Iran Admits Stuxnet Affected Their Nuclear Program

plover writes "According to this article in the Guardian, 'Ahmadinejad admitted the [Stuxnet] worm had affected Iran's uranium enrichment. "They succeeded in creating problems for a limited number of our centrifuges with the software they had installed in electronic parts," the president said. "They did a bad thing. Fortunately our experts discovered that, and today they are not able [to do that] anymore."'"

Comments

Iran's plan

[Anonymous Coward]

1. create virus
2. infect own computers and blame other countries for it
3. ??
4. profit

If you honestly think the Yanks pulled this off, you're an Idiot.

Re:Iran's plan

[windcask]

If you honestly think the Yanks pulled this off, you're an Idiot.

Indeed. Everyone knows it was Israel who did it. Thanks to their efforts, the world can breathe easier for a few more months.

Re:Iran's plan

[aristotle-dude]

1. create virus
2. infect own computers and blame other countries for it
3. ??
4. profit

If you honestly think the Yanks pulled this off, you're an Idiot.

People in glass houses should not throw rocks. Israel already took credit for the virus.

Re:Iran's plan

[santax]

I wonder how they think about that statement in Palestina and Gaza.

Re:Iran's plan

[Arancaytar]

Maybe a little easier. Not much. Israel and Pakistan already have nuclear weapons.

Re:Iran's plan

[Mashiki]

We're crying in the rain we can't push the jews into the sea, or burn them. More than likely. After all it's the defacto policy of hizbullah and hamas to kill them, with no peace ever.

Re:Iran's plan

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay. How about "Nobody should throw stones." That's crappy behavior. My policy is: "No stone throwing regardless of housing situation." Don't do it. There is one exception though. If you're trapped in a glass house, and you have a stone, then throw it. What are you, an idiot? So maybe it's "Only people in glass houses should throw stones, provided they are trapped in the house with a stone." It's a little longer, but yeah.

-Demitri Martin

Re:Iran's plan

[blackraven14250]

I would try to provide proof of the first, if I were to make such a bold claim, if I were you.

Re:Iran's plan

[windcask]

Pakistan I'd worry about; not so much them using the nukes as their government being toppled and [insert Islamic fundamentalist jihad group here] obtaining them.

Israel's cool. We can trust them.

Re:Iran's plan

[SilverHatHacker]

Israel survives by being the Mouse that Roars. Meanwhile, every Middle Eastern nation has apparently been bugging America to do something about the Iranian menace.

Re:Iran's plan

[santax]

Ah a well informed person. Do you know the death-rates between the parties in the last 20 years? Every year it is something like: Palestina: 700+ more than 200+ children, more than 200+ woman. Israel: 0-15. Always soldiers. But good to know you are informed!

Re:Iran's plan

[ZosX]

We can trust Israel? Yeah....trust them to wage further genocide against the Palestinians.....

Sure they are all terrorists. What else would you expect from a wounded caged animal being backed into a corner with a stick?

Re:Iran's plan

[rainmouse]

Why worry about nukes when with a flick of a switch they can turn off the worlds tech support.

Re:Iran's plan

[halivar]

Do well-informed people make up bullshit statistics?

http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/terrorism/terrisraelsum.html

Re:Iran's plan

[blackraven14250]

That's another insanely bold claim with no basis.

Re:Iran's plan

[santax]

Apparently. Check amnesty and the red cross. You will get more accurate numbers that way.

Re:Iran's plan

[santax]

Btw, read the first sentence of where those numbers come from ;) I trust the red cross and amnesty a bit more. I think it's pretty much proven that Israel and it's propaganda machine can't be trusted.

Re:Iran's plan

[c6gunner]

Always soldiers, huh? Let me guess, you're one of those assholes who defines a 6 year old Israeli kid as a solider, because, had he survived, he would have been a soldier in the future.

Just come out with it: you hate Jews, and you wish Hitler had finished the job. That's all you really need to say. All this beating around the bush just muddles the issue. Stick up for your beliefs!

Re:Iran's plan

[Anonymous Coward]

We can trust Israel? Yeah....trust them to wage further genocide against the Palestinians.....

Sure they are all terrorists. What else would you expect from a wounded caged animal being backed into a corner with a stick?

What a load of crap.

It's the Islamic Arabs (mostly) who refuse to recognize Israel's very right to exist that's the root cause of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Remember Amindinejad's remark about how Iran would "wipe Israel off the map"? Well, he meant that LITERALLY.

Why do I think you're completely ignorant of the Islamic concepts of dar al-Islam and dar al-Harb? Grow a pair, research those fundamental concepts of Islam, and LEARN something.

Like how those concepts lead to Islamic labeling of Spain as al-Andalus and how Islam rejects Israel's right to exist and inflames an endemic desire to wipe the Jewish nation out.

While there is certainly genocidal intent in the Middle East, you painted the wrong side with that brush.

Got the balls to actually learn about Islam and its basic tenets, or are you going to keep spouting misinformed crap like that?

Re:Iran's plan

[c6gunner]

Sure they are all terrorists. What else would you expect from a wounded caged animal being backed into a corner with a stick?

You're calling Palestinians animals? WTF is wrong with you?

Re:Iran's plan

[theVarangian]

We're crying in the rain we can't push the jews into the sea, or burn them. More than likely. After all it's the defacto policy of hizbullah and hamas to kill them, with no peace ever.

Ah a well informed person. Do you know the death-rates between the parties in the last 20 years? Every year it is something like: Palestina: 700+ more than 200+ children, more than 200+ woman. Israel: 0-15. Always soldiers. But good to know you are informed!

It's true that the Israelis kill an awful lot of Palestinian civilians and that the situation in Gaza and the occupied territories is something Israel should be ashamed of. But claiming that Hamas, the al-Aqsa brigades et al. only kill soldiers is a blatant falsehood. Every time one of those bozos blows him self up on a bus it's not soldiers that get killed. On the other hand, every time the Israelis decide to 'defend them selves', drop a lavish amount of ordinance on the Gaza strip or Lebanon, send in the tanks and kill a whole bunch of civilians and a few guerillas, a thousand new recruits join Hamas and Hezbollah. The longer I watch the Israelis and the Palestinians go at it the more it becomes clear that neither party actually wants peace. They have become so used to living in state of perpetual war it's hard for them to imagine a world without it. The Palestinians are dominated to a large extend by militant religious fundamentalists and the Israelis have developed a political system that is so dominated by hard nosed ex-military types it's hard to tell where the armed forces stop and the nominally civilian government starts.

Re:Iran's plan

[perpenso]

I wonder how they think about that statement in Palestina and Gaza.

Given that they live 40 miles from the most likely target, and who knows how much closer to secondary targets, many might not be thinking the way you would assume.

Re:Iran's plan

[Anonymous Coward]

Mouses do not kill by thousands and Iran never started a war in recent 200 years at least. It was attacked by Iraq (which was supported by all Arab countries, US, Russia and Europe).

Re:Iran's plan

[santax]

ok, please keep in mind, I depsise Hamas way of dealing with repression. But, when was the last time they blew up a bus? It's measured in years... When was the last time Israel used clustermunition and fosfor? Both big warcrimes... It's measured in months. Maybe even days.

Re:Iran's plan

[santax]

Sjee, good for you to know how I think! Idiot. Standing up against warcrimes does not make me Hitler. Fucking moron.

Re:Iran's plan

[c6gunner]

So that's a "yes" on the definitions, then? Good to know I was right. Cheers!

Re:Iran's plan

[MyLongNickName]

It is called a figure of speech. But having read through your other posts, I think you are just a troll.

Re:Iran's plan

[santax]

You got a good point there.

Re:Iran's plan

[halivar]

Ok, ok. I'll bite. Where are these Amnesty International and Red Cross statistics that say there have been no Israeli civilian deaths due to Palestinian terrorism in the last 20 years? And am I allowed to hand-wave them away, too, if you actually supply a link?

Re:Iran's plan

[dakameleon]

Proof that Pakistan has nukes, or proof that Israel does?

Pakistan has acknowledged nukes, and has performed tests with them.

