An Enlighted Judge understands hacking!

[MrLinus]

This has to be a first. Check the section I highlighted. Someone get that judge over here to North America. It's an interesting twist. I wonder if that means if I attack a website in Israel, based on precendence, I can say that I was merely trying to help the website and thus avoid prosecution?


Source: The Register

Mossad website 'hacker' walks free
By John Leyden
Posted: 01/03/2004 at 16:32 GMT

An Israeli man was cleared yesterday of trying to hack into a website run by Israel's secret service, Mossad.

Jerusalem Magistrate's Court acquitted Avi Mizrahi of computer crime offences after judges ruled his motives for checking the security of a Mossad recruitment site were innocent. Presiding judge Abraham Tennenbaum even praised Mizrahi for "acting in the public good" in trying to access the security level of the site, Ha'aretz reports.

He ruled: "Internet surfers who check the vulnerabilities of Web sites are acting in the public good. If their intentions are not malicious and they do not cause any damage, they should even be praised."

Details of the case remain sketchy but it seems that Mizrah usedan automatic scanning tool against a Mossad recruitment site, prompting an investigation which led to his arrest in June 2003.

In court, prosecutors characterised Mizrahi as a skilled hacker caught "casing the joint" in preparation for an attack on the website.

But the court rejected this argument and dismissed charges against Mizrahi.

Ha'aretz doesn't quote Mizrahi's age this time around but its earlier reports place him at between 23 and 24 years old.

[Soda_Popinsky]

How can you prove that your intentions arent malicious? Wouldnt you need approval of some sort??

[br_fusion]

Holy cow, I sure wish this sort of thing could happen in the US.

[MrLinus]

How can you prove that your intentions arent malicious? Wouldnt you need approval of some sort??

For some reason, I don't think the Mossad gave this guy permission to break into their servers. That's what makes this ruling so surprising IMO.

Haaretz Original Story of the attack


According to Monday's radio report, prosecutors say the man deliberately hacked into the system, and an expert witness described the attempt as a sophisticated attack.

However, the defense said the man just wanted to ensure that the information he was sending on his application form was secure and would not fall into the wrong hands, the radio said.

The man reportedly succeeded in breaking into the system but was unable to decipher the information he received.

The expert witness told the court that there are hundreds of attempts to hack the Mossad site each day, but most of them come from outside Israel, the radio said.

The defense criticized the Mossad for taking the issue to court instead of checking their site security, the radio said.

[foxyloxley]

wonder what price that guys life insurance premium has gone up to ???

and a 'skilled' hacker, caught on the start of the footprint ??
suspect that the real skills lie IN that site ??

[nihil]

Soda:

How can you prove that your intentions arent malicious

In democracies THEY have to prove that your intentions were NOT

I am cynical and assume that this was probably a political result............Israel are not coming out too well on the humanitarian and democratic fronts right now?



Incidentally RAID (the bug spray) kills all mossads ("flies") I have ever encountered

Cheers