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Stuxnet Was Designed To Subtly Interfere With Uranium Enrichment
ceswiedler writes "Wired is reporting that the Stuxnet worm was apparently designed to subtly interfere with uranium enrichment by periodically speeding or slowing specific frequency converter drives spinning between 807Hz and 1210Hz. The goal was not to cause a major malfunction (which would be quickly noticed), but rather to degrade the quality of the enriched uranium to the point where much of it wouldn't be useful in atomic weapons. Statistics from 2009 show that the number of enriched centrifuges operational in Iran mysteriously declined from about 4,700 to about 3,900 at around the time the worm was spreading in Iran."
..is that you leave one hell of a forensic trail, and so lose the inevitable propaganda war that follows your activities....
Having said that, I still welcome our variable but rapidly spinning overlords...
Yes, we all believe it, western and/or israeli intelligence are so advanced and subtle to make a virus that reduces the quality of the enrichment. Wow, what an achievement!!
Looks like these intelligence services are so desperate to have some 'success' stories and coverage of their awesomeness in the press that they are inventing stories about a malware.
Really, everyone in Iran is worried about sneaky malwares now.
Well that just leaves one question: Was it the Jews or the Yanks?
Why not? They know they'll never get the blame.
Lies, damn lies and speculation.
There are only two nations with the resources, will, and motive to attack Iran's nuclear ambitions in this way: America and Israel.
It figures that hegemony would lead either state to such an antagonistic stance.
While I agree that they are teh most likely candidates, I think Russia and China would be quite capable of doing this too if they turned their mind to it. Probably the UK, France, Gremany and maybe India. All have both nuclear and computer technology
What about Britain? MI6 gets no love? Germany? France?
Don't forget the Russian federation, which have a huge interest in selling enriched uranium they produce already.
I disagree. It is obvious that America and Israel have the motive, so I think others are taking advantage of this situation.It could be the Russians trying to trigger another arms race in the area... They do have a good track record with malware right?
I would not rule out Russia or China. Both have no interest in a strong Iran but every interest in an Iran that appears strong, since this ties and diverts US and Israeli attention and resources. It also sets a "benchmark" of aggression; as long as esp. China is less of a threat that Iran it can get away with quite a lot, barely noticed. A perceived Iranian nuclear threat can then also serve as justification for building missile defense systems and implementing other military measures that would previously have set off tensions with the Western nuclear powers.
A simple case of cui bono?.
Rudolf Hess edited Mein Kampf. He was the very first grammar nazi.
And a few thousand private lunatics at least.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
This story made my head spin. Slowly at first, but then faster, than slower again.
i would rule out russia - because russians were involved in building Busher's nuclear power plant, and they'd have no interest sabotaging something they are responsible to complete by the contract terms...
Is there any proof that the virus indeed runs on the facility? Is there any proof that the nuclear incident really did take place? Is there any proof that the number of operational centrifuges really went down (as opposed to e.g. bringing the "defect" centrifuges to a secret place, so even if the original place was physically attacked, they could continue with enrichment)?
Maybe it was the Iranian intelligence which created StuxNet (and in that case probably also a special protection system making sure it never hits its "target") in order to make everyone in the world think they are far behind in their nuclear program (and to have a plausible explanation for the reduction of operational centrifuges, so no one gets the idea to look for them elsewhere)?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
I doubt that you would really need that many resources to do something like this. Small team of programmers, some documentation, access to a test machine and a few guys figuring out how to deploy it without the whole world noticing and trying to find out what is going on. I'd guess most cs/engineering departments could deliver something like this in less than 6 weeks. On the other hand they probably wouldn't stupid enough to make their intentions that obvious. You need either bureaucrats or hobbyists for that.
I'm pretty sure there are others that have the capability as well.
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
i would rule out russia - because russians were involved in building Busher's nuclear power plant, and they'd have no interest sabotaging something they are responsible to complete by the contract terms...
But according to TFA, the target wasn't Bushehr's nuclear power plant, but the Natanz nuclear facilities. Unless Russia was involved there, too, that makes your argument moot.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Their experimental uranium enrichment wasn't working as expected, so the scientists invented this virus in order to shift the blame.
Don't make me laugh. It does take a budget to launch such an attack, but a small one, probably in the 500k - 1M range (2 zero day to buy and one stolen certificate + a few days of development). There are thousands of organizations with that much resources, and Iran isn't loved by many people.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
What do these frequency converter drives actually do in relation to uranium enrichment?
Budget cuts in Britain would put a stop to that sort of thing. We can't even get a James Bond film off the ground with American money!
Can't wait for the movie adaptation. I heard they got a book in the works too???
My page.
But the specificity means you need a lot of information about your target. You must know what the targeted facility looks like, and what can be used to distinguish it from other facilities. So the question is: Who did have that information at the time Stuxnet was written?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
You forgot to mention the nations which would profit if America or Israel were blamed.
A fake attack on Iran's nuclear facilities would be great stuff for propaganda.
I am with you on the will and motive part, but the "resources" it takes to make a virus like this and unleash it into the wild in the middle east is probably $20K-$100K tops.
Even if you wanted to TEST it, you don't need nuclear weapons to do so, all you need is access to enrichment equipment, which most countries that have nuclear plants have. Basically any country in the Western would could have done this, so could India, Japan, Pakistan, AU, Brazil, the list goes on and on.
But like you said, only Israel and the US would actually want to do this.
Is there any proof that the virus indeed runs on the facility? Is there any proof that the nuclear incident really did take place? Is there any proof that the number of operational centrifuges really went down (as opposed to e.g. bringing the "defect" centrifuges to a secret place, so even if the original place was physically attacked, they could continue with enrichment)?
Maybe it was the Iranian intelligence which created StuxNet (and in that case probably also a special protection system making sure it never hits its "target") in order to make everyone in the world think they are far behind in their nuclear program (and to have a plausible explanation for the reduction of operational centrifuges, so no one gets the idea to look for them elsewhere)?
And maybe George Bush ordered the 9/11 attacks...
They're ideologically opposed to enrichment.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
For the 9/11 attacks, there's proof that actual damage has been done. For Stuxnet, that's exactly what I asked: Is there any (provably non-faked) proof of actual damage?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Thank God, if it keeps Daniel Craig off the screen. I think I'd much rather we spent our money on viruses than an actor so wooden that he must worry about termites.
hard part would be to actually know what to target and for that you'd need to have some understanding of what technology they're using in iran. pretty deep understanding as it turns out.
I don't think this was bought with 'just money', before even thinking up the original idea for this you'd already would have had to be somehow in the know what they've based their plant automation on.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
[Hypothetical Russian Contractor]:"Well, this Stuxnet worm is nasty stuff, so obviously it's going to cost a lot of money for us to clean it up. Of course, an event like this was not covered in our contract so we will need additional funding to proceed."