Israel has never clarified one way or the other as to whether they have native nuclear technology and weapons, but international political relations more or less operate on the assumption that they do, and given Israel's treatment of a nuclear scientist who leaked a story, was jailed for it, and was looking to get out of the country following his release, it's pretty sure that if they don't they could weaponise rapidly. Plus they pretty much have access to America's weaponry in the event of war, given the close ties (is there a formal treaty? I don't know).

For Iran's practical purposes, they're bordering with one nuclear state and are at loggerheads with another one, possibly two, following Bush's Axis of Evil speech. Not that I agree with it, but you can see where even semi-logical conclusions with those preconditions could lead.

Re:Iran's plan

[c6gunner]

It is called a figure of speech

As a figure of speech, it's a complete failure. I would expect an animal to act one way. I would expect a human being to act in a completely different manner.

But having read through your other posts, I think you are just a troll.

Yeah, these "figures of speech" of yours just aren't working at all.

Re:Iran's plan

[santax]

You are. I haven't said btw no casualties. I am aware of the the casualties about 10-15 years ago. You can find them on the amnesty site under yearly country reports. They have both reports on palestina convicting Hamas for their crimes and under Israel. The figures will speak for them self. I am sure you can find the dossier yourself on their website. Since my copies are in Dutch. The red cross site I visit in English. Just type in Israel in the searchbox. You will get the crimes for both sides in this conflict. But, let me correct myself, I should not have said 20 years because I am aware that until 2000 there were casualties on Israel side, and lots of them, but when you thru the yearly reports from Amnesty it becomes obvious that deathtole on Israel site has always been about 1 for every 100/200 in palestina. There is a reason Israel won't allow free press into Gaza. And this is it. We all felt for a lot of lies the last 2, 3 decades. With the upcoming of internet we finally get some facts. Having said that: no child should ever die over land. And I don't give a damn if that child is jewish or muslim. But in this conflict I have to take davids side. Israel has become what it once hated.

Re:Iran's plan

[Anonymous Coward]

And how long have you been beating your wife?

Re:Iran's plan

[blackraven14250]

I was talking about Israel. That was mentioned first, after all.

I don't doubt they can weaponize rapidly. But so could quite a few other countries. I have no doubt that Germany, Spain, Canada, Greece, Brazil, Switzerland, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Poland, Australia, Portugal, Italy, Japan, South Africa, and South Korea could make one quite quickly (within a year) given a dire need, which makes the argument somewhat of a moot point.

But to claim they actually possess nuclear weapons is fairly well baseless. If they do "have" nukes, I don't think they actually have them on Israeli soil. They said they weren't going to be the ones introduce nukes into the region, and I don't doubt them on that.

I don't see how international policy operates on that assumption, though. If that were the assumption, there would be a much more widespread push towards nukes in the rest of the middle east.

Re:Iran's plan

[clarkkent09]

I understand your empathy towards the Palestinians who are indeed suffering, but you are foolish to only blame Israel for that. There is plenty of land there for both Jews and Palestinians and with some land exchanges and a lot of money from US, Saudis, Europe, Israel etc, Palestinian state could be very well off indeed but it is Arabs who refuse it. For them the conflict is not about the welfare of Palestinian people but about how to kick Jews out regardless of the cost. Palestinians are just pawns. And it's not like those borders are something holy, they were thrown together by the British administrators in the idle moments between a game of cricket and a cup of tea. If there is will on the Arab side, and no religious bullshit in the way, that conflict can be over in a month.

Re:Iran's plan

[drsmithy]

Ah a well informed person. Do you know the death-rates between the parties in the last 20 years? Every year it is something like: Palestina: 700+ more than 200+ children, more than 200+ woman. Israel: 0-15. Always soldiers.

Your argument is disingenuous. The Palestinians happily use women and children as "soldiers".

Re:Iran's plan

[ZosX]

And WTF is wrong with you? I suggest you take a class in reading and comprehension, then you will realize that I was using a figure of speech. A caged animal is a common metaphor for someone that is living under tyranny or enslavement. And yes, as per your other comment, the animal side of humans comes out very quickly when they cannot even fulfill basic needs like food and shelter. People can become quite savage in the right conditions. Now go back to your cave troll.

Re:Iran's plan

[SourGrapes]

Think about *why* there haven't been any suicide bombings for the last few years. It's not because the Palestinians (both Hamas and the Al Aqsa Martyr's Brigade which is a wing of Fatah, by the way) have stopped trying. It's because of Israel's anti-terrorist tactics like checkpoints and especially the West Bank security barrier. According to Wikipedia: "From the beginning of the Second intifada and until the construction of the "first continuous segment" of the barrier in July 2003, 73 Palestinian suicide bombings were carried out from the West Bank, killing 293 Israelis and injuring over 1,900. During the 11 months of construction, only 3 suicide attacks were successful. Since the erection of the fence, the number of attacks has declined by more than 90%." Suicide bombers haven't come out of Gaza because there's been a barrier there for the last 16 years (and one along the border between Gaza and Egypt for the last 6). So when was the last time Hamas blew up a bus? A long time ago, maybe. When was the last time they fired a missile into Israel for no reason? Uh, YESTERDAY. Since the end of the Gaza war, almost a thousand missiles have landed in Israel.

Re:Iran's plan

[the Atomic Rabbit]

Their PM accidentally admitted, back in 2006, that they did have nuclear weapons.

Re:Iran's plan

[Cwix]

Mouses do not kill by thousands

Never hear of the black plague..

Re:Iran's plan

[blackraven14250]

They've also admitted plans to bomb Iran "within the next month" over a year ago, and quite a few other things. Gaffes aren't representative of the real state of affairs of a country.

Re:Iran's plan

[c6gunner]

And yes, as per your other comment, the animal side of humans comes out very quickly when they cannot even fulfill basic needs like food and shelter.

Sure. And you might have a point, if we were talking about the homeless population of any major city, even though the data would seem to disagree with you. But what's that got to do with Palestine? Do you honestly think that Palestinians don't have food and shelter, or are you just intentionally being an idiot?

Re:Iran's plan

[Anonymous Coward]

And how long have you been beating your wife?

Ever since she told me she was into S&M...

Re:Iran's plan

[ZosX]

Gee. I can't see why the palestianians (and the surrounding arab/islamic community) would be pissed. I mean the UN decided to give the Jews over half of Palestine and then in 1967 they went and occupied the rest of it after the 6 day war. Everything they do has been backed by the UN and the US. They have gone from being the oppressed to becoming the oppressors themselves. Why don't you grow a pair yourself and look at all the geneva convention violations they have committed over the years. Let's face it, Israel has not taken the higher path here. I don't honestly know what is worse morally, suicide bombers or starving a population by controlling its food and fuel supply. They have essentially turned the whole gaza strip into a giant concentration camp. I can't see why that would possibly enrage your enemies. Oh no!

Both sides' hands are so drenched in blood that neither is even remotely innocent anymore. Oh...but we can't let the jews not have their holy land, because its sacred to xtians too! Boo fucking hoo. Jesus would be fucking proud.

Re:Iran's plan

[ZosX]

http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_61719.shtml

As for their shelter....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3689104.stm

BBC mainstream enough for you?

http://www.countercurrents.org/pappe280108.htm

Re:Iran's plan

[santax]

Such a comment can easily backfire with all the video-evidence where Israelic soldiers used palestina kids as human shields. Even this week 2 Israelic soldiers where convicted guilty of letting a palestina kid open bags where they wehre assuming that bombs would be in them! They got no sentence however..........

Re:Iran's plan

[santax]

Think about why they would blow up a bus. If Israel would let them be and have the apartheid-regime I am sure the same would have been. But instead Israel chose to build a wall on palastina ground, taking away the last little pieces of ground that can grow olives.

Re:Iran's plan

[SourGrapes]

You do realize that the suicide bombings predate the wall, right? You do realize that Palestinian terrorism and violence against Jews predates not only Israel's capturing the West Bank and Gaza, but predates even the existence of Israel? Way to confuse cause and effect.

Re:Iran's plan

[c6gunner]

So you've shown that they have both food and shelter. Were you planning on backing up YOUR claims, or have you decided to switch sides?

