We
didn't know anything about what he was doing except
that it was something
important. DebkaFileSunday, May 29, 2005 Two Suspected
Israeli Computer Hackers Face Extradition from
London DEBKAfile Special Update
2 NINE
of Israel's top business executives and 11 heads
of three leading inquiry companies -- including
Modiin Ezrahi -- are in custody suspected of
complicity in a massive computerized commercial
espionage conspiracy. Sunday, [May 29, 2005]
the Tel Aviv magistrate lifted a gag order on the
case code-named Horse Race. The prosecution is
reported to have located a state
witness. Michael Häphrati, who was arrested
with his wife in London Thursday, May 26, is
suspected of designing the illegal raider software
called Trojan Horse for the three inquiry
firms, They offered clients business intelligence on
their rivals, some of whom trade on the stock
exchange, by illegally planting spy software in the
targeted computers and downloading their classified
data. Clients under suspicion of accepting the offer
include Volvo Motors importers, Yes satellite TV,
Pelephone and Cellcom cell phone license- holders.
Their senior officers are in custody. Their victims included Orange (Partner) Cell
phones, Hot cable TV, Strauss-Elite, Champion
Motors, Mei Eden mineral water, Ace DIY, and
Zoglobek sausages.
Earlier, DEBKAfile
reported: Michael Häphrati, 41, and Ruth
Brier-Häphrati, 28, were arrested by
Scotland Yard in London on an Israeli extradition
warrant and remanded in custody in Brixton and
Holloway prisons until a further hearing on June
3. Apart from "unauthorized modification of the
contents of a computer" between December 12, 2004
and February 28 this year, the charges against the
couple are subject to an all-inclusive Israeli
court gag order. In professional intelligence literature, this
locution usually refers to industrial espionage by
the illegal invasion of computers. The offense most
often takes the form of an unauthorized "mirror"
planted in a target's computer to download its
contents to another computer. The kind of software
used is not new; it derives from the PROMIS program
developed in the United States in the 1980s to help
the US Justice Department and the FBI crack
financial crime cases. The targets of PROMIS and
its offspring never know they are raided, their
firewalls penetrated and their passwords
cracked. Over the years, many intelligence agencies,
including Israel's, upgraded the earlier PROMIS,
and developed better protective software against
these silent invaders. Some of their experts ended
up on the world market, notably in the US, India,
Russia, and probably Israel too. They can be found
selling their expertise to security and financial
companies -- or even to organized crime. The
illegal practitioners are known in professional
parlance as "black hat hackers." Corporate America has suffered vast losses,
estimated in many billions of dollars, from such
hackers who are contracted by rival businesses to
lift their customer lists, the contents of their
contracts, their marketing strategy and financial
situation. It is believed that most victims decide
not to complain to the police for fear of publicity
that would ruin their business and undermine their
stocks. The soundless black hat hackers often as
not get away with their crime. Indeed, many are
hired by victimized business to trace the intruders
and strengthen its security. The underground hacker
will then come in from the cold and become a "white
hat hacker." The Scotsman reports that before he was
arrested on the Israeli extradition warrant,
Michael Häphrati, who
also has German nationality, was questioned
by detectives from the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit
on a "separate matter." He was released by the unit
on police bail Wednesday, May 25, pending further
inquiries into allegations of "offences under the
Computer Misuse Act 1990." Later, he was detained
by Scotland Yard on the extradition matter. British legal experts told DEBKAfile that the UK
National Hi-Tech Crime Unit's inquiry indicates
Häphrati is also suspected of computer
offenses in Britain as well as Israel. The British
can be expected to insist on precedence for their
inquiry and legal proceedings before handing him
over to Israel. This could hold up the Israeli
process for many months. The suspect's sister Shifra
Häphrati, a playwright who lives in Tel
Aviv, is in London to look after the couple's
six-year old child, Emma. Asked after the Bow Street hearing about her
brother, she said, "We didn't know anything about
what he was doing except that it was something
important. " The mystery deepens. . . . on this
website-