Yeah, what motivation could Russia possibly have?
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
It's equally likely neither Russia nor China would be very happy to see a nuclear Iran, but not want to be visibly seen discouraging them on the international stage. Stuxnet, lets either of them slow Iran's nuclear program, test a new concept of warfare, and leave the US and Israel holding the bad as "most likely." For them it's a win-win-win. Beyond that, intelligence orgainizations in the West now have a small taste of what someone else can do. It's going to keep the West in knots for a few years, hardening against "the last threat," while they've got the next threat now, and are working on the one beyond that.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
... the emergence of this type of worm or the fact that a consumer OS as security poor as Windows is being used in nuclear plants. And no, I don't think Linux or OS/X would be much of an improvement. OpenBSD maybe. But surely for operations such as this where a fault really could lead to numerous people dying in unpleasent ways a tested, secure real time OS from somewhere like Green Hills would be used? OK , in Iran I realise this wouldn't be possible but Windows isn't just used over there in important industrial applications.
You wouldn't want Windows (or Linux or OS/X) flying your Airbus so why the hell do people think its ok to run indistrial sites with it??
Actually I would suspect Russia. They are the ones who loses out selling iran nuclear fuel when iran produces it's own.
Combine that with the fact that someone had to get detailed information about what hardware was present at those plants and the USA, isn't really welcomed there. Don't forget that Russia has lots of hackers, and whomever just test fired a weaponized hack.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
I doubt that you would really need that many resources to do something like this.
Aside from the problem that maxwell demon points out with the huge amount of secret internal information required, the attackers also obtained and used several zero-day vulnerabilities and driver signing certificates from two different hardware manufacturers. That's hardly trivial.
In Britain it would not get off the ground due to bureaucracy, in Germany it would cause endless voting and opting out a-la google streetview and given France's military history they would probably end up infecting their own systems and losing control. Then, they would surrender to themselves.
Seven Days with Ubuntu Unity
....is how Shai Hulud was born.
it's hard yes and needs you to have the right connections, but it's hardly something that is much in the way of 'resources' - money or materials isn't the key there.
I'd look for someone who worked in the supply chain and was unhappy about what he was involved with. that would've been the safest route for the attacker too, to not get others involved.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Uranium enriched to levels needed for use in power-plants is really cheap (much cheaper than coal per unit of energy it contains, it's just the nuclear plant that's very expensive).
And it's not like Stuxnet was ever going to make Iran give up on enriching uranium and decide to buy from Russia anyway.
// MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
[Hypothetical Russian Contractor]:"Well, this styrofoam someone threw in the reactor 3 months before launch is nasty stuff, and will cost a lot of your precious Iranian dollars to fix. (Thank goodness we thought of that before we wrote the most complex worm ever written. With the Iranian maintenance and repair fees Russia can finally conquer the world!)"
// MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
"Symantec still has not determined what specific facility or type of facility Stuxnet targeted, but the new information lends weight to speculation that Stuxnet was targeting the Bushehr or Natanz nuclear facilities in Iran as a means to sabotage Iran’s nascent nuclear program. "
I concur,
Also note that whoever wrote the virus had very specific knowledge of the target.
It would only act if more than 33 devices of one of two manufacturers were linked to one controller.
It would act one way if the majority of the devices were from one manufacturer and do something else if there were from the other kind.
I would guess that someone that worked there or someone that supplied parts to the project had a major hand in this.
My guess would be that this is at least to some extent an inside job.
As of Postgres v6.2, time travel is no longer supported.
hey, it's better than an invasion right? I'm sure Symantec are happy with themselves discovering this, but I hope the realize that if Iran hadn't already figured it out, Symantec just informed them, and brought them a little closer to getting the shit bombed out of them by either the US or Israel.
I would think that Iranians would have noticed their Nuclear chief's resignation (and the possible nuclear incident) themselves.
It is what it is.
hmmmmm but with this episode you risk an escalation between Iran and Israel/US, which may move. And then you have to come to the defense of Iran or lose even that country to westerners. And then you have problem with westerners.
Unless of course you have a plan like this: you have everything blowing up and stupid sheep dies while the powerful have their bunkers with their seeds and their patents, their anti radiation therapy, some years later they come out as gods for the cavemen that somehow survived.
A pretty good strategy, but it's a global one, and if you're so powerful to pull something like this, then russia iran china israel and usa are simply different colors on a map.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
I would not rule out Russia or China. Both have no interest in a strong Iran but every interest in an Iran that appears strong, since this ties and diverts US and Israeli attention and resources. It also sets a "benchmark" of aggression; as long as esp. China is less of a threat that Iran it can get away with quite a lot, barely noticed. A perceived Iranian nuclear threat can then also serve as justification for building missile defense systems and implementing other military measures that would previously have set off tensions with the Western nuclear powers.
A simple case of cui bono?.
Ugh.. This assumes that
I am just at a loss.. It really is like each response after the next is competing to think of a more convoluted, absurd way that someone you don't suspect could be involved in it.
I fully expect to scroll down and see some justification for why it's internal industrial sabotage of one Siemens subdivision versus another, or Iran launching it against themselves to get international sympathy.
// MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
What exactly seems to be so difficult in understanding the words "will and motive"?
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
It's equally likely neither Russia nor China would be very happy to see a nuclear Iran, but not want to be visibly seen discouraging them on the international stage. Stuxnet, lets either of them slow Iran's nuclear program, test a new concept of warfare, and leave the US and Israel holding the bad as "most likely." For them it's a win-win-win. Beyond that, intelligence orgainizations in the West now have a small taste of what someone else can do. It's going to keep the West in knots for a few years, hardening against "the last threat," while they've got the next threat now, and are working on the one beyond that.
i don't think russia cares, seeing as it helped get it working.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushehr_Nuclear_Power_Plant
Be seeing you...
There's a lot more detail in the symantec virus "dossier". A very interesting and detailed read.
Just my $0.55 (US inflation, 1774-2008, for $0.02)
There are only two nations with the resources, will, and motive to attack Iran's nuclear ambitions in this way: America and Israel.
It figures that hegemony would lead either state to such an antagonistic stance.
You forgot all or Europe, India, and much of the Arab world. Very few want to see a nuclear Iran. For that matter no one wants to see any country in that area of the world become a nuclear power. The US and Israel are the only ones who are not too pansy to say anything about it.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Can you tell the difference there days?
The sad thing is just about every country has the resources to do this. Siemens is based in Belgium too, so why couldn't it be Belgium ? I wonder what kinds of problems even a country like Luxenbourg would encounter in doing this. All it takes is budget, hiring a few capable Siemens engineers and throwing a few millions at it. Hell, a lot of publicly traded companies could do this by themselves.