Re:Iran's plan

[Lehk228]

if the israelis didn't entertain themselves with cluster bombs and white phosphorous (which for the uneducated continues to burn as long as it is exposed to air, and often reignites inside a wound during medical treatment) on crowded civilian "targets"

Re:Iran's plan

[Anonymous Coward]

Those were rats, no?

Re:Iran's plan

[santax]

You do realize to for the palestina people to be kicked out of Jeruzalem was the start of the conflict? In this conflict there is only one party really guilty. The Allies after the war who decided it would be a good plan to take away the country where jews and moslims had been living for many years in peace and make it jew-only. The real problem lies however in current Israelic politics. They always want more. 30 years ago, I would have agreed, the muslims were the terrorists. But these days.... neh, death toll speaks for itself. No civilized country would ever demolish houses, schools, would prohibit cement or medicine to another state. Except for Israel. Replace Israel for Iran and Palestina for Kuwait and suddenly it's a totally different story.

Re:Iran's plan

[Mashiki]

Oh you must be one of those folks who eat up the pallywood too. Next you'll be saying that the same corpse seen 4 times, with the same person in it, in different areas are all unique individuals. Hey maybe you can get hizbullah and hamas to stop behind civilians while we're at it. You know those things that the conventions of war list as 'illegal'.

Re:Iran's plan

[Mashiki]

You mean the child human shields that palestinians regularly use, all the time while firing weapons around/near/in hospitals/schools/etc. While booby trapping the same said buildings? Oh...right.

Re:Iran's plan

[Mashiki]

If you were informed, you wouldn't be using BS spoken out of your ass. I'm sure that 2yr olds, and unborn kids count as 'soldiers' too.

I'm sure the conspiracy theories will start next.

Re:Iran's plan

[Low Ranked Craig]

I wonder how they think about that statement in Palestina and Gaza.

If they're sane they concur. If you live in Palestine or Gaza you probably don't want Iran using nukes in Israel.

Re:Iran's plan

[SourGrapes]

"The Allies after the war who decided it would be a good plan to take away the country where jews and moslims had been living for many years in peace and make it jew-only." I was going to give you the benefit of the doubt with your posts, because I figured that English was not your first language, but this is so totally divorced from any historical reality that it's obviously not just a language issue making you seem this ignorant. But for your information, far from being "Jew-only," 20% of Israel's population is not Jewish, mostly Arab Muslims, and they live better than Palestinians live in any Arab country except perhaps Jordan.

Re:Iran's plan

[mug funky]

troll mod plz

or is there a "Godwin" mod?

Re:Iran's plan

[keeboo]

Israel survives by being the Mouse that Roars.

It roars because it has a huge lion behind it.
Lion leaves, mouse is gone.

Re:Iran's plan

[santax]

I have yet to see prove of that. But pictures of kids handcuffed to Israelic militairy vehicles are plentyfull. So that's really a no-go.

Re:Iran's plan

[santax]

Ok, if you can't look up facts and feel the need to take it to a personal level, then the both of us are done talking.

Re:Iran's plan

[c6gunner]

I hate to do a double post, but I figured I'd explain why I blew you off with a quick (though accurate) response. As soon as you start claiming that Israel is committing genocide, you lose all credibility. The population growth rate of Palestine is 2.2%. The population growth rate of Israel is 1.8%. Furthermore, the growth rate for Israeli Arabs is 2.6%, while the population growth rate for Israeli Jews is 1.7%. Therefore the are two possible conclusions here: either the Israelis are the most incompetent mass-murderers in history, or you're a fucking moron.

Here's some more stats on Palestine for you:

http://www.mapsofworld.com/palestine/information/population.html

and some more:

http://www.fafo.no/pub/rapp/433/index.htm

and yet more:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_economy

There's some really fun bits, like this:

"In the wake of Israel's unilateral disengagement from Gaza, there were shortages of bread and basic supplies due to closure of the al Mentar/Karni border-crossing into Israel. Israel's offer to open other crossings was turned down by the Hamas-run Palestinian authority.[11]"

and this:

"Life expectancy is 73.4, placing the territories 77th in the world, compared with a life expectancy of 72.5 in Jordan, and 71.8 in Turkey.[15]"

Given the 90%+ literacy rate, the higher life expectancy as compared to other Arab neighbors, the millions of cellphones and hundreds of thousands of homes with internet access, and the abundance of vehicles, TV's, and all manner of electronic gizmos, I'm going to have to go with the "you're a fucking moron" conclusion on all aspects of your "argument".

Re:Iran's plan

[murdocj]

You mean the people a few miles downwind of the Israeli cities? I have a feeling they aren't horribly disappointed.

Re:Iran's plan

[santax]

It's only 2% that are left... the rest has been pestered away (my english does indeed suck btw). Howcome Israel is the only country with apartheid? Why are there roads (i've been there and seen it with my own eyes) for jews only? I got lucky that my girlfriend at that time was jewish, so I could drive on those roads and skip the checkpoints where the people are being held for even days... Nah, Israel is making stupid mistakes that will only cause more bloodshed. But we will probably not gonna agree.

Re:Iran's plan

[c6gunner]

"I disagree" != "troll"

and a hitler reference != godwin

but I suppose rewriting language is a small step when you're willing to rewrite the facts in order to ignore the mass-murder of women and children.

Re:Iran's plan

[murdocj]

Uh, actually, the partition of Palestine called for Jerusalem to be an international open city. The Arabs launched the 1948 war and seized Jerusalem, kicking the Jews out. So you've got cause and effect reversed again.

Re:Iran's plan

[Anonymous Coward]

And how long have you been beating your wife?

The correctly loaded question is: "Have you stopped beating your wife"?
Just saying.

Re:Iran's plan

[santax]

After Jeruzalem was given away... Hell if the Dutch tomorrow come back for New York and the UN says: yeps thats Dutch indeed let's see how you feel? That's the whole point. We, allies, messed up. Israel should never had been given the way it was given. Nobody asked the arabs that lived there at least as long as the jews how they felt about it. That's why they got pissed of in the first place. It's way more subtle than: one day arabs stood up and decided to take jeruzalem.

Re:Iran's plan

[mug funky]

i know "widely regarded" does not constitute proof, but consider that to gain proof, one must violate a state's sovereignty. not something that would be done lightly.

however, "widely regarded" was more than enough "proof" to convince the western world to jump on Iraq.

i'm not going to take a side on this. in my opinion both sides are very clearly in the wrong. there's no point arguing details or pointing fingers about how one side is "wronger" than the other.

and make no mistake, my opinion of Israel and Palestine being wrong does not reflect my opinion of the prevailing religions adopted by these sides.

what really shits me about both sides is they take criticism of policy to equal racism. wtf? i deplore Zimbabwe's government but i have no problem with black people. can't i think Israel's government is insane and also have no problem with Jews? or does my post deserve a Godwinning?

Re:Iran's plan

[Anonymous Coward]

You have a short memory or view of history. That area was called Judea, before Rome destroyed the Great Temple (the western wall of which still stands, known as the "wailing wall" today) and renamed it Syria-Palestinia as part of their revenge for the second Judean revolt. Oh wait, remembering that doesn't work for supporting Islamic terrorists disguised as refugees...

Re:Iran's plan

[Falconhell]

Havent heard of Mordecai Vannu then eh?

Only a fool would not believe Israel has 200 nuclear weapons.

Re:Iran's plan

[demonlapin]

In English, we call them Israeli(s) and Palestinian(s). And stop using the ghastly English of 4chan. "were" != "where". In fact, they sound nothing alike in any English accent I know of. (And some of us still distinguish "weir" and "where".)

Re:Iran's plan

[TapeCutter]

"there is only one party really guilty. The Allies after the war who decided it would be a good plan to take away the country where jews and moslims had been living for many years in peace"

That is common misconception, the zionists (as opposed to jews) declared Isreal an independent state the day before the British partition plan came into effect. That declaration triggered the Arab-Isreali war. It was not until after Isreal had won the war (more than a year later) that the UN general assembly reluctantly recognised Israel as an independent state. Having said that, it's unlikely that the partition plan would have worked out any differently in practical terms.

