I think somebody hacked the 1st paragraph! International Hackers Battle Security, Politicians for Conference 2:42 p.m. ET (1942 GMT) March 30, 2000 By Laurie Copans

JERUSALEM  Hackers from around the world overcame interrogations, censorsh Hackers from around the world overcame interrogations, censorship and an all-around bad image to hold Israel's first hacker convention, wrapping up the two-day conference Thursday without a glitch. ip and an all-around bad image to hold Israel's first hacker convention, wrapping up the two-day conference Thursday without a glitch.

The 350-strong gathering was the first of its kind since the Yahoo! and e-Bay commercial sites were crippled in February, reminding companies across the globe of the dangers hackers can pose.

At the request of lawmakers, Israeli police had considered banning the conference, but Attorney General Eliyakim Rubinstein gave the go-ahead.

One of the original hackers, John Draper of Fremont, Calif., said the hackers wanted to put a better face on the practice.

"A hacker is a person who is developing programs to make them better," Draper told The Associated Press. "They aren't the kind of people who break into computer systems. That's a cracker."

Draper, known by the handle "Captain Crunch," helped launch the hacker phenomenon. In 1971, he discovered that a toy whistle from a cereal box reproduced the tone needed to open a free telephone line.

Aware of his fame, Israeli security agents at the Los Angeles airport interrogated Draper for an hour, he said, and thoroughly searched his computer equipment before allowing him on the plane.

"There were many attempts to silence us on this," organizers said in a summary of the gathering, released on their Web site.

Police prevented the organizers from publishing one of the results of the conference: a list of vulnerable Israeli commercial Web sites.

To compile the list, participants played "HackTheseSites" with sites offered up by Israeli companies. The site owners were confident no one could thwart them, but they were wrong.

When they weren't eating pizza or guzzling soda, the hackers sat bent over their computer screens. They discovered that 28 percent of the Israeli net is vulnerable  about the same proportion as the rest of the world, according to organizers.

Police were invited to attend the conference and even to speak, but they turned down the offer, creating the game "Spot the Fed."

Participants were given the challenge of finding plainclothes policemen among them. If a person pointed out as suspicious was in fact a security official, the official was to get an "I am the FED" T-shirt, and the spotter an "I spotted the FED" shirt. But none were found out.

Israeli lawmaker and former Science Minister Michael Eitan accepted an invitation to attend. He said that hacker games like those displayed at the conference were meant more to entertain ambitious youngsters than cause harm.

"I told them that as long as they all enjoy the freedom of the Internet and don't abuse this freedom, and make the public support police intervention, this will work," Eitan said in a telephone interview.

Participants also got to speak to their guru  convicted cyberbandit Kevin Mitnick  in a conference call. The 36-year-old American bemoaned the strict probation terms that ban him from using a computer or any hi-tech device.

Mitnick was released last year after serving five years in jail for breaking into the computer systems of some of America's biggest companies, including Motorola Inc., Novell Inc. and Sun Microsystems Inc.

"He had a lot of sympathy in the room  we all know not being able to touch a computer is a worse punishment than even being in jail," said Neora Shaul, a Tel Aviv computer programmer who helped coordinate the conference.

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-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), March 30, 2000