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Our
dossier on the Mossad
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Archives
show Israeli spy's passport sparked 1974 secret
British row: The use of forged British passports
by Mossad assassination squads
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Nasty surprise for some: FBI
slaps Grand Jury subpoenas on officials of
AIPAC, pro-Israel lobby group, over war secrets
smuggled to Israel | FBI
steps up AIPAC probe
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Detroit Free Press, Oct
13, 2000 Spy
charges false, man claims
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At
home with the family of NZ Mossad agent Ze'ev
Barkan
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Nov 2004: Fawning
profile of Meir Dagan (born Huberman), current
head of the Mossad
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The
2004 New Zealand Mossad agents affair:
Secrecy
surrounds two Mossad agents when they reappear
in Auckland court on NZ passport forgery
charges | Police
fear al Qaeda terrorists using NZ passports
following arrest of 2 men in Thailand and
seizure of fake NZ passports | The
two Mossad agents charged with NZ passport
offences photographed in Auckland reporting to
police as part of bail conditions |
Two
men believed by senior Government figures to be
Israeli secret service agents have been arrested
in Auckland trying to obtain a false New Zealand
passport | One
Mossad agent entered NZ on a fake Canadian
passport | Mossad
sending hostile New Zealand Message Via
Asian-Based organisations after arrest of two
agents | NZ
government keeps up expensive surveillance of
two Israeli agents | New
Zealand jails two Mossad spies, prime minister
Helen Clark (right) punishes Israel |
Jewish
pain in NZ, Australia | outrage
at immediate mystery attack on Jewish
gravestones in NZ |
Govt
fury at claims of bias from NZ Jewish
Council | Israel's
Knesset urged to probe bungled Mossad
operation | Suspicions
voiced that New Zealand Jews smashed up their
own cemetery | Kiwi
caper is worst of many Mossad blunders |
Jailed
gang leaders defer to Israelis jailed by NZ
| Israeli
autopsy on bungled Mossad operations in NZ:
graves desecration was unplanned | NZ
Foreign Minister Phil Goff likely to face Israel
at UN debate | Uh-oh Jewish
spies leave NZ after serving half their prison
term; but their $100,000 donation to Cerebral
Palsy Society (ordered by court) has not yet
been paid
| At
home with the family of NZ Mossad agent Ze'ev
Barkan
| Mossad
spy Eli Cara becomes top Israeli credit-card
(Visa) executive.
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Israel
admits it assassinated Hamas official in
Syria
(we wonder what unlucky country's passport the
Mossad hit men used)
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Yet
another fake-passport factory found in
NZ
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Janes Intelligence on the Pentagon's Israeli
spies: A
Mole called Mega
| FBI
turns up heat on AIPAC as confessed Pentagon spy
has stopped cooperating
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Alan Dershowitz The
Harvard Law Professor who sat on an Israeli
Assassination Target Review Panel
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Was Nick Berg one of them? Jun 2004: Hundreds
of Mossad agents in Iraq working to create a
Kurdish counterforce against Baghdad
|
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Navy
locks down King's Bay Submarine Base (Georgia)
Friday after two Israeli "movers" are detained
for questioning |
Daniel
Hopsicker reports: Israeli
"movers" in submarine-base scare to be ...
freed
| Two
Israelis held for deportation
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Robert
Fisk: Israeli Mossad and Shin Bet Associated
with Prison Torture
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May 19, 2004: BBC
reports that Lebanon smashes Mossad
assassination ring
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May 13, 2004: The
1979 Mossad Assassination attempt on Ambassador
John Dean: Dean papers with full taste of
Mossad's evil opened at Jimmy Carter's
Presidential Library
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May 9, 2004: Israelis
with fake docs arrested in Tennessee, 'how to
fly' leaflet found; were seen to toss something
else out of Ryder truck, FBI called in
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May 1, 2004: Crown
Prince Abdullah says Zionists behind Terror
attacks in Saudi Arabia
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A
history of Mossad's overseas
bungling
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