Re:Iran's plan

[Falconhell]

Not genocide, the correct term is ethnic cleansing.

On one occasion at the formation of Israel, 8000 arabs were ethnically cleansed fron their homes. When the UN rep attempted to
have them returned he was assasinated by Israel, a country founded on the actions of terrorists.

What Irael sowed they now reap,

Re:Iran's plan

[santax]

Sorry buddy my english sucks. If you can't understand what I'm saying stay out of the conversation. No need to make this all personal. It's a rare occurrence that there is a discussion about this conflict without getting personal and hateful and I sure as hell don't need some spelling-nazi to ruin it. And if you do want to talk about spelling, do it in Dutch, that way I can understand you far better. How is your Dutch btw? Or your German? Or your French for that matter.

Re:Iran's plan

[santax]

Ok, thanks, I wasn't aware of that, but I will look into it. Having said that, I have no reason to doubt this so I am sure you are right about this.

Re:Iran's plan

[demonlapin]

Israel's claim of nukes - hardly baseless, just never formally admitted - serves a number of purposes in the ME. So long as they don't actually admit that they have them, there is much less formal pressure on the major Arab states - especially Saudi Arabia - to arm themselves with nukes. Why would SA not want nukes? Because they don't want the Persian-Arab, Shia-Sunni conflict to go nuclear.

As Wikileaks has proven, letting Iran go nuclear is the nightmare of the Middle East. The Jews and Palestinians are a sideshow by comparison - one is a truly existential threat, the other merely an annoyance.

Re:Iran's plan

[TapeCutter]

The only thing that is failing is your comprehension of the english language.

Re:Iran's plan

[demonlapin]

I don't post on Dutch, German, or French websites. Still, if you'd like to continue to appear indistinguishable from a total moron, go right ahead. There are a set of mistakes than non-native English speakers make. The mistakes you are making are not characteristic of them; they are characteristic of idiots who speak English as a primary language. Believe it or not, I'm trying to help you here.

Dicisne linguam Latinam? Vi znaetye Russkuyu yaziku?

Re:Iran's plan

[santax]

Ah, I guess I am special. Now, can we go back to the subject? Again, normally any discussion of Israel and Palestina will burst out into a flame-war. And now we have a fairly decent discussion going on. Where everyone can speak out his own opinion, without getting flamed.... We should not spoil that with spelling-rules. I am sure that the people participating in the discussion can make sense of what I say, despite the numerous errors in my English.

Re:Iran's plan

[mug funky]

TFA is about stuxnet, and doesn't even mention Israel.

i would call the Hitler reference a definite Godwin.

try take off the red mist goggles for a second and look at the world from an atheist's point of view.

i would regard bringing up the Israel v Palestine conflict a definite troll - it has the exact effect a troll does of getting everyone stirred up and taking them off the topic.

you're a troll.

deal with it.

we're not all trying to eradicate you and your people. some of us are just living and letting live. why don't you try the same fucking thing.

Re:Iran's plan

[bumptehjambox]

santax. Don't bother, it is never a good idea to continue debate once an Israeli-supporter gets started. It's really hard to defend Israel as an active peace-seeking nation with such gems as:

Speaking to his cabinet Sunday, Olmert said: "The government's position was from the outset that if there is shooting at the residents of the south, there will be a harsh Israeli response that will be disproportionate."

Israel is a bit of an enigma, it can't be contained with facts nor will it accept statistics it hasn't created. Once the British gave Jews free reign over the Holy Land they haven't looked back. They decided to have a little holocaust of their own and assume ownership of Palestinian land that has been passed down through generations and did so with no regard for the tensions it may cause in the future. I understand why they did it, and they got away with it so in all honesty they did a bang-up job America could stand to learn a few things from about Thoroughness. It's a volatile region but Israel could do a lot better making peace, just as America could. But they won't, and terrorism shall sadly continue and thrive. And people with views half as "radical" as I will be labelled Anti-Semites and crucified for voicing such opinions.

Re:Iran's plan

[Clandestine_Blaze]

Always soldiers, huh? Let me guess, you're one of those assholes who defines a 6 year old Israeli kid as a solider, because, had he survived, he would have been a soldier in the future.

Just come out with it: you hate Jews, and you wish Hitler had finished the job. That's all you really need to say. All this beating around the bush just muddles the issue. Stick up for your beliefs!

And this emotional outburst is why we can never have rational discussion about world politics. Anyone who disagrees with your position is automatically cast aside as an anti-Semite.

Because I do agree with you that those statistics that the parent presented are heavily biased, and that there are a lot of Israeli civilians who have been killed and this fact should be acknowledged. A simple Google search would bring up bus and night club bombings that clearly shows that civilians on the Israeli side have been killed.

But way to put the brakes on any future discourse.

Re:Iran's plan

[TheLink]

I'm not a huge supporter of Israel at all, but I sure understand why they do what they do. It's like you fighting with someone, if he:
1) Doesn't promise to not kill you.
2) He keeps hitting you and trying to kill you whenever you let him go (even if he promises not to).

It's pretty understandable if you put a choke-hold on him and not let go. Also no surprise they stop getting hit as much as long as they have that chokehold.

Not pleasant to watch, but from what I see many of the Palestinians and their supporters share a HUGE part of the blame for their situation.

Israel seems to get on reasonably with Egypt and Jordan, after both agreed to make peace with Israel. But the rest of the Arab/muslim nations including the Palestinians refuse to recognize Israel and they want to ELIMINATE Israel completely.

So why should anyone be surprised when Israel does not want to loosen their chokehold on the Palestinians?

See this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli%E2%80%93Palestinian_conflict#Camp_David_Summit_.282000.29

In July 2000, U.S. President Bill Clinton convened a peace summit between Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Barak reportedly offered the Palestinian leader approximately 95% of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as Palestinian sovereignty over East Jerusalem,[13] and that 69 Jewish settlements (which comprise 85% of the West Bank's Jewish settlers) would be ceded to Israel. He also proposed "temporary Israeli control" indefinitely over another 10% of the West Bank territory--an area including many more Jewish settlements. According to Palestinian sources, the remaining area would be under Palestinian control, yet certain areas would be broken up by Israeli bypass roads and checkpoints. Depending on how the security roads would be configured, these Israeli roads might impede free travel by Palestinians throughout their proposed nation and reduce the ability to absorb Palestinian refugees.

Arafat rejected this offer. President Clinton reportedly requested that Arafat make a counter-offer, but he proposed none. Former Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben Ami who kept a diary of the negotiations said in an interview in 2001, when asked whether the Palestinians made a counterproposal: "No. And that is the heart of the matter. Never, in the negotiations between us and the Palestinians, was there a Palestinian counterproposal."

They rejected that offer. Why don't they make a counterproposal? The Palestinians don't really want to make peace with Israel. To them peace = Israel wiped out.

Hamas (and Fatah) certainly don't want peace with Israel, as long as they follow their own charter, any peace they make with Israel can only be temporary: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp http://www.alzaytouna.net/arabic/?c=1598&a=97061

Just go see what they want.

Yes it's pretty nasty what Israel is doing to the Palestinians, slowly strangling someone is nasty. But what should they do? The Palestinians themselves don't really want to make peace with Israel and as long as fighting or opposing Jews ( just because they are Jews) is _considered_ part of Islam by significant numbers of them (google it), go figure how long that peace will last.

As for getting rid of Israel totally:

From a secular objective perspective being a citizen of Israel would be better than being a citizen of "Greater Palestine" ruled by Hamas or Fatah (assuming Israel is gone). Just look at how the various muslim nations rule themselves. They kill and abuse their own people rather often (Shiites vs Sunnis, tribe vs tribe etc). Please list down the muslim countries that are doing better than Israel, by modern standards. Remember many of them have oil, Israel doesn

Re:Iran's plan

[metrix007]

So, why don't you respond to AC's? Not everyone who has something to contribute feels the need to make an account.

Re:Iran's plan

[Anonymous Coward]

Erm, read the fine article.

