Not that the other side is “winning” – when it comes to internet dominance, Israel’s got the competition beat hands down. But the hackers and crackers who are out in force right now, seeking out Israeli and Jewish content web sites to deface, are like swarms of annoying insects. If you spray – i.e. install protective measures on web sites – you can keep them at bay. But if they sniff weakness – security holes that web site administrators are supposed to be on top of – they’ll swoop in, invading web servers and replacing the content with anti-Israel propaganda.

Over the past week, hundreds of Israeli and Jewish sites have been compromised, with anti-Israel propaganda, consisting of messages, graphics and video, installed on sites they take over (you can see a whole gallery of such sites at http://www.arabic-m.com). And propaganda it is; the photos the hackers display of injured Gazans are heartbreaking, but after all, photos aren’t always what they seem, as we learned during the Second Lebanon War, documented at http://tinyurl.com/axlt5f, http://tinyurl.com/8sgvfu, and http://tinyurl.com/g2p9n, among others.

The attacks are sophisticated; you have to give them that, to the extent of being able to hijack a whole domain name server (http://tinyurl.com/7bsauq). According to experts I’ve spoken with, we’re dealing with a professional crew of hackers who are probably working for the “axis of evil” governments in the countries they live in (including Syria and Iran). With the right protection, though, sites can be made safe.

But just “being safe” somehow just doesn’t satisfy in a situation like this; you feel like you want to do more. How is it that they can get away with hacking our sites without feeling some pain on their side? Don’t we have hackers – or any other offensive weapons – to fight back with? What can an ordinary, non-programming person do to defend his or her country?

The answer is yes, there is something you can do – and you don’t have to be a hacker to take some offensive action. Legal, even! As we all know, hacking is generally looked upon askance by the law, and while I don’t think anyone who hacks an anti-Semitic web site has to worry about being arrested, they may find themselves with a lawsuit on their hands.

However, there is a perfectly legal way to get back at bad sites – sites that skew the facts or tell outright lies about Jews and Israel. How? Just by being a nudnik – the more obnoxious, the better. The sites that describe in detail how Israel controls the world and is planning to drag all the goyim into World War III have to be hosted somewhere. All you have to do is run a traceroute on the domain name of the site and find out the actual numerical IP address the site uses. That address is registered to a web site provider, somewhere in the world. Using an online tool, you can track ownership of that address – and when you do, it’s time to open up your e-mail program and write a scathing letter, complaining at the poor quality of sites hosted on the company’s servers (and the fact that it is promoting racism, anti-Semitism, and libelous accusations). Mention the fact that your uncle is a lawyer, and chances are you’ll get satisfaction – doing as good a job of booting a site off the internet as a hacker would, or even better!

It’s actually far less complicated than it sounds. You may already have a traceroute program installed in your computer, but you can also use an online traceroute took; at http://www.geektools.com/traceroute.php, just choose one of the many links (grouped by country; for our purposes, it doesn’t matter which one you select. The Israel links are pretty reliable). Type in the name of the host (www.hostname.com, without the http:// at the beginning). The system will begin seeking out the true home of the host, and after about 13 or so “hops,” it will present you with an IP address.

Copy that address and surf on over to http://www.ip2location.com/free.asp, which will look for the physical location of the server that IP address is associated with – and usually, the name of the hosting company that provides the address. And that’s all you need; you can surf to the hosting site and get the appropriate e-mail, to write your complaint to the system administrator, director, or other bigwig who takes complaints. Chances are the site administrators or owners do not realize what screed they are hosting, by the way; there’s no law that says they have to check up on the work done by their clients. And while they have no legal obligation to respond positively to your complaints, they probably will, in order not to get a bad reputation, as well as to get you off their back.

If you’d rather let someone else do the hacking for you, by the way, check out http://www.help-israel-win.org/, where they have an application you can download and install that uses group computer technology (sort of like SETI, Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, http://www.seti.org) – except their application attacks anti-Israel web sites. I don’t know if it’s legal, but it is easy.

But why take chances? With my way, you know you’re safe – and you get the satisfaction of seeing the fruits of your work. I know the anti-Israel crowd is going to flip if people use this tactic, which is easy and requires very little, if any, technical skill; “the Jews own all the web hosting sites,” etc., which could be, but is unlikely. Fortunately, there are plenty of people – of all types – who have self-respect, and who don’t want to be known as the type of people who spread lies and hate. If anyone wants to take this job on (it’s really not hard, and it does get results) and doesn’t know how to proceed (after reading the instructions carefully, of course), please write and I’ll do what I can to help.

