“I was sitting on the deck overlooking the Red Sea. Israeli security officers (most who looked around 18 years old) had completed around two hours of questioning and searching me. They had pressed every sock and scarf with a security device, ripped open soap and had me strip extra layers. They asked me tons of questions–where are you going? Who do you know? Do you have a boyfriend? Is he Arab, Egyptian, Palestinian? Why do you live in Egypt? Why not Israel? What do you know about the ‘conflict’ here? What do you think? They quized me on Judaism, which I know nothing about,” Lily Sussman reports via her blog.
“Then they asked me to wait. Since they had asked for friends and families phone numbers I assumed they might be calling to verify my answers to questions or confirm I really had extended family in Tel Aviv. An announcement played over the sound system, interrupting my break in the sunshine. First in Hebrew, then Arabic, then in English. It was something along the lines of, ‘do not to be alarmed by gunshots because the Israeli security needs to blow up suspicious passanger luggage,'” Sussman reports.
“I went inside to check on my bag. I had left it unattended, where they instructed. It was still there so I went back outside,” Sussman reports. “Moments later a man came outside and introduced himself as the manager on duty. And then, ‘I’m sorry but we had to blow up your laptop.'”
Sussman reports, “What….all my client case notes and testimony, writing, pictures, music and applications. Years of work. NO!!!! What?? Are you insane?? What were you thinking? THAT’S ALL MY WORK!?”
“After much yelling, crying and frantic phone dialing (don’t be alarmed if I called you repeatedly this morning), he took me outside to see the wreckage,” Sussman reports. “It turned out it hadn’t been quite blown up, but rather shot through with three bullets. We were able to extract the hard drive, seemingly unscaved. Thank goodness…”
Read more in the full article, along with more and larger images, here.
MacDailyNews Take: Let this serve as a lesson: You never know what’s going to happen, so remember to regularly back up your data and store it in a safe place!
[Attribution: Gizmodo. Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Bill in Sarasota” for the heads up.]
That’s just pathetic poor MacBook 🙁
I had a similar experience with internet dating.
Reports like this aren’t going to encourage tourism in Israel.
I vote we contract with Israeli Security for all law enforcement activities in the US.
It was probably that sticker of Carmen SanDiego on the macBook that drew the suspicion.
Did those bullets go through? It doesn’t look like they passed through the keyboard. I wish there was an image showing the rear.
But if it didn’t go through, that’s one tough, well constructed MacBook. I wonder which would be cheaper… a bullet proof vest or a couple of MacBooks (one for the front and one for the back)?
How exactly does shooting the baggage defuse whatever is inside?
sounds like useless grandstanding by the police.
It won’t be long before this kind of thing spreads to the US. Remember the White House tattle-tail list? It’s coming!
Israeli security hates glossy screens too!
Hey, Roy… Every politician has an “enemies” list. They won’t always call it that of course, but it is part of the tools of their trade.
And people feel Obama or Bush2 are friggin crazy! This is daily life in Israel, Particularly if you are not a JEWISH Israeli. I’m all for “security”, but sanity must rule. And responsibility. Not like anyone offered to replace her computer for her.
TomL……. ‘Reports like this aren’t going to encourage tourism in Israel’………
Why would you want to go on holiday to disputed country run by a govt who have now respect for human civilian lives, and who currently stand accused of potential war crimes !!!!!!!!
pathetic israelis! Stupid at best!
Well, there goes Apple’s aura of bullet-proof reliability.
It’s only news because it’s a Mac. Windows users do this to their own machines all the time.
She was probably playing Britney Spears on itunes without using her headphones.
She’s lucky they just shot the computer.
nice grouping
Israel sounds like a very nice country never to visit.
Some of you guys dont know anything about what your talking about. You live in America where “everything” is so nice and peaceful. Over in Israel, people want to kill the Jews and bomb them all the time. How many of you have been to Israel??? Ummmmmm unless your kept in the dark about news, people hate Israel. Duh their security has to be rough because of all the suicidal bombings that happen all the time. Last time I was there, a hotel was bombed just a few miles from where I was. Israel has to check any and all things suspicious. If you had people trying to kill you, would you just walk around and act oblivious to all perceived threats??? I dont think so. Again, I dont think what the security guards did was nice or proper but if they felt there were certain files on there that would do any harm to Israel, they are trained to operate.
If the hard drive survived, the what was the purpose of this exercise? Man, now I know never to visit Israel. Not that I had the desire before reading this. It’s pathetic how Muslims, Jews and Christians all believe in the same god. Yet, they have been killing each other disregarding the mandate of their professed god. All for what??