So at the very least, every single country could do it. It would probably be the easiest to do for Iran itself, having obviously maximum access to the systems to be sabotaged, and then they'd blame the enemy "du jour", mostly America, protestors, or Israel, or women, gays (I forgot: gays don't exist in Iran, except of course on pictures of their execution), or ...
At the very least, add it to your list of likely candidates : America, Israel, Iran, and all other nations permanently on the security council : China, Russia, France, UK. These countries all have policy that military intervention (even if very low-level at the moment) is justified to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. And Iran itself, is genocidally insane and obsessed with their, equally genocidal, religion. Additionally Iran's government is very, very afraid of losing power. So afraid, that they marched several hundred thousand children into minefields to prevent it (google "plastic key to heaven"), just 20 years ago.
Frankly, more people should sabotage countries like Iran, or all muslim countries in general, for the simple reason that their handling of minorities can only be described as "genocidal". If we are to have any pretense of actually opposing racism, attacking countries with racist laws, and even attacking religions with racist laws, should be standard policy. Of course, for American politicians "racism" is just a meaningless 6-letter word that you shout at whatever political opponents you have to get special treatment for "special" racial groups.
Say, special treatment depending on race, wasn't that the definition of racism just 10 years back ? It still is, of course, the definition of racism, but now democrats and republicans claim words have no meaning and we should help the "poor victims". Apparently, we should help "them" through becoming more racist.
It is not difficult to understand the words "will or motive". What is difficult is understanding what the motive and will is of every county/faction in the world that is capable of somthing like this. Are you saying you understand the movtive of ecery faction in China?
"It really is like each response after the next is competing to think of a more convoluted, absurd way that someone you don't suspect could be involved in it."
It was Boris in the library with a commodore 64.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
It's going to keep the West in knots for a few years, hardening against "the last threat," while they've got the next threat now, and are working on the one beyond that.
You know, people always say that, but what happens if you don't harden against the last threat? It gets used on you again, that's what. Just because if was the last threat doesn't mean that a bad guy isn't going to contemplate using it, should he see the vulnerability. Just because ID thefts over the internet are a fashionable new crime doesn't mean that locking your door when you leave your house is now pointless.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
He's a "gritty reboot" James Bond, he's supposed to be wooden! :P
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
someone you don't suspect could be involved in it.
like the spanish inquis..... nevermind, im above that
Just an explanatory note: moderated "troll" for unnecessary aggression and rudeness. Hope the explanation helps you to understand how you can improve your posts to avoid this problem in future.
Yep, it would certainly be a good thing if the U.S. and Israel stopped trying to stop Iran from building a bomb so the rest of the mid-east and s. asia can get on with the job of arming themselves with nuclear weapons. They have very stable societies and well-adjusted governments.
I vote for Iceland. They would like to embarrass Iran for giving I-countries such a bad name, during an era when I-anything sells like, well, ipods. Iceland don't want to tip anybody off to their Dr Evil-like powers.
Iceland wrote the malware, then re-implemented it to look like russian code disguised as israeli-american viruses and dispatched it under cover of the last volcanic cycle. Crafty bastards.
we're in an ongoing conflict with some very nasty people.
Are you talking about Iranians, or Americans? 'cuz I'm sure the Iranians share your thoughts, just in the opposite direction.
I'm much more funny, interesting and insightful than the moderators think
"economic wars by China over a prisoner taken by Japan from a disputed island, etc"
If you mean Senkaku, they are firmly in Japanese control China can dispute it all they want, but they don't own the islands in any sense.
Also, the 'prisoner taken by Japan' was the captain of a boat that rammed two Japan Coast Guard ships. In retaliation, China took four hostages for 'trespassing' where there was no posting. Basically, they snatched these four and said "You can't have them back until we get our guy back." They are childish, and couldn't find their collective ass in broad daylight with both hands and a mirror. I do not think for one second that China is capable of something so robust and intricate.
That leaves pretty much the US or Russia. As Russia is the hacker capital of the world, I would put my money on them. Even the US government is too bumbling to ever get something like this right.
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
had to mess up my new microwave nucleonic oven for baking granma cookies
I am just at a loss.. It really is like each response after the next is competing to think of a more convoluted, absurd way that someone you don't suspect could be involved in it.
I did not say it is likely. I said I would not rule it out. You take it for granted that
In the case at hand I would consider the most obvious suspects, but not rule out other possibilities. In general I am afraid that you give people too much credit. During the Cold War there were quite some situations that led us to the brink of an all-out atomic O.K. Corral simply because one side did over- or underestimate their opponent's determination, power and level of military intelligence. I recommend Herman Kahn's On Thermonuclear War for an explanation of the issues involved with judging what "the other side" may or may not do.
Rudolf Hess edited Mein Kampf. He was the very first grammar nazi.
On the other hand the project name was apparently "myrtus", an east-Mediterranean flower, and a hard-coded value for the disable-flag was the date of an atrocity Iranians perpetrated against some Jews (I can't remember the details off-hand, but it's all in Symantec's fascinating report)
It's all totally speculative of course, and probably the least technically interesting thing about this worm is the question of the author. But even besides that the effort and diverse skillsets that must have gone into this thing I feel somehow diminishes the importance of asking "was it country A or B?"
If you think the only question left is was it Yanks or Jews here's a couple that I would raise:
Is there a lesson here about putting too much faith in signed drivers? How about asking what SCADA systems closer to home might be vulnerable? If this thing hadn't been so picky about which controllers it altered what could it have done?
// MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
"economic wars by China over a prisoner taken by Japan from a disputed island, etc"
If you mean Senkaku, they are firmly in Japanese control China can dispute it all they want, but they don't own the islands in any sense.
I didn't say they owned the islands in any sense, I said they are disputed.
I do not think for one second that China is capable of something so robust and intricate.
That leaves pretty much the US or Russia. As Russia is the hacker capital of the world, I would put my money on them. Even the US government is too bumbling to ever get something like this right.
Yes the Chinese aren't robust or intricate, and the US is bumbling, but don't Russians drink vodka?
And the UK are too gentlemanly, and Africans don't have computers, so that's them out of the equation.
Damn, who in this world of stereotypes and ignorance could have done it?
// MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
"Frank Rieger, chief technology officer at Berlin security firm GSMK, believes it’s more likely that the target in Iran was a nuclear facility in Natanz. The Bushehr reactor is designed to develop non-weapons-grade atomic energy, while the Natanz facility, a centrifuge plant, is designed to enrich uranium and presents a greater risk for producing nuclear weapons.
The new information released by Symantec last week supports this speculation."
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
There's no question in my mind that the US is behind this (probably working in conjunction with the Western allies including Israle)
It's mind boggling in complexity- reminds me of the day the earth stood still. Would they have had to literally hack the voltage signals of devices for this or could they have got straight in through net/LAN's etc. I think the former..
