[L-I] Re: Website wars in the Middle East
More on the topic from October 25 Lebanese paper Daily Star http://www.dailystar.com.lb/25_10_00/art3.htm Israeli website tries to shut down Hizbullah's Ranwa Yehia Daily Star staff Israel has set up a website to show both amateur and professional internet users how to "attack and destroy Hizbullah" by just logging onto it. The site (www.wizel.com), which Hizbullah webmaster Ali Ayoub said sends files that cripple Hizbullah's site, is one of the reasons one of his Hizbullah websites was shut down earlier this month. "It's a very simple yet effective idea based on having people log on and the website will automatically do the attacking for them," Ayoub said. The front page of the website resembles a Star Wars computer game rather than an Israeli site. The site's main logo says "ATTACK DESTROY HiZBALLAH." The background intensifies the flame designs that rise from the word "Hizbullah." Just below that, two icons appear, one in English, the other in Hebrew. Both say "Enter." Pressing enter, the same logo appears and a description of what Hizbullah represents to Israelis and their supporters appears. "Hizbullah is a terrorist organization. It uses the internet to justify terrorist acts against Israel. Hizbullah's sites provide disinformation of facts in Israel, Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority territories," the introduction says. Following that are instructions on what the site can do: "The site you entered now provides a tool that will make Hizbullah's efforts null if enough users activate it." Ayoub said that "every time a user chooses one of the nine sites listed on the website, a file is activated to target the site every second." The Israeli website's internet service provider is based in the United States. Ayoub has already e-mailed the ISP, whose website is www.host4u.net, complaining about the illegal action. "It's been three days and still no response. This is a battle, and we're trying not to overstep the legal limit in dealing with the situation. Our major retaliation is to continue to exist," Ayoub said. The Israeli site addresses both amateur and professional internet programmers, and provides details of how to target Hizbullah websites. In addition to six Hizbullah-related websites, the Israeli website lists one for Hamas (www.hamas.org), another for the Palestinian Authority (www.pna.org) and another providing information on Palestine (www.palestine-info.net.) The last website listed, (www.moqawama.org,), is displayed in red. Below it, also in red, is an explanation that the website is currently under attack. "We need to attack the same target for more damage," it says, also in red. "The moqawama website is the most difficult to attack. But even if the Israelis can cripple it, we have back-up plans. Our strategy is similar to any one adopted during a resistance operation. We're aware that there's a price to pay," Ayoub said. He added that Hizbullah's technical team was in a state of "utmost technological emergency" to combat the wave of attacks. The Israeli website has contributed to the crippling of two Hizbullah websites over the past three weeks, with more than 9 million hits directed at the sites. The Israeli website indicates that it was established on Oct. 6, or about the same time Hizbullah websites started to be targeted. As of late Tuesday afternoon, the website indicated that it had received 21,800 visitors since it was set up. Ayoub sends his clients an e-mail explaining the situation: "We're sure, as you are, that such actions are illegal, but this does not mean that we're in any way incapable of attempting the same techniques as they're using. "We wish only at this point to bring to your kind attention one of 1 million illegal actions 'Israel' uses to attain its goals, and we hope that through your media we can perhaps hope that something might be done to put a stop to some of 'Israel's' illegal actions." Ayoub insisted that Hizbullah's official policy was not to attack the Israeli website, but to use legal means, such as complaining to the ISP and holding it accountable for allowing the attacks. "However, if our friends and sympathizers want to attack the Israeli website, they're more than welcome," he said. This seems to be exactly what is happening. A website, hosted by a company called Tripod, provides an opportunity for Hizbullah sympathizers and supporters to counterattack the Israeli website. Entitled "Defend the Resistance" the website, http://members.tripod.com/irsa2000, provides internet users with the opportunity to attack three Israeli websites: the Israeli government (www.israel.org), the Israeli Army (www.idf.il) and the website attacking Hizbullah (www.wizel.com). "Upon clicking 'Defend the Resistance,' an automatically programmed file will be ready to stage counterattacks against some of the 'Israeli' websites which try to hit the resistance's sites. This counterattack will continue as long as you have access to internet," reads the simply designed website
