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Why Israel Could Be the Next Cybersecurity World Power 163

Posted by Soulskill from the necessity-is-the-mother-of-invention dept.
jfruh writes: Beersheba is a small town in southern Israel, more than an hour's drive away from Tel Aviv and the bulk of the country's population. But the city is a hotbed of cybersecurity startups driven in part by a graduate program at the local university and the country's military and intelligence apparatus's keen interest in the subject. "To become such a cyber nexus, any place has to have several ingredients: A great university with a solid computer science department with a penchant for security research. Check. Several industry partners who have set up their own research and innovation laboratories nearby, to take advance of the cheap labor pool of graduate students. Check. An active venture capitalist operation that can fund startups is also essential, along with mentors who can help entrepreneurs along. Double check. And finally some solid support for local and national government to grease the wheels of progress. Check."
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Why Israel Could Be the Next Cybersecurity World Power More

Why Israel Could Be the Next Cybersecurity World Power

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  • Free Occupied Palestine (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ikhider ( 2837593 ) on Wednesday March 11, 2015 @09:30AM (#49232825)
    Stop interning the Palestinian populace. Allow the Palestinians to have their land back as per UN Resolutions. Let them have freedom of mobility, the chance to build a viable economy and rights as a regular citizen, not a second class citizen. No justice, no peace.

    • Re:Free Occupied Palestine (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Dog-Cow ( 21281 ) on Wednesday March 11, 2015 @09:54AM (#49232979)

      Let's make it really simple. The Arabs living in the West Bank and Gaza can have their autonomy when they grant Israel theirs. That seems to be a very basic first step that the Arabs find completely impossible.

      • Let's make it really simple. The Arabs living in the West Bank and Gaza can have their autonomy when they grant Israel theirs. That seems to be a very basic first step that the Arabs find completely impossible.

        When they grant Israel theirs? Israel already have it.

        • Re:Free Occupied Palestine (Score:4, Insightful)

          by allcoolnameswheretak ( 1102727 ) on Wednesday March 11, 2015 @12:48PM (#49234643)

          I think the problem might have to do with the fact that Hamas has repeatedly stated that it will never accept the state of Israel.

          I am not a fan of Israels "foreign policy" towards Palestine, especially the Gaza Strip. On the other hand, it's hard to argue with someone who says he will never accept and will always fight you.

          On the other, other hand, Israel has been nurturing this sentiment towards it for decades by indiscriminately leveling buildings and killing dozens of Palestinians every time some idiots fire a mostly useless rocket over the border.

          Basically, both sides are being jerks and feeding the hatred towards each other. This is how far "eye for an eye" will get you.

          • Re:Free Occupied Palestine (Score:4, Insightful)

            by danbob999 ( 2490674 ) on Wednesday March 11, 2015 @01:01PM (#49234777)
            But the Hamas is not Palestine. I am sure there are some radical groups in Israel who promised to never recognize Palestine. In fact the Israeli government never recognized Palestine so their position is not that far from the one of the Hamas.
            Palestine recognized Israel in 1993. It's now Israel's turn to recognize Palestine.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      When you return Texas to Mexico and Alaska to Russia, we will listen to you again.
      Meanwhile, back on planet Earth, when you loose a war, you may loose your land. And life. And sometime _both_. And when you keep trying to get your land back by means of more war, you may keep loosing.
      "Justice" is not a concept of international politics, stop using it.

      • Re:Free Occupied Palestine (Score:5, Insightful)

        by halivar ( 535827 ) <bfelger&gmail,com> on Wednesday March 11, 2015 @10:36AM (#49233299)

        More importantly: don't start wars you can't win (a universal and timely maxim). And when, having chosen to decide the contest on the field of battle, do not expect a redo in the courts of law. The biggest mistake the Palestinians every made was letting their regional neighbors (that hate them anyway, btw) egg them into starting the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. They lost their land, and the Jewish population swelled from expulsion from Arab countries. They had a two-state solution already and they fucked it up.

        • Re:Free Occupied Palestine (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Jason Levine ( 196982 ) on Wednesday March 11, 2015 @01:27PM (#49235053) Homepage

          Another fact that is often ignored: The Arab states could have absorbed the Palestinians who fled Israel when they were told "flee and you can have your land back when we wipe Israel off the map." Instead, they set them up in refugee camps so they could point to them and say "Look at how horrible our brethren have it. This is all Israel's fault. Keep looking at these downtrodden folks and ignore the horrible things we're doing to our own populace."

          I'm not saying Israel is blameless (far from it), but the people who try to claim that the conflict in the region is all Israel's fault vastly oversimplify the entire situation.

        • They had a two-state solution already and they fucked it up.

          It's way more complex than that. The proposed two-sate solution was acceptable to Israeli/Jews and the West, but not to Arabs/Palestinians. The plan proposed for a Jewish state with only 55% Jews, and an Arab/Palestinian state with something like 99% Arabs/Palestinians. The plan would have been more fair with less land to the Jewish state, but with a higher percentage of Jews. Since the Jews represented only 33% of the population, and they received 56% of the land (and more valuable land), the Arab reaction

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by halivar ( 535827 )

            I will be honest, a lot of this is stuff I am picking up for the first time; but it's fascinating to me so I did some looking up. If you think I'm using a questionable source, let me know.