That's patently unfair, Keanu has way more wooden performances than Craig.
I believe the report showing fewer active centrifuges, along with the wikileaks stuff, is trying to do that, however successfully.
I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.
Given the choice between the Americans and the mullahs, I think I'd take my chances with the yanks. The Iranians don't get respect from anybody apart from bloodthirsty, brutish dictators, because they are brutish dictators themselves.
Anyway, if they don't like the things the way they are, they need get out of the Islamic habit of blaming whitey for everything, and harden the fuck up.
If true, Russia and China are playing a very dangerous game with themselves. Their nations are not the most stable to begin with. And yes, they would also help Iran if only to thumb the eye of the Americans. But, once they have the bomb, what's to stop them from handing them over to Islamic terror cells? Both Russia and China may find one of those fuckers transported inside their borders only for a city to fall soon afterward. And not just them, it could be any nation including our own.
This. *THIS* is how WWIII will get started IMHO. We will go from DEFCON 5 to 1 in a hurry!
Life is not for the lazy.
It cost no lives, it significantly slowed down a fanatical dictators quest for the nuclear bomb and didnt require military action,
the sacrifice of american troops or billions of dollars spent.
Budget cuts in Britain would put a stop to that sort of thing. We can't even get a James Bond film off the ground with American money!
That's because you keep trying to make the bastard politically correct. Bond was a womanising root rat. Any attempt to change that and the character is just lame.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
"I love you" and "Die, scum" should never be "acted" in the same tone of voice with the same facial expression. Shame, because why he appeared in the Tomb Raider movie he WAS the only one that could actually act.
What about the Duchy of Grand Fenwick?
Hey at least they still could get to Facebook and MySpace there.
Bryan
I say, expose, name, and applaud in this case. There have been no reports of anything but silent infections. The detailed writeups on this show so many checks and double checks that the system had to be exactly configured in one particular way, so that its at least six sigma out that it would interfere with other systems. Someone sabotaged a nuclear weapons plant in a non-violent way with no risk of doing anything but keeping what would have been weapons, fuel. In any other situation this would be widely praised. You are right about the exposing being important though, its good practice for next time when whoever it is does something really nasty, and they will.
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
Except that the "powerful" are, for the most part, parasites. They do not have the skills needed to do anything with those seeds and patents, or perform therapy for that matter. They only know how to manipulate other people, and that's useless if there are no other people around. Sure, they could bring engineers and doctors with them, but then engineers don't necessarily have the practical skills to repair and assemble stuff, and so on and so on.
No, the idea that you can stuff a few hundred people into a vault and have them upkeep a technical civilization amongst themselves is a ridiculous one.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
You mean iCeland?
Free Martian Whores!
It's equally likely neither Russia nor China would be very happy to see a nuclear Iran, but not want to be visibly seen discouraging them on the international stage. Stuxnet, lets either of them slow Iran's nuclear program, test a new concept of warfare, and leave the US and Israel holding the bad as "most likely."
Yeah, uh huh, and it's equally likely that someone besides OJ killed Ron and Nicole too.
Come on, Israel doesn't even hide it. They even announced their intentions to engage in preemptive cyberwarfare at a conference last spring. What do you want them to do, send you a signed letter saying "We did it"?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
You're going to love the Belgium theory.
hi!
No true /.ian is above a Monty Python joke.
Sent from my CR-48
Well, this, and the attack on Estonia.
Best Slashdot Co
More likely, it was an individual malware designer with no important national or political affiliations, who bears strong ethical convictions against nuclear weapons.
Learning about brewing beer, by brewing beer.
Cop: Sir, we've found a dead body. She's a wife. She has a million dollar insurance policy on her that the husband took out last week. She was killed by a knife that belonged to the husband. The husband is covered in blood. Obviously it's the husband
Lead investigator: I think it's just as likely that it's the babysitter trying to frame the husband.
Cop: Are you crazy, sir?
Lead investigator: She didn't like the wife, so there's a motive. And she could probably stab someone if she wanted to.
Cop: But...
Lead investigator: Let the husband go. We'll just treat him as one of many potential suspects, including the son too.
Cop: The son??? He's only 6 years old!
Lead investigator: An eyewitness said last week that he threw a temper tantrum and told his mother that he hated her. And he had access to the knife too.
Cop: Are you fucking high?
Lead investigator: There's probably just no way to ever know who did it. We should probably just drop the case altogether.
Cop: What?!?
Lead investigator:Anyway, she probably just did it to herself just to make the husband look bad.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Wow that is got to be one of the all time dumbest statements I have ever read.
Here let me give you a more complete list.
Russia
China
India
Saudi Arabia
Kuwait
Syria
Egypt
Jordan
The UK
France
Germany
Brazil
Japan
South Korea
Canada
and...
Iran
Of those Brazil and Japan are the least likely but still easily capable.
Canada's only motivation is "stopping a loon from getting the bomb" which may actually be enough motivation for them. And they easily have the technical skills to pull it off.
A nuclear Iran is a threat not just to Israel but to all the Middle East. Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt have all reached a certain comfort level with Israel. They do not want to waste time with wars that they know that no one can really win. Syria isn't there yet but they do not want to be caught in the cross fire or play second fiddle to a bunch of Persians.
India has no desire to see a second Islamic nuclear power. While there is no love lost with Pakistan India knows that currently Pakistan isn't run by total nut cases. The last think they want is for Iran to push Pakistan farther into the extremists camp.
Russia and China. They are selling stuff to Iran. The more stuff fails the more stuff they sell. Plus they do not want another nuclear power. They know if you are a nuclear power the fewer other nations that are also nuclear powers the better off you are. For them it is a case of enlightened self interest.
All of the EU is under threat if Iran has nuclear weapons. So yes every EU nation has motivation and the skills. The UK and France without a doubt have the drive and maybe Germany.
Brazil has the knowledge and I believe they may have the will to do it. They are becoming a major world power and they do have the ability to have nuclear weapons but have decided that it is in their best interest to not have them. Iran is no threat to them so they may not see any reason to do this but they might just as a test of a new tactic. For them if may be a case of why not but yea they are a very long shot.
Japan and South Korea.
They both have skills many times over. Japan has an almost spiritual reason to not want to see another nuclear weapon used on a target. They also share the worry that Iran may share resources with North Korea and that would be bad for both of them.
And Iran. I will bet you that a good number of Iranians that are working in this project have zero desire to see it completed. They are well educated and not dumb. Frankly the idea of using a nuclear weapon on Holy Land is just sacrilege to many devout members of Islam as is the idea of mass murder.
It is not outside the realm of the possible that a group of Iranians did this.
So the list of who would like to see Iran not get the bomb... The vast majority of the planet.