Israel is completely batshit insane and essentially a criminal state, but unfortunately it’s associated itself so closely with Judaism that leveling any criticism at it gets you labeled an anti-semite. On the flipside, alot of people opposing Isreal are anti-semites because they don’t understand that Israel and Judaism are seperate entities, that its simply a tyrannical regime hiding behing the star of David as a shield just as many tyrants throughout history have hidden behind the Holy Cross or the Koran.
What a mess.
Huh? The topic? Oh yeah…
The bar has been raised. Dell, HP, Acer, I demand you start stresstessting your laptops with a handgun. And Apple should come out with a new ad; “To show you how well a Macbook protects your data, we took one to an NRA shooting range …”
@ Israel Has Enemies–
Okay, I’ll humor you.
Let’s say there are dangerous files on the computer–Wouldn’t it make more sense to destroy the data, rather than the computer? Even crazy Israelis know that.
So let’s take that further and suggest that it was the computer itself that was the threat–Do you carefully disassemble it and diffuse it, or do you shoot it three times at close range?
This was nothing more than power-tripping idiots flexing their muscles in a police state with zero accountability.
If this is how they do security, it’s no wonder they’re so fucked up over there.
@Israel Has Enemies
Sure, when you displace and dispossess people from there ancestral land through illegal settlements you can expect to make some enemies on the way.
Ummm, not the way I would expect to cool my laptop. Nope.
So Time Machine can’t handle this?
I know it’s rough over there but JEEZ that sounds like over reacting. I wonder if a true story?
Kenh
In theory you attempt to disrupt the firing chain. Remove one of three links and you stop a device from exploding. These particular security agents are related to Larry, Moe and Curly.
Shoot first, ask questions later?
What a stupid way to disarm a bomb in unattended bag at the airport: shoot it. Or did they actually expect that there is a terrorist hiding there?
I had a similar experience at the Ben Gurion airport. They took away the adapter of my PowerBook. They told me “if you didn’t like, you can sue El AL”.
They always put some kids to investigate you, and these kids love to play 007 and show you they have some “power”. I’m jewish but I’m pretty aware the youngsters in Israel are very sick and spoiled.
@Mac-nugget
First, the British and the UN established Israel, it’s not as if the Jews marched in and said “we’re taking this.” Second, weren’t the Jews “displaced and dispossessed” from Israel first? So what you’re really trying to say is that the Jews should be in a war with the Romans? Third, while it’s true that Jews and Muslims are fighting constantly, I’ve never heard of Christians being involved, where do you get that information?
Scott Rose has 2 great articles on backups on his blog here:
Online Internet backups:
http://scottworldblog.wordpress.com/2009/12/10/apple-backups-in-the-cloud/
ChronoSync and ChronoAgent backups:
http://scottworldblog.wordpress.com/2009/12/13/chronosync/
Off topic, but without the work of the Intel engineers in Israel there would be no Macbook Pro. Probably no Intel.
Keep in mind there may be more to the story.
Well, it could be the security officer had never encountered a Mac before. Apple has only a limited presence in the country, and Apple’s made no apparent effort to grow that presence. This, despite the fact that its Core processor was developed there (including the latest i5/i7), as was flash memory. Microsoft, in contrast, employs thousands there, and people think “Windows” when they think PC.
Don’t mock the youngsters who often man the security lines there. Those 20-year olds have a lot more experience dealing with this threat than you know. Just this week one 14-year old tried to cross with a knife and two pipe bombs (he admitted he wanted to do “jihad”) and a few days earlier someone was caught carrying *six* pipe bombs.
Me, I’ve gone through their security many times over the decades, most recently in 2008. Never had a problem.
Cloud computing could save all of this.
BTW, Israel is a liberal democracy, with a free press more vigorous than anything in the US. It’s just located in an impossibly tough neighborhood.
@macRick
That’s not Carmen SanDiego… That is Elektra.
And what the hell is scaved?
She sounds like she is a social worker or an attorney and she doesn’t know it is “unscathed”?
Haven’t Intel got a factory in Israel?
Wouldn’t it be way better for all parts if the state of Israel was established in the US? I think all parts would be way happier.
Not very bright, are they?
If it was dangerous, shooting it could/would have set it off.
If it had information that THEY really needed, could/would have been destroyed.
If it had been communicating with some device, loss of signal could/would have activated it.
They were just being dicks. There was not a valid, rational reason to shoot the computer.
Don’t know how accurate all the details are here, but I do know that the most apt comparison to the state of Israel in modern history was South Africa before the end of Apartheid.