Unless you are making the point that a previously known to be stupid Israeli politician engaged in a very clever disguise to seem even more stupid than usual, to accidentally slip something that is very damaging to its policy - and then try to backtrack on that claim and managed to even collude with domestic foes such as opposition parties who feign 'outrage' over the gaffe.

Or you just accept the obvious: it was a real gaffe and Israel has around 150 tactical nukes, as Kissinger let slip two years ago as well.

Re:Iran's plan

[Jeppe Salvesen]

Well - those statistics you cite include combatants as victims of terrorism. I'm not so sure that killing soldiers can be defined as act of terrorism, as terrorism is the act of targeting (perhaps also scaring) civilians with the intent of creating terror in the population.

So, let's discuss fatalities of the conflict as that's a less emotional and more rational term. Between 1987 and 2010, Israel has killed 7506 Palestinians of which 69% were civilians, the Palestinian side has killed 1540 people people within Israel's borders, of which 59% were civilians.

Re:Iran's plan

[h4rm0ny]

Your reply doesn't match up with what the GP said at all. And if you fall for the old Israeli-lobby trick of believing Jewish = Supporter of the Israeli Government , then you're guilty of racism. Criticising a government is not criticising a people.That's a nasty little technique the Israeli lobby has been pulling for years.

Re:Iran's plan

[c6gunner]

TFA is about stuxnet, and doesn't even mention Israel.

Which would be why I wasn't responding to TFA.

i would call the Hitler reference a definite Godwin.

You would be wrong. Look it up.

try take off the red mist goggles for a second and look at the world from an atheist's point of view.

I am an atheist, you fucking moron. Jackasses like you are why we get accused of being just another religion. There is no "atheist's point of view" on anything other than the question "is there a god".

i would regard bringing up the Israel v Palestine conflict a definite troll

Fine: go talk to the fucker who brought it up.

Re:Iran's plan

[makomk]

It's because of Israel's anti-terrorist tactics like checkpoints and especially the West Bank security barrier.

Of course, part of the reason so many people are pissed off with Israel is that their "anti-terrorist" tactics aren't. They stop Arab terrorism against Israeli targets, yes - as well as having some rather less nice consequences. What they don't do anything about is (for example) Israeli settlers in the West Bank invading the homes of random Palestinians and murdering them all as an act of terrorism. In fact, there's a fair bit of evidence to suggest that the IDF has been actively protecting and supporting this kind of terrorism!

Re:Iran's plan

[makomk]

That assumes that Iran actually uses the bomb, though. The most likely scenario if they get it is that it never gets used, but that the confidence of the Israeli government is damaged by the fact that they're no longer the sole nuclear power in their region of influence.

Re:Iran's plan

[dakameleon]

How about reading up on Mordechai Vanunu and see if that doesn't look like a smoking gun.

Those countries listed would only have a theoretical capability to weaponise in the sense that they have (or had) nuclear facilities - it does not imply that they are close to a weapons program like Israel looks likely to be. The list of countries with ICBM delivery vehicles overlaps quite distinctly with the list of countries with nuclear weapons, barring the discrepancy of Israel if they don't have nukes.

I'm curious though how you would suggest that they would not have nukes on Israeli soil? Unless you mean it in a literal sense the weapons being on Israeli subs?

International policy is pragmatic and filled with realpolitik; if a state was to truly obtain nuclear capabilities, do you think there is any way to roll that back involuntarily? Sanctions failed against India and Pakistan following their tests in the late 90s.

Israel could have been crushed by a united Arab force years ago, but it's not in the interests of any of the governments to do so, and the hidden stick behind the back that everyone knows is there speaks louder than the stick everyone's known about for 65 years.

Re:Iran's plan

[Apuleius]

Standing up against warcrimes does not make me Hitler

You're making a ridiculous denial of Palestinian war crimes against Israelis. Which does, to use the figure of speech, make you Hitler.

Re:Iran's plan

[Apuleius]

ok, please keep in mind, I depsise Hamas way of dealing with repression. But, when was the last time they blew up a bus? It's measured in years...

Not for lack of trying. They haven't blown up buses because Israel has them hemmed in and unable to access Israeli civilian areas.

Re:Iran's plan

[Apuleius]

Think about why they would blow up a bus.

Because they believe that the Muslim is entitled to exercise supremacy over the Jew, and fight for that supremacy if need be.

Re:Iran's plan

[Apuleius]

I wonder how they think about that statement in Palestina and Gaza.

Gaza is well within the fallout cloud if Tel Aviv got nuked.

Re:Iran's plan

[Apuleius]

Well, if Israel has nukes, it's been true since the late 1960s. That means 50 years of having nukes and not using them.

Iran, OTOH, is run by people who are far more likely to resort to nukes (just ask the governments of Saudi, Qhatar, Bahrain, the Emirates, or any of the ethnoreligious minorities of Iran).

Re:Iran's plan

[Threni]

1. build nuclear plant
2. install complex, life-or-death computer system
3. connect computer system to the internet for...oh..no reason
4. ??
5. lol

Re:Iran's plan

[Apuleius]

You do realize to for the palestina people to be kicked out of Jeruzalem was the start of the conflict?

Tell that to the Jewish community of Jerusalem's Old City. Massacred by Arabs in 1892, 1920, 1921, 1936,
and driven out completely in 1948.

In this conflict there is only one party really guilty.

Right.

Re:Iran's plan

[Anonymous Coward]

Greece? I don't think so. We have the scientists, but they are all working abroad and we are far in debt to afford parts for centrifuges, let alone weapons grade uranium, so don't look at us for nukes for the next say.... 50 years.

Re:Iran's plan

[anomaly256]

Guys.. guys.. ... guys.. Can't we all.. just get along?

Re:Iran's plan

[Apuleius]

Hamas's headquarters are the basement of Gaza's main hospital. What mroe do you want?

Re:Iran's plan

[blackraven14250]

It's not like you've never had nukes on your soil.

Re:Iran's plan

[elrous0]

One group of religious fanatics with nukes keeps another group of religious fanatics from getting nukes. Yeah, that makes me feel so much better.

Re:Iran's plan

[elrous0]

No, those aren't ghettos the Israelis are forcing the Palestinians into--they're fun camps. Happy, happy fun camps. And Israelis aren't killing Palestinian civilians en masse. All those guys are just on vacation somewhere. They'll probably be back soon.

Re:Iran's plan

[blackraven14250]

The threat of American intervention alone would keep an Arab coalition from attacking Israel, I'm sure. Quite a few of those countries have much to lose and nearly nothing to gain from doing so. None have standing armies of significant size or sophistication. The only country even comparable to Israel in either category is Egypt - a long standing ally of the US, and former recipient of a wild ass-kicking at the hands of Israel (while they had pretty much the rest of the entire middle east helping them, no less).

I imagine Israel may have their own nukes, but held in another country they find trustworthy, or out on subs as you suggest.

Re:Iran's plan

[drsmithy]

Such a comment can easily backfire with all the video-evidence where Israelic soldiers used palestina kids as human shields.

Even if that's true - which I doubt - it has no relevance to how disingenuous your comment was. There's nothing "special" about women and children dying when they're being proactively put in harm's way.

Re:Iran's plan

[SourGrapes]

"Israeli settlers in the West Bank invading the homes of random Palestinians and murdering them all as an act of terrorism." Source? I'm sorry, this is simply a lie. Israel has demolished houses in the West Bank that were being used to harbour terrorists or make bombs, and they've demolished houses that were built illegally without permits, but there is nothing like what you're accusing them of. You may be thinking of Hamas, because that IS what Hamas has been doing in Gaza.

Re:Iran's plan

[makomk]

That's proving a bit difficult, because there's just so much violence. It wasn't this attack I was thinking of. (It also definitely wasn't this one, or this, though both did involve the IDF standing by and doing nothing. This act of sabotage under the supervision of IDF troops is interesting but irrelevant.)

Note that Palestinians don't get off so lightly if they attack settlers; sometimes the whole messy business of trial and evidence is skipped and they're just shot in their beds.

Anyway, I'm sure I'll find the right link eventually, but it's a lot like searching for a needle in a haystack.