            Wikipedia cites 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War by Benny Morris:

            The Arabs refused to accept the establishment of a Jewish state in any part of Palestine. And, consistently with that “no,” the Palestinian Arabs, in November–December 1947, and the Arab states in May 1948, launched hostilities to scupper the resolution’s implementation

            The mindset characterized both the public and the ruling elites. All vilified the Yishuv and opposed the existence of a Jewish state on “their” (sacred Islamic) soil, and all sought its extirpation, albeit with varying degrees of bloody-mindedness. Shouts of “Idbah al Yahud” (slaughter the Jews) characterized equally street demonstrations in Jaffa, Cairo, Damascus, and Baghdad both before and during the war and were, in essence, echoed, usually in tamer language, by most Arab leaders.

            It seems the initial rejection was due to religious (or ethnic disguised as religious) reasons.

            During the ensuing war, the Civil War of 1947-48, the Jews won a decisive victory but ended up with (and I don't fully comprehend how or why) effectiv

            • More Arabs would have supported the plan if they were given more land. It's never black or white. Of course the most extremists would have refused to give up even 1% of the land. But with the proposed UN plan, more land was given to the Jews, even if they represented only a third of the population. With such conditions, even moderate Arabs rejected the plan and no matter if we agree or not with them, it's easy to understand. This conflict will never be solved with Israel continuing its expansion.
              The most re

              • If you look at the land denoted as being Jewish in the partition plan, a major part of it was the Negev desert - an arid region that had never supported life.
                Both sides got some shore lines and decent farming land.
                The Jews would have said yes, the Arab Palestinians said no.
                There was no Palestinian country there before and the land 'stolen' from Palestinian farmers was, to a great degree, actually bought from absentee Arab landowners who saw a chance to make some shekels, dispossess their tenants and not tak

                • The proposed jewish area was still more valuable (yes, even with the negev desert) and larger.

                  • Then that should have been a point for peaceful negotiation.
                    Land for peace has always been a part of Israel's negotiations.
                    Israel withdrew troops and settlements from Gaza, hoping for peaceful neighbors.
                    There were no border restrictions or barricades just hope for a peaceful life.
                    In the face of continuing threats and rocket attacks, Israel still provides electricity, water and medical care to Gaza.
                    With peace, Gaza could have been prosperous and successful, instead Hamas chose war.

                    I have yet to hear someone

                    • Then that should have been a point for peaceful negotiation.

                      What tells you it wasn't? The UN plan didn't come out of nowhere. The Arabs/Palestinians said they were against the plan. The UN still pushed it forward, instead of trying to find a compromise acceptable to all parties.

                      Israel withdrew troops and settlements from Gaza, hoping for peaceful neighbors.

                      It's as if I were your neighbor, robbed your home, gave you back half of your belongings, and then hoping that we would be in good terms. Of course the Palestinians are not going to be happy with only Gaza.

                      I have yet to hear someone suggest a course that Israel could have taken at any point, that would have had a peaceful solution.

                      You are wrong. There are tons of possibilities that would lead to peace. The question i

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward
        loose?

      • "Justice" is not a concept of international politics, stop using it.

        Except that Israel was not created by a war, but by international "justice" aka UN resolution to split British Palestine into two countries. Therefore the international community, especially those who voted for that plan, have a responsibility in the current situation.

  • Jew, Christian, Muslim. The hardcore fanatics always scare the shit out of me. And you would be hard-pressed to find anyone outside of ISIS and Al-Quaida more fanatical than Mossad and its crazy Zionist ilk. The thought of them having cyber-weapons is scary. But much more scary is the thought that we actually gave those religious crazies nuclear weapons.

    • Israel is less religious than the USA. Although probably more so than parts of Europe. Really amazed at your linking Mossad, composed mostly of non-religious Jews, Christians, Muslims, and Jews to religious fanaticism.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by halivar ( 535827 )

        composed mostly of non-religious Jews, Christians, Muslims, and Jews to religious fanaticism.

        Yes, yes, but do they have any Jews?

    • And you would be hard-pressed to find anyone outside of ISIS and Al-Quaida more fanatical than Mossad and its crazy Zionist ilk. The thought of them having cyber-weapons is scary. But much more scary is the thought that we actually gave those religious crazies nuclear weapons.

      Huh? The Mossad, based on their past performance and actions, is a very level-headed, pragmatic secret service. The Zionist agenda is not their scope, albeit one could make the argument that any security apparatus, including the army or air force that ensures the survival of Israel, also indirectly serves the agenda of Zionism, to some extent.
      That said, I am also not sure why you would lump Zionism and extremism together. Zionism simply means, in its broadest definition, bringing Jews to live in Israel.
      In a

      • ISIS is an organization that has institutionalized the torture and enslavement of girls, the torture and decapitation (sometimes burning alive) of non-Muslims, and systematic genocide of non-Muslim civilians.