Who has the skills? Frankly any nations with a good University that teaches CS and Physics.
Who has the will. Well since the odds of getting caught are very small... A lot more people than you think.
And wow this is almost like a Star Trek attack. Take out their weapons without hurting anybody. Who ever did this all I can say is I hopped it worked and even if it doesn't. Good effort!
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Yes, and it also speaks to the plans for a 'smart' grid in the United States. This sort of vulnerability isn't present in a system made up of hand-thrown switches and 1960's-era controllers. When EVERYTHING is controlled bu computers, the people who control the computers will control the world.
So you'd be happy if Harold Zoid was the director?
You left out Japan and South Korea.
Iran has made a lot of deals with North Korea over the years. They both do not to see North Korea have a nuclear armed trading partner with deep pockets.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
If they haven't already done so (and they may have, I don't know) the United States should do as the Chinese have and begin their own checked distribution of Linux or some other free software OS for critical applications and infrastructure. Of course it would also be necessary to budget for the sorts of personnel necessary to maintain such a system: software developers, sysadmins, etc; a great opportunity to support "STEM" jobs for Americans. There are already options for embedded and real time OS that are produced right here in the US by Americans and used for military and industrial applications (Integrity OS for example), but something else is need for systems that fall in between standard workstations and servers on the one hand and specialized embedded systems on the other.
it's hard yes and needs you to have the right connections, but it's hardly something that is much in the way of 'resources' - money or materials isn't the key there.
The thing is, in this case having the right connections is a big deal. Remember, we're talking about having access to someone inside the ultra-secretive Iranian enrichment program who's willing to leak information that could get them killed. On top of that, you need people inside Realtek and the other hardware company willing to risk going to jail by leaking company secrets or someone able to break into the companies without getting caught.
Then in order to make use of this, you need some zero-day vulnerabilities in your back pocket - which probably took a lot of resources to acquire - and a smallish team willing to develop the exploit.
Each of these on its own may not be that tricky, but combine them all in one operation and you've got something that only national intelligence agencies have the resources for. Of course, many of the resources are actually people, but...
When EVERYTHING is controlled bu computers, the people who control the computers will control the world.
When everything is controlled by chestnuts the people who control the chestnuts will control the world.
But what if the chestnuts start controlling the people who are controlling the chestnuts? What then?
Troubled times.. troubled times..
// MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
3) Jews in the U.S. want U.S. taxpayers to pay to make Israel secure.
I know that probably seems like a rational argument wherever you're from, but here in the US, we take issue with antisemitism. Oh, and a lot of Christians in the US want US taxpayers to pay to make Israel secure too.
Yeah, right. Maybe they could even get back enough to cover what they had to spend to develop and deploy the Stuxnet worm. Maybe.
And the possible backlash if someone found out they were behind it. I'm betting that would be good for business.
This isn't about the money.
I don't understand the random finger pointing. The point of the OP was that the US and Israel have the most obvious "will, motive and means" to do this. No other country in the world wants to see another nuclear nation, especially one as aggressive as Iran. However, only a few select countries have a resolve to actively prevent Iran from doing so.
Why go through every possible event no matter how improbable? Are we going to reduce this conversation to conspiracy theories? If we are, I'd like to throw Antarctic penguins into the ball game. Think about it, no one would suspect them. What exactly do they do every winter when they huddle en mass in the middle of an iceberg for 2 months? Perhaps shielding a laptop and satellite link under the guise of a ridiculous mating ritual? They could be plotting a global take over and this is a test of our civilizations defenses. They first target weakly guarded nuclear facilities and control simple equipment as a proof of concept for a larger scale attack. You can't rule them out, or are you saying you speak penguin and understand the motive of every faction in the penguin community?
Engineer: I need some centrifuges and computers to control them.
Manager: Ok. Here, here you go. The computers have Windows preloaded for your convenience.
CIA: Yay!!
Engineer: No thanks, I don't need to run DirectX11 games or read lolcat emails sent as MS Word attachments. These computers are for getting things done.
Manager: I said, convenience.
Engineer: No, it's ok, really, I can find some OS to--
Manager: Convenience. Or else. [Pulls out gun]
Engineer: *facepalm*
Microsoft: Good job, manager, here's your kickback.
CIA: I knew selling them guns would work out, in the end.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
the least technically interesting thing about this worm is the question of the author
Considering that Stuxnet is a blatant act of war, I don't think the question of the author has to be "technically interesting" to rise to the top of the stack.
Given the choice between the Americans and the mullahs, I think I'd take my chances with the yanks.
Thank you ... I think.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Or...it could be a computer expert in Iran with intimate knowledge about the nuclear program trying to sabotage it. Dissension within the ranks is not uncommon.
Then again, if it breaks, isn't that more expertise and maintenance to sell? And Israel and the US are so convenient to blame, too...
If it were really the U.S. or Israel, I would assume that the folks over at Symantec would have gotten a visit from some friendly folks in suits, and you would not have seen this paper released. Or maybe that's the plausible deniability? (e.g. "If it was us, why would we let Symantec release the report?") Okay...my head is spinning, not unlike a centrifuge.
And of course "Russia" is a giant monolithic thing, with a single motivation and mindset. Just like the US, IBM, or Microsoft.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Sorry, Shrub wasn't affected. Or did you mean some OTHER fanatical dictator?
That is in no way antisemitism. It is a simple statement of fact. It does not say 'all Jews.' It does not ascribe any evil motives to them: they wish to protect their ancestral homeland, nothing wrong with that. It does not claim they control or dominate American politics, or spread any other false and malicious rumors about Jews. Who wouldn't want someone else to pay for their safety? If you can convince someone in an open and free society to pay for your defense, more power to you.
Just as an interesting aside, do you know why a lot of Christians want to protect Israel? The Jews have to be there on Judgment day. No Jews, no Jesus. And the Jews die. Evangelicals want them there to die and ensure the return of their savior.
Me, I wish them the Jews the best of luck protecting their country from the assholes surrounding them that wish them nothing but death. The kind of "Oh my God they're coming to get us!" thinking that is ridiculous bullshit when we Americans do it is absolutely true over there.
But I am DONE paying for it. I am done paying for the world's police force. The world doesn't need that many cops, and someone else can take a turn anyway.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Stuxnet was designed with such a high degree of care to avoid collateral damage that I'm betting that it was the product of a multinational effort. Undoubtedly involving the USA and Israel, but probably fronted by some other country that would be better able to take the hit from the inevitable publicity when stuff comes to light. Such as Saudi Arabia or the UAE.
