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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."
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.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
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.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I haven't heard anyone arguing against it being written by a foreign nation or major company, but I wonder why they arrested spies for it though. I thought the whole point of releasing the worm in the wild was to be able to infect from anywhere, with no need to directly get into the facilities, or even Iraq itself for that matter.
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.
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.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
FTA
Admittedly I didn't know much about Stuxnet until after reading more about it and it seems to me just yet another windows virus that hasn't until now been discovered and mistakenly spread via contractors laptops.
There's a lot of hype over this nuclear reactor however the fact of the matter is that it was only one of many infected areas and the rest of it is simply speculation about what damage could have been done there, what someone planned to spy on, etc. Seems to me that this worm wasn't designed for a specific target and is like any other virus.. well that or this is how Skynet starts becoming self-aware and begins manufacturing terminators..
I mean think about when was the last time the US government could do dick with computers? The US government was broken into by some retard in the UK using default passwords. How can people seriously believe the US government could come out with something like this. With all the media about the aurora virus i'd suspect the Chinese behind something like this way before America.
See the thing is Iran is so efficient on on catching crooks (whether they are actually guilty of the crime the are charged with or not) while the rest of the world seems to lag way behind.
Why?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Iran is a ratified signatory to the Nuclear Non-Profileration Treaty, so: they certainly don't have the right to develop nuclear weapons or even nuclear facilities except with IAEA oversight. Iran's nuclear activity is pretty clearly in contravention of this (they built a nuclear facility in secret near Qom, for example), and there are now several UN sanctions in force against Iran because of this.
Is it 'Western hubris' to demand that a country abide by treaties it ratified? Especially a treaty on a matter as important as nuclear armament...
The reason the West is so hostile to the possibility of a nuclear Iran is that the only peaceful doctrine nuclear weapons allow, MAD, assumes rational actors on all sides. In Iran that rationality might well be subservient to theology.
They arrested "The Usual Suspects".
I mean think about when was the last time the US government could do dick with computers? The US government was broken into by some retard in the UK using default passwords. How can people seriously believe the US government could come out with something like this.
Considering this was done by taking advantage of a hardcoded and well published default username and password I'd say anyone could be behind it ... including the US government.
This reminds me of the scene ending with Vizzini calling Wesley a fool and then falling over dead. Perhaps the same will happen with Iran.
Iran is a ratified signatory to the Nuclear Non-Profileration Treaty, so: they certainly don't have the right to develop nuclear weapons or even nuclear facilities except with IAEA oversight.
Exactly. And the NPT provides a mechanism for backing out. Let them declare publicly that they wish to do this, so everyone knows exactly what they are about.
Most viruses don't go looking around for PLC software. They tend to either be done for fame or for money, and these days it seems to be mostly money. I can't think of another virus comparable to Stuxnet.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
I guess they're staying in the NPT so that their facility in Bushehr can be legitimately maintained by Russia. What Russia gains from this isn't very clear to me, though.
"Is it 'Western hubris' to demand that a country abide by treaties it ratified?"
Yes.
As in, you have the worm, so you created or spread it?
That "possession is proof of the crime" is an attribute of the legal system here, and it is getting ever cheaper to use it to your benefit: Where once you had to drop some serious cash buying coke to plant on your targets, now you just link them to an autodownloader that drops some child porn on their computer(s). You don't even have to run the risk of linking yourself to the incident by ratting 'em out...some eager-beaver IT type or an automated sentry program will usually do it for you.
The possibilities in a state such as Iran which has even more "Thou shalt nots!!!" than we do (at this time) and a legal system that is even more "conservative" than ours is (at this time) are...staggering.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
spread via contractors laptops.
A PLC can be programmed with a pendant or with a laptop. After someone uses a laptop for the purpose, they will tell you where to put the pendant.
Admittedly I didn't know much about Stuxnet until after reading more about it and it seems to me just yet another windows virus that hasn't until now been discovered and mistakenly spread via contractors laptops. . . .
Seems to me that this worm wasn't designed for a specific target and is like any other virus..
