sat, october 30, 1999
cybercrime worries israel
trial brings up questions about national security
By karin Laub
Associated Press
TEL AVIV, Israel - The Badir brothers have been blind from birth and grew up in an Arab village bypassed by the computer revolution - not the typical hacker resume.
But on Thursday, Munther and Muzhar Badir went on trial for what prosecutors say is Israel's most elaborate cyberscam, a crime that has raised questions about whether the security-minded nation is equipped to fight cybercrime, or worse - cyberterrorism.
The ease with which authorities allege the two young men broke into sensitive computer systems, including that of Armed Forces Radio, has stunned Israel, a high-tech powerhouse.
It' took a special 10-member police task force 15 months t collect thousands of discs and documents to bring the Badirs' case to trial.
The brothers have pleaded innocent to 42 - counts of fraud, bribery and blackmail. The indictment accuses them of breaking into computer systems to hijack phone lines and steal credit card numbers they later used for illegal purchases.
In perhaps the most daring scheme, Munther Badir, 22, hacked into the switchboard of Israel's Armed Forces Radio, the indictment said. Using phone lines in a shack in Tel Aviv, he created a setup that allowed residents of Palestinian-ruled Gaza City about 45 miles to the south to call abroad "at the expense of the Israeli armed forces," the charge sheet said.
Investigators were so worried the two might hack into the main police computer that they often worked on personal laptops while the investigation was still unfolding.
Police had some help from Israel's most famous hacker, Ehud ,Tenenbaum, or "The Analyzer," who has been charged with breaking into the Pentagon's computers.
The Badir brothers say they were targeted by Israeli authorities because they are Arab and gifted, But officials in the Prosecutor's
Office say their ethnicity has nothing to do with the case.
The first hearing in the case was Thursday. At the start of the closed-door session, , a security guard rolled five large cardboard boxes of evidence into court on a warehouse cart.
Burly Munther Badir was in the defendant's dock when his parents led his brother, Muzhar, 23, toward him. The brothers hugged and whispered to one another.
"We were always close, we have a special chemistry," Muzhar said, speaking outside the court.
The brothers grew up in Kafr Qassem, an Arab village north of Tel Aviv. They felt an urge to prove.their talents, largely because they were dismissed by their community as useless.
As children, they tinkered with TV and radio sets. Muzhar was 13 when he and his brother took a computer course at the Center for the Blind in Tel Aviv. With the stroke of a keyboard, a new world opened to them.
"We realized that we had a talent for this," Muzhar said.
Still teenagers, they ran a computer consulting firm and created software for the blind. At home, they used a computer with a regular keyboard and a device that translated type into sound.
Munther first got in trouble with the law in 1997 when he was given a suspended sentence of eight months for his role in a land fraud scheme.
Two years later, prosecutors said, the Badirs were already running an illegal empire that yielded $10,000 a day in cash.
Munther's legal adversaries grudgingly describe him as a genius. Investigators say the defendant has boasted that the policeman who can catch him hasn't been bom yet.
Computer specialist Avner Frank said the National Fraud Squad is up to the task, but understaffed.