9,000,000 Israeli identities stolen
A few weeks ago, one of my kids came home from a friend's house and told me that his friend's father had a computer program that could tell him anything he wanted to know about anyone in the country. I assumed that somehow the friend's father had been given access to the population registry computer (which in this particular case is plausible). In fact, however, the friend's father may have found an online database. And that's a major problem.A contract worker from the Ministry of Labor and Welfare was charged with stealing the personal information of over 9 million Israelis from the Population Registry, the Justice Ministry announced Monday after a media ban was lifted.The shoemaker's kids go barefoot. This country produces some of the top security software for banks and governments around the world. And yet, we have facilitated identity theft for every one of our citizens. It is entirely plausible that any Israeli's identity could be found and exploited online by terrorists.
The worker electronically copied identification numbers, full names, addresses, dates of birth, information on family connections and other information in order to sell it to a private buyer.
The information was also given to another individual who used it to design a software program called "Agron 2006", which exploited the database to allow queries of all Israeli citizens, allowing information to be illegally sold based on various parameters. Those parameters could include familial relationships of the entire Israeli population, over several generations.
Among those people whose information was stolen were minors and deceased citizens.
A copy of the software program, devoid of any protection mechanisms, was later obtained by a computer technician who uploaded it to the Internet. He even created a website with detailed instructions explaining how to download and use the Argon program with Israeli citizens' personal information.
Ironically, the computer technician went through great lengths to hide his own identity. Using the online pseudonym "aRi", the suspect used various methods and software to hide his IP address and delete any traces of his activity from computers he used, the Justice Ministry said.
What could go wrong?
Labels: crime, identity theft
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:41 AM
5 Comments:
With the culture inculcating an attitude of complete indifference, if not contempt for Jewish life, why is any one shocked this happened?
Its not laws that need to be changed in Israel, its people's moral norms. Otherwise more of the same can be expected to happen in the future.
The population of Israel far is less than 9m. Something wrong with this story.
Thermblog,
Read it again. The 9,000,000 number includes dead people. Dead people don't vote unless someone resurrects them by stealing their identification. And then they can do a lot more than vote.
Oops' That's what comes of trying to ingest too much news before work starts.
Whoever put the info on line should be arrested for jeopardizing the safety of those Jews by exposing their locations...
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