From what I've read, it was specifically written to infect Siemens controllers, root them so it could change the control algorithms while displaying the proper algorithms when polled. The controllers are located at each piece of equipment, typically running independently, each with a minimal OS, if any. They are connected in a local network to allow communication and central monitoring and adjustment.. Stuxnet only used Windows vulnerabilities as a vector to get onto the front-end workstations in order to load into the controllers through the local network.
That woosh noise you herd mint something.
No brain, no pain.
Just ask the native americans
*DrugCheese rants*
I just want to add something on to my original post but I'll reply to your posting instead..
The US government is having trouble filling it's security expert positions. It's IT czar is a position no one really wanted. It's US army screwed its own root DNS server for 18 hours.
Does that really sound like the kind of government or the kind of country that could pull this kind of thing off?
I'm not trying to make this sound like a US sucks posting just simply highlighting the fact that is the past decade the US government and it's agencies have tended to be horrible at anything related to IT security.
I wouldn't like to be the name in the telephone directory that the pin landed on when identifying the 'spies'.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
I guess they just want to have a horse in the (Middle East) race, even if their horse is batshit crazy.
I expect you're trolling, but you got modded up so...
NO.
Just one single 0-day exploit is out of the ordinary. Of course every exploit becomes public this way, so it's not unheard of. Four 0-day exploits is shocking. It has never happened before. They are some pretty ideal exploits too, suggesting that the attacker has enough that he can pick and choose.
There were two driver signing keys, both normally used by legit companies. These keys were stolen (spy or malware), cracked, or obtained by government demand. Two of them!! I don't think this has ever happened for even one key before, never mind two.
Obscure hardware used to control a factory is manipulated. That's never been publicly seen before.
As an extra bonus, pretty much all anti-virus software is soundly defeated. This includes behavior-analysis types, not just signature-based types.
Iran as a country, maybe not. But its current leaders, especially Ahmadinejad, are NOT rational nor pragmatic.
Alledged? Did they catch them up on a cliff?
My point is that the US government has neither.
Good defense =/= good offence. To secure the goverment network you need thousands of IT pros, maybe even tens of thousands, while an attack like stuxnet only needs a small team of highly competent people. which of those two seems easier?
Well, you're correct of course ... but all that means is that anyone on the planet could be responsible.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
If you are not with us you're with the terrorists!! Der ter der
It's not just another virus as you surmise. It's designed explicitly to attack SCADA systems that were designed run on embedded Windows based boxes- it uses exploits that're specific to those types of systems to propagate.
It's not a lot of hype. All it takes to screw up a graphite or light water moderated reactor is do the wrong thing at the right time- Chernobyl and Three Mile Island happened because of operator error in overriding things controlled by SCADA like systems. With a SCADA system controlling the processes in a nuclear reactor, you can have all sorts of adverse things happen, including a meltdown.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
So far they haven't broken the treaty. Have they broken their word? Yes, by building the Qom facility when they told the IAEA they would announce any new developments.
By building a nuclear facility in secret they have broken the treaty. That's what the sanctions are about.
Iran is not stupid and not that crazy; they are rational and pragmatic.
The regime appears to be locked in a power struggle between the 'regular government' (for lack of a better term) and the Revolutionary Guard. Last week's on the media has a good analysis on how Iran has now become a dangerous place even for those who vocally support its policies because of this. Regimes that feel threatened in their existence are generally not known for the rationality of their actions.
Christian Zionists they do not believe they can "speed the coming of the apocalypse" by their actions
I'm not quite sure what you mean, but at best it smells of moral relativism stemming from a laziness to think or to get informed (I'm sure there's a term for that).
More to come?
We Americans haven't had such good luck in Iran. The Shah was a wipe. Look where that left us.
So now, they have in their possession a virus specifically designed to take down infrastructure. Doesn't Iran have computer specialists too? How long before they simply reverse-engineer this virus and use it against us? Against Israel? Their neighbors?
Reminds me of the Viet Cong digging up our landmines only to replant them in our own path. Cheap, effective and has the "value added" aspect--the enemy foots the bill for their own destruction.
American's only abide by their treaties when its convenient and profitable for them to do so.
Nice generalization there. What usually happens is that we refuse to become signatories to treaties that have no benefit to us, regardless of (ahem) "world opinion" on the matter. That is our right, and in fact we have honored treaties that cost us a great deal: the first Gulf War for example.
