Sorry for offtopic, but i was very sick of this case.
battikh wrotethis case was not about transmitting data in general. it's not just communication between point A and point B. when you have an internet link routed to israel, israel can see all the traffic going threw... and when you key lebanese users using this link, it might be interesting for them to monitor... so no, for THIS purpose, this would be quiet useful...
Do you think sudden fiber cable break 1 year ago in 3 places in sea, in same time, just was break?
Did you think they just put on fiber at same time tapping device?
Don't you think it is cheaper and more safe to send their "general" to routers of PCCW/Level3/... where Ogero take internet? They can make good deal with anyone, and install monitoring software. Or just deal with CIA and use CALEA (Lebanon terminate most of traffic in USA, some in London). Btw Lebanese and Israeli pipes terminated in same datacenter of PCCW in London, for example. It is trivial to tap Lebanese traffic there with decent equipment.
Or as i mention before, make nice discounts for some resellers of Intel, that will send "well designed", "special edition" Intel laptops to Lebanon. Just slightly modify Intel wireless chipset (which mainly developed by Israeli R&D), send some "collecting unit" (survelliance plane, just transit ship in port with "loaded" container, etc), grab all info from required harddrives safely. You have already pretty powerful battery, embedded antenna, and bunch of microcontrollers (starting from intel wireless microcontroller, 150Kb of compressed ucode!) it is just a gift for a spy people. P.S. Wifi cannot penetrate walls much with two-way 802.11b/g, but almost all wireless cards have "unofficial" modes. I was able to run miniPCI wireless to pass 15km NLOS distance and still transfer data around 1Mbps two-way. Everything on "supermarket hardware". All DIY. They can do much better and they need only 1 way. (This will make my post not totally offtopic, it is about laptops :-P sorry :-P)
battikh wroteyeah, but this is not to send all the traffic of certain users through israel to be monitored.
You really think they need to watch users traffic? :-D Maybe they can steal some porn pics from lebanese hairy guys, and mastrubate on them :-))) Most of users of this link was regular ISP's, and mostly this ISP's put games ports that need low RTT, and other use as satellite (cause it was pretty expensive, more expensive than satellite and Ogero). The only who Israel needs - guys from Hezbollah. They almost don't care about army and your funny politicians. If they need any info from them, they will catch their balls abroad and ask everything they need (how MOSSAD usually does).
nuclearcat wroteall the shit they are involved in, they NEVER denied it, often they even say it proudly...
and there is a huge difference between the approach they use on their spying in lebanon (which they don't necessarly bother to completely hide), and the approach they use in other countries (like iran or USA, which is were they care more about the profile of the person). for lebanon, if they have the opportunity to spy fro a week, get some interesting info, and then get caught, they dont give a single shit, because no one will blame them and no one will make them pay. so why would they bother? and history and previous cases has proven this.
This is something different than they care if someone will know. Btw spy cases handled "specially" by secret services in all world. If it is really spy case, you will never hear "yes" or "no". Established rule.
They dont care about anybody btw. Recently Netaniahu and other high position officials secretly visited Russia, and one of his sentences was "If we gonna die, we will sink all world with us" (it was talk about Iranian nukes and C-300 missile system).
Because simply this general, even if he is "ex", but he is doing MOSSAD duty - can be captured. Their point, that person in army priceless, thats why they go nuts if someone get killed or stolen. Do you believe, as news mentioned, they will send high ranked person just to oversee installation? And make so much nice gift for Hezbollah? LOL!
Remember colonel Elchanan Tenenbaum? He costed Israel:
# 30 Lebanese and Arab prisoners,
# the remains of 59 Lebanese militants and civilians,
# 400 Palestinian prisoners, and
# maps showing Israeli mines in South Lebanon were exchanged for Tenenbaum, a businessman captured in 2000 on a business trip to Kuwait and held in Lebanon by Hezbollah, along with the remains of the three dead soldiers.
Tannenbaum was heavily in debt, he is just stupid gambling player, and went to Lebanon to make $200000 drug deal to close his debts. So i hope now you understand, that NEVER they will send general here. And only small chance, that some israeli person can come here by his personal business reasons. But i don't believe at all some successful IT person will do that. They can hire good technician to do that. Secrecy level in big companies also same high as in spying agencies, so he won't talk at any case.
nuclearcat wroteso what? what does it change? he's still israeli and business was done through him, and we have no idea what happens to the traffic after reaching his end... so because he might have just done his military service in israel and nothing more it becomes more acceptable and we should stop doubting about the issue?
I am not sure they knew he had israel citizenship. You can ask person, while he make deal with Lebanese, if he have israeli passport? :-) What you think he will answer?
- Yes, i have, and i was general in the Israeli army.
What will happen with deal? :-)
and you know, there's nothing to doubt, the israeli guy was clean, he just did his military service in israel, nothing to doubt about this whole issue. he was just doing business in lebanon because lebanon is such a great and important market on which his business is relying on. it was worth it for him to do business with the enemy JUST for economical reason and JUST for business, nothing related to the israeli government and syping and mossad. it makes absolute sense.
just tell me, why would he be interested in doing business with lebanon knowing that what he was doing is illegal on so many levels (illegal link, business with the enemy, ...)? please don't tell me pure business, i might be naive, but not THAT much.
Pure business. Golden mine. Because only Lebanon have so much STUPID government that rise prices in the sky and lick this golden duck for years. All countries around Lebanon have prices for capacity $10-$100/Mbit. Lebanese have $1000-$1500. I know many "backbone" managers for big Tier1 ISP's who gonna die to complete opportunity to sell internet for someone, just for $400/Mbit. And if it is 155-300 Mbps... wohooo, they can go to Bahamas till end of their life, after 1 year of such sales.
Any strong artificial market regulations that make limitations and high price leads to huge black market sales.
