The word is out – Israel, despite all the talk of it being the target of Turkish and Arab hackers, is far safer online than most of the “first world” (and it’s pretty safe offline too, with crime stats per capita far lower than that of the U.S. and other countries). Israel, the most open country in the Middle East, is also the safest country in the region for internet users; Israelis have a one in 211 chance of experiencing an internet attack, far better than the world average, in which computer users were attacked online one in every 73 times they used the internet.

Israel also compared favorably to the rest of the Middle East,  where there is a 1 in 119 chance of getting attacked. Jordanians had a 1 in 98 chance of getting attacked Syrians a 1 in 198 chance, and in Turkey – the world leader in internet riskiness – there was a 1 in 10 chance of getting hacked when you went online!

Not only that – Israel beats nearly all of Europe and the U.S.: In Australia, you have a 1 in 75 chance of getting attacked, while in the UK the chances were 1 in 63(!). In the rest of Europe, the chances of attack were 1 in 72, while in North America, the chances of getting hacked while online were a pathetic 1 in 51 – with the US a sad 1 in 48 (ahead of the US, counting up to the dubious number 1 spot occupied by Turkey, are: Portugal, Vietnam, Laos, Bangladesh, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Russia). Come on America – you can do better than Bangladesh and Russia!

The statistics were compiled by anti-virus specialists AVG, makers of AVG and AVG Free applications (FAR better, imho, than the “commercial” anti-virus apps like McAffee and Symantec). The information was compiled during July, so, the company says, the stats may change. Yeah, but not radically – which means that Israel will continue to be much safer online than any of its neighbors.

Considering that the internet is far more open in Israel (as is society in general), and considering that Israel is the prime target for the hackers who have made internet surfing hell in Turkey, it’s surprising that Israel is so safe. Chalk it up (again!) to Israel’s hi-tech prowess; as usual, Israel has to work twice as hard as everyone else to survive, and in the end manages to live better than any of its neighbors. It’s a phenomenon we see repeated over and over, in many different areas of society.

It’s too bad about Turkey; they burned their bridges with Israel, so we’re unlikely (hopefully) to be offering them any knowhow on building a safe internet. And without a safe internet, Turks are going to be locked out of the future hi-tech world. Well, they wanted to be part of (lead) the “great Muslim Ummah,” aping the lifestyles of hi-tech jewels like Syria and Egypt. And it certainly seems like their wish is coming true!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Russia, Turkey Top List Of Riskiest Places To Surf The Web (techcrunch.com)
• US Polls: Israel Ally, Iran Enemy (israelnationalnews.com)
• Turkey’s Importance, Or The Lack Thereof (andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com)

So was it a fraud – a scam – as so many now seem to believe? Was the story earlier this week about the miracle LifeKeeper patch – the patch that could predict heart attacks in advance, and give blood sugar readings without injections – cooked up for some nefarious reason?

If you haven’t been following this story, you’ve been missing some high drama. After the initial news reports on the patch developed by the SafeSky company (I have to admit, I thought from the start that it was a strange name for a medical device company!) that was now valued at over a billion dollars, after the company made a deal with MicroStar International to sell a one third interest in it for over $300 million, an avalanche of reports appeared questioning whether there really was such a deal, or if the patch even existed. The patch has never been seen by an independent third party, apparently; MSI denied that there was any deal with SafeSky, and has even threatened to sue for defamation if their name was not kept out of the story.

CEO Gabi Picker quit, saying that he, too, had never seen the device, or any of the paperwork revolving around it (like FDA certification). One of the principals of the company, Arik Klein, served time for crimes some years ago after he was convicted of fraud. The deal was mostly worked out by fax and e-mail (some reports said), with the e-mail address not really that of MSI, but of an e-mail address that looked legitimate but was really owned by Klein himself. Etc. etc. etc.

So how could so many intelligent people (I’d include myself in that number, but I’m not that intelligent!) fall for this alleged scam (we’ll get back to that word “alleged” in a minute). Only because so many other medical and tech miracles have come out of Israel in recent years.

