Even those who are engaged in technology, or are familiar with it, can not remain indifferent to what is happening in Unit 8200. The technological breakthroughs, intelligence superiority, introduction - all these place the unit, and the State of Israel with it, as a world leader - in line with powers like the United States. Russia and China. The
public is barely exposed to all of this. By virtue of its intelligence-operational pursuits, the 8200 is often conducted in the shadows.
There is very little about her real work - and the importance of this work for national security.
This stems from a genuine fear of losing assets, exposing information to the enemy and undermining Israel's tremendous intelligence superiority over its rivals (and sometimes its allies as well).
Therefore, the screen lifting done here is rare in every sense;
With its help, a one-time glimpse into the world of the unit, its activities and its future and of the technological world that it operates, and that surrounds us.
In an exclusive interview, Colonel Y., Deputy Commander of 8200 Digital, reveals that the unit has broken through in its ability to locate targets automatically, and that this will lead to dramatic damage to the enemy's capabilities in subsequent systems. "Intelligent technology that has no solution."
Without Google and Facebook
Y. is married to Michal, whom he knew in the unit, and the father of two young daughters. He grew up in Rishon Lezion, enlisted in 8200 and did the entire route from NCO to his current position - Deputy Commander 8200 for digital. . He has a bachelor's degree in law and history from Tel Aviv University, and a double master's degree in business administration from Tel Aviv University, and in public policy from Harvard University, as part of the Wexner Foundation. A decade ago, he won the Israel Security Award for promoting significant cyber capabilities to the unit.
The 8200, he says, has undergone dramatic changes in recent decades, stemming from four main reasons. The first touches the "red" side, the enemy. "When I got here, the enemies were mostly state-run. We were a passive unit that operated following the lessons of Yom Kippur. "Countries and terrorist armies - the diversity is endless, and there is no single recipe for how to do it right."
The second reason concerns our "blue" side. The UAV requires a completely different pace of organization. We used to be busy warning about war, and several times a year we were required to give a shoulder to a special operation. Today we operate the offensive almost daily. The issue of operational partnership has also changed. In the past, the 8200 served only the strategic echelon. The first time I came to the HFK in the field, I was already a veteran major. Today our intelligence serves the territory. I am a member of brigades, and I work closely with them. "
The third reason has to do with technological change. "We started listening. Nasser and Hussein are talking, and we're in the middle somehow, listening to a conversation. Today it's a completely different kind of intelligence, when I have access to your computer I bring things you did not plan to communicate with anyone in the world. "Intelligence. The amount of valuable information in the world has not changed, and the secret remains the same - only it is much more complicated to extract."
More complicated?
"When my grandfather wanted to say something to the universe, he picked up his dial phone and spoke. So did leaders. Everything they had to say to the world, they said on the phone. Today, anyone who understands something of his life knows to stay away from digital media as much as possible, and we are required to maneuver between An endless amount of noise and knowing how to pick the chaff out of the hay. "
"The Iranian operation in Syria is super secretive, and yet, we are putting together a not-so-bad puzzle."
Nuclear plant in Natanz // Photo: IPI,
The fourth reason lies in who and how intelligence is produced. "There are no more immigrants from Arab countries or their sons who spoke Arabic from home. Today these are children who you took out of high school without a word in Arabic or Persian, and taught them everything. We also needed another internal, multidisciplinary organization to make better use of intelligence."
All of these led to a revolution even in the 8200 itself. In the past, she was mainly involved in bringing in the information. Today she is also busy extracting it. This is also the division between the two deputy commanders in 8200: A. is responsible for bringing the information to Israel, and Y. for handling it. This is a huge amount of information that comes every day from a variety of sources (computers, cell phones, correspondence, applications, eavesdropping, etc.), which requires decoding and especially the ability to prioritize between the main and the main.
"The technology of how to become a digital organization and how to properly extract masses of data exists in the world. But I can not go to Google or Facebook or Microsoft and take it from them, or bring here a company like McKinsey that will help me do it right. In this world any organization is "In itself. We had to do everything ourselves."
Do you have information gaps?
"Data is not lacking here. By and large, there is no goal that is not cracked, given the appropriate energy."
Explain.
"The mission of the defender and the attacker in these worlds is different. The defender has to defend a scope that is often infinite. The attacker has to find one weak sheep in the herd, and enter through it. In my experience - and I have perspective - once we decided Realizable, even if it took a few years and huge IQ essays. "
The enemy also learns.
