Comments on: Is Russia's tech future in Israel's tech past?

Some say Russia can mirror the Jewish state's success. It's not a pipe dream, writes News.com's Charles Cooper, but the analogy needs a few asterisks.

[Ramalaka]

Mirroring Israel's industrial espionage

Russia may be as successful as Israel if they study Israel's industrial espionage model, one the US seems to condone.

But maybe not: the the FBI will be more diligent in following up on security breaches with Russia. Israel receives preferential treatment and is a beneficiary of not only US support (money, defense support) but also lack of follow-up when they kill US citizens (USS Liberty in which 34 Americans died and over 170 were wounded; Rachel Corrie getting crushed by an armored Israeli army bulldozer.)

In 2004 the FBI investigated the Israeli Defense Ministry to determine their involvement in industrial espionage. To date, there has been no resolution.

So if Russia is allowed to pursue tech advances using the same methods, and given the same latitude as Israel, they will be wildly successful.

I know that my missive, critical of Israel, will be viewed as anti-Semitism. This attempt to silence those who criticize Israeli behavior by raising the canard of anti-Semitism -- is a device that has been triumphantly successful in the United States. But that doesn't stop some of us from keeping the focus where it belongs - on thieves no matter where they live.

[charlie cooper]

Say what?

First, let's keep political bias out of this question. But to the point: Do you SERIOUSLY believe that Israel's success in high tech is the product of industrial espionage? With all due respect, you're wildly wrong.

[Techknowhow]

You sir are completely ignorant of history.

Israel has a substantial record of military espionage particularly in the 60's, without which it would have been destroyed in 1967, or 1973, or many wars since. But military espionage is something that almost every country which is involved in the production of significant amounts of military hardware or software engages in.
However there is absolutely no evidence of any Israeli espionage in other industrial sectors, and certainly not in the technology sector.
I don't see how the USS liberty is related here, but the according to the official CIA report recently declassified, it was clearly an accident as the USS Liberty was a spy ship and wasn't flying an American flag as this would defeat the purpose (imagine Aldrich Ames walking around the CIA offices wearing a soviet flag). Just to prove the nonsense behind the conspiracy theories, consider that according to them, Israel attacked the boat for over 3 hours. This is the amount of time it took Israel to destroy the heavily armored Egyptian and Syrian navies combined, together with most of their air forces. Could sinking a single lightly armed boat take longer than destroying two navies and air forces?

[wildchild_plasma_gyro]

Isreal and the illuminate hey

Yes well i'm sure much info has been stolen and that the Isreal model is cursed with mystery/unbelievable history not to mention the American one and that Russia could learn a little from this.
I would like to mention that Isreal needs Russia more than Russia needs Isreal.
Russia does have an ability to get the job done with an air of excellence and one of the most important things here is not for Russia so much to copy Isreal but for Russia to Work hard as a community to adapt to the challanges that lye ahead and also for us in the western world to make sure all is fair and that our leaders are not holding them down at all under Isreals shinny Fedralist secremicy. It's also important for isreal to intergrate more fairly inside there evolving part of the world and russia must to be fair.

[rdupuy11]

Russia

I'm an American, but I have more than a passing interest in both Russia and Technology. I speak Russian, and I am in the IT field.

Russia is most certaily ripe for technological advances, at as surprising pace. After WWII, Germany and Japan were decimated, both having lived under totalitarian rule, and...the consequences of which were quite devastating on those societies. Now Germany is the largest economy in Europe, and Japan's economy is even larger.

What Germany and Japan, and Israel, and Russia all have, is an incredible self confidence. That is a very important facet. If the culture was such, that they were waiting on someone to help them, and humanitarian aid, and the world to start being a fair place....then they would languish.

But they have a belief they are smarter, better, more capable...and quite frankly that kind of assuredness and self confidence does translate into real things getting done.

Russians will always believe they are a bit superior, and while they recognize the experiment with communism was a failure...don't forget Russia could have kept the Soviet Union alive a while longer, even a runt union without the baltic states...

They decided to give up communism. They made the decision to compete in this sphere of capitalism, and they have every desire, and expectation, that given enough time, they will do capitalism in a far superior way than the debt laden United States and Europe.

One last thing...what does hinder Russia? The problem is rule of law is not firmly established. Oddly enough, what ails Russia is the opposite of western advice....they needed Putin, they needed someone even stronger than Putin, to put the criminals down and reestablish the law abiding society that did exist during the Soviet Union.

Right now, you go over there, and you have to wonder if someone is going to just try and kill you and take your money...that is not a positive environment for business, not at all. But as they get this under control, and they are making progress each year.... I think Russia will be a success story.

I know I'm typing a lot...but one other observation...Russian hacker do have more of a reputation for being knowledgeable than they actually deserve. The best IT people I've ever know, live in the United States.

[charlie cooper]

interesting point...

you nailed it. one of the common themes i heard in conversations about the IT biz both in israel & russia was confidence. obviously, something connected in both instances to very well trained, very capable work forces

[jdbwar07]

Goldeneye

LOL just a random thought but if you've seen the James Bond movie "Goldeneye," this sounds like the hacker Boris who regularly shouted "AHA! I am INVINCIBLE!!!" Now that is confidence.

[wildchild_plasma_gyro]

Russian Cloud

Russia has big energy reserves and nice cold areas.
It surly woulden't cost much to build a cool runing giant computer cloud there technically, I'm sure the russian oil giant would be much obliged as i can imagine obtaining russian fuel can be quite a task.
The question would be this what setup would you use to make it of a very large scale, powerful and cheap and what would be the best tweaks to make to the russian dynamics to make such an undertaking very useful.
I trully believe there are some top brains in russia who can perpetuate quite a lot of tallent there with improvments to education.
I also believe that russia like other areas of this world is a chance for mankind to prove it's mastery of the elements. A challange that in my view is unfinished and not viewed with as much respect as it deserves.

[Techknowhow]

Wrong again.

1. His name is Yiftah Spector, and he was the lead the pilot, and the first to attack the ship. He has clearly stated on every occasion that there was no flag on the ship and in the height of war, the ship was thought to be Egyptian, particularly after repeated assurances from the US that they had no ships in the area.

But are you so desperate to criticize Israel that on a technology website you wish to obsess over a completely unrelated military incident that happened forty years ago. In your next post why don't you express your grievances about Iraq or North Korea. After all, vast amounts of electronics and technology are involved there too.

2. Raytheon, General Dynamics, and other American military industries have all suffered at the hands of espionage, and little if any of that had to do with Israel. Russia, China, and Europe are far greater threats.

The Israeli military is in fact one of their greatest customers, and contributes more knowledge, expertise, and innovation to help them with their products, than any other foreign military. For example it was Israel that gave them a Mig-21 which allowed them to compete with the superior Soviet aircraft of the time.
It's no coincidence that at the time Israel was buying aircraft from France, the Mirage was the best Western built interceptor in the world, and when France embargoed them and Israel began collaborating with the US, it's aircraft quickly equaled and then began outperforming the French built planes.

[TogetherinParis]

Sure we let Israel have stuff

Israel is like a 51st state to us, except they don't compete with us.
It's natural that we give them stuff. I've been giving them stuff for
years. Why not? Who cares?