MK Anat Maor, chairperson of the Knesset Committee for Research and Development and Technological Development, asked Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein to consider ordering Minister of the Interior Natan Sharansky to prevent the entrance of computer criminals into Israel.
Maor was reacting to press reports of a world conference of hackers to take place soon in Israel. Maor is convinced that allowing participants in the conference to enter Israel constitutes glorification of their unacceptable activities.
The hacker conference, called Y2HACK, will take place on March 28-30, at the same time as the InternetWorld exhibition in the Israeli Trade Fairs and Convention Center in Tel Aviv. The hacker conference will feature well known hackers, such as John Draper and Andy Miller, representatives of the information protection industry, and representatives of the legal authorities.
"The hacker phenomena is an example of terrorism in the full meaning of the word", Maor writes. "Damages by hackers to various Internet sites amount to $3 billion.hackers are likely to cause enormous damage to innocent customers trading through the Internet".
Published by Israel's Business Arena on February 14, 2000