"And it's a crazy learning competition. The enemy is not an idiot. He sees things. He asks questions. He wants to understand how we got to a certain place, and we managed to hit it. It's a constant challenge, which requires us to be constantly on the move. It's a challenge that becomes more complex. We talked about a source of gold or knowledge of gold, and today we are with a huge variety of sources, that the wisdom is to know how to exhaust them, melt them, and get something out of them. "
The event that dramatically changed the enemy's understanding of Israel's capabilities was the operation in which computer damage was introduced to the Iranian nuclear facility at Natanz, disrupting centrifugation operations there.
"In this incident, and especially after the incident of Snowden (the American computer expert who leaked confidential information about the US intelligence agency's tracking software; JL), the world came out of the era of cyber ignorance.
Everyone today is aware of everything.
It requires us to get better.
"Fortunately, the technology vector is moving in the direction of more platforms and more connectivity, which for us are more potential areas of attack."
You said the enemy understood. That he is not an idiot. How, after all, do you manage not to be exposed?
"There are whole mechanisms that have been in place here for years, whose job it is to make sure we protect our strategic assets and our methods."
"The Gospel" According to Y.
Israel is a cyber power. The 8200 is the engine behind it. "I do not want to give ourselves scores. One can argue whether we are in the top 3 or the top 5, but we are in the league of the greatest. I say this with confidence, and at the same time reluctant: everything we have is not trivial. It is fragile, and has to work hard every day To keep it. "
Y. says it rests, first and foremost, on the people. "The number one bullshit of this organization is its human quality. It stands out compared to our partners overseas. We can take all 18-year-olds, pass them an endless sequence of tests, pick the most talented and brilliant tweezers, pay them a standard military salary. $ 300 a month, and sending them to deal with the most complex cyber challenges and the most complicated intelligence questions, all in a dynamic environment and with commanders giving them a sense of capability - that's the whole point.
And how hard is it to keep them in service in the face of the temptations outside?
"The temptations and competition out there are fantastic today. People get offers that are several times what they earn here. I stayed in the military for two main reasons: because it's the most interesting thing I've ever done in my life, and because I met the best and most talented people I've ever encountered. "Stay because of meaning, ability to influence, broad management control when they are very young. A young guy can command hundreds of people here, with 24/7 operational missions, and with insane technology and challenge. That's what leaves people here. We can never compete for money."
There have been publications in the past that try to steal not only people, but also secrets and knowledge.
"We are aware of the dangers that have increased, among other things, against the background of the growing preoccupation with offensive cyber. There are people here whose job it is to make sure that our secrets remain with us, and that people do not do things they are not supposed to do."
And how much do you care about the current rise in the Israeli offensive cyber industry? In the end, those who look for them may look for you too.
"We operate under the authority and authority of the State of Israel, and the most senior echelons know and are updated on what we do. And we are not in touch with the civilian offensive cyber companies of choice."
Why?
"It's a strategic decision made here. Bottom line, we prefer to be detached from them."
"We were in unprecedented intelligence superiority."
Iron Dome interceptions in Ashkelon during Operation Wall Guard // Photo: Reuters,
The way to the reference
Every operation of 8200 is approved, as stated, by the highest echelons in the IDF and the government. For action on the cyber level. "The
information is collected in a variety of ways: by cyber, air, sea, land and more. - What the IDF knows about the enemy. 8200 has been given responsibility for this process, and its role is to absorb the information, decipher it and distribute it to the various parties.
In Operation The Wall Guard, an innovative machine was tested for the first time. "We have expressed abilities that have developed here in the worlds of audio, text, pixel and construction of all these materials, and of their ability to fuse and access in a way that is relevant to making operational decisions such as goals,Defense and intelligence for decision-making. "
Be specific. Does this machine know today to produce targets on its own?
"Take for example a rocket launcher. It's not enough that I collect the information with different sensors. I have to detect a ground breach in advance. Someone digs, moves soil, maybe puts a sheet of cloth over it to hide his actions, then hides something, covers and goes. Operates a super heavy algorithm here on all the visual data collected from a variety of means - from satellites to observations - locates the soil breach, locates the fabric sheet that is no different from any rope for hanging laundry in Gaza, locates the sequence of days of excavation, and knows how to cross it with other sources And turn it into a landmark in the end. "
Still, 4,000 rockets were fired at Israel.
