8 ms·

The Dubai Job

215 points by paulgerhardt 16y ago

veb 16y ago
Awesome article. No bullshit, no advertising... just plain win.
- ilitirit 16y ago
  It is a bit sensational, but I suppose that is to be expected. >... the trafficking of huge amounts of rockets and sophisticated weaponry into Gaza, which have been used to devastating effect since the start of the second intifada in 2000. I don't think the weapons smuggled into were particularly sophisticated and I don't think they were used to devastating effect at all. Still a very informative piece though.
  - tkahn6 16y ago
    > I don't think they were used to devastating effect at all. That's a matter of perspective. I think the citizens of Ashdod would disagree. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_Israel#Psychological http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_I...
    - tome 16y ago
      The structural devestation has certainly been significantly less than many other devestations I could name which are happening contemperaneously. However, I can't speak for the psychological (and other forms) of devestation that may be happening in Ashdod and Sderot. I would like to know more about that.
      - doron 16y ago
        The constant trickle of rockets creates a very poor incentive for any economic development, leaving an already troubled region in a spiraling economic downturn and brain drain for those who are able to leave. Other effects will surely be realized as time goes by, the constant disruption of the education system in the entire region comes to mind.
        mih 16y ago
        Are we speaking about the Israeli or the Palestinian side of the border? On one side economic development maybe suppressed, but across the border people struggle for the basic necessities of life. As everyone knows, there is no easy solution to this except for both parties to redress their mistakes. As long as there is oppression and no justice, both will be the losers.
        tkahn6 16y ago
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1a6faeIZG4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1a6faeIZG4 Assuming this is in fact, Gaza city, if there is indeed a market for iPhone 4s and they have high end refrigerators stores, I think this is a wealth distribution problem. Clearly there is high poverty in Gaza (60% according to one article I read), but also there is a substantial middle class.
    - ilitirit 16y ago
      Ashdod was first attacked in 2008. Sderot has been under attack since the start of the second intifada, and back then most of the time home-made and Qassam rockets were used, not "sophisticated" weaponry. And while I do recognize and appreciate the psychological damage caused to citizens, when looked at in the context of the Israel-Palestine conflict, the damage seems minimal. I don't think the author needed to sensationalize the point about Al-Mabhouh being a weapons smuggler for a terrorist group. I think most people would understand why Israel wanted him eliminated.
- tuxychandru 16y ago
  There is no advertising because it is the print version. The normal page is a 7 page article with enough ads.
tome 16y ago
It seems like the operation was tactically a great success, but strategically a failure. The agents seem to have been very well trained and carried out their task very effectively. There has been serious negative fall-out, though, including the unmasking of a number of important agents, and worsening ties with Dubai and the countries whose passports were forged.
- wyclif 16y ago
  I'd say you have it backward. Tactically, mistakes were made. But strategically this mission was a huge success: they eliminated their target-- the goal of the whole operation.
  - praptak 16y ago
    It's hard to tell without knowing the whole picture. For example - how bad was the actual reaction of the countries whose passports were forged? I mean real actions like curbing cooperation with the Israeli intelligence, not the formal gestures.
  - forensic 16y ago
    Considering all the details about their own operations that were leaked, I bet they wish they had spent more time to get it perfect. It's not like Israel is incapable of perfect assassinations. It's just a question of dedicating enough resources - time, money, manpower. This has not only exposed agents and caused a diplomatic mess, it has exposed operational details: - the hacking of hotels - the use of disguises and surveillance teams - the tempo at which is it conducted - pattern of movements - division of labour - use of unknown poisons - the austrian switchboard Mossad will have to tweak all of these elements now in order to retain obfuscation.
    - praptak 16y ago
      I suspect that they have to constantly tweak those anyway. They do not have any guarantee that the opponent hasn't got the patterns even if the mission had no obvious failures. The Dubai could as well have kept this under the rug, hoping to trap the agents on their next mission.
johnyzee 16y ago
If anyone is interested in further reading I can recommend "The Other Side of Deception" by former Mossad officer Victor Ostrovsky. (Note that this is the sequel to "By Way of Deception" by the same author, it is more informational and matter-of-fact than the first book.)
praptak 16y ago
This is interesting: "Any operative trying to reach a colleague—whether in the hotel down the street or at the command post in Israel—dialed one of a handful of numbers in Austria, from which the call was then rerouted to its destination. But since dozens of calls were made to and from this short list of Austrian numbers over a period of less than two days, the moment that the cover of a single operative was blown and his cell phone records became available to the authorities, all others who called or received calls from the same numbers were at risk of being identified." Given that the agents have had enough time to leave Dubai, I wonder how did the authorities identify the initial phone number whose billings were checked. Have the agents called an easily identifiable hotel landline?
- sjs 16y ago
  If they had some footage of the spys making phone calls and had precise times for that footage they would have been able to match up calls with the cell towers in the area.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
wyclif 16y ago
Al-Mabhouh's number was clearly up. The article sensationalises the diplomatic damage between Israel and the US/UK-- it's called blowback and the Mossad was willing to pay the price if mistakes were made. Operations this complex rarely come off flawlessly, but it was very well done, "good enough" you might say. With their objective accomplished and their agents disappeared before Hamas knew what was going on, the mission was a success.
- kylelibra 16y ago
  Wired has some additional follow up information on the subject. It definitely reinforces your point that his number was up. http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/01/dubai-assassination/ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/01/dubai-assassination...
