Blogger Hebrew Translation Remark
Whoever translated Blogger’s interface to Hebrew left a remark about the Hebrew wording on the page itself:
“I think יפהפיות sounds less professional. If that is not intentional then Maybe יפות or מעוצבות would sound a little better.”
Hat tip: Dor Zach.
Blogs Attacked After Exposing Identity of Secret Israeli Army Intelligence Agent
Three blogs were hacked taken down by a DoS attack today (Thursday) after exposing the secret identity of a Shabak (Israel secret internal security service) Army Intelligence Unit 504 officer.
The officer, nicknamed Captain George, was accused of raping Lebanese militia leader Mustafa Dirani, held captive in Israel as a bargaining chip to be traded for Israeli soldier gone MIA Ron Arad, but released in a 2004 prisoner swap which did not include Arad.
Richard Silverstein today exposed Captain George’s real name on his blog, Tikun Olam. The story was quoted on two left-leaning Israeli blogs, Itamar Sha’altiel’s Midron Chalaklak (literally, slippery slope) and Yossi Gurvitz’s Friends of George, both part of a small blog group called Hahem.
All three blogs were attacked and taken down today, reported Canada based Israeli blogger Dubi Kanengisser. Tikun Olam is still off the air, displaying an error message saying “If you are seeing this, either: We have been forced to temporarily block certain ranges of IP addresses due to a DOS attack So, please try later. OR If you’re still seeing this after a day, it’s because your IP has been associated with spam in the past.”
The Israeli blogs, hosted on Dreamhost, are back online. Their attacker used an IP address allocated by Israeli ISP Netvision. Gurvitz of Friends of George told me tonight: “We spoke to Dreamhost and both our blogs are back up. We’ve tightened our security, and hope it’ll last. Netvision couldn’t help us right now. If necessary, I will go to court, get a court order, find this worm and take every shekel he’s got, and every shekel he’ll have in the future.”
[Update 7/30/2010 1:19AM] Ynet reports the attack, quoting from this blog (Heb).
[Update 7/30/2010 1:35AM] Tikun Olam is back online. Silverstein reports the DoS attack: “[I]f you attempted to visit my site and got an error page ignore whatever verbiage you read there. This was a DOS attack. I’ve taken security precautions to avoid future attacks.”
[Update 7/30/2010 11:35AM] 013 Netvision’s response: “013 netvision has the duty to protect the confidentiality of information of, and relating to, our customers, and can’t give any information regarding any customer. 013 Netvision’s customers need to use the internet in a manner consistent with all applicable laws and regulations and under the terms of the company’s user policy as presented in the company web site.”
• This post in Hebrew – הפוסט הזה בעברית
Foxconn Suicides iPhone App
The suicides at Foxconn, the Chinese plant that makes iPhones for Apple, got Israeli journalist and blogger Orna Coussin thinking (Heb.):
The last few days I’ve been thinking about a new iPhone application. [...] The application I’m developing will do a very simple thing: each time a worker at the Shenzhen iPhone assembly line commits suicide, something will happen. The question is what: will the gadget jump? Shut down? Scream? Sound a memorial siren and everybody around it will observe a moment of silence? Anyone got an idea?
[Update 13:49] Hyperallergic reports that street artist Xylo protested against the suicides by mounting fake iPhones with suicide images to walls in London.
Hat tip: Luther Blisset.
Mazor Ville: A Farmville for Lab Monkies (Satire)
Mazor Farm is an Israeli farm which breeds and sells lab monkeys. Israeli anti animal cruelty activists created Mazor Ville, a video showing an imagined Farmville-like application where the player can raise and torture lab monkeys.
The Raper and the Misinformationist
Problematic Israeli site domain names:
• An information specialist named Michal chose the acronym MIS (Michal Information Specialist) as her brand, which caused the unfortunate domain misinformations.com.
• A rapper misspelled his occupation, thus raper.co.il.
IKEA Poster Must-Have Commercial Prop
No less than three current Israeli commercials are using the IKEA OLUNDA poster as a prop. The culprits are RC Cola, Yotveta chocolate milk and Israel is Drying Up, a government commercial for saving water.
Hat tip: Tzafrir Rehan, Mom, Elyashiv Levine and Niva Simon.
Sydney, Stop Copying from Tel Aviv!
Sydney, Australia, recently launched its new branding:
Hey, that looks awfully familiar. Oh ya, its Tel Aviv’s branding from 2009:
Which, in turn, is very similar to a German stamp suggested earlier by designer Gavin Potenza:
(Hat tip: Popular Etymology, Gal Chen)
Flotillta Photos: Israeli Media is Full of Crop
Little Green Footballs found that Reuters has cropped two photos taken aboard the Mavi Marmara, removing blood and knives held by “peace activists.” Reuters admitted its wrongdoing and distributed the uncropped photos the same day.
Israeli media were all over this, as Reuters had already been caught red handed doctoring photos of Israel bombing in Beirut.
One would expect the Israeli media, being mostly pro-Israel in the flotilla story, would use the uncropped photos. Well, one would be surprised. Maariv daily newspaper used a cropped version for its cover the following day (June 7). A day later ynet news site used one, too. For days passed, and Haaretz news site fell for the cropped reality.
(Hat tip: Ice, Photoshop Police, Aharon Feuerstein, okok4, Eran Belinsky)
Religious Rerun
Maran1.com offers recordings of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef’s prayers, sermons and lectures. A message on the Selichot page says: “Reminder: Amen is not to be recited to a recorded broadcast.” (And in the original Herbrew: “תזכורת: אין לענות אמן לשידור מוקלט”.)
PES INSPIRED Bezeq Ad
When creating a commercial, Israeli advertising companies are often INSPIRED by internstional movies, tv shows and commercials (see here and here, for example.)
Adler, Chomsky, Warshavsky – Grey’s recent commercial for Israeli telecom Bezeq was INSPIRED by PES’s Western Spaghetti short animated film. I wonder if they asked permission and/or paid for this INSPIRATION.
Bezeq commercial:
PES’s Western Spaghetti:
