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2 - 8 November 2000
Issue No. 506
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It's war -- virtually

By Omayma Abdel-Latif

Visitors to Hizbullah's Web site were treated to a shock last week. The site's homepage featuring the party's logo in Kofi Arabic had been redesigned -- ideologically. A large image of the Israeli Star of David emblem was posted instead. To add insult to injury, visitors who logged in would automatically hear Israel's national anthem begin to play. It did not take long for people to realise that this was yet another act of Web defacement by Israeli cybercriminals who slithered their way into the site. Complaints came in the thousands and Hizbullah had to declare its official Web site temporarily closed.

"They started the dirty war but they will not be able to end it," Ali Ayoub, Hizbullah's Web master told Al-Ahram Weekly via email. Calling it an act of "Israeli technological warfare", Ayoub added that site officials vowed to continue using the World Wide Web as a tool in their struggle against the Zionist aggression. Earlier this week, Israelis appeared to have suffered a heavier loss as many of the Israeli government's Web sites crashed one after the other. The foreign ministry's Web site crashed due to a sudden surge in Web traffic to the site. It was shut down and so was the site of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), Tel Aviv stock exchange and a number of other governmental Web sites. The Israeli Knesset acted quickly by closing its site temporarily in anticipation of possible attacks. Until the paper went to print, Hizbullah's Web site was still "currently unavailable due to technical difficulties" as the message appears when the site's Web address is typed. Also none of the Israeli sites were accessible due to the same technical difficulties, except that of the Israeli prime minister and the IDF, which were quickly restored. The newly uploaded IDF's homepage devotes a good deal of propaganda material showing, for instance, the photo of an IDF solider holding a child with a caption below that reads: "IDF: Saving lives!" Underneath it, another photo caption taunts: "Humanitarian aid to the Palestinians!"


Demonstrators carry Hizbullah and Palestinian flags during a march near the Israeli fence at Fatima Gate on the Lebanon-Israeli border on Sunday to protest the killings of Arab children in the Palestinain territories
(photo: AP)
Observers say that the hacking incidents on both sides may herald a new stage in the Arab-Israeli conflict, one in which the tools of battle are not machine-guns, Apaches, or nuclear bombs but rather mail bombs, bug mail and acts of virtual vandalism. One Internet expert noted that in an image-obsessed world, the use of the Internet -- on the part of the Arabs -- in particular has become a necessity to counter the Israeli propaganda machine whose most effective and compliant tool is the Western media. The bias-free space offered by the net allows the Arabs to control their presentation and consequently their image to the world. They do not have to rely on the Western media machine to tell their side of the story to the world, no doubt a useless act in view of the institutionalised bias that always tilts reportage in Israel's favour.

Though the e-war could be traced months back, it reached its peak during Intifadat Al-Aqsa (Al-Aqsa uprising) when a silent war between the Arabs and the Israelis was being waged in the chatrooms of famous news sites such as CNN and BBC/Arabic. Hizbullah sources say that Israel initiated the war on the net, given its technological advancement in the field of new media. Earlier this month, Israeli hackers caused the crash of Hizbullah's official Web site server. It was targeted by millions of hits and hostile emails from Israel and the United States. The crash took place on 7 October, the day Hizbullah captured three Israeli soldiers in an ambush at the South Lebanon border. Hizbullah server registered names of more than 8,000 servers, which were traced to the United States and Israel. The site was also mail-bombed by hostile emails carrying viruses. This, according to the Internet expert, is one tactic to kill a Web site. It begins with a sudden surge of traffic to a given Web site to the extent that the server would not take any more hits and crashes. "This is what happened with the latest hacking of the Hizbullah site," said the expert. The same happened with the Israeli government's Web sites.

As it later became known, both sides have urged their supporters around the globe to send several messages to the enemy's sites. Hizbullah says that the visitors came mainly from three countries Israel, Canada and the US, while one Israeli source said that visitors to Israeli sites came from Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and that their aim was not so much to view the site but rather to increase the traffic and cause a site crash. While Ayoub acknowledged that "malicious Israeli hackers" gained access to the web site, he completely dismissed that Hizbullah was officially behind the counter acts of smearing of the Israeli sites. Nonetheless, he expressed full support for such acts.

Such incidents are not new to the Net. Web defacement is a common way for tech-savvy Web surfers to protest the content of a site or simply spread mischief and vandalism. Although it is technically illegal and carries stiff penalties for people who are caught, few of the vandalism cases are tracked to their sources. This time the good news is that Hizbullah people managed to trace the vandalism to a site called wizel.com launching from the United States. Using the Google search directory to trace the site and its owner, the message received was "you might not have permission to view this directory."

Official Palestinian Web sites were unscathed from the Israeli cyber attacks. It was noted, however, that access to some of the sites was difficult during the first days of the Intifada. The Palestinian National Authority's (PNA) Web site features a photo of the Dome of the Rock with the caption underneath reading "Israel goes to war" and latest updates on the clashes in the occupied territories. Another site of the Palestinian Information Centre (PIC) features on its homepage two photos of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak; one in 1978 and another one in 2000, the caption reads; "Terrorist Barak profaning the corps of martyr Dalal Al-Maghrabi; Terrorist Barak killing children in 2000. Old habits die hard."

In an attempt to face up to the absence of its official Web site from cyberspace, Hizbullah has launched seven other backup sites. Among the Hizbullah-related sites, which escaped the break-ins, was the Islamic Resistance Support Association (Da'am) whose homepage features a large photo of Jerusalem, a side picture of Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Hizbullah, and the words: "25 May, the defeat of Israel." It also features pieces on Israeli occupation, resistance operations which Hizbullah carried out against the Israeli occupation and an item on Hizbullah's latest blow to Israel -- the capture of four soldiers. In their readers' letter corner, the site has reserved a space for letters coming from Zionist visitors. Al-Manar TV is another Hizbullah-related site, which has so far escaped the ravages of e-war. The site also features a news bulletin in Hebrew as well as Arabic and English.

Internet experts say that it takes some time to get over the technical difficulties caused by hacking incidents. In the case of vandalism done to the Hizbullah site, the damage appears to be so grave that even the cached copy of the Hizbullah site of which Google -- as a search directory -- should keep a snapshot, is inaccessible. The Israeli government sites, on the other hand, are still offline. But at least they had someone to turn to for help. As per tradition, the Israelis have enlisted the Americans for assistance to beef up their net security and save their valuable propaganda material from what they described as "the Arab attack" and "the Arab bombs on the Internet."

American sources have warned this week that the e-war between Arab and Israeli sites might turn really vicious in the coming days where bugs would be used and Web defacement will be the order of the day. Enacting reality, the US might have to intervene to stop the e-war and declare a virtual peace deal. But as one Lebanese commentator wrote on the Israeli hacking of the Hizbullah site: "It was Israel that initiated the war because it cannot forget its humiliating withdrawal from South Lebanon. It went to a virtual Lebanese piece of land -- the Hizbullah site -- and decided to post its flag there. They are not satisfied with what they have on the ground. They want to go for virtual occupation," said the commentator.

Related stories:
Shifting borders
The Intifada this time
'Those times are over'
Snipers, gunships and now death squads
'Our blood is sacred too'
Blaming the victim
Exporting typhoid and guns
It's war -- virtually
Arab journalists join the fray
Blinded by the truth
Deciphering ZNN
The message is the medium
Also see Focus on Intifada 26 Oct. - 1 Nov. 2000
and Focus on Intifada 19 - 25 October 2000

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