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
yuvadam 16y ago
This is a very interesting article. Ronen Bergman is a very well known journalist here in Israel, but this article sheds new light on details which haven't been made public up until now. The fact that head of the Caesarea unit offered to resign following the Dubai operation has not been known up until now.
- eliben 16y ago
  Bergman may be well known but he's a sensationalist, making a living off "exposing unpublic information". Don't be surprised if he gets into UFOs at some point. I would take everything he writes with a grain of salt.
badmash69 16y ago
Downvote me if you will, but I do not think this article belong on the front page of Hacker news. It is a interesting illuminating article but it belongs on Reddit or even Slashdot.
- johnyzee 16y ago
  Don't forget to flag it.
- sophacles 16y ago
  Read the guidlines -- "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity" is the short and sweet rule. I find well written pieces about things I normally don't know much about intellectually gratifying. More so, actually, than yet another "awesome vim tricks (that any reasonably experienced user already knows)" or "look at this awesome revolutionary thing in node.js (that turns out to be a standard async pattern)".
  - badmash69 16y ago
    As long as we are cherry picking text from guidelines to support our POV, here is my pick " ..If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. " This stuff has been covered on TV. May be not on the channel that you like to watch --- but it has been covered. Search BBC or CNN. From CNN.com: http://articles.cnn.com/2010-12-26/world/israel.mossad.report_1_british-passports-al-mabhouh-dubai-police?_s=PM:WORLD http://articles.cnn.com/2010-12-26/world/israel.mossad.repor... And that is why I think is topic is better suited to Reddit and not here.
    - sophacles 16y ago
      Another "cherry picked" phrase from on-topic is "That includes more than just hacking and startups". Note also that I have now quoted more of the On-topic guidelines than I have left out. As for the TV thing -- were you sure to bitch about the topicality of the iPhone release based on this guideline? What about the "stolen" iPhone? How about anything wikileaks related? All the stuff posted here about academia? Do math papers count -- they are not actually about hacking, just about maths, frequently with no direct relation to hacking.
vitorbal 16y ago
This was a really interesting article. I like this subject, does anyone know of any books, websites or articles that might have more of the same?
- lallysingh 16y ago
  The Stratfor rundown: http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20100303_using_intelligence_almabhouh_hit http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20100303_using_intelligence_a... (free article) Stratfor's good for this in general, but also not cheap.
- nikcub 16y ago
  Same author (a very good, well known writer on the topic): * http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/10/opinion/10bergman.html?_r=2&scp=1&sq=ronen%20bergman&st=cse&oref=slogin http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/10/opinion/10bergman.html?_r=... * http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124243059842325581.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124243059842325581.html Same topic: * http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2010/0319/Dubai-assassination-spotlights-top-cop-skills-in-a-modern-day-Casablanca http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2010/0319/Dubai-a... * http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/02/al-mabhouh_assa.html http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/02/al-mabhouh_ass...
WestCoastJustin 16y ago
Links to the 30 minute CCTV videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JghQ0ZcRfQs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JghQ0ZcRfQs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8XDhnEJ-N0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8XDhnEJ-N0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWxjxTaWytE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWxjxTaWytE
koudelka 16y ago
The late 70's British spy show, "The Sandbaggers" might also be of interest: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sandbaggers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sandbaggers
raheemm 16y ago
"Take yourselves and your bank accounts and your weapons and your forged fucking passports and get out of my country," - Lieutenant General Dhahi Khalfan Tamim, chief of the Dubai Police
- patrickgzill 16y ago
  Why did they not at the least, confiscate the weapons, bank accounts, and forged passports?
  - smcl 16y ago
    Have a look at the article, the quote in question was said on the phone to some higher-up in Hamas after it was discovered they were operating undercover doing shady business in Dubai
kevinskii 16y ago
...they somehow managed to chain the door from the inside. This to me has always been the more curious detail of the operation.
- daten 16y ago
  There are tricks for unlocking it with something as simple as rubber bands. ( http://blackbag.nl/?p=1315 http://blackbag.nl/?p=1315 ) There are also tools for sale that go under the door for manipulating such locks. I imagine those could be used to replace the chain. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAkJRpKeyYg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAkJRpKeyYg ) It should be even easier than unlocking it since you have access from the inside to set something up that you could pull from the outside after closing the door.
  - kevinskii 16y ago
    The curious thing isn't so much that it could be done, but that they apparently were able to do it without spending any time fidgeting with the door. The best way I could think of would involve something like a bent coat hanger, a chewed piece of bubble gum, and a small inspection mirror stuck through the crack in the door. It would take a while even for a practiced hand.
    - daten 16y ago
      That still sounds like a solution when you're restricted to only accessing one side of the door. They might be able to rig something up before they leave the room that is much easier to execute after they close the door and without looking. A string with adhesive, attached to the end of the chain, run over to the open door and under the edge of the locking plate. Then under the door. Close the door, pull the string, door is locked and string comes off. No evidence, takes two seconds. It might need a little tweaking but sounds plausible.
chanux 16y ago
This article was really inspiring to me. I realized that "I don't do enough of what I do", reading it. ...the lock picker practiced disabling every type of lock in use in all the major hotels in Dubai.
vinodlive 16y ago
How did the assassins exit room 230, chained from the inside?!!

The Dubai Job

215 points by paulgerhardt 16y ago

veb 16y ago

Awesome article. No bullshit, no advertising... just plain win.

ilitirit 16y ago
It is a bit sensational, but I suppose that is to be expected. >... the trafficking of huge amounts of rockets and sophisticated weaponry into Gaza, which have been used to devastating effect since the start of the second intifada in 2000. I don't think the weapons smuggled into were particularly sophisticated and I don't think they were used to devastating effect at all. Still a very informative piece though.
- tkahn6 16y ago
  > I don't think they were used to devastating effect at all. That's a matter of perspective. I think the citizens of Ashdod would disagree. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_Israel#Psychological http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_I...
  - tome 16y ago
    The structural devestation has certainly been significantly less than many other devestations I could name which are happening contemperaneously. However, I can't speak for the psychological (and other forms) of devestation that may be happening in Ashdod and Sderot. I would like to know more about that.
    - doron 16y ago
      The constant trickle of rockets creates a very poor incentive for any economic development, leaving an already troubled region in a spiraling economic downturn and brain drain for those who are able to leave. Other effects will surely be realized as time goes by, the constant disruption of the education system in the entire region comes to mind.
      - mih 16y ago
        Are we speaking about the Israeli or the Palestinian side of the border? On one side economic development maybe suppressed, but across the border people struggle for the basic necessities of life. As everyone knows, there is no easy solution to this except for both parties to redress their mistakes. As long as there is oppression and no justice, both will be the losers.
        tkahn6 16y ago
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1a6faeIZG4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1a6faeIZG4 Assuming this is in fact, Gaza city, if there is indeed a market for iPhone 4s and they have high end refrigerators stores, I think this is a wealth distribution problem. Clearly there is high poverty in Gaza (60% according to one article I read), but also there is a substantial middle class.
  - ilitirit 16y ago
    Ashdod was first attacked in 2008. Sderot has been under attack since the start of the second intifada, and back then most of the time home-made and Qassam rockets were used, not "sophisticated" weaponry. And while I do recognize and appreciate the psychological damage caused to citizens, when looked at in the context of the Israel-Palestine conflict, the damage seems minimal. I don't think the author needed to sensationalize the point about Al-Mabhouh being a weapons smuggler for a terrorist group. I think most people would understand why Israel wanted him eliminated.
tuxychandru 16y ago
There is no advertising because it is the print version. The normal page is a 7 page article with enough ads.

tome 16y ago

It seems like the operation was tactically a great success, but strategically a failure. The agents seem to have been very well trained and carried out their task very effectively. There has been serious negative fall-out, though, including the unmasking of a number of important agents, and worsening ties with Dubai and the countries whose passports were forged.

wyclif 16y ago
I'd say you have it backward. Tactically, mistakes were made. But strategically this mission was a huge success: they eliminated their target-- the goal of the whole operation.
- praptak 16y ago
  It's hard to tell without knowing the whole picture. For example - how bad was the actual reaction of the countries whose passports were forged? I mean real actions like curbing cooperation with the Israeli intelligence, not the formal gestures.
- forensic 16y ago
  Considering all the details about their own operations that were leaked, I bet they wish they had spent more time to get it perfect. It's not like Israel is incapable of perfect assassinations. It's just a question of dedicating enough resources - time, money, manpower. This has not only exposed agents and caused a diplomatic mess, it has exposed operational details: - the hacking of hotels - the use of disguises and surveillance teams - the tempo at which is it conducted - pattern of movements - division of labour - use of unknown poisons - the austrian switchboard Mossad will have to tweak all of these elements now in order to retain obfuscation.
  - praptak 16y ago
    I suspect that they have to constantly tweak those anyway. They do not have any guarantee that the opponent hasn't got the patterns even if the mission had no obvious failures. The Dubai could as well have kept this under the rug, hoping to trap the agents on their next mission.

johnyzee 16y ago

If anyone is interested in further reading I can recommend "The Other Side of Deception" by former Mossad officer Victor Ostrovsky. (Note that this is the sequel to "By Way of Deception" by the same author, it is more informational and matter-of-fact than the first book.)

praptak 16y ago

This is interesting: "Any operative trying to reach a colleague—whether in the hotel down the street or at the command post in Israel—dialed one of a handful of numbers in Austria, from which the call was then rerouted to its destination. But since dozens of calls were made to and from this short list of Austrian numbers over a period of less than two days, the moment that the cover of a single operative was blown and his cell phone records became available to the authorities, all others who called or received calls from the same numbers were at risk of being identified." Given that the agents have had enough time to leave Dubai, I wonder how did the authorities identify the initial phone number whose billings were checked. Have the agents called an easily identifiable hotel landline?

sjs 16y ago
If they had some footage of the spys making phone calls and had precise times for that footage they would have been able to match up calls with the cell towers in the area.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

wyclif 16y ago

Al-Mabhouh's number was clearly up. The article sensationalises the diplomatic damage between Israel and the US/UK-- it's called blowback and the Mossad was willing to pay the price if mistakes were made. Operations this complex rarely come off flawlessly, but it was very well done, "good enough" you might say. With their objective accomplished and their agents disappeared before Hamas knew what was going on, the mission was a success.

kylelibra 16y ago
Wired has some additional follow up information on the subject. It definitely reinforces your point that his number was up. http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/01/dubai-assassination/ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/01/dubai-assassination...
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

yuvadam 16y ago

This is a very interesting article. Ronen Bergman is a very well known journalist here in Israel, but this article sheds new light on details which haven't been made public up until now. The fact that head of the Caesarea unit offered to resign following the Dubai operation has not been known up until now.

eliben 16y ago
Bergman may be well known but he's a sensationalist, making a living off "exposing unpublic information". Don't be surprised if he gets into UFOs at some point. I would take everything he writes with a grain of salt.

badmash69 16y ago

Downvote me if you will, but I do not think this article belong on the front page of Hacker news. It is a interesting illuminating article but it belongs on Reddit or even Slashdot.