Regardless of whether or not you believe that Iran's signing of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treat has any merit or any validity, they are current signatories. Period. End of statement. They also have the option of backing out of that treaty at any time: no-one is preventing them from doing just that. But they won't: they want the benefits of being on board without any of the responsibilities. Even the U.N. is pissed at them for that.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I can't either- because there's none else like it right at the moment.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
No, they didn't break the treaty. Iran is only required by the NPT to inform the IAEA 6 months before such a site goes operational. Iran insists that no nuclear enrichment had yet taken place at Qom. Despite being caught red-handed by the US for having the plant, once Iran publicly confirmed its existence they informed the IAEA that they would soon be enriching from there in the future. Like I said, they broke their word, not the treaty.
I wasn't going for moral relativism, I was faulting the people who keep spouting that "Iran is irrational" because of religion. It isn't, and there are other parties more apocalypticly-minded than Iran is.
What else would they run? I doubt there is a Linux or mac version of the software to program Siemens PLC's.
I know it is a rhetorical question, but it has to be said. Given that the United States signed over 29 nation-to-nation treaties with the people of Lakotah, and gravely violated every last one, as well as every single nation-to-nation treaty made with the other captive nations of North America, it seems rather hypocritical to me this very same nation complains about breaches of treaties by others.
We have included Iran as one of the three members of the "axis of evil". It seems to me that paranoia is a reasonable response to the United States.
I don't know if the hikers were spies or innocent students. I don't know if stuxnet was designed to target Iran's nuclear facilities. But I don't blame them for being suspicious.
If the United States were less dictatorial and militaristic in it's policies, I think we would have a lot less trouble with foreign governments.
The reason the West is so hostile to the possibility of a nuclear Iran is that the only peaceful doctrine nuclear weapons allow, MAD, assumes rational actors on all sides. In Iran that rationality might well be subservient to theology.
Both Pakistan and Israel are western allies with direct US funding for their military. Both have nuclear weapons. Both are filled with religious nutcases. Both have refused to sign the NPT.
Vilifying Iran is a sideshow to the real issue of nuclear proliferation. If the West wants to be taken seriously for nuclear disarmament, it should bring Israel, Pakistan, and India to the table to make the Middle East nuclear free. Iran is doing what any reasonable state would do after seeing what happened to Iraq versus North Korea and Pakistan: If you want to avoid a US invasion, the first step is to get nuclear weapons as a deterrent.
No, they didn't break the treaty. Iran is only required by the NPT to inform the IAEA 6 months before such a site goes operational. Iran insists that no nuclear enrichment had yet taken place at Qom. Despite being caught red-handed by the US for having the plant, once Iran publicly confirmed its existence they informed the IAEA that they would soon be enriching from there in the future. Like I said, they broke their word, not the treaty.
Sure, but accepting that reasoning would mean accepting Iran's own definition of whether or not they're breaking the NPT.
I wasn't going for moral relativism, I was faulting the people who keep spouting that "Iran is irrational" because of religion. It isn't, and there are other parties more apocalypticly-minded than Iran is.
True, the danger in Iran isn't millenarianism. It's the fact that the people who are leading the various factions won't have anything to lose once they feel their power (and by extension their very lives) is at stake.
Iran did not build the nuclear facility "in secret". They announced the plant to build it weeks before they broke ground, in full compliance with the NPT.
Some two days after the announcement, the US and Israel reacted by hysterically announcing that they'd uncovered a secret plan of Iran to build the nuclear facility. The general idea is that if you proclaim something loud enough, everyone will believe it.
never waste a good crisis.
A good way to clean out those who were not toeing the line properly. I am sure a few foes will vanish. I am sure the UN's Human Rights Council or whatever that farce is now called will not bat an eye, well maybe they will find a way to blame Jews for it.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Check who those keys belong to. Not exactly the Intels of this world and yet even being Intel protecting a very valuable key that the content industry relies on, isn't enough to protect it.
See, you fall exactly into the trap the parent talks about. "Ooh, it must be complex, it must be a conspiracy!"
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
One guy produces some REALLY sophisticated stuff. One of my favorites, though admittedly obscure examples, is Kega. It is a Sega Genesis emulator written by one guy, Steve Snake, in his spare time. It has gone through many iterations, but back when it was KGen was an amazingly good emulator. So good, in fact, that Sega called him and asked if he'd mind coming and writing an emulator for them for their Smash Pack. That's right, rather than having their array of people do it, they hired one guy because he was already good at it. He did that (Sega gave him access to hardware documents and such to help) and then went back on making free emulators for everyone.
Just one guy working in his free time and he's done a better job than anyone else, and a job so good Sega figured it was easier/cheaper/better to just hire him.
Now that doesn't mean this worm was written by one guy, or a couple of guys, or anything like that. It is just intended to demonstrate that there are some extremely talented individuals out there. In fact it turns out that most high quality programs are written by relatively few people. Programming isn't like digging a ditch, doubling the number of people won't double the speed. You'll find situations, like many games, where there was one lead developer, and maybe 5 other developers under them that wrote most of it. There may have been others that helped on specific things (often in the form of a library that was licensed), but it isn't like there were just hundreds of people thrown at the problem. They'd just step on each others toes. Instead you have a few, highly skilled, people who work on a project.
Now as that applies to this worm you might notice that in no way do governments have a monopoly on good programmers. The opposite in fact, the best tend to be in the private industry. You also might note there are good programmers that do some shady things. Cracking would be an excellent example. It is pretty tricky work. You have to debug and work on a program all in assembly, without the source, to strip out the protection code. You sometimes have to emulate the functions of hardware dongles, you have to get around code traps put there to stop a debugger (tying in to the same interrupts and so on). Not straight forward, not low skill, yet done ALL the time.
All this demonstrates is that there are indeed people out there who have the skill necessary to make a complex worm. They don't have to be working for a government.
Admittedly I didn't know much about Stuxnet until after reading more about it and it seems to me just yet another windows virus that hasn't until now been discovered and mistakenly spread via contractors laptops...Seems to me that this worm wasn't designed for a specific target and is like any other virus.>
Perhaps you should remedy your ignorance then. The Symantec analysis (http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2010/10/w32_stuxnet_dossier.pdf) is pretty detailed and highlights just how sophisticated and targeted this virus is. 60% of the infections were from Iran, the windows virus itself was unusually complex and capable, it targeted and modified the industrial controller programming software running on those computers, and the final target was to install code and a root-kit on industrial controllers that were used in those plants. Nope, it's all just a coincidence..
The Intel Key probably wasn't leaked, most folks have concluded it was in fact mathematically derived from a load of player keys that had been ripped from their devices (or software).
Who says they didn't do it themselves? I mean since all we've got is weak, conspiracy theory level evidence, let's go for a double secret reverse conspiracy theory: Iran wrote Stuxnet. Their nuclear program was not going as well as they'd hoped. It was faced with setbacks they didn't want to have to acknowledge. Also, they'd really been hoping for an Israeli air strike. That would give them justification on many levels. However everyone was just bitching about it and doing things via diplomatic channels, nobody was attacking. They had nobody but themselves to blame for their problems, and the Jews were not being evil like they should.
So they write Stuxnet. It'll unleash some havoc in general in western countries which is nice and guarantees news time, but gives them a good excuse as to why their shit isn't done on time. However they don't want it to actually damage anything really important. Also they can't very well go telling people "Ummm secure your shit against this," since it has to be clandestine. So they add a "do not infect" code. They can then stick that code on the systems they need to be actually safe. They make it an obtuse Jewish reference to cast possible suspicion is Israel.
They let it lose, havoc happens it is big news. Iran says "Ahhh, this has broken our nuclear shit! Those evil Zionists!" They get to play the victim, they have a good explanation as to why things aren't on schedule, they get to arrest people they don't like, etc.
There you go. Another flimsy conspiracy theory that also fits the very limited available evidence. Hopefully this demonstrates precisely why rushing to assumptions of conspiracies based on minimal evidence is such a bad idea.
It's not just another virus as you surmise. It's designed explicitly to attack SCADA systems that were designed run on embedded Windows based boxes- it uses exploits that're specific to those types of systems to propagate.
It's not a lot of hype. All it takes to screw up a graphite or light water moderated reactor is do the wrong thing at the right time- Chernobyl and Three Mile Island happened because of operator error in overriding things controlled by SCADA like systems. With a SCADA system controlling the processes in a nuclear reactor, you can have all sorts of adverse things happen, including a meltdown.
Interestingly it appears that the code inserted into the controllers was designed to overspin the centrifuges with the goal of destroying them as a specific time (ie all at once). This would effectively destroy Irans capability to refine uranium and set back their nuclear program at least a few years.
It could be worse - the code could have been designed to cause meltdowns at their nuclear facilities with a much higher collateral damage.
Why is there any Windows OS connected to a mission critical system. That seems pretty stupid to me.
Because the software used to develop the code for the SCADA hardware controllers only exists on Windows.
Russia gains money. It might not be significant on a national level, but it likely involves businesses that senior government officials are involved in.
First, the Iranians were stupid enough to get hit with this, since they apparently didn't have appropriate IT policies in place to prevent malware. Secondly, they apparently didn't have the know-how to figure out what Stuxnet actually did. Finally, several months later, when someone pointed out what it did, they use it as an excuse to arrest some guys that they didn't like.
Triple Fail.
Well our own govt keeps getting hit with quite sophisticated attacks originating in China. The difference appears to be that China is mostly just stealing technology at this point, but if they decide to turn hostile they are probably deep enough into our systems to cause serious infrastructure damage.
You would expect something bespoke, Unix backed with real security built in from day one.
Why spend all the cash on expensive hardware and then go "cheap" on security via MS input?
Windows seems to be so pushed around the world, you would think Iran would have learned from the 1980's and the GCHQ's reading of the Libyan Embassy communications.
If you buy it from the West, expect many back doors in any system.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
What was started by people who just wanted their constitution back, of course has drawn attempts from all over to co-opt it in some way. Duh....don't you know how things work?
Even on NPR...they had an "interview" with a Texas woman who was a real tea party organizer, and cut in with some dude who was one of those religious wing nuts (only a member of the tea party, so he said) who basically, right there on the air threatened that if the tea party didn't go his way (org of family something or other) they'd pull out. She said, fine -- you are welcome here, it's a big tent, but nope, we're not going to push your particular cause for you, why not go try and convince the NRA to push laws against abortion -- you're in the wrong place.
Though NPR is showing signs of seeing blood in the water and not as much a cheerleader of the current majority in government as before, this was their big attempt to discredit the tea party, and it failed pretty badly I think.
When something like that comes from nowhere and threatens the incumbency machine that is the rebuplocrats -- sure, there's going to be a s**t storm of attempts to discredit it, again, doh.
If either the dems or the repubs were "for the people" would there be the mickey mouse copyright law? Would pot still be illegal? Wouldn't someone at least have gone to jail over the economic issues? I'm too lazy to type the other five hundred examples, do some homework.
You might not like the tea party, and for sure it has collected some whack jobs -- big tents do that.
Wouldn't a bunch of crazy incompetents do a better job than the current batch of well connected thieves?
I rest my case.
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
<darkhumor> So, a Jew, a Coptic Christian, and a gay dude? </darkhumor>
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
The Iranian troops may have unknowingly crossed the border to grab them. Or they may have done it on purpose. We don't have satellite imagery or a GPS record of the event, it is all he said/she said from people who didn't have good tracking hardware on them. Mistakes happen.
To me it sounds like a combination of dumb hikers and dumb troops. The hikers ought to have known better than to be on the border of a hostile nation. Of course hikers are good at doing things they ought not to do (like climb mountains you need oxygen tanks to survive). The troops ought to have just told them to turn around and go back. Instead the grabbed them. Maybe they were ordered to, maybe even ordered to cross the border to do so. Maybe they were just gung ho, as troops often are.
Whatever the case once it happened Iran could very well say "Oops, our bad, shouldn't have done that." Not only do they not need the diplomatic flack, but totalitarian regimes are very big on the "We can do no wrong," thing. So they have to accuse them of being spies because, if it were true, then their actions would be justified (unless the crossed the border but they say they didn't of course."
Either way the parent is right. You REALLY think these people were spies? Ya right. A drone would have been able to get much better imagery, been perfectly legal, and something they could have done nothing about.
Do any planks in the Tea Party platform address any of these in a positive way?
