Israel

Here is a quick round-up of this week’s technology headlines and related stories you may have missed: 1. Press speculation gives misleading account of attack on Israel Electric Authority. Israel’s Electricity Authority, and not its power grid, was the target of a cyberattack this week. Employees of the agency, Israel’s utility regulator, opened emails that infected their computers with ransomware. What consisted of no more than a phishing attack on government employees was reported by the media to be an attack against the country’s electrical grid. The misunderstanding is thought to be rooted in a statement made by Israel’s Minister of Infrastructure, Energy and Water, Yuval Steinitz, who told Cybertech conference attendees in Tel Aviv that a “severe cyberattack” was ongoing against the utility regulator. The reporting of this attack is a prime example of how, even as cyberattacks become more prevalent—including actual attacks on the power grid, such as the recent incident in Ukraine—media coverage of cyber incidents frequently continues to be confused or misleading. 2. Search engine highlights problems with Internet of things. Intimate glimpses of thousands of individuals’ private lives can now be viewed by all thanks to Shodan, which launched a tool that allows users to access any webcam that isn’t password-protected. Computer security researchers have long used Shodan to identify Internet-connected devices that perhaps shouldn’t be--like certain industrial control systems. Shodan’s ability to find unprotected webcams is probably the tip of the iceberg with the Internet of things. As more and more manufacturers build devices such as refrigerators, home alarm systems and cars that connect to the Internet, the likelier it will become for just about anyone to find them online and access them.  3. Amendments to Judicial Redress Act could complicate Safe Harbor negotiations between the United States and European Union. The U.S. Senate is considering a bill--the Judicial Redress Act-- that would grant EU citizens the same privacy protections as people in the United States. The act is the centerpiece of negotiations between the United States and European Union to replace the Safe Harbor framework invalidated last fall. The bill, headed for the Senate floor, has a provision that could prove problematic for the negotiations. Inserted by John Cornyn (R-Tx), the provision requires the U.S. attorney general to certify that participating countries do not have policies that “impede the national security interests of the United States.” Although negotiators from both sides have said they want to release Safe Harbor 2.0 by the end of the month, the amendment may make it difficult to come to an agreement that would satisfy the standard set by the Court of Justice of the European Union in its ruling last October. 4. Does the self-declared Islamic State have an encrypted messaging app? Islamic state militants have allegedly created an app called Alrawi, which purportedly encrypts communications to evade foreign intelligence services. Ghost Security Group, an organization that claims to fight the Islamic State online, first brought attention to the app earlier this month, but has been unable to provide a version of Alrawi that has any cryptographic abilities. The Daily Dot--the online news website--looked into the claim and found that the app was impossible to find online and that all supposed screenshots of Alrawi were actually images of other apps. 5. Head of the NSA’s Tailored Access Operations unit speaks publicly. Rob Joyce, the chief of the NSA’s Tailored Access Operations--the unit that develops the tools NSA uses to access foreign networks to gather intelligence-- explained his group’s methods, the steps they take to break into systems and the challenges they face. Joyce gave his remarks at the USENIX Enigma conference, which took place this week in San Francisco. You can view his full remarks here.

Cybertech 2016 convened this week in Tel Aviv, and I was in the audience for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plenary address, courtesy of the America-Israel Friendship League and the Israeli Foreign Ministry. Israel has an ambitious domestic and international agenda designed to make it one of the world’s super cyber powers. The prime minister has made cybersecurity one of his trademark issues and is a big promoter of the idea that better network defenses are essential for national security and that the information security industry is a driver of economic growth (Israel now has more than 300 cybersecurity companies, exports of $6 billion, and 20 percent of the world’s private investment in cyber). In his speech, Netanyahu stressed two large themes. First, there is a need for action now, and as a result some policies may be incomplete or eventually reversed, but the general direction has been decided and everyone needs to start moving.  He returned to a metaphor from the army that he has used before of forces in the field changing direction even if every detail is not yet in place. Second, Netanyahu highlighted a contradiction between the necessity of and the risks inherent in cooperation. The Israeli government is actively looking to partner with other countries and the private sector, but sharing information and capabilities will always be a calculated risk. Four specific points in the speech were of interest. First, the standing up of the National Cyber Authority and the delineation of its authorities are running into some resistance, presumably primarily from the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency. The Shin Bet is responsible for defending critical infrastructure, has much of the country’s cyber capability, and does not want to give up influence. The prime minister spoke of challenging vested interests, including the intelligence agencies; the officials I spoke with took the resistance as an entirely predictable outcome of bureaucratic politics and expected the turf battles to be resolved quickly. Second, the prime minister used a medical metaphor to explain the government’s responsibilities in defending the country against cyberattacks. The government’s role is to immunize organizations and individuals by developing best practices and standards that everyone should be expected to implement. The government will treat certain types of infections, and in some instances of massive, widespread attacks that could be likened to epidemics, the government will use military force and the intelligence agencies to "both treat the attack and treat the attacker." Third, and unsurprisingly given Israel’s long-held skepticism towards the United Nations, Netanyahu disparaged the idea of a universal code of cyber norms. Instead, he advocated a meeting of like-minded countries to define norms and sanctions against those who violate those standards. The government will use the annual June meeting at Tel Aviv University to push this agenda. Fourth, the government will soon release new guidance on export control laws for cybersecurity products. The approach is going to be pro-business; anything that is not explicitly prohibited will be allowed. Government officials explained the notice was necessary to eliminate uncertainty among companies about what they could do, but an entrepreneur told me the measures would have the opposite effect. Government attention would only raise anxiety among investors and companies where there was none before. Officials were clearly trying to avoid reproducing the controversy in the United States over application of the Wassenaar export control regulations, but do not seem to be succeeding. Cyber power is built on technology, a strong relationship with the private sector, and a good story. There may be different narratives—Erel Margalit, a member of the Knesset, Israel’s legislature, contrasted his vision of Israel as a cyber hub connected to its neighbors with what he called Netanyahu’s vision of Israel as a fort—but it is clear that Israel is putting many of the fundamentals in place.

