Version: 2008

Comments on: Israeli news site down, blames cyber attack

Debkafile put out of action as fighting between Israel and Hamas escalates in Gaza

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by n3td3v January 3, 2009 8:03 PM PST
---------- Forwarded message ----------

From: n3td3v

Date: Sat, Jan 3, 2009 at 6:59 PM

Subject: Israel-Gaza conflict: Cyber War or just Cyber Protest?

To: full-disclosure@lists.grok.org.uk





If "cyber war" is just web site defacement then I don't think we ever

need to take "cyber war" too seriously.





It seems to me that "cyber war" just means protesters protesting and

no actual cyber war is there, as a cyber war would mean two sides

fighting, although two sides aren't fighting in "cyber" its all

one-way script kid web defacement, not real war in any sense.





Two sides fighting, a government and some other entity and the

internet stuck in the middle, now that would mean "cyber war", there

has been no cyber war and is unlikely to be one.





If people are marching in London today in the streets against the

Israel-Gaza conflict is that called "war"? Of course not, so why are

the media so quick to call protesting on-line, a war? [1]





What it really is, is folks protesting... a cyber protest, not a war.





Why are we using the wrong words to describe stuff? It's not even the

media, it was Gary Warner on a web log. [2]





[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7809656.stm





[2] http://garwarner.blogspot.com/2008/12/muslim-hackers-declare-cyberwar...





We as a community should be cautious about using the wrong words to

describe stuff, because the media take influence from us guys on

mailing lists and blogs and at security conferences, so its important

we use "cyber protest" when script kids deface some web sites.





To put the right angle on this, it's unlikely to be new people doing

the defacements, its likely to be script kids who were defacers

anyway, and just change their political message to go with *whatever

the current climate is*.





Tomorrow the same folks will be defacing with a new message, they

don't care *really* about the message, defacers will find any reason

to deface.





It's unlikely the Israel-Gaza conflict defacers were only sprung into

action because of what is going on in the world, they would be

defacing anyway and looking for any excuse to do so.





Let's be careful from now on I don't like to see the wrong buzzwords

used and i'm sure Gadi doesn't either.





If Hamas cyber attacked Israel and Israel had a cyber response, then

that would be cyber war. This is not cyber war folks, this is a cyber

protest those kids are doing, they are unlikely to be connected with

anything thats going on and were web defacers anyway with a different

defacement message the day before.





Please I hope we as security experts know the difference.





I wrote this Email just incase because i'm sick of certain buzzwords

like cyber war when there isn't a cyber war.





When the day comes that a government and another entity is two-way

cyber fighting and say for instance critical national infrastructure

is affected then you can talk about cyber war, until then please

describe web site defacers as "cyber protest".





A cyber war is two-way fighting, one-way fighting is not a war!





And to clarify, a bunch of kids defacing a web site and you applying a

patch afterwards is not classed as two-way fighting and cannot be

considered "cyber war" either.
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by kenstech_com January 3, 2009 8:32 PM PST
Turn about is fair play. The Israelis and their lackies in America and around the world continuously use DDOS attacks, Phishing, use of worms and viruses and website hacking. They attempt to get hosting providers to drop the accounts of critics, or advertisers to stop advertising.

Anyone that criticizes Israel, zionism or neo-conism gets "The Treatment"

So of course, the media concentrates on this singular and unique example of Israel getting back some of their own medicine.

Ken
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by SeizeCTRL January 4, 2009 8:00 PM PST
Wow Ken... you almost sound like some crazy nazi conspiracy nut.
by sebastien.kalonji January 3, 2009 10:39 PM PST
Israel - Internet : 0-1
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by mpotter9 January 4, 2009 7:44 AM PST
Probably the result of "military-intelligence. Has anyone checked to see if the server is plugged in.
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by hmdz105 January 4, 2009 10:31 AM PST
F..K ALL those bastards behind these wars. Neither Israelis nor Palestinians really know why they are fighting and why they are killed.
They simply serve some minor people's interests. They simple server purposes of the committee of 300 : http://herrlucifer.blogspot.com/2008/12/shocking-facts-committee-of-300-that.html
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