:coverage_after

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

There was never any intention of publishing a list of vulnerable sites. The results gathered in security survey were in statistical form only to protect both the sites and ourselves. Publishing such a list would have been incredibly stupid and probably illegal. There were attempts (not by the police) to prevent the publishing of the statistical results as well as the very existence of the survey.

"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. "

The "HackTheseSites" challenge had nothing to do with the survey. A few companies vulunteered to have their security tested but eventually backed off. No attempt was made to attack any site without the consent of its operators. The security survey was conducted by an automated scanning software which detects the presence of known vulnerabilities, without exploiting them and without causing any damage.

Keep these examples in mind whenever you read anything in the press. Reporters often make up such "facts". Even text which appears as a quote is sometimes the reporter's own words and opinions rather than the words of the person interviewed.