johnyzee 16y ago
Don't forget to flag it.
sophacles 16y ago
Read the guidlines -- "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity" is the short and sweet rule. I find well written pieces about things I normally don't know much about intellectually gratifying. More so, actually, than yet another "awesome vim tricks (that any reasonably experienced user already knows)" or "look at this awesome revolutionary thing in node.js (that turns out to be a standard async pattern)".
- badmash69 16y ago
  As long as we are cherry picking text from guidelines to support our POV, here is my pick " ..If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. " This stuff has been covered on TV. May be not on the channel that you like to watch --- but it has been covered. Search BBC or CNN. From CNN.com: http://articles.cnn.com/2010-12-26/world/israel.mossad.report_1_british-passports-al-mabhouh-dubai-police?_s=PM:WORLD http://articles.cnn.com/2010-12-26/world/israel.mossad.repor... And that is why I think is topic is better suited to Reddit and not here.
  - sophacles 16y ago
    Another "cherry picked" phrase from on-topic is "That includes more than just hacking and startups". Note also that I have now quoted more of the On-topic guidelines than I have left out. As for the TV thing -- were you sure to bitch about the topicality of the iPhone release based on this guideline? What about the "stolen" iPhone? How about anything wikileaks related? All the stuff posted here about academia? Do math papers count -- they are not actually about hacking, just about maths, frequently with no direct relation to hacking.

vitorbal 16y ago

This was a really interesting article. I like this subject, does anyone know of any books, websites or articles that might have more of the same?

lallysingh 16y ago
The Stratfor rundown: http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20100303_using_intelligence_almabhouh_hit http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20100303_using_intelligence_a... (free article) Stratfor's good for this in general, but also not cheap.
nikcub 16y ago
Same author (a very good, well known writer on the topic): * http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/10/opinion/10bergman.html?_r=2&scp=1&sq=ronen%20bergman&st=cse&oref=slogin http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/10/opinion/10bergman.html?_r=... * http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124243059842325581.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124243059842325581.html Same topic: * http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2010/0319/Dubai-assassination-spotlights-top-cop-skills-in-a-modern-day-Casablanca http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2010/0319/Dubai-a... * http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/02/al-mabhouh_assa.html http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/02/al-mabhouh_ass...

WestCoastJustin 16y ago

Links to the 30 minute CCTV videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JghQ0ZcRfQs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JghQ0ZcRfQs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8XDhnEJ-N0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8XDhnEJ-N0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWxjxTaWytE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWxjxTaWytE

koudelka 16y ago

The late 70's British spy show, "The Sandbaggers" might also be of interest: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sandbaggers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sandbaggers

raheemm 16y ago

"Take yourselves and your bank accounts and your weapons and your forged fucking passports and get out of my country," - Lieutenant General Dhahi Khalfan Tamim, chief of the Dubai Police

patrickgzill 16y ago
Why did they not at the least, confiscate the weapons, bank accounts, and forged passports?
- smcl 16y ago
  Have a look at the article, the quote in question was said on the phone to some higher-up in Hamas after it was discovered they were operating undercover doing shady business in Dubai

kevinskii 16y ago

...they somehow managed to chain the door from the inside. This to me has always been the more curious detail of the operation.

daten 16y ago
There are tricks for unlocking it with something as simple as rubber bands. ( http://blackbag.nl/?p=1315 http://blackbag.nl/?p=1315 ) There are also tools for sale that go under the door for manipulating such locks. I imagine those could be used to replace the chain. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAkJRpKeyYg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAkJRpKeyYg ) It should be even easier than unlocking it since you have access from the inside to set something up that you could pull from the outside after closing the door.
- kevinskii 16y ago
  The curious thing isn't so much that it could be done, but that they apparently were able to do it without spending any time fidgeting with the door. The best way I could think of would involve something like a bent coat hanger, a chewed piece of bubble gum, and a small inspection mirror stuck through the crack in the door. It would take a while even for a practiced hand.
  - daten 16y ago
    That still sounds like a solution when you're restricted to only accessing one side of the door. They might be able to rig something up before they leave the room that is much easier to execute after they close the door and without looking. A string with adhesive, attached to the end of the chain, run over to the open door and under the edge of the locking plate. Then under the door. Close the door, pull the string, door is locked and string comes off. No evidence, takes two seconds. It might need a little tweaking but sounds plausible.

chanux 16y ago

This article was really inspiring to me. I realized that "I don't do enough of what I do", reading it. ...the lock picker practiced disabling every type of lock in use in all the major hotels in Dubai.

vinodlive 16y ago

How did the assassins exit room 230, chained from the inside?!!