Iran Arrests Alleged Spies Over Stuxnet Worm

kaptink writes "Reports surfacing from Iran claim 'nuclear spies' have been arrested over the infection at the Busheher nuclear station, which opened in August. According to Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi, because Stuxnet is so sophisticated, cost so much to write and uses two stolen security certificates, he believes only a national intelligence agency or a huge private company could have devised it, calling them 'enemies' spy services."

Comments

The country that cried wolf

[istartedi]

They may be right this time, but who will believe them? For those living under a rock, I'm referring to the 3 American hikers who allegedly strayed over the border from Kurdish Iraq, two of which are still being held as spies.

Re:The country that cried wolf

[Anonymous Coward]

Why in the hell would the CIA send three very obviously non-Iranian looking Americans hiking around the Iranian border?

You're an idiot to think they have anything to do with the CIA. They are were "caught" after visiting the Ahmed Awa waterfall, which happens to be only a few miles from the Iranian border. They are nothing more than a bunch of hippie activists who were stupid enough to wander into a questionable area.

Bah!

[Greyfox]

If it were targeted at Iran's nuclear sites by a hostile foreign government, they'd have been a lot more stealthy about it and waited until the thing was in operation to trigger a catastrophic melt-down. I'm sure that the reason it's most prevalent in Iran is due to lax security practices and not some conspiracy against them.

Re:Bah!

[gad_zuki!]

Your post is more or less the wired article linked to a last week. Nataz was certainly targeted by Stuxnet. That said, the news article isn't BS. The news article is reflecting what the Iranians are doing: using Stuxnet to arrest and jail undesirables and furthering their "us vs them" ideology that keeps them in power. Any accident at any plant going forward will not be a sign of incompetence but a sign that western powers are targeting Iranians.

Anyone that pissed off someone in power at Bushehr is now a spy and will be executed. They'll also probably arrest some foreigners and use them to trade for real spies of their own caught overseas. That's how these oppressive regimes work. Theocracy isnt a valid form of government.

"only a national intelligence agency"

[ebcdic]

So called security experts - most of them in fact peddlers of software who depend on the fear of malware for their incomes - are not unbiased commentators. Remember how USL claimed that Unix was too complicated for Berkeley grad students to have replicated without copying their proprietary code? And SCO claimed that Linux couldn't possibly be that good without belonging to them? In fact, there's no software "so sophisticated" that it can't be produced by a bunch of sufficiently dedicated geeks.

It's an argument particularly appealing to conspiracy theorists - look at how the authors of "The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail" insisted that no-one would expend the effort to forge the documents they relied on, even after the hoax was admitted. You just can't judge this kind of thing on that basis.

Eh..

[Renraku]

Rest assured, you'll never catch those in charge. I doubt there are names on it. Maybe an agency, but they aren't going to be dumb enough to step into Iran. Iran is simply using these arrests as as political tool to further their own goals.

Re:How come Iran can do it when others can't?

[Redlazer]

That's the nice thing about not having a justice system.