Zev Chavets
Success, it is said, has many fathers, and that is certainly the case of Israel’s astonishing achievements in the areas of missile defense and cybersecurity.
But if anyone is entitled to claim paternity, it is Isaac Ben-Israel. As a major general, he commanded the IDF unit in charge of military R&D and as the Director of Defense R&D in the Israeli Ministry of Defense, he oversaw the creation of Israel’s cutting edge anti-missile systems. As a civilian, he became the architect of Israel’s unique cyberdefense ecosystem. Today, at 68, he heads the department of security studies at Tel Aviv University, chairs Israel’s Space Agency and its National Council for Research and Development and, in his spare time, writes influential books on high-tech military strategy and runs his own consultancy firm, RAY-TOP (Technology Opportunities) Ltd. He’s a busy man.
Last week, when I met Ben-Israel in his office at Tel Aviv University, I took a tape recorder with me. This isn’t my usual practice, but I admit to being nervous. It’s not every day that an ex-Israeli Defense Forces sergeant interviews a major general, especially when that major general is a combination Robert Oppenheimer and Batman, and the ex-sergeant barely passed high school geometry. I didn’t want to miss anything.Ben-Israel readily agreed to being taped. I put the recorder on the desk between us and hit the on button. To my consternation, a red light began flashing. “I don’t think that’s supposed to happen,” I said.
“I don’t know either,” he said. “I never learned how to use one of those things. I can ask one of my assistants to take a look.” We both laughed, I fiddled with the recorder until the blinking stopped and began asking questions.
The New York Times recently reported that North Korea wants to become a cyberpower. Is that as dangerous as it sounds?
Not really. If it is true that North Korea has trained 6,000 computer experts in 10 years, that’s impressive. But that leaves them a long way from entering the top tier of cyberpowers.
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-10-21/talking-north-korea-and-iran-with-israel-s-rocket-man