I think the big questions which have yet to be asked are
I'm thinking that Iran's petroleum pipelines and refineries are probably wearing out very, very quickly: repeated unreported transitory fluctuations in pumping pressures will do that. HVAC systems are notoriously hard to manage just on their own: it would be easy to to introduce oscillations between winter coat chilly and tropical heat in Iran's government office buildings, which would do interesting things to productivity and morale. Stuxnet might be the first tool of subtle cyber sabotage discovered, but it is probably not the only one and may not be the most damaging one.
Will
Perhaps it's some Israeli spies just mentioned to their Russian counter parts that this can be a win-win situation for both of them: we get rid of the installations for some time at least and you get loads of dollars to re-install/rebuild the same thing again!
I vote for Iceland. They would like to embarrass Iran for giving I-countries such a bad name, during an era when I-anything sells like, well, ipods. Iceland don't want to tip anybody off to their Dr Evil-like powers.
And of course, Iceland has lots of volcanoes, required for any self-respecting Evil Overlord's lair...
Did you mount a military-grade, variable-focus MASER on an unlicensed artificial intelligence?
Anonymous Propagandist:
We're not that stupid. I know our TV shows and pop culture makes it look that way. Our political climate feeds the media to make each other look like complete fools (easier in some cases than others). But really - if you're going to try and rabble-rouse, please do a better job. We're not you; we require higher standards. Thanks.
Why go through every possible event no matter how improbable? Are we going to reduce this conversation to conspiracy theories?
Isn't that what this whole conversation is? There's no evidence. There's some observations. But most of this conversation is pure speculation - to include comments on any given agent's "resolve".
do you know why a lot of Christians want to protect Israel? The Jews have to be there on Judgment day. No Jews, no Jesus. And the Jews die. Evangelicals want them there to die and ensure the return of their savior.
I've seen this bandied about, but it's really not a common viewpoint. I grew up around evangelical Christians. I'm surrounded by them at work. I went to a Christian elementary school that featured more explicit religious instruction than my wife's Catholic elementary school. (For those who know, they used A Beka books - you learn to diagram sentences such as "God does wonderful things for us every day.") And I've never heard that view expressed. I have heard some generic anti-Muslim sentiment - the enemy of my enemy is my friend (and yes, I know where that saying comes from). I've heard that Jews have a covenant with God that predates Christianity - that they are his chosen people, and that as long as they follow the original agreement, they are to be saved. Mostly, they don't think about it much: most typically, they think the Jews are in Israel, they're getting bombed and rocketed by the same crazy people that took the embassy in Iran, and therefore we should (at least) lean toward their side.
Reread the first post in this thread and my reply, please. To make this simpler, let me put it in closer proximity and remove anything that is not essential:
BadAnalogyGuy: "There are only two nations with the resources, will, and motive to attack Iran's nuclear ambitions in this way: America and Israel."
Me: "I would not rule out Russia or China."
Do you see where you got me wrong and why your analogy does not fit? Or do I have to spell it out?
Rudolf Hess edited Mein Kampf. He was the very first grammar nazi.
The Iranians don't get respect from anybody apart from bloodthirsty, brutish dictators, because they are brutish dictators themselves.
Anyway, if they don't like the things the way they are, they need get out of the Islamic habit of blaming whitey for everything, and harden the fuck up.
Don't be a racist asshole.
Obviously the same country who is dragging the whole towards a war with Iran is also responsible for the worm
Russia and China want to be allies with Iran. You are deluding yourself if you think there is any nation in the world that fears or wants war with Iran besides Israel/US.
In fact most nations in that region if not the world are moving away from the US which is obviously in some sort of suicidal death sprial. Just look at Turkey where they are turning down US military cooperation and seeking out deals with the Chinese. Nato is balwking on the endless wars the US has plans for the Middle East, no one contributes to it besides the US...just try and convince Europe that attacking Iran is a NATO, it won't happen.
Israel is behind this worm, and if they get what they want, they will get their war, and then frankly even if they win the battle, the war will be clear, the US/Israel vs the rest of the 'peaceful' world and in the long run we won't win that.
better get those Canadian Passports ready now.
That's because you keep trying to make the bastard politically correct. Bond was a womanising root rat. Any attempt to change that and the character is just lame.
Don't blame the British - it's Albert Broccoli's daughter trying to put her own personal touch on the franchise.
Okay, I guess she is British...
#DeleteChrome
You forgot the cost of the intelligence.... knowing exactly what kind of equipment to attack, and in what configurations. And the test equipment isn't cheap either.
$1M is pitifully low when you look at the whole picture of what it takes to put this together, AND keep it under wraps while you do it.
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
I actually entirely agree with you, but you shouldn't present it that way, as it will be taken as antisemitism, and isn't fair to ascribe to 'Jews'. Jews in the US are actually mostly on the left, and antiwar.
This mistaken belief that 'Jews' support Israel doing whatever it wants is due to the Israeli lobby in US, which like to claim that all Jews think the way it does. Which isn't true in the US or Israeli.
Most Jews, in both the US and Israel, are nowhere near as hostile to Muslim countries as the Israeli lobby tries to pretend is 'necessary for Israel's defense'. Most Jews in the US don't care about any of those warmongering issues at all, and Jews in Israel care about Palestine and maybe Lebanon. Not Iran. In fact, Israelis are much less likely to think Iran will attack Israel than Americans.
The neocon right in the US, the hardliners in Israel, and fanatic Muslim leaders, all have incentive to present Israel, supported by the US, at war with the Muslim world. They are all lying goddamn warmongers manipulating every out-of-context quote(1) and event(2) and wishing for an all-out war in the Middle East. Do not help them in any way. Don't assume 'Jews' actually want this.
1) No, the leader of Iran doesn't want to wipe Israel off the map, he wishes it would, in an analogy he made in every speech except the one time he didn't further explain it, disappear like the USSR. Yet warmongers here distorted that into a threat of nuclear annihilation.
2) And no, Qu'ran burning is not encouraged or even condoned by the US government, it was actually condemned. It's just, in the US, the government has no power to stop any display of religion. Yet warmongers in Yemen distorted that into an official government act.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
FTA
Couldn't be giving the impression that Finnish Drives work better could it; even if it was intentional misdirection we have to include Finland and the manufacturer in the list of suspects as both have motive.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
This. *THIS* is how WWIII will get started IMHO. We will go from DEFCON 5 to 1 in a hurry!
Time for your medication! And no more Rush for you, it upsets your delicate constitution. Sooner or later, somebody is going to detonate a lone nuclear weapon somewhere in the world as a terrorist act.
And aside from the outpouring of Love, the rending of garments and gnashing of teeth, not much else will happen. Sure, we might go to a higher alert stage, but that doesn't mean that Col. Jack Ripper gets to start WWIII.
Simmer down dude.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
> they wish to protect their ancestral homeland
By that logic we should support financially as well as ideologically an "everything goes" all-In war with non-native American citizen?