"It's a new machine, which works for a few months. It means we have a machine, we have a method, and it works. It is not hermetic, but I think with the system we have developed we can meet this challenge."
The system that Y. speaks of is called the "Gospel." This is a recommendation app for goals. "You get an automatic recommendation for a goal. It does not eliminate the need for a goal researcher, it does not eliminate the decoder, but the system recommends. In Wall Guard this system alone has created hundreds of new goals in just four days."
Is it effective in Bambam as well?
"In Bambam, for example, we try to map the Iranian presence in Syria. For that, we need to make a smart geography - an infinity of sensors that create a work surface for us, on which researchers sit and identify Iranian centers of gravity. The Iranian operation in Syria is "Super secret. Everything is secret, decentralized, coded. They understand that they are under attack, and do everything to hide themselves. And yet, we manage to put together a not bad puzzle at all. These are things that could not have been done in the past."
The flow of information requires Y. and his people to handle a huge amount of information items every day, in different media and in different languages. "In the past, even if you gave me a thousand more soldiers who speak languages, it was impossible to do that," he says. "Today I know how to run smart logics, for example in the world of speech-to-text, and to extract from the millions of items of information I collect the ones that are the most valuable and interesting, and only to flood them with my people.It's phenomenal. "
And where are you? Because everyone who uses automated translation software knows that there are quite a few failures and mistakes.
"This is exactly the difference between us and citizenship - the level of trust we are required to have. We need to know how to accurately snipe all of these raw materials, and we can not be mistaken that decisions are made on this basis. "It will be thrown away and swallowed up in the abysses of information that is here. We must not miss it."
Rise in awareness.
Snowden // Photo: Reuters,
And how do you deal with the challenges that the other side poses to you, from encryption to using code words?
"This is the core of our challenge, so we need the best people here. There are areas where in order to stay on the wheel, we must be the best in the world."
for example?
"For example in the cyber worlds. In the worlds of digital technology. That's why our applications and algorithms have to be the best in the world."
"We are a national treasure"
Y. believes that we are not at the end of the cyber revolution, but in the midst of it, and the future is almost infinite.
Despite the tremendous progress, there are quite a few questions and problems that remain unanswered.
In The Wall Guard, for example, it was important for the State of Israel to find Muhammad Daf and Yahya Sinwar and kill them.
The 8200 was a key tool in tackling this challenge, and failed to bring about a breakthrough.
"We were partners in this effort," says Y.
"There are intelligence questions that are really difficult, and I will not say here whether we were close or not."
Test result.
"There is no argument. And this is not the only example. I mention again that the other side is very aware of the threat."
But there are places you can not miss. The Iranian nuclear, for example. You can always kill Sinwar in the future. Iran will not have a second chance.
"I return to what I have already said: from my 24 years of experience in this organization, given the investment of the right energy and resources, there is no goal that is not open. Point."
Hezbollah's precision project?
"This is a great example that there is no goal that is not open, given a sufficient investment. I just mention that everything has validity, and that it requires constant maintenance."
And yet, in the end, you are expected to give a warning. And in the guard of the walls, rockets flew to Jerusalem and surprised Israel.
"Warning is our basic mission, although beyond intelligence gathering it includes other things like interpretation and decision making. As someone who has a perspective on all the major operations that have been in Gaza, at the Wall Guard we have unprecedented intelligence superiority."
And in the face of this superiority, if you ask the average citizen on the street, the results of the operation were not impressive. it is frustrating?
"I get up in the morning to prevent an unwanted war, and to make sure that if we get into a confrontation - we will allow the IDF to win as quickly as possible.
In this we do the maximum we can, but it is a dynamic world, and there are other variables like our decision-making processes, constellation, luck.
And yet, I can state that the IDF has fantastic intelligence. The vast majority of the armies in the world were dead that they would have the level of knowledge and depth and breadth that the IDF has about its enemies. "
How many times do you get information or knowledge, grab your head and tell yourself it can not be?
"I'm not the right person to ask him that, because I really like intelligence. But it happens a lot. There's intelligence here that makes you marvel every time again."
If the average citizen knew what you were doing here, both in terms of technology and intelligence, what would he say to himself?
"He would have felt endless pride. But really pride. There are young people here with fantastic responsibility and endless commitment, who are doing crazy things. This place is a national treasure."