        To be fair, ISIS has also institutionalized the torture, decapitation, and burning alive of Muslims who are not quite their kind of Muslims. So yeah, ISIS is pretty much the gold standard.

  • Anti-cybersecurity maybe (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    The people who made Superfish are Israeli as are Komodia the people behind the MTIM exploit.

  • Check, check, check, fucking check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check and don't forget to fucking check, check, check, check...

  • Beersheva a hub for anything? Really? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11, 2015 @10:37AM (#49233315)

    Actual Israeli here, with family in Beersheva, happy to answer questions. ;tldr, the article is bs, no one wants to live and work in Beersheva and don't confuse a few offices with a new silicon valley - here's why below.

    Not sure where the author is getting his information from, but this article is dubious, albeit in an innocent way. First of all, let me explain that Beersheva is hardly a cosmopolitan city. It is a place most famous in Israel for cheap living until the last couple of decades, our version of guidos/greasers (arsim), and for housing one of the largest influxes of former Soviet immigrants after the flood of them we had pre/post fall of the Soviet Union. It is a place that no one really chooses to go, only to leave. Many of the people there were put there when they immigrated because it was cheap to build and the going theory besides developing the desert in the South was to also have a line of defense against Egyptian advances that traditionally marched up towards the heart of Israel via Beersheva.

    So if Beersheva sucks, why are these businesses opening and why do people live there? Well generally, people just are stuck there or can't afford anywhere else. One of the largest problems and why this article may have even a hint of truth is that living in Israel is expensive relative to our per-capita incomes. Really expensive. Most of the country lives in the center, and not so shockingly, the center is really really expensive. As you can imagine, a lot of people would love to move somewhere cheaper, less crowded, more natural, etc. One option, highly encouraged at times by the government is to move to the periphery which to many Israelis essentially starts in the area of Beersheva in the South, and North of Haifa and the Kneret (Sea of Galillee I believe in English) in the North. In Hebrew we'd refer to this area as the end of the world, or how do you get to Beersheva - turn left at the end of the world. Before you start in with your naive and ridiculous comments, no, this does not include the West Bank or Gaza (glad we got that out of the way, but I expect the usual lunatics).

    So enough background, why else is this article bs:

    1. Ben Gurion University is hardly well-respected in Israel. It is known to be incredibly left-leaning in a way that even liberal people often detest and has been the subject of a lot of controversy. More importantly, no one in Israel really cares where you went to school. If they do care and you went to an Israeli university for tech, God help you if it was not the Technion. At best you can get someone to admit that Hebrew University's computer science department is not so bad.

    2. Beersheva was/is under constant rocket threat. The property values in these areas is considered dubious in the future, especially given the obvious range of Hamas rockets in relation to Beersheva. Hint: people in Beersheva heard a lot of sirens last war. A lot.

    3. There are much nicer, cheaper places in Israel for smaller tech firms who don't care about recruiting from the pool of people in Tel Aviv/center.

    4. The traffic crush to Beersheva is unreal by Israeli standards. The infrastructure in and around Beersheva is not good enough to support a large amount of people coming and going every day, so no one is going to want to commute there to avoid living there. Commuting in Israel is just not something people generally do, especially not multiple hour commutes if they can avoid it. My wife does commute between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem a few times a week, but only out of necessity and the fact we can't afford to give up our apartment we own here and buy a new one in Jerusalem. Moreover, given the prices of gas and the fact that cars are egregiously expensive in this country, most people aren't even able to commute on a daily basis.

    5. Apparently the author has never met actual Israelis in tech. They are all "security" experts. This is exacerbated since many of them spent years writing crappy VB forms for security companies here like Checkpoint

    • I'm glad somebody mentioned Checkpoint, though it sounds like you aren't a fan.

      Having worked plenty with Cisco, Juniper, Sonicwall and Checkpoint gear, the Checkpoint stuff is my favorite to build out and easiest to administer. Also the easiest by a good amount to take a quick glance at the configuration or log and know exactly what is going on. It does take a lot of overhead in the way of a dedicated configuration utility which only runs on Windows.

      Juniper is a close second, and they definitely have supe

  • Sounds about right (Score:4, Interesting)

    by pak9rabid ( 1011935 ) on Wednesday March 11, 2015 @12:02PM (#49234179)
    The company I work for hired a few security consultants from GE that were based out of Isreal to conduct a cybersecurity training seminar, and holy shit. These guys definitely knew what they were talking about. Easily one of the most valuable training seminars I have ever attended.

  • Israelis treatment of Palestinians is appalling. Good Israelis see this and leave Israel, leaving behind the worse racist Israelis. Mean Jews don't see this and emigrate to Israel.

    Concentrating hatred and racism. I fail to see how this can end well.

  • Isn't Israel also a hotbed of computer hacking, phishing, etc.? Kind of makes sense they would have have a strong cybersecurity presence, even if only to defend against themselves.

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