Snow- and Middle East–themed reading for this weekend's winter storm.

Omnia Khalil reviews the struggles of everyday life in the Cairene neighborhood of Ramlat Bulaq. William Tamplin takes a look at Jordan’s most popular Bedouin poet and his use of verse to express Arab political arguments. Dana Hadra argues that the self-proclaimed Islamic State’s threats against Israel are empty.

In December 1987 the first intifada began after a traffic accident involving an Israeli truck and a Palestinian pedestrian outside the Jabaliya refugee camp set off a wave of demonstrations against Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The sudden volleys of rocks pelting Israeli soldiers and the tear gas and rubber bullets in response changed the complexion of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians almost overnight, likely forever. The mighty Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) were not traversing the Sinai Peninsula in three days, rescuing hostages in Entebbe, or spending two daring minutes over Baghdad, but breaking teenagers’ bones on the streets of Nablus, Hebron, Ramallah, and Gaza City. David had become Goliath and had no answer for Daoud’s slingshot. The Israelis must have been rattled by the images on television and pictures published in the press because, a few months after it all began, the Israeli consul general started doing the rounds of universities and colleges in the New York area to provide Jerusalem’s perspective on the unrest. I remember attending one such event on a chilly evening in a half-empty room at Vassar’s College Center. During the Q&A a member of the audience recalled an encounter with someone he identified as an “Arab friend in Israel.” He alleged that during a debate over politics his friend relayed that, despite their relationship, he would kill him if and when communal violence erupted. It was an odd non sequitur to what had, until that moment, been an interesting discussion thankfully lacking the overwrought theatrics of more recent conversations about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on America’s campuses. I bring all this up because the memory came rushing back to me last week when I watched the surveillance footage of a knife-wielding employee of the Israeli phone company, Bezeq, hack a rabbi to death at a bus stop in Jerusalem. It was simply gruesome. There have been all kinds of arguments advanced for this sudden spate of violence, but it actually does not require any kind of deep explanation when the cause is so clear—Palestinian political and religious figures have directly and indirectly exhorted their people to kill Jews and a small number have obliged. By all accounts daily life has become extraordinarily frightening for Israelis, especially since there does not seem to be an effective answer to random knife-wielding people bent on death. Can the Israelis cordon off East Jerusalem forever? What about Tel Aviv? The bus station in Afula? Do you surround Umm al-Fahm and not let people leave? What about Haifa with its large Palestinian population? It is a mind-boggling problem. The violence has, it seems, ushered a new “psychotic”—to use Bret Stephens’s description—phase in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Stephens reserved “psychotic” for Palestinians, but they have not cornered the market on blind hatred, dark interpretations of religion, and uncompromising ideologies. Israelis too have proven themselves capable of horrific, senseless violence lest anyone forget the names Ali Dawabsheh, Shira Banki, or Yitzhak Rabin for that matter. I can already picture my Twitter feed and email inbox filling up with accusations of “moral equivalence.” By this, critics no doubt mean that I am willfully overlooking the fact that Palestinians leaders abet violence and Israeli officials do not or that I fail to recognize that Israeli violence is justified, but Palestinian bloodshed is not. My only answer is this: The conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is always much more complicated than partisans on both sides would desperately like everyone to believe. It is true that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has never implored Israelis to kill Palestinians and that he and members of his government denounced the murder of Dawabsheh. Of course, this comes after years of generalized passivity and tolerance—for political reasons—of the settlers and the extremists among them who have desecrated mosques, burned olive groves, and staged armed attacks on Palestinians. I should add that the perpetrators of these acts, like Rabin’s assassin, have often received halachic justification from settler rabbis. It is also true that the current round of Palestinian violence is based on a falsehood. Israel is not trying to alter the status quo on the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif. Yet there are apparently a growing number of Israelis who believe that a change in the delicate Israeli-Jordanian-Palestinian arrangements that govern Jerusalem’s holiest site is necessary to accommodate an increased Jewish presence there. And then there are those who want to “liberate the Temple Mount from Arab (Islamic) occupation.” The Israeli authorities recognize the danger, but politics often has a way of producing outcomes that end up rewarding those who have little interest in peace. The settlers have won the internal Israeli debate over the status of the West Bank. They are never leaving. If I remember correctly, the last time there was an election in Palestine, Hamas won. No one would fairly describe either group as being in the peace camp. What we are seeing now in Israeli streets are the bloody results of a stalemate that empowers extremes. But here is the most depressing aspect of this current episode: All the incentives exist for a flagging Palestinian leadership to hitch their political fortunes to this violence, and on Israel cracking down, as the stabbing victims multiply, providing a pretext for Palestinians to escalate, leaving the Israelis no choice but to respond in kind. Maybe it will not happen in precisely this fashion, but it seems likely that Israelis and Palestinians are in for a prolonged period of violence. This should finally bury the fantasy of the two-state solution, but as Ari Shavit recently noted, it also shatters the equally unreal one-state solution of both the BDSers and Israel’s right, leaving everyone asking: And then what?