[L-I] Re: Website wars in the Middle East
From todays Washington Post: http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21154-2000Oct26.html Pings and E-Arrows Fly in Mideast Cyber-War By Lee Hockstader Washington Post Foreign Service Friday, October 27, 2000; Page A01 JERUSALEM, Oct. 26 -- The Web site of Hezbollah, the militantly anti-Zionist Islamic guerrilla movement, has a surprising new look. Click on the Hezbollah home page and you are greeted by the Israeli flag, Hebrew text and a slightly tinny piano recording of "Hatikva," the Israeli national anthem. A spearhead force of Israeli hackers, augmented by thousands of teenage keyboard warriors, launched their Internet assault on Hezbollah and other Arab world Web sites earlier this month as violence in the region spun out of control. This week the Arabs struck back with a fury, apparently led by pro-Palestinian cyber-soldiers in the United States. In a sustained, coordinated counterattack, Web sites of the Israeli army, Foreign Ministry, prime minister and parliament, among others, have been staggered by a barrage of hundreds of thousands--possibly millions--of hostile electronic signals. "We checked it and for what we found, this is the first full-scale war in cyberspace," said Gilad Rabinovich, CEO of NetVision, Israel's largest Internet provider. "It's costing a lot of money and human resources. . . . Instead of being billable, our technical experts are busy protecting the Web sites." The cyber-war between Arabs and Jews that peaked this week has raged parallel to the fighting on the ground, and while it is not deadly, it appears to involve at least as many people and all the same passions. What distinguishes this cyber-conflict from past ones, such as during last year's Kosovo war, is that it is not exclusively, or even mainly, a cat-and-mouse game of highly specialized hackers attempting to play havoc with one another's sites. Thousands of Israeli and Arab youngsters apparently have also joined in the contest, sending the other side nasty, racist and occasionally pornographic e-mails and, within their own camps, circulating Web site addresses with simple instructions for how to ping, zap and crash the enemy's electronic fortresses. As one of the most computer-literate societies in the world, Israel has an immense advantage. There are about 1.1 million Internet hookups in the Jewish state, or more than in all 22 Arab countries combined. But Israel's phenomenal connectedness also means it offers more targets and is vastly more vulnerable to attack. And Arabs are finding ways to strike back. For half of Wednesday and virtually all day today, the Israeli Foreign Ministry site, an encyclopedic and popular database, has been inaccessible as computer technicians work to build stronger firewalls to protect it. Also today, following three straight days of concerted attacks, the Israeli army announced it had hired ATT as a backup Internet provider in case the electronic firestorm makes access impossible through NetVision, its usual server. "It's a brain war because [of] all the time we need to analyze the ways our attackers tried to penetrate the site," Rabinovich said. "After we learn what they've done, we have to build the right shields to protect [against] it." Even Israel's right-wing Likud Party has come under a low-tech attack. Starting around dawn this morning its Web site was bombarded by several thousand e-mails with such messages as "Death to the Jews," "Hell is waiting for you" and obscenities. Israel, whose extraordinary security-mindedness extends to the Internet, appears so far to have prevented the attackers from penetrating and meddling with any of its sites. Although Internet access in Israel has at times slowed to a crawl, and several sites have been forced to suspend operations to fortify themselves, none seems to have been breached by invaders. Israeli hackers, however, seem to have had some success in breaking and entering the sites of their enemies, notably Hezbollah. The heavy-duty Israeli cyber-attacks on Hezbollah apparently began about three weeks ago after the Lebanese Shiite guerrillas seized three Israeli soldiers on patrol along the border with Lebanon, and held them for ransom. Israelis began circulating among themselves electronic chain letters and other messages containing instructions for how to strike back against Hezbollah, as well as pro-Palestinian Web sites and portals around the Arab world. Many Israelis say they received a half-dozen or more such e-mails. Within days, Hezbollah's site was flooded by millions of "pings"--the low-tech cyber-equivalent of knocks on the door. It crashed. Hezbollah then tried reviving its site under slightly different spellings, but they too were attacked in turn. One of them, www.hizballa.org, was penetrated, Hebraized and adorned with the Israeli flag and a galaxy of Stars of David. The chief means that Israelis use to attack Hezbollah and other Arab Internet targets seem to be Web sites that make it