I’m Jewish and not in the least self-hating but facts are facts. “Palestinians” were just sitting there minding their business until Israel decided to invade their country and take them hostage. It shouldn’t be that hard too understand. It’s a shame more people in this country don’t know their history.
And a bigger shame this country continues to support and prop up this “benevolent” dictatorship.
@Please
Man, you never heard of the crusades or of the holly inquisition. Dude, you need to recap on your history. What about the holocaust, didn’t the Germans systematically attempted to exterminate the Jewish population of Europe. What religious denominations did the Nazi regim endorse? Look it up. Learn a bit of history. Also, you state that the Israel belongs to the Jewish people because that is where they came from. So, what you have to say of the American Indian?? Off course, those that were not annihilated.
By the way, I support the existence of the state of Israel what I don’t support is the marginalization of the Palestinian people in to a subhuman status, just like I do not endorse the Nazi marginalization and systematic extermination of the Jews people during the Holocaust.
I happen to have very good jewish and palestinian friends.
I personally don’t believe in god, so to me, all this fruitless killing and power struggle seems quite a pitiful and stupid. It goes hand in hand with the divisive village mentality of nationalism and the like.
It looks like they missed the hard drive.
What? Someone hasn’t blamed President Obama for this yet?
MDN is slipping.
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@Israel has enemies
F-u-c-k y-o-u.
@Mac-nugget
Jews have been living uninterruptedly in the Land of Israel for thousands of years. Jews are the native people of the land.
The arab palestinians are just a tool and an excuse to attack israelis. And you love it!
OY VEY! KIDS!
Since Please isn’t responding, I suppose I’ll do it for him/her:
1. The Crusades were a retaliation against Muslim invasion of Europe. Yes, it was Christians fighting Muslims, but more broadly it was Europeans fighting Middle Easterners.
2. The Spanish Inquisition was a response to 700 years of war, again started by invading Muslims (via Gibraltar).
3. You are correct in that Nazi Germany was dominated by Christians, but the Jews were not killed because of religious intolerance, they were killed because of racism (Aryan vs. Jewish).
4. Why do you draw the conclusion about Native Americans? What does that have to do with anything? Completely different situation, in a completely different era of history.
5. Why is it only Israel that gets blame for “marginalizing” the Palestinians. I don’t see Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, or any other Arab country welcoming them with open arms.
So… we just take this writers “word” for it? Holy propoganda… that thing could be photo shopped, ccould be a prop from a movie, could be anything. Believe me, if the IDF wanted to blow that thing up, the hard drive would not have been recoverable. There is an insane amount of BS in these comments, and perhaps a completely fabricated article.
Looks fake, if the bullets passed through the tap as it appears then why cant we see through the holes???
LOL is this what premium CRAPPLE calls it when it’s broken in 3 shots.
After spending a lot of time in Israel, the security forces have to do what they have to do. When your citizens are constantly subjected to suicide bombers, racism, hatred, and attacks, civil rights aren’t high on the list of concerns.
And I’m sure there is more to this story. Since it makes no sense to shoot a computer for many reasons, I’m guessing something else happened. It’s kinda like Tiger Woods. First story he was in a traffic accident. Now, he’s had sex with everyone but Oprah.
This story is one person’s retelling with no supporting evidence of what happened other than a picture.
@Mac-nugget
Retaliation, so capturing the Holly Land had nothing to do behind the motivation of the Crusades???
Please look up Obscurantism and the Dark Ages to see the full effect of the Christian faith when left un-checked.
@ Jeff
The laptop seems to be in a black zippered case. You can see the sides of the bottom of the black case to the right and left of the bottom of the laptop. The top of the black case is behind the holes.
If you go to the original article, there are more pictures. The first picture at the original article shows the laptop closed, with the top of the black case behind.
The third photo of the original article is a close-up of one of the bullet holes without the black case behind it.
I have not the slightest idea.
What sense could it possibly make to shoot the notebook?
– Was my question.
Are you sure who shot at it, maybe it was a girlfriend and she hear the word Tiger. Which OS were you using?
Israel, that’s one of the American states isn’t it? If not, they should join.
Israel, that’s the state between Wildoldming and Kuntucky right?
hitler is alive and well in his post WW2 state of israel
the israelis are the microsoft of genocide
@Mac-nugget
Errr… Hello? trying to lay claim to some displacement over 2000 years ago is outrageous! what is happening now is what counts , and the Israeli state is an illegal abomination (apart from in the eyes of the US, and we all know how unbiased and obsessed they are about the justice, and the truth, when it does not serve their immediate goals).