Re:Iran's plan

[SourGrapes]

Okay, so first of all I never said that there were never any attacks on Palestinians by settlers. I said that Israelis are not swarming into Palestinians' houses and murdering the residents en masse as you previously claimed they were.

Aside from which, you're blurring things beyond recognition. Most of the articles you've cited are ridiculously biased. One refers to Israelis living in Jerusalem as "settlers," and as all Jewish settlement beyond the Green Line as "illegal under international law," which it isn't. One speaks of Israeli "settlers" in Hebron, implying that any Jews living there must be illegitimate (are there Jewish Hebronites who aren't settlers?), but to a house in which Palestinians were living as "disputed," trying in that case to appear fair. Reading between the lines it sounds like this Palestinian family either sold their house to some Israelis and then made a big show of not turning it over to them (because under Abbas's Fatah selling property to a Jew is a capital offense), or the Jews owned the property in the first place and these Palestinians were renting it, stopped paying the rent, and the owners were trying to evict them.

I admit that's speculation, but the point is that neither of those scenarios are either implausible or unheard of; the problem is we'll never know what actually happened because the article is totally devoid of context. All the articles rely almost completely on "Palestinian sources" for descriptions of events, which, who knows what that even means?

The NYT piece is slightly better, and it even shows that the Israeli government is opposed to those people who actually ARE building outposts illegally, if sometimes slowly. But even this relies on what some anonymous "villagers said" about murderous Jews on a rampage. They do not cite legitimate sources or provide any actual evidence for the alleged atrocities.

Re:Iran's plan

[Mashiki]

If you think that was a personal level, don't worry about delusions.

Re:Iran's plan

[ZosX]

Yeah...and if you look further back...the Israelites came and originally took it from who was there first. Wasn't it the philistines? I'm just saying that if you look at their recent history they haven't exactly been saints.

Re:Iran's plan

[uninformedLuddite]

That's an easy question to answer. If you are an AC then c6gunner can't send your details to his megaphony pals.
What's the latest figures on holocaust survivors again? Isn't it over a million in Israel alone? Must be very hard for Jewish people to get life insurance as that little nugget throws the actuarial tables right out the window.
Now might be a good time to point out to your Christian Zionist friends where the Talmud says Jesus is right now? Sorry, I shouldn't have said Jesus. What's the Jewish name for him and what's it mean again? Enlighten us with your love.

Re:Iran's plan

[uninformedLuddite]

You do realise that Jews disguised as Arabs attacked and blew up their own allies before the state of Israel came into being don't you?

Re:Iran's plan

[hairyfeet]

I would just add, and what should prove to just about anyone that Israel has become the bad guys, is this little nugget which for those that don't want to RFTL is a nice article on how Israeli soldiers got a slap on the wrist for using a 9 year old child as a human shield and to "test boxes for possible bombs".

I'm sorry, but when you get to the point you don't even look at children from the other race as human and worth protecting, well then you are a sick racist fuck. Hitting a kid by accident in a firefight is one thing, knowingly using a little boy as a shield and bomb disposal bot is about as sick and evil as you can get. And it just sickens me we are shelling out to the tune of 2 billion plus a year to these people.

You want to know why so many countries hate us? Because they get hit with the barrel of a gun that says "Made in the USA" on it. We should take care of our own and if the Jewish people here in the USA want to send Israel money fine, but our tax dollars should NOT be going to these or any other of the asshole countries we have been propping up. And I'd love to see those that scream racist and anti-semite explain how using kids as human shields is okay. Wrong is wrong, evil is evil.

Re:Iran's plan

[ZosX]

You know.I read through the wikipedia article and it was very interesting.sorry if this gets garbled....slashdot is so slow on my phone. Usually I take a lot of the independant press' assumptions about palestine at face value. However, the sobering reality is that things may not be as bad as they are making it out to be. I mean lots of bad things are happening and people are suffering and dying, sure. And both sides are probably equally as guilty...they seem to hate each other pretty equally. But on a general suffering scale this does seem to pale to places like the congo or sudan or rwanda or any number of extremely bad third world shitholes. Actually they probably have it a lot better than the north koreans, but that isn't saying much. My point is that one group needs to take a higher road and I don't see that happening. I see more ethnic cleansing (to use a better term) and clearly israel has a huge advantage in terms of military gear and money. Its just sad that it has to play out like this. The british gave up on a solution and its not hard to see why. They both want the sane lands, but they cannot share them. A more peaceful solution would be the unification of jews and palestinians but that will likely never happen with all the damage that has been done. I'm guessing by your nick you were military, so I could probably understand a bit where your viewpoint is coming from. I really don't have much opinion on who is wrong or right, but israel has certainly taken a position that will have long reaching consequences. I'm no fan of iran or a lot of the islamic world as well, but we likely would have never had any sort of war or issue with them if they didt have oil under their sands. That's a whole other topic though......

Sorry for any typos...editing is painful

Re:Iran's plan

[Lehk228]

are you suggesting that the videos of white phosphorous strikes in crowded areas were faked?

Re:Iran's plan

[Sally Forth]

The Israelites have a comprehensive underground system and train its people to disappear into it within less than five minutes. They recently held a country-wide drill, if I remember correctly. These are concrete bunkers built to withstand rocket fire.

Palestinian leaders use families and children as human shields, and point to the injuries of children in an attempt to demonize their enemies... even though many of these children have been taken into Israeli hospitals for treatment.

In the most recent fight, some of the Israeli airstrikes were aborted when they saw families sitting on the roof of buildings near their targets. Meanwhile, a Palestinian rocket struck and destroyed an Israeli kindergarten... resulting in no casualties, but not for lack of trying!

Death reports, accurate or not, are only a piece of the puzzle.

Is Stuxnet a first?

[MrEricSir]

I heard about this earlier today and started wondering if Stuxnet is perhaps the first virus of its kind -- is this this the first time a successful virus has been created to attack a specific target?

And since it worked, will we see similar viruses in the future?

Re:Is Stuxnet a first?

[Anonymous Coward]

wondering if Stuxnet is perhaps the first virus of its kind -- is this this the first time a successful virus has been created to attack a specific target?

An industrial target perhaps, but the entire point of "spear phishing" is to target a specific person, so the concept isn't new. I'm not entirely sure Stuxnet itself is all that unique, there are plenty of "build your own virus/trojan/worm" kits out there that basically just wrap up metasploit with a payload of your choosing, in this case the payload itself is probably the first of it's kind.

Re:Is Stuxnet a first?

[cosm]

- is this this the first time a successful virus has been created to attack a specific target?

Some would say AIDS, but many would argue.

Re:Is Stuxnet a first?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would say that the Siberian pipeline explosion of 1982 would be an earlier form of this type of attack: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberian_pipeline_sabotage

Re:Is Stuxnet a first?

[Anonymous Coward]

worms have caused all sorts of trouble, of course.. network congestion, massive botnets, but i think as far as disrupting an actual control system and screwing up something in the physical world.. i think it might be a first.

it should be a warning against innapropriate connectivity of all sorts of critical control systems; this is the kind of shit you see in the movies and laugh at, you know, when some guy uses a dos prompt and "hacks" into a power plant, taking it completely offline, plunging the city into darkness...

well, engineers are actually dumb enough to make those network links possible, especially in countries where the technology is very new, and focus is on rapid development

Re:Is Stuxnet a first?

[plover]

1. No, it's not the first. The 2010 Verizon Data Breach Report shows that 54% of successful attacks using malware used customized or custom-written malware, and that 97% of the data records stolen were done so with the use of custom malware.

2. Yes, we're going to see a lot of it. It's already begun, according the the engineer who dissected the industrial control code that stuxnet injected.

Re:Is Stuxnet a first?

[windcask]

is this this the first time a successful virus has been created to attack a specific target?

/me takes time machine to college dorm in 1987
 
/me grabs floppy and makes batch file with "@echo off / Format C: /s" in it, and names it something auspicious
 
/me replaces roommate's copy of "King's Quest" with malicious disk
 
/me giggles like an idiot when roommate wipes hard drive inadvertently

Short answer: nope.

