We have noticed a couple of instances where a page or a group admin has had their account credentials phished. In such cases, we will reset the passwords on the users' accounts and they should have control again.

"We are just a platform and the discussions that are taking place online are also taking place offline," the Facebook spokesperson added.

"We are not taking sides."

Worse to come

Professor Peter Sommer, a cybercrime expert at the London School of Economics, says that security professionals have come to expect such hacktivism attacks.

The fear is…'look, if they can do this, what else can they do?' Peter Power Security expert

"It's been going on for at least 10 years. It's a very obvious form of making a protest," he said.

"It's far more attractive than turning up at an airport or outside an embassy and possibly getting arrested, certainly getting cold and possibly bruised in the process."

Social networking sites like Facebook are usually secure "at a fundamental level", he said, but users must take responsibility for their account's security.

"Unfortunately, security at a personal level is relatively hard work and rather tiresome, but there is no feasible alternative."

Peter Power, who sits on the UK Security Review Commission, said that cyberattacks are commonplace, noting a recent attack aimed at bringing down the whole of the UK's internet infrastructure that was stopped at a late stage.

Hacked Facebook groups had their descriptions and member lists changed

While not as dramatic as such large-scale attacks, simply redirecting a website to a propaganda message also creates a climate of fear.

"When people penetrate websites - and you see it on your screen - it becomes very personal to you. The fear is…'look, if they can do this, what else can they do?'" he said.

Mr Power emphasised that "the UK government is keenly aware of this [threat]" and has set up the CPNI (Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure) to protect the country's essential services.

The Nato Parliamentary Assembly's Dwight Griswold admitted that although they are embarrassing, he is not overly concerned about the messages hackers put on his organisation's website.

"My more worrisome threat is if someone breaks in and doesn't leave a big message like that."

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