The sheer audacity of using such ancient history to justify the fascistic behaviour towards an indigenous population beggars belief. If it where not for the fact that a bunch of fundamentalist Islamic nut-jobs now have a convenient excuse to wage war on us all, this would be ignored, just like any other horrific regime that is not deemed to be in charge of some worthwhile natural resource, or is, by convenience viewed to be on our side… I was going to make a list but its very long and if you don’t know half of them already then you are a fucking idiot!
Israel is the NEW SOUTH AFRICA OF OLD, treat it accordingly and boycott its products till it realises it has to stop behaving like such a thug/bully and negotiates; we are all living in the shadow of it’s evil expansionist and ethnic cleansing goals.
Holly inquisition? Holly Land ? What are these things? I must have been sleeping in class the day they were discussed ! What were they about?
@god deluded
“Israeli state is an illegal abomination”
I find it interesting that so many that decry the creation of the Israeli state by the British, never have a word to say about the state of Pakistan that was created at the same time by the same body.
As far as the story goes, I’d like to hear the other side of the story as to why the woman’s laptop was shot up. That is not how any security service deals with suspicious packages. Sounds more like she pissed off somebody.
Does she have AppleCare?
I’m just sayin…
Well, the Isrealis manufacture a lot of weapons anyway. Perhaps they need a reason to waste some of their older bullets? What do you do when you have too many bullets at home? Let it rust? NO!
You find a reason to go deer-hunting!
LOL
http://no-spamming/
The ONLY thing that will ever protect North America is security forces like this. However so few people just don”t get it.
@Mac-nugget
Yes you’re right. Capturing the holy land had nothing to do with it.
The Islamic Jehad had all but killed off Christianity as far as Spain. Yes they took Spain. A Christian leader in the path of the Jihad contacted the Pope in Rome desperately asking him to provide aid to save the lives of the Christians being slaughtered and the Pope called for Christian countries of Europe to stand up and fight the moors.
If they did nothing there would be one huge world nation of Islam right now. No America, no Apple, no freedom. One big middle east.
So what’s your point?
Most of you all need to open a history book.
Start with the Roman Empire, consentrate on the conflict between the three branches of Abrahams God.
Do not go into your studies with pig headed bias.
Get informed, then come back and have an honest intelectual conversation.
God bless.
Israel is a PC
Here’s video of the Macbook with bullet holes:
Spark
The state of Israel was forced upon the Palestinians. There was greater support for the partition of India. Besides does a Palestinian state exist today?
@Mac-nugget
1.”The Crusades were a retaliation against Muslim invasion of Europe.”
Thats why they had to go all the way to Palestine and slaughter all the Muslims and the Jews over there.
2.”The Spanish Inquisition was a response to 700 years of war… “
Thats why they had to forcefully convert the Jews of Spain.
Good Lord, didn’t anyone see the subtle humor in the MDN take? OK so now the rest of you can go back to the claims and counter-claims. Geez Louise!
@Spark
Pakistan and Israel:
The scary thing is not so much there creation, but there evolution of both these States. Now both of these nations are possess nuclear weapons and both are always under continues threat of war. So, I guess, it was not a very good idea to begging with. Or was it really a strategic decision maid by those that benefit from perpetuating instability and war.
Don’t paint us all with the same brush.
There is a group around the world that have continuously refused to serve in any military, preferring jail to military service. They do this because they take the words “they shall beat their swords into plowshears…learn war no more” seriously. Interesting this quote is from the book of Isaiah and is used by the UN on a statue outside the headquarters.
These people were among the only groups that were allowed to leave German concentration camps if they compromised their faith.
They’re Jehovah’s Witnesses
Smart move Israel. The security of your citizens is your #1 duty.
I’ve heard of border forces opening laptops with a crowbar. Maybe they don’t pay enough to get civilized staff?
Also: Dr Peter Watts, science fiction writer, beaten and arrested at US border http://bit.ly/6nGsQL
Not bullet-proof then? Disappointing!
She did it herself for the insurance.
She wanted a Pro with Firewire….
And to the haters of Israel-
Should the map be redrawn for Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan?
The truth is, it’s not religion that divides these people, it is ignorance, and religion is the excuse used to hate.
If they were of the same religion, then they would hate because they are of a different sect. If the same sect, a different tribe. If the same tribe, a different dialect. If the same dialect, then the other side cheated in a soccer match.
They choose to live their lives in hate, no matter what nor where they are. This is a fact of history.
I changed my mind.
She didn’t do it for insurance.
They did it as a warning to stop being annoying