Re:Is Stuxnet a first?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ask yourself this..how prevalent are the plcs used to control centrifuges? Where else does similar siemens hardware exist ? Could a similar attack occur for instance on centrifuges used in the usa? For instance, what if you didn't like the ethanol industry? What if you maladjusted the speed control on the centrifuges used to separate wet cake from whole stillage ? A large percentage of profit from an ethanol plant comes from processing wet cake into dried distillers grains.

Or...what other motor speeds could be targeted, and what would the results be ?

Re:Is Stuxnet a first?

[jamesh]

Or...what other motor speeds could be targeted, and what would the results be ?

Could this be the plausible deniability of fault that Toyota have been searching for?

Re:Is Stuxnet a first?

[FooAtWFU]

If you don't require it to be a virus per se, the first incident may have been the Siberian pipeline sabotage in 1982.

Iran seems to be seriously downplaying the harm

[Silver Surfer 1]

Interesting article on the worm itself.

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/11/26/secret-agent-crippled-irans-nuclear-ambitions/?test=latestnews#content

"Intelligence agencies, computer security companies and the nuclear industry have been trying to analyze the worm since it was discovered in June by a Belarus-based company that was doing business in Iran. And what they've all found, says Sean McGurk, the Homeland Security Department's acting director of national cyber security and communications integration, is a “game changer.”"

Re:Iran seems to be seriously downplaying the harm

[khallow]

An interesting possibility mentioned in the story is that people may have been executed for the activity of this worm. That's a new way to kill people. Further, the worm apparently used four different zero day cracks and the alert sites which warn about such things went down for a day under a DoS attack.

Re:Iran seems to be seriously downplaying the harm

[rtb61]

It seems that the targeting abilities of the wore were wildly exaggerated. The worm reports back to servers, hmm air gap, that makes no sense. It seems there was a lot of obfuscating built into the worm, specifically to hide how it gain entry past an air gap, and how any new program was accepted on appliance based machines.

That'll teach em to run windows on what are meant to be secure systems. The advantage for Linux is you can strip it down to only what is required to run and secure that appliance and nothing more and anything new sets off alarms, including memory scans and even rebooting from rom media upon a regular basis.

Compromising people is the easiest way in, compromising hardware is the hardest to clean out, compromising software, if you set up the system properly cleaning it out is a simple as a system wide reboot.

I would bet the worm 'bought' it's way in and the external stuff was typical 'COINTELPRO' misinformation.

Re:Iran seems to be seriously downplaying the harm

[plover]

It seems that the targeting abilities of the wore were wildly exaggerated. The worm reports back to servers, hmm air gap, that makes no sense. It seems there was a lot of obfuscating built into the worm, specifically to hide how it gain entry past an air gap, and how any new program was accepted on appliance based machines.

I would bet the worm 'bought' it's way in and the external stuff was typical 'COINTELPRO' misinformation.

You're making a lot of assumptions that are simply incorrect.

You really should read the analysis of the worm's function as written up by Symantec's researchers. They published exactly how it bridges the air gap -- a bug in how Windows processes the AUTORUN.INF file permits infecting a machine as soon as removable media is inserted, and does not rely on AUTORUN itself to be turned on. The rest of the infected machines serve as the conduit for delivering updated virus payloads and instructions to the machines that write the USB sticks or CD-ROMs that cross the gap. Assuming the operators of the plant had to perform maintenance or updates (which happens often as existing devices are reconfigured or new ones are brought on line) the updated payloads will find their way across the gap soon enough.

And Symantec wasn't the only company to decompile the worm and figure it out.

Nobody had to 'buy' the worm in. Nobody had to falsify how it got installed. The worm itself provides the evidence of sophistication. If you doubt it, simply get a copy and infect your Windows machine, put in a fresh USB stick, then put the USB stick into an uninfected Windows machine. Now you have your own copy of proof in the form of two infected machines.

Where espionage would come in would have been in studying the nuclear plant, learning what the control system configuration was, how their engineers used removable media to bridge the air gap for ordinary maintenance, then designing a payload that would specifically target their process.

Re:Iran seems to be seriously downplaying the harm

[rtb61]

Nah, the people who went to all the trouble to create that worm would never rely on chance ie. that had to make sure that it got where they wanted it to get and the only way is for a direct insertion (after what seems like millions invested, rely on chance, illogical). They would also try to camouflage that direct insertion as much as possible to protect it for future use, more likely Russian (a commercial decision) rather than Iranian (a matter of national security).

So will the real question is will Iranians stop using windows and will other countries also seeing this failure join them in abandoning M$ in what are meant to be secure environments. It seems pretty obvious that Iran can either spend over a year trying to clean up their system only to have it fail again, or swap to Linux and clean things up in a week or so (their people would obviously have the expertise to run either OS).

Re:Iran seems to be seriously downplaying the harm

[plover]

Interesting. So what you're essentially saying is the AUTORUN propagation exploit was built only to provide a plausible cover to their inside agent at the plant.

It could have happened that way.

Re:Iran seems to be seriously downplaying the harm

[plover]

BTW, abandoning Windows as the operating system is not as easy as a "week or so" dropping in of a UNIX environment. Both the control software and programming environments are built exclusively on Windows 2000. Siemens would have to port their entire package before any such changes could be made. Given the complexity of the systems they support, I would guess that the porting job will not be easy.

What's really odd is that these are obviously safety and life critical systems. Windows long ago came with warnings in their licenses saying stuff like "not for use in nuclear power plants or on submarines" (I remember Slashdot mocking them for it.) And while their operating system security resembles Swiss cheese, unlike the cheese they do not improve with age. How did Siemens justify continuing down the Windows path? Why didn't their engineers balk?

Re:Iran seems to be seriously downplaying the harm

[rtb61]

Especially as they will want to repeat the exploit but with a different targeted attack if Iran is still silly enough to keep running windows. Interesting the type of attack narrows it down to a nuclear power (understanding the target and it's weaknesses), that has access to windows source code and, didn't give a crap about the economic damage done to M$ by the success of the attack (at a guess around 500 million dollars with governments likely to drop windows earlier at secure location because the air gap is not sufficient), now that narrows the attacking party quite a bit.

Re:Iran seems to be seriously downplaying the harm

[rtb61]

7Ps Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance, until then leave things switched off.

They did a bad thing.

[Arancaytar]

"They succeeded in creating problems for a limited number of our centrifuges with the software they had installed in electronic parts. They did a bad thing. Fortunately our experts discovered that, and today they are not able to do that anymore."

Is this an artifact of translation, or a side effect of trying to say as little as possible about classified research while still forming complete sentences?

"We cannot put the broken part in the machine. It would not smash the right tiny things together. Then the machine might break. That would be very bad."

Re:They did a bad thing.

[plover]

I was very surprised that he admitted it, at first. A rational leader would never confirm an attack like this that couldn't externally be proven.

But then I remembered this guy is from a different world, and isn't talking to us. He's a kleptocrat who stays in power by painting the image of a religious strongman, and talks to his ignorant power-base making it sound like his scientists gloriously smashed the meaningless virus as they would a Western fly.

So I don't know if this child-like line is a simplification made by the translator (who might have difficulty with technical language) or if this is how he normally talks to his people?

Re:They did a bad thing.

[pipelayerification]

I'm personally hoping that the fact that he admitted it means that the damage was so bad he doesn't feel they can hide it. Always the optimist :)

Re:They did a bad thing.

[royallthefourth]

Are you hoping for a US-led invasion of Iran? The most a nuclear-equipped Iran means to the world is that the US won't invade, which is quite a good thing for minimizing violence over there.

Re:They did a bad thing.

[clarkkent09]

today they are not able to do that anymore
 
Oh well, moving on to Plan B

Re:They did a bad thing.

[Anonymous Coward]

it would be pretty shitty for the arabs if the persians AND the jews had nukes, since both groups have no priblem killing an arab for getting uppity

Re:They did a bad thing.

