Yom Kippur Website Hack Attack!

“Hacker: Person skilled at programming also used to describe someone who cracks computer systems…” Jen Starks

I took the day off this past week on Yom Kipper, but I couldn’t help thinking that something might happen, just as it did 32 years ago in Israel that resulted in the three-week aptly titled Yom Kippur War. I don’t claim to know much about hacking into computer files or websites, but I have often seen the results of very frightening attempts by others that have done it.

So sure enough, I went to my favorite Jewish chat-room website (www.jewishstreet.com) and lo & behold, the front page had been hacked, probably sometime in the morning by a group of hackers who call themselves “Te@m-Evil Moroccan Arab Hackerz” with the following message: “Break Into Israel machine. HACKED BY Team-evil MoROCcAn ARAb Hackers. Fr0m The Darkside ===> [Team-Evil Moroccan Hackerz]. We are: G0rillazz ; X-BLooD-X ;Peur2rien; EVIL-slAyers FUCK ISRAeL; JUST FOR HATE ; No cO.il ===> Special Greetz t0: Eno7 ; Greetz t0; Adrallica , Nazi , by0nd.cr3w, THE_GHOST, Spy_Pc And for all Moroccan Hackerz <====x.blood.x@gmail.com & l8oo8l@gmail.com ===>BE Pround To Be MORCCAIN © Te@m-Evil Copyright 2005…”

And it got me to thinking about who these hackers were, so I decided to research them online to see what their history was, if any. Hackers are kind of like graffiti artists/taggers, leaving their trademark behind thinking they won’t be caught.

This is kind of similar to animals, in that animals will also mark out their territories traits and will know instictively how to return to that particular place without being caught. Hackers also get a huge thrill as if they’ve accomplished something major…kind of like pyro-maniacs, who get their rocks off from starting fires.

I’ve met a few graffiti artists in a previous timetable during my summer as a journalism instructor at Cabrini Green in Chicago and mostly I was told they do it for art’s sake, but for these hackers, they are doing it for their cause, which just happens to be anti-USA & anti-Israel, which is seems to be a popular trend.

Electronically, these type of terrorists are probably a greater threat and risk to the Internet than previously thought. But back to the Te@m-Evil Moroccan Arab Hackerz; I wanted to find out just how long they had been around and wondered were else they had struck and it looks as if their earliest webpage strike was on November 27, 2004, to a guitar manufacturer’s website, that didn’t have a hint of ethnicity on their page. The response was tremendous by users, mostly the complaints of stupidity.

Then later I found along the way, they were leaving crazy, cryptic and mindless messages in other guitar-maker webpage guest-books, like: “Our Msg (message) iS for USA & ISRAEL are TERRORISTS, people in Iraq & Palestine are dying everyday, children are losing their parents, losing their lifes (lives), what's going on?! Move on people! Move on and do something, your turn we'll come, are you still keeping it quite (quiet)?” and “Attack reason: For the people of Iraq an Palestine and no PORN site LOVE ISLAM.” This in harmless guitar-maker’s guest-books!

So, I had to wonder like the rest of the world; is there some sort of major attack offensive coming down the pike for American guitar companies from the likes of foreign outfits? Is there is nothing better than a good American-made guitar? I mean, it’s a little odd to be leaving cryptic messages there, when one would think that they would set their sights on actual targets like government agencies and newspapers.

Upon further research, I found that Te@m-Evil did leave their mark on various music label & newspaper websites, among them; the since defunct website www.wegotguns.com, AKA music label, Hard:Drive, founded in 1991 by Stephan Groth (www.apoptygmaberzerk.de), which was noted much earlier this year in January by www.side-line.com an Internet music magazine that the hackers “probably think that the site (www.wegotguns.com) is really about guns,” when in reality of course it wasn’t.

Also in January, the website www.rantburg.com, a foreign news digest website was hacked into with a similar message. In March, it was noted on the blogpage, Letter from Venezuela (http:// thejollycorner.blogspot.com) that El Nacional, a Venezuelan newspaper web site had been hacked into.

In May, the website www.voiceacrossamerica.com/bowlersparadise was hacked into and still, Te@m-Evil's trademark work is up on the page for clear viewing as well as the usual message: “Fr0m The Darkside===>[Team-Evil Moroccan Hackerz] ===>we are: G0rillazz ; X-BLooD-X ; 3rbil ; Peur2rien ;EVIL-slAyers ===>Team anti-USA ===>anti-Terrorisme ====> anti-Israel ====> Our Msg (message) iS for USA & ISRAEL are TERRORISTS, FUCK You & Fuck Your Politic ===> Greetz t0: Adrallica , THE_GHOST, Spy, Pc And for all Moroccan Hackerz -====> x.blood.x@gmail.com & 3rbil@hackermail.com & l8oo8l@gmail.com ===>BE Pround (Proud) To Be MORCCAIN © Te@m-Evil Copyright 2005.”

Other websites of ethnicity, gender and general topics have also been hacked into by Te@m-Evil, most notably, Islamic, Persian, Hispanic, Korean, gay porn, Japanese, Jewish, Israeli and sports, as well as websites sponsored by different countries like France, Italy and Great Britain, all with similar messages left behind.

Why would Te@m-Evil be dumb enough to leave traceable email addresses behind? And why does Te@m-Evil, even bother copyrighting their material when they fail to realize that it is evidence that can be used against them if or when they are caught? And do they want to be caught?

Yet still, the burning question remains: Could these strikes on little-known and seminally-known websites be target practice/test runs for the real thing? Could it be that these small skirmish strikes are nothing more than Te@m-Evil, leaving their territorial marks, while gearing up for the real McCoy sometime in the not-so-distant future?

Welcome to electronic fear.