Nobody so far proved Iran wants to develop nuclear weapons. Its all hearsay.
And contrary to the US and Israel Iran has signed the Non-Proliferation treaty.
Y'all realize that 'Russia' (a fairly vague term covering a lot of territory, people and ideologies) and Israel have close ties, both personally and militarily.
It could very easily be both. FWIW, it's pretty clear to me that Israel is at least one of the actors in this play. Possibly the US - although I doubt it - we want things to go smoothly along our timeline and we have to sort of play nice with Iran (while having public hissy fits).
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Hi Marvin, I see you found your Space Modulator.
Who is John Cabal?
Every super power requires. No, demands accountability. When the finger pointing starts, don't think it will be all civil like some High School debate team. Diplomacy is full of dirt/underhanded tactics and political karma.
We already have western nations holding each other by the throat over global economic policies. Do you really think that if a bomb causes substantial damage to a city, that it will be shrugged off like a CAT 4 hurricane? Despite the fact mother nature causes more damage? You're delusional if you think that.
Life is not for the lazy.
You've been watching too much Battlestar Galactica.
Russia provided a lot of the nuclear technology to Iran, so they would probably have the knowledge to write stuxnet, but where would the motivation be? More likely a Russian agent/worker turned by another intelligence agency and used for the information.
Well, I took what the AC wrote to mean "some Jews in positions of power" not "all Jews."
Hardliners and fanatics of all stripes are the same. They are all in cahoots with each other, consciously or not. They act to ensure the continued "need" for hardliners and fanatics, all of them. They all wish ton convince the rest of us that it is those hardliners, those fanatics over there who are our enemy, but the truth is that all warmongers are our enemy.
People in power who advocate for a strong military could really care less whether that military protects you. You and your safety are beside the point.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Jews in the US are actually mostly on the left, and antiwar.
Wrong. 75% of American Jews think (correctly) that the goal of Arabs is the destruction of Israel. Majority supports a US strike against Iran. Majority oppose calls on Israel to freeze settlement building. http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/news/poll-56-of-american-jews-think-u-s-should-strike-iran-1.6950
This mistaken belief that 'Jews' support Israel doing whatever it wants is due to the Israeli lobby in US, which like to claim that all Jews think the way it does. Which isn't true in the US or Israeli.
Of course it is not true that ALL Jews support Israel policies but most do.
The neocon right in the US, the hardliners in Israel, and fanatic Muslim leaders, all have incentive to present Israel, supported by the US, at war with the Muslim world.
I would add non-blind people to your list, because it is obvious to anyone with eyes that Israel is in fact at war with Arabs if not the entire "Muslim World".
No, the leader of Iran doesn't want to wipe Israel off the map, he wishes it would, in an analogy he made in every speech except the one time he didn't further explain it, disappear like the USSR. Yet warmongers here distorted that into a threat of nuclear annihilation.
That's just semantics. A head of state saying that another state should disappear from the pages of history is as threatening as it gets. He also finances a variety of anti-Israel militant groups, denies holocaust and has said in numerous statements that any Arab country that accepts existence of Israel is a traitor to the Muslim world. Many more anti-Israel statements: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad_and_Israel
In any case, all this is argument over unimportant details. Do you really doubt that if the day comes when Arab countries and Iran have the power to destroy Israel that they will hesitate for even one second? It is Israel who is bending backwards for "peace" by returning land it won fairly in wars that it did not start. But that's a foolish idea because Israel will only have peace as long as it is militarily superior to all surrounding Arab countries combined even though population wise they outnumber it by at least 20 to 1. That's a pretty scary place to be for a civilized democracy surrounded by people mostly guided by a primitive medieval ideology and I am glad that the US is on the right side in that fight.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
1 - Sell nuclear technology to Iran, make money.
2 - Fear Iran's use of nuclear technolgy, develop Stuxnet to stop them.
3 - Sell more nuclear technology to Iran, to make up for any losses (time or equipment) to Stuxnet.
4 - PROFIT $$$
(lather, rinse, repeat)
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
"There are only two nations with the resources, will, and motive to attack Iran's nuclear ambitions in this way: America and Israel."
Such confidence that others can't code is amusing.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Most evangelicals I know are too bloody ignorant of their own religion to have any sort of complicated thoughts like this.
They want Jews to go away, and the best way to do it is have them in Israel.
Highly improbable. Dude, they don't even have thumbs! How are they supposed to carry all that equipment?
Bullish Machine Tzar
What do you expect when you connect all your frequency converter drives to the internet?
The systems involved are reported to be a Windows OS with a MSsql database; that the SCADA software was installed on. Seems to me that any Linux Distro with Postgresql would be suitable for the servers and there are several distro designed for embeded systems.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
So you're saying the hacker was at least, say 16? :D -- and had a buddy in South Korea...
Partially an inside job.
The most likely scenario is that somebody inside their enrichment team sold information to a foreign power, which used said information to craft a highly specific worm. The possibility that someone is a nuclear engineer AND a world-class hacker seems very low. The possibility that one person on their team could be under the thumb of a foreign country, seems incredibly high considering the amount of motivation foreign countries have in tracking and disrupting this process.
Russia as a state - a player on the international state - is a giant monolithic thing. Same as any other country with no ongoing civil war.
Russian people are another matter, but do not equate them to the country or the state. Not all even identify with it to begin with.
> Russia as a state - a player on the international state - is a giant
> monolithic thing. Same as any other country with no ongoing civil war.
Again. like the US? The cracks in the US are readily visible externally. There was a time in the past few years where there was official State Department policy, and there was a small cadre of congress-critters publicly pursuing their own foreign policy, in a nearly diametrically opposite direction. (I can't remember the specifics, and I believe they got shut down, but they were very public about it.)
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
75% of American Jews think (correctly) that the goal of Arabs is the destruction of Israel.
Wow, EPIC READING COMPREHENSION FAIL.
That question was if this was true: 'The goal of the Arabs is not the return of occupied territories but rather the destruction of Israel.'
I.e, it's about Palestine, you nimrod.
Wrong. 75% of American Jews think (correctly) that the goal of Arabs is the destruction of Israel. Majority supports a US strike against Iran.
Yes, one day ahead of talks that were all over the news about Iran's nuclear program, 56% of American Jews managed to be for a strike. Wow, way to barely eek a majority there.
But did I say 'almost two years ago'? I do not believe I did.
Here's a more recent poll showing American Jews don't give a flying fuck about Iran.
Majority oppose calls on Israel to freeze settlement building.
And I said what about that?
That's just semantics. A head of state saying that another state should disappear from the pages of history is as threatening as it gets.
Really? As threatening as it gets?
More threatening then threatening to attack it? You know, like Israel's doing to Iran?