More than 50,000 people visited the 1,200 or so exhibitors at the show last year, and this year organizers hope to increase the number of visitors substantially.

Out of the 1,289 exhibitors this year, 88 are from Israel – more than any other country, except for the United States (208), Britain (188), France (146) and Germany (111). In fact, one could say that Israel is far more innovative than even these technology superpowers, since almost every booth run by an Israeli company at this year’s show works primarily in R&D, as opposed to the many service providers representative of other countries, both large and small, who are attending the show solely to build partnerships using their existing resources.

And it goes without saying – but we’ll say it anyway – that the entire Arab world was barely able to muster a minyan of representatives for the show – even “hot” Middle East economies like the UAE (three). Of Israel’s immediate neighbors, Lebanon (three), Jordan (two) and Saudi Arabia (10) have companies that will be attending, while none came from Syria or Egypt, which is the largest country in the Arab world and has had a GDP growth rate of more than 6 percent that has rivaled Israel’s over the past several years. Makes you wonder.

You may have already heard of the first bit of big news to come out of an Israeli company exhibiting at Barcelona – the “modular phone” being introduced by Israeli start-up Modu (http://www.modumobile.com/). You slip the credit-card-sized Modu component, the “guts” of a cellphone/PDA/GPS/Entertainment device/alarm clock/whatever into a “jacket” that primarily performs the function you are interested in at any given moment.

The product was announced with great fanfare last week and featured in the computer press around the world, guaranteeing that the Modu booth at the Congress will be jam-packed, as service and content providers clamor to join the three service providers Modu says it has already made a deal with.

This is pretty big news, if you ask me. And while it would seem that Israel has, with the Modu announcement, already received its share of Barcelona glory and fame, there are plenty of other innovative companies that will be presenting innovations no less impressive, in my humble opinion. I actually have written about a number of them in my “Stellar Start-ups” column, the latest being InfoGin, http://tinyurl.com/2hr9rp, whose technology could revolutionize the way cellphone surfers see and use Web sites.

With convergence the watchword in the computer, Internet and cellphone industries – and manufacturers and service providers trying to pack as much communications punch into their devices – cellphone/device development is now where it’s at in the technology world, attracting the best and brightest people and ideas to solve a whole new crop of problems that are preventing the cellphone revolution from moving forward.

One typical problem is battery power, which tends to fail when you need it most on portable devices like cellphones – but also on laptop computers, iPods and PDAs. Elaborate chargers are supplied when you buy these devices, but they’re difficult to lug around. Why can’t someone come up with a normal power supply – say, AAA batteries – to power cellphones? Probably because such batteries wouldn’t provide enough power to run a cellphone, but maybe they could help recharge the device’s lithium battery pack when you’re on the road.

Now that’s one idea most of us would never have thought of. Luckily, Israeli start-up Techtium (http://www.techtium.com/) did, and will be presenting their line of standard alkaline battery backup solutions for cellphones, laptops, video cameras and other devices at the congress. Batteries may not be as “sexy” an innovation as Modu-type “jackets,” but it’s a great solution to a practical problem faced by everyone who uses devices with rechargeable batteries.

Israeli companies will also be showing off software innovations this week, such as the one offered by Aerotel (http://www.aerotel.com), which takes GPS-based safety to a whole new level. Aerotel will be showing its GeoSkeeper GPS quad-band GSM module; it allows parents to keep track of their children’s whereabouts via GPS. If the kid leaves the specific area s/he is permitted to be at (school, the mall, etc.), the phone can send an SMS to parents, caregivers or security personnel – sort of like an electronic security guard following the wearer. The company also has a number of interesting solutions in the area of “Telemedicine,” enabling caregivers to provide long-distance assistance to patients.

There are plenty of others, too. EIM Telecom (http://www.eimtelecom.com/) has developed a bridge device to connect cellphones and laptops, enabling users to make Skype-style free and low-cost IP phone calls from their cell devices (http://www.skuku.com/).

Dblur (http://www.dblur.com/) develops software to enable cellphone cameras to take better pictures. Nexperience (http://www.nexperience.com) develops innovative testing procedures for cellphone makers.

It’s worth checking out the full catalog of Israeli companies at the congress site (on the home page, click on Exhibition > 2008 Exhibitor Listing, where you can select by country and/or industry). Many of the companies presenting at the congress are members of the Israel Mobile and Communications Association (IMA), which is sponsoring several events for the Israeli companies attending. In addition, the IMA will broadcast recorded video blogs from the show, so you can feel like you’re there, at least in spirit.