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Stuxnet Worm Claimed To Be Devastating In Iran
sciencewatcher writes "At debka.com, a website associated with intelligence communities focusing on the Middle East, the claim is made that Tehran this week secretly appealed to a number of computer security experts in West and East Europe with offers of handsome fees for consultations on ways to exorcise the Stuxnet worm spreading havoc through the computer networks and administrative software of its most important industrial complexes and military command centers."
Or computer systems certified for safety-critical installations, instead of Windows which flat out says not to use it for that in the EULA?
This site has a lot of seemingly tantalizing information, but a lot of it is BS. It reported that one of Saddam's palaces had huge glass covered aquariums where sharks would swim under your feet. Now that all the palaces have been 'visited', there have been no reports of any such thing.
(and which they most likely had to pirate because there are export restrictions against iran).
For the US -- there's nothing stopping me selling computer software to Iran, unless that software is of military/nuclear/etc use (you can see the full details of what's not allowed here (the PDF)).
It's more likely to have been Israel.
For example this story, note that its from 2009 but still make a pretty good description of how stuxnet works. Google or following the links on stuxnet news stories will bring up other possible links to Israel.
Crypto in U.S. law was removed from the munitions classification back in 1996 by then President Clinton.
Shortly thereafter one of the exemptions granted was for open source. If the source code was freely available, you don't need an export license.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
For the US, Cuba, Iran, Syria, Libia and a bunch of other countries are under an embargo, where american companies cannot export to them...
You don't understand industrial control systems. It isn't Windows that does any safety-critical controlling, it is a PLC, which is the target of Stuxnet's payload. Stuxnet just happens to use Windows to propagate, which is a good choice because nearly all PLC programming and interface software is Windows only. Anyone this telented could have written a Linux worm that did the same thing, but it would have been ineffective because Linux is hardly ever connected to a Siemens PLC. Windows being a bottomless pit of zero days doesn't help, of course.
"Sacrifice for the good of The State" - The State
Most modern reactor designs have a difficult time going critical. They are made such that if coolant goes away, they stop working. Depending on the kind of fuel you use you can set it up so that when the coolant goes away the excess heat causes things to spread out and thus the reaction slows. It gets hot, but not hot enough to melt down. Not fool proof, nothing is of course, but makes it pretty hard for things to go critical even in a worst case scenario.
It also should be noted that often the SCRAM systems go beyond that. The rods will have springs behind them to force them in quicker, and there are usually secondary systems to drive them in as well, should the primaries fail.
Over all, the world did a pretty good job learning from the problems of early reactors and it is pretty hard to cause a meltdown these days, with a modern reactor design at least.
Do remember that the people who build these have a large vested interest in making sure they DON'T go critical, even in adverse situations. Safeties are taken seriously.
These models of PLC have a function block at OB 35 that automatically executes every 100 milliseconds. Stuxnet hides its own code at the beginning of this block (while also allowing the original code to run afterward). This allows it to mimic the original functions of the PLC, while it quietly runs in the background.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
All this quotes are pure lies:
search for "must expel Arabs and take" in
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/David_Ben-Gurion
search for "We must use terror, assassination, intimidation"
http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=22&x_article=775
etc...
some arab supported seem to just LOVE using lies as the best weapon.
Go fuck yourself.