Perhaps you should check and see what 'semantics' means. He's not actually threatened Israel. Ever. At not point has he said 'Israel must do X, or we will attack it.'
Israel has. The US has. Get the goddamn plank out of your eye before condemning a country that, at the most evil, publicly wishes Israel to collapse.
He also finances a variety of anti-Israel militant groups,
No, he doesn't.
denies holocaust
Which makes him an asshole but doesn't make him magically at war with Israel.
and has said in numerous statements that any Arab country that accepts existence of Israel is a traitor to the Muslim world.
And, yes, again, another lie.
Many more anti-Israel statements: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad_and_Israel
Hey, you know that statement you just made up about 'any Arab country that accepts existence of Israel is a traitor to the Muslim world'? Yeah, it's not on that page.
Maybe you should read the fucking page you just linked to. It shows a lot of hatred towards Israel, and a lot of insults towards Zionism, and even a revisionist history. It shows a lot of claims that Israel is going to die, that the peace process is functionally dead.
What it doesn't have is any sort of threat towards Israel whatsoever, except a deliberate mistranslation.
In any case, all this is argument over unimportant details. Do you really doubt that if the day comes when Arab countries and Iran have the power to destroy Israel that they will hesitate for even one second?
Yes, I do think they'd 'hesitate', you goddamn imbecile, because most Middle East countries that invade other countries have done it with the expectation of our support. Iran hasn't fucking attacked anyone since India, before the British conquered it.
You're trying to paint them as goddamn belligerent punch-throwing crazy people, when they've done literally nothing to get such a reputation. Nothing. Ever. You've made up their entire reputation.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
I didn't expect that...
I think it's a little short sighted when people give a choice between the yanks and the Israelis- is there any reason to think it couldn't equally have been a European intelligence agency? the British and the French (particularly the French over the last year or two) have been similarly critical of Iran. Is the use of Korean certificates coincidence? could South Korean intelligence have been involved given their own battle against a nuclear neighbour that has no doubt shared information and possibly resources with Iran to support each other's nuclear ambitions?
I think it's silly to speculate at all as to who was involved- we can't even discount Russia, who similarly have no interest in seeing Iran acquire nuclear weapons and possibly have them leak to extremists- many Westerners miss the fact that Russia has been battling an Islamic insurgency in it's own back yard for at least a couple of decades now, an insurgency which, as demonstrated by the Beslan hostage taking of hundreds of school children and wiring the room in which they were in with explosives, is equally as brutal as anything the West has seen. There's also the point that Iran's civilian nuclear programme depends on Russian expertise, so any failure on the civilian side by Iran's nuclear programme would surely mean more trade for Russian expertise on the civilian side of things.
There's just too many people in the world with a vested interest in seeing Iran's enrichment programme crippled, least of all the Israelis, who, as they demonstrated in the past with Syria and Iraq, would gladly just bomb the shit out of a nuclear complex if they perceive it to be a threat rather than waste time with likely ineffective sabotage. Some may say "but Iran is more of a threat so they wouldn't dare" but that completely discounts how strong Iraq's military was in the early 70s- it was certainly a bigger threat to Israel then, than Iran is now.
As well as the questions you pose, I'd argue there are other pressing political questions too - through which route did Iran acquire Western equipment for Uranium enrichment when there is supposed to be an embargo on such things? Is someone or some firm covertly supplying in contravention of the embargo?
By my calculations, Marty, we'll have to get the DeLorean up to 136 miles per hour with this poorly enriched uranium.
The GGP is in fact antisemitic. Look at the particular quote: "Jews in the US want...". The portrayal of people acting as a group is necessary if you want to project negative images on that group. Hence, establishing that this group exists ("Jews in the US" ) and is capable of collective action ("want") is the necessary start for an antisemitic argument.
Next, the GGP does portray evil motives. Not in the protection of Israel per se, but in the suggested desire of Jews to make the U.S. taxpayer pay. Note in particular "U.S. taxpayer" - it's not sufficient to suggest that the US would pay; the choice of words makes it clear that they're directly addressing non-Jewish US citizens and explaining them how they're the victim of Jewish evildoers. This is another classical antisemitic rhetoric. It's insufficient to portray the Jews as evil, they must be evil and about to harm _you_ personally.
Still, can't fault you for the Christians Evangelicals, or for wishing the end of the Pax Americana.
Sure, as long as property rights are respected in the process. Most people wouldn't take kindly to the Manhattan tribe showing up at Mayor Blumeberg's office and laying out their policy plans, disregarding policy rights.
I'm with you on the Team America: World Police thing, though - disrespecting Israel's sovereignty is no way to show it our support.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
As well as the questions you pose, I'd argue there are other pressing political questions too - through which route did Iran acquire Western equipment for Uranium enrichment when there is supposed to be an embargo on such things? Is someone or some firm covertly supplying in contravention of the embargo?
There's a fascinating BBC documentary on this and other nuclear tech leaks called "Nuclear Secrets". It was mainly a guy called Khan, who previously worked for a European centrifuge firm, stole their designs and sold them to North Korea, Iran, and tried to sell to Libya (as well as developing Pakistan's program).
Unfortunately these days the tech isn't really a secret, the and embargoes can only go so far (especially when there are legitimate uses for some of these technologies).
Of the targeted frequency converters more of them were manufactured by an Iranian company than by a Finnish company.
No doubt there was a lot of theft and whatnot involved, and I wouldn't be surprised if they take a while to get it everything running at full capacity (especially with drawbacks like these), but I think it's telling that sanctions are no longer specifically targeting enrichment equipment but bank accounts, Iranian airplane fueling agreements, students studying abroad, etc, since trying to keep them from getting enrichment equipment is a losing battle.
// MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
"But I am DONE paying for it. I am done paying for the world's police force. The world doesn't need that many cops, and someone else can take a turn anyway." - by spun (1352) on Tuesday November 16, @11:19AM (#34243092)
Problem is, spun, that's just the "cover story": They're not interested in the least about promoting justice, & they're not really cops - they're the "enforcers" for the "powers that be" in reality. It was NEVER about "playing the police force of the world"... However, it IS really about power, & control.
(The world is ridiculous, it truly is. People can't live peacefully with one another because there is always some power hungry sick douchebag who knows how to "stir up the masses" so he & his can gain by their tax monies. Sound a wee bit like "KORPORATE AMERIKA"? Raytheon, Haliburton, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Honeywell, Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR) & others make a killing (literally via weaponry, and figureatively via monies earned via war profiteering)).
It took me a long time to figure this one out, but in the past 10 yrs. or so, it's what I have concluded via observation from many sources. Follow who's getting rich & fat off these war machines from the "Eisenhower Military Industrial Complex", and you have the real villains. It keeps "THEM & THEIRS", fat & happy, so it takes no real brains to figure out who keeps the game going is all. Follow the money.