Iran runs an enormous trade deficit with Russia.
Iran is a ratified signatory to the Nuclear Non-Profileration Treaty, so: they certainly don't have the right to develop nuclear weapons or even nuclear facilities except with IAEA oversight. Iran's nuclear activity is pretty clearly in contravention of this (they built a nuclear facility in secret near Qom, for example), and there are now several UN sanctions in force against Iran because of this.
Is it 'Western hubris' to demand that a country abide by treaties it ratified? Especially a treaty on a matter as important as nuclear armament...
The reason the West is so hostile to the possibility of a nuclear Iran is that the only peaceful doctrine nuclear weapons allow, MAD, assumes rational actors on all sides. In Iran that rationality might well be subservient to theology.
Iran is a ratified signatory to the Nuclear Non-Profileration Treaty, so: they certainly don't have the right to develop nuclear weapons or even nuclear facilities except with IAEA oversight. Iran's nuclear activity is pretty clearly in contravention of this (they built a nuclear facility in secret near Qom, for example), and there are now several UN sanctions in force against Iran because of this.
Is it 'Western hubris' to demand that a country abide by treaties it ratified? Especially a treaty on a matter as important as nuclear armament...
The reason the West is so hostile to the possibility of a nuclear Iran is that the only peaceful doctrine nuclear weapons allow, MAD, assumes rational actors on all sides. In Iran that rationality might well be subservient to theology.
First of all we all heard about how Saddam surely had Weapons of Mass Destructions, how the The west was so sure that such weapons existed. I still remembered how the IAEA were frustrated at not being able to inspect the numerous "presidential palaces" of sadam and assumed something most be fishy somewhere. Every nation on earth has the right to develop technologies which would better the lot of their people. Iran has come out to say its Nuclear programs are peaceful The west once again are point fingers forgetting how badly they had it wrong with Iraq. How the whole world and their citizen were scammed into waging war against a country which was never a threat to the US or its allies. Just so you know I actually do support a nuclear iran because I think it would bring the much needed balance of power to the middle east and cut short the excesses of that regions number one bully (Israel) (who ironically are not a member of the Nuclear non-proliferation treaty and who have more nuclear weapons to send the whole of the middle east back to stone age but would never admit/deny/ or even discuss its nuclear capability) Like you rightly noted Nuclear weapon is actually meant to be a psychological weapon meant to deter aggresstion from non nuclear nations and even nuclear nations through the prinicple of Mutual Assured Destruction. Where I would disaggree with you is the claim that Iran is not rational that nation is not backed by fact. sure its easy to think Iran as a very irrational mad Dog when you take the various statements of their president into account. calling Israel a cancer which needs to be wiped out and many other outragious remarks. But look beyond the rethorics you would see that Iran is relatively a peaceful nation which has never attacked its neighbours or waged war on another nation. The last war with Iraq was meant at self defence than anything else( It was attacked by a US backed saddam). Iran is a very ambious nation though and they want to be a big player in the middle east and try to position themselves as one of the big boys with huge influe
So from the Iranian perspective they have to humiliate themselves to foreign oversight because of western pressure, even thought the western superpowers themselves often dismiss international treaties, which for example condemn the embargo of their neighbour Irak and its invasion.
Admittedly I didn't know much about Stuxnet until after reading more about it and it seems to me just yet another windows virus that hasn't until now been discovered and mistakenly spread via contractors laptops.
Seems to me that this worm wasn't designed for a specific target and is like any other virus.. well that or this is how Skynet starts becoming self-aware and begins manufacturing terminators..
A recent slashdot article linked to a lenghty pdf description of Stuxnet by Symantec. This worm is incredibly complex. It loads itself into memory in a very clever way so that anti viruses can't find any strange behaviour, then checks if there's any newer version installed on the computer, or if it can reach a newer version of itself through P2P in networked computers. After self-updating, it looks for a specific software in the computer, which is used to program the industrial machines and everything that works in an industrial plant (called PLCs). Then it infectes that software in order to add malicious code to the controllers. The ultimate objective is to make them overload the industrial facility they want to attack.
