UK paper reveals ID of 8200 intelligence unit chief, says he accidentally outed himself
‘Embarrassing security lapse’ discovered through Google account linked to officer’s 2021 book on AI and warfare said to resemble IDF’s fighting in Gaza
The British Guardian newspaper on Friday revealed the identity of the commander of the Israeli Military Intelligence Directorate’s Unit 8200, by following a digital trail linked to a book on warfare and artificial intelligence that the officer had published on Amazon.
The Guardian named the officer who heads the classified elite unit. However, following the revelation, his identity was not published by Israeli media due to military censorship guidelines.
The book at the center of what The Guardian called an “embarrassing security lapse” was The Human Machine Team, a 2021 book whose author, identified only as Brig. Gen. YS, “offers a radical vision for how AI can transform the relationship between military personnel and machines.”
According to The Guardian, the book’s themes “closely resemble” AI-powered target identification systems alleged to have been employed by the Israeli Defense Forces, a claim that the military denies.
The Guardian said that an electronic version of The Human Machine Team “included an anonymous email address that can easily be traced” to the secretive commander’s name and Google account. Multiple sources confirmed The Guardian’s identification of the intelligence officer, the British newspaper said.
The IDF responded to the report by saying that the email address it had unearthed was not the officer’s personal account, but rather was devoted to the book.
“The book in question was published several years ago and the address mentioned in it is not used by the officer personally and has not been used in the past,” the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit said in response to a query on the report.
“However, the reveal of the officer’s personal details is a mistake. The issue will be investigated to prevent the recurrence of similar cases in the future,” the IDF added.
The 8200 unit is the military’s main signals intelligence gathering unit. It is a highly regarded unit with a revolving door into Israel’s burgeoning tech industry.
The discovery that its commander allowed his identity to be discovered will add to accusations of hubris and damage to 8200’s reputation as reports surfaced that the unit’s top brass had largely dismissed warnings ahead of Hamas’s brutal October 7 onslaught.
In the shock assault, thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed southern Israel to kill nearly 1,200 people, mainly civilians, and take over 250 hostages.
Citing a report by Israeli daily Maariv on intelligence failures leading up to October 7, The Guardian quoted the officer whose identity it revealed as saying that the onslaught would “haunt him” until he died.
“I accept responsibility for what happened in the most profound sense of the word,” he was quoted as saying. “We were defeated. I was defeated.”
According to The Guardian, critics within the intelligence community have accused the commander of leading to disaster by favoring “addictive and exciting” technology at the expense of more old-fashioned intelligence methods. Nevertheless, the newspaper said, the IDF “appears to have fully embraced” the exposed officer’s vision in its war in Gaza.
The Guardian on Wednesday republished a report from twin leftwing activist Israeli news outlets, +972 and Local Call, according to which the IDF in Gaza has used a “previously undisclosed AI-powered database that at one stage identified 37,000 potential targets based on their apparent links to Hamas.”
The original report, by Israeli journalist and filmmaker Yuval Avraham, was based on interviews with unnamed intelligence commanders. The IDF later issued a statement denying the existence of such a system.
“Contrary to claims, the IDF does not use an artificial intelligence system that identifies terrorist operatives or tries to predict whether a person is a terrorist. Information systems are merely tools for analysts in the target identification process,” the IDF said.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 33,000 people in the Strip have been killed in the fighting so far, a figure that cannot be independently verified and includes some 13,000 Hamas gunmen Israel says it has killed in battle. Israel also says it killed some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.
