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
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6 Responses to “Blogs Attacked After Exposing Identity of Secret Israeli Army Intelligence Agent”
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That sounds like Gurvitz alright, at least he’s still alive and kicking.
When will he be summoned to a Shabak interrogation “advising” him to let go of the story?
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Thanks Ido. I’m back up now. Unfortunately, the hacker struck 5AM my time & I didn’t discover the harm till 2 hrs ago. I’ve just upgraded my server & added four times the cost to my hosting bill. A zoch in vay.
But the gremlin will have to work a lot harder to bust us next time. And Captain George’s real name is still out there for the world to see.
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