TEL AVIV — It is hard to take seriously a conference that provides free pizza and Coca-Cola to participants wearing tags with names like Nothingmuch, Cyphunk and Blacktiger.
But for more than 350 computer geeks who came out of the cybershadows last week to participate in Y2hacK, an international hackers conference in Tel Aviv, this gathering was no laughing matter.
“Hackers are very important for the Internet community as a whole, because they are the ones that will be buttoning up holes in the system,” said John Draper, also known as Cap’n Crunch, a 57-year-old hacker guru from California.
“Governments should be a little more tolerant to what is going on and hackers should be willing to contact a company and say, ‘I found bugs in your system.'”
Cap’n Crunch holds a place of honor online in the hackers hall of fame for his discovery in the 1970s that a toy whistle from a Cap’n Crunch cereal box could be used to break into telephone networks. He has since reformed his ways, and used the conference as a platform to condemn destructive hacker activities such as assaults that briefly crippled leading Web sites like Yahoo! and eBay in February.
Although hackers regularly stage conventions in the United States and Europe, this was the first such gathering in Israel aimed at galvanizing local hackers. Michael Eitan, a Likud Party Knesset member and former science minister, even paid a visit, urging the hackers to make sure not put their talents to illegal use.
Many participants said it is time for authorities to stop hunting them down and to start listening to what they have to say. The conference was sponsored by People and Computers, an Israeli technology magazine, and Netvision, a leading Israeli Internet service provider.
It was organized by Neora, a veteran Israeli hacker and software programmer who lectures about cyberculture at Tel Aviv University.
Y2hacK provided a rare glimpse into the secretive and somewhat anarchic world of people who are seen as the arch-enemies of the new world order of dot-coms and e-commerce. Participants were challenged to break into certain sites offered by companies wanting to prove their cyberdefenses were sound.
And all eyes were peeled for camouflaged agents believed to be milling about, in a lively offline game of “Spot the Fed,” borrowed from U.S. hacker conferences.
Though some people wore yarmulkes, the hacking scene — complete with an afternoon break for meditation — seemed to be void of the religious-secular tensions that are commonplace in Israeli society.
“I’m a wannabe hacker,” said Inbal, a 16-year-old high school student from Ra’anana, who only gave her first name or screen alias. Inbal, who attends a religious youth group, was knitting a kippah while listening to lectures given by veteran hackers.
“I once broke into a system by mistake, and the company offered to pay me so I could tell them how I got in,” she said. “I thought that was really cool. But I think the people who cause damage are stupid — they are just showing off.”
Jews, in fact, have a prominent representative on the international hacking scene — Kevin Mitnick, who spoke to the convention via teleconference.
Mitnick, 36, spent nearly five years in prison for breaking into the Web sites of leading companies. The best-selling books “Cyberpunk” and “Takedown” and a forthcoming Hollywood movie are based on his story.
Mitnick was released from a federal prison in California in January and recently testified in Congress about the need to beef up cybersecurity. He is banned from touching a computer keyboard or using a cellular phone.
Though many at the conference attested to the fact that they provide a useful function, 501, a hacker who recently moved from the United States to Israel, warned: Once a hacker, always a hacker.”
“Most of us have had some fun,” he said.
501 works as a software programmer, yet he sometimes cannot resist the urge to peek into other people’s computers.
Behind the fun and games and 14-year-old computer whizzes, 501 conceded that few people realize just how vulnerable the Internet is. Nor do most surfers realize to what extent hackers pose a threat, he said.
“There are a few people who can take down the entire Internet in a matter of minutes and it will take the world two days to figure out what is going on,” he said.
Even Cap’n Crunch admitted that the generation of hackers he inspired may have gotten a bit out of control.
“Hacking is all about the challenge,” he said. “But unfortunately today hackers have gotten a little more bold and are doing more damaging things — which kinda sucks, really.”