Stuxnet is written in 3 programming languages, including an arcane assembly language; it's the first PLC rootkit and one of the most robust windows rootkits, and according to Symantec, developers needed to replicate the plant's compuetr's layout in order to test their worm (and previously had to develop another virus, just to map their network). It's been under active development for at least 2 years, by a team of 10+ professionals with big funding. I don't think it is just another windows virus.
In soviet russia the government regulates the companies.
"Wouldn't a bunch of crazy incompetents do a better job than the current batch of well connected thieves?"
The "crazy incompetents" are FUNDED BY the well-connected thieves who have decisively demonstrated their intelligence dwarfs that of their pawns! (Sourcewatch makes for entertaining reading.) The "crazy incompetents" will get affirmation. Their backers will get power, which is different.
It doesn't matter what you, personally, are "not", for you are a soldier for something else. That "something else" has destroyed most campaign finance accountability and dumps millions of dollars into TP candidates. Altruism it ain't! They aren't trying to buy more influence for the public good:
LOVE the background painting!:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer
The Koch brothers and the like will get what they want, TP partisans have no choice but to give it to them, and TP adherents will never be interested in changing that relationship because their binary choice is Republican/Teapublican or Democrat. The game was over before it started. Sucks, too bad, so sad.
That's the beauty (and it IS beautiful, a work of political art) of the strategy. The UNWITTING participation of the well-intentioned in a movement that affirms them (and caters to _some_ of their genuine, reasonable concerns!) makes them an effective political weapon. The Christian Dominionists so grossly outnumber the secularists that it makes the secular Libertarians an ornamental joke.
I live in the heart of Tea Party country, and this is dead accurate:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/210904
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
"We The People."
If that definition is restricted to Scared, Old, and White, you might have a point.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Don't give me any of that recycled, dumbed down bullshit you hand to everyone else. You're either too unethical to care or too dumb to know that you're full of shit.
Palestinian has always meant people who lived in Palestine. There are Palestinians who are not Muslim or Arab. Here's an article from 1903 about establishing a Jewish state in Palestine, and bringing Zionism to Jerusalem. Here's a link to 1200 newspaper references to "palestinian refugee" before 1966. Here's a link to an article written in 1868 that refers to the land of Palestine.
What "provocative actions in Lebanon"? Monitoring Hezbollah's violations of the UN resolution that prevents it from operating in south Lebanon?
In June 2005, an Israel Defence Force paratroop unit operating near the Shebaa Farms engaged three Lebanese it identified as Hezbollah special force members, killing one. Videotapes recovered by the paratroopers contained footage of the three recording detailed accounts of the area and "fooling around".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Lebanon_War
Keep in mind, this is fooling around on land that Israel took by force in 1967. There's a reason it's still disputed.
Israel handles its water problems by efficient irrigation and water desalination (which in both it is a world leader) much better than any country in the region, and willingly shares its knowledge and expertise. Trying to blame it for the world's problems is nothing new.
Israel has fucked up it's water supply. Do you know who I learned that from? The Israeli government.
The agricultural sector has suffered most because of the crisis. Due to the shortage, water allocations to the sector had to be reduced drastically causing a reduction in the agricultural productivity.
The current crisis has led to the realization that a master plan for policy, institutional and operational changes is required to stabilize the situation and to improve Israel's water balance with a long-term perspective.
That report was from 2002. Recently the Jerusalem Post had this to say: "We are witnessing an incomprehensible ongoing failure to conserve existing resources."
"people who just wanted their constitution back". As someone who was in the tea party since the beginning, could you please clarify WTF this means?
Tea-party members have this near universal implied reverence for Jeffersonian agrarianism/state rights and always seem to forget that this wasn't exactly a one sided argument. In fact by the time of the Farewell Address Washington seemed to be favoring Hamilton/Federalism and a national bank. We had a series of "founding fathers" that repeatedly favored the expansion of the federal government's powers and all sorts of programs of federal spending under the "Necessary and Proper" clause.
"Internal Improvements", a standing army/navy, the power to go to war without an act of congress, a centralized bank, these issues were all debated by the "founding fathers" and federalism won. How can one then argue that the New Deal/National Health Care is so clearly unconstitutional when the original authors were perpetually uncertain of what was in or out of bounds?
We can argue that the policies may be unsound, but many people will reasonably be offended by the implication that only members of one side of the discussion can be "true patriots".