I spoke with my buddy Jameel at length about this story – he didn’t believe a word of this from the beginning. He is also a certified EMT who has had (unfortunately) much experience with heart attacks and the like, and according to him, the signs of an imminent heart attack (high blood pressure, an adrenaline rush) could be attributed to many factors other than heart problems, such as exercise (but for people with weak hearts, wouldn’t those signs indicate increased danger anyway?). Plus, he says, the idea of a non-invasive method for checking blood sugar doesn’t exist either.

Well, I’m not a doctor (I don’t even play one on TV!), so I can’t comment on the medical aspect of what Jameel says. But I do know something about medical devices and software technology – and the idea of using sensors to determine a threshold (such as heart rate) that sets off an alarm is nothing new. The patch is supposed to relay the information it collects by bluetooth (certainly not unfeasible). Similar technology – sensors, alarms, communication – can be found in any number of products. The issues being disputed are getting the data (using sensors in a patch) and communicating it (the patch is thought to be too small to hold a communications chip).

But I still say that the scam is “alleged” – meaning that there really could be a LifeKeeper patch.  According to this story, the folks behind the patch are to appear on Israel Channel Two Friday night in an exclusive interview, and will continue to claim that the patch exists, and that it will be sold. Dr. Amos Bouchnik, a respected businessman who is half owner of the company, says that there will be a big deal for this patch, which does exist. “I believe that there will be many deals. The company called SafeSky will be worth $20 or $30 billion in the future.”

Is he crazy? If you believe the whole thing is a scam, and considering the week Bouchnik had, you would have to think so. And yet the man is a millionaire several times over. You would think that he would drop the pretense at this point. Any value that could have been attributed to this scam has now been compromised. Some said it was designed to pull in investment money, others said it was a money laundering scam (lots of money going into the SkySafe account that could be sourced as part of the deal by tax authorities). But the story has been reported around the world by now; who would sink their money into this?

In other words, what does Bouchnik get out of going on TV and continuing to make claims?

Until I get a satisfactory answer, I’m sticking with “alleged” scam – and hoping that this is the real thing!

When politicians run back and forth overseas to discuss pressing world problems, the press says that there was a “flurry of diplomatic activity.” In the case of Israel and Iran, there are many who believe that “flurry” will turn into a full-blown blizzard (with a subsequent “nuclear winter?”).

Like everything else in our wired world, the business of predicting has been taken over by “the experts” – in this case, the prediction markets, who use “The Wisdom of Crowds” to figure out the future. For example, right now at Intrade, which runs prediction markets for almost anything, from politics to wine vintages, has two Israel-related topics right now: Will Hamas recognize Israel’s right to exist (nobody seems to think so) and if Israel or the US will attack Iran.

On the latter question, the predictions are all over the place, depending on which site you look at. The folks at Hubdub seem to think so, while at Intrade, they’re not so sure. Inkling users are much more optimistic that no war will take place. And at StrategyPage, where the watchword is “many minds make quick work of uncertainty,” the many minds don’t even believe that Iran is anywhere close to obtaining nuclear weapons! (They’re pretty bullish on gold, though – I guess they didn’t read my post questioning the whole gold mania thing).

So, is there wisdom in crowds? Most definitely, say people who know the business – such as Noam Danon of Qmarkets, and Israeli company that provides prediction network technology to small and medium sized businesses. I interviewed Danon last summer for Israeli21C, and he told me about the dozens of large corporations using them to set business policy – very successfully. As he says:

“Over the past four or five years, prediction markets have become a buzzword in many large organizations; Google, HP, Nokia, Siemens, the Best Buy retail chain, and many others use them to get an idea of where they should be investing their time and money. All those companies have large departments that specialize in working out prediction markets within the organization.”

Why would prediction markets give an accurate forecast for businesses, but not for Middle East conflicts? Obviously, money is a big motivator – when you have to decide how and where to invest assets, you are going to take the whole prediction process far more seriously. As far as Israel and Iran are concerned, the speculation either way could indicate that people look at the issue academically – after all, there have been no nuclear attacks since World War II, and it seem inconceivable that anyone would want to go down in history as being behind the next one (even the Iranians, North Koreans and Pakistanis, apparently). That, it seems to me, is the verdict of the crowd – with guaranteed MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) if Iran threatens/attacks Israel and/or vice-versa, both sides are doing a lot of “blustering” (another weather word!). Let’s hope the crowd is right on this one!