[pipelayerification]

I think the most a nuclear-equipped Iran means to the world is the oft stated goal of the destruction of the Jewish state. Not to mention that the violence in Iran exists now. It just doesn't get a whole lot of open press. Iran also doesn't seem all that stable right now. I surely don't relish any more nuclear weapons in the world than currently exist and don't want to wonder what happened to Iran's after the government is overthrown or collapses.

Re:They did a bad thing.

[huiwe]

"Now watch this swing."

Re:They did a bad thing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you trust the Guardian (UK)? Did it come from Iran news agency?

Re:They did a bad thing.

[Anonymous Coward]

if this is how he normally talks to his people?

I'm one of his "people"...and Yes, he normally talks to his people like this and even worse!

Re:They did a bad thing.

[AmiMoJo]

It's simple PR:

"Hay, Israel is attacking us!* We minimised the damage and it won't stop our nuclear program, but BTW did I mention that Israel is attacking us?! Cyber war/jihad!"

* It seems to be commonly held that Israel is behind the virus

Re:They did a bad thing.

[Obyron]

Actually it'd mean the entire Middle East would want to nuke up, as a deterrent to Iranian aggression. But you don't have to believe me. Read some of the wikileaks State Department cables where Middle Eastern leaders comment on the issue. The King of Bahrain says, for example, that the long term benefits of attacking Iran to destroy its nuclear program outweigh the short term costs. The King of Saudi Arabia urged us to "cut the head off the snake." The president of Egypt isn't crazy about the idea either, because he feels that Iran is a destabilizing influence in the region. That's not to mention the Israelis...

You need to inform yourself a little better than the rose-coloured glasses optimistic propaganda view of international relations. Iran says they want the bomb as a deterrent, and I believe them. They want to deter people from living in Tel Aviv.

They did a bad thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a funny thing to say about harming a program designed to build weapons commonly associated with the end of humanity.

Re:They did a bad thing?

[ModernGeek]

They aren't trying to build a bomb, they're building a medical research reactor! Just because they didn't want the pesky IAEA in there doesn't mean something bad is being created, does it?

Re:They did a bad thing?

[couchslug]

Or at least the end of Tel Aviv.

A Bad Thing

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Baby did a bad bad thing, baby did a bad bad thing.
Baby did a bad bad thing, baby did a bad bad thing.

You ever want a nuke so much you thought your little centrifuge was gonna break in two?
I didn't think so.
You ever tried with all your heart and soul to get your uranium back to you?
I wanna hope so.
You ever pray with all your heart and soul just to watch it spin away?

Baby did a bad bad thing, baby did a bad bad thing.
Baby did a bad bad thing, feel like crying, feel like crying.

You ever toss and turn your lying awake and thinking about the yellow cake you love?
I don't think so.
You ever close your eyes your making believe your holding the nuke your dreaming of?
Well if you say so.
I hurts so bad when you finally know just how low, low, low, low, low, Israel'll go.

Baby did a bad bad thing, baby did a bad bad thing.
Baby did a bad bad thing, feel like crying, feel like crying.

Ohh. Feel like crying, feel like crying.
Ohh, feel like crying, feel like crying.

Baby did a bad bad thing, baby did a bad bad thing.

Re:A Bad Thing

[pinkj]

This is probably the first time -- and last time -- a Chris Isaak song is used for an Iranian nuclear program parody.

Re:A Bad Thing

[Anonymous Coward]

This is probably the first time -- and last time -- a Chris Isaak song is used for an Iranian nuclear program parody.

Don't be so sure, there's lots of potential in his catalog:

Cant' Do a Thing (To Stop Me)
Round 'n' Round
Lie to Me
Things Go Wrong
The End of Everything
Worked it Out Wrong
American Boy
Wicked Game

Back to the old way of doing things.

[Anonymous Coward]

An interesting experiment, but I guess they'll have to go back to using conventional explosives to get the job done!

Big deal

[Anonymous Coward]

>and today they are not able [to do that] anymore."

So? They don't want "to do that" anymore. They want to do something different now. You'd better be ahead of the curve next time.

Lesson:

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows XP isn't secure enough for use in uranium refinement plants. 'course, I change my email password if I have to access it from any Windows machine even once-- the instant I have access to a UC or OS X machine. ..so the very idea that they were doing that in the first place is something I find hilarious.

Simple solution

[peterindistantland]

Just disconnect any sensitive nuclear facility from the freaking Internet. Are they so stupid?

Re:Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Just disconnect any sensitive nuclear facility from the freaking Internet. Are they so stupid?

They did. And yes, they are. Just like everyone else.

Because when you make something foolproof, God (or Allah, in this case) will just invent a more ingenious fool.

And even then, you can't actually make anything that's malice-proof.

Re:Simple solution

[plover]

Just disconnect any sensitive nuclear facility from the freaking Internet. Are they so stupid?

No, they're not stupid. Of course the nuclear plant's control network is isolated from other networks. You just don't understand how this worm works.

Using one of four different previously unknown (0-day) Windows exploits, it finds its way onto new machines. Two of the exploits are network attacks (one print spooler, one RPC.) One of the exploits strikes using a bug in how Windows reads the AUTORUN.INF file, and will install the virus whenever infected removable media is inserted, such as USB sticks or CD-ROM discs. Stuxnet is written to all removable media on an infected machine. AUTORUN can be disabled, but the bug is such that it doesn't matter -- simply inserting the infected media spreads the infection.

It's stealthy, and hides itself using Windows rootkit methodology. It looks for specific 32-bit Windows operating systems and which antivirus software packages are installed, and will either fail to install if the antivirus can't be worked around, or it uses different exploits to elevate privileges depending on the security environment of the machine.

It contacts a set of command and control servers (that were taken offline) to download updates to the virus. The virus-infected machines periodically check in to those servers to see if there's new payload or software, update themselves, then spread it around to the other infected machines.

Once it finds its way onto a machine running "Step 7", a programming environment for programming Siemens industrial control systems, it modifies the code that is compiled for the control system. It uses another kind of hiding technology that acts like a rootkit here, telling the engineer that the deployed code is OK.

The engineers do their work on an infected machine connected to the regular networks. They then have to transfer their newly compiled control program data onto the isolated control network. They typically do so using USB sticks or CD-ROMs, which then infect the machine that is transmitting the code to the industrial control network.

The modifications to the data sent to the control network are subtle. Stuxnet has two payloads. The first tries to figure out that it's in an environment that matches the target by comparing frequency controller IDs with those of specific Iranian-made controllers, looks for an array of more than 32 of them, and then watches to see if they run at high speeds for a couple weeks. If so, it'll switch to a damage cycle where it over-revs the centrifuge motors, then suddenly slows them, then suddenly speeds them up again. It repeats this hour-long cycle once every 27 days or so. Even if the over-revving doesn't damage the centrifuges, the sudden slowdowns and speed-ups mixes the uranium up again, rendering the purity of the uranium inexplicably unrefined.

The other payload appears to be intended to cause more damage. It's believed to be designed to attack the control systems at the Buhesher nuclear reactor, opening and closing steam valves in order to over-stress the turbine, with the intent of destroying the 150 foot long shaft and its enclosure. It also pretends to be the reactor's environmental sensors, and reports false data back to the controller; all of this faked data makes the turbine look like everything's operating normally, but in reality a hellstorm is going on inside the turbine enclosure.

It's quite a sophisticated worm.

Re:Simple solution

[twentynine]

sounds like something out of mission impossible

Re:Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

It's quite a sophisticated worm.

This might be the understatement of the decade if not the century!

(Hard to say, for the latter; we have another 90 years to go.)

Re:Simple solution

[peterindistantland]

Thanks for your elaborate explanation. But from what you said, the worm itself wasn't enough to do all the damage, but a lot of spying was needed to probe the internal operation of the nuclear plant, so the worm could be specifically designed to damage the centrifuge, the steam valves etc. I'm also thinking about another question. Are there alternatives to Siemens control system, of comparable quality, in operating systems other than Windows? This is the crucial factor deciding the long-term threat of this Siemens-specific worm.

Re:Simple solution

[plover]

Yes, a lot of spying had to happen in order to make this worm effective. The industrial plant reconnaissance was critical, but I left out the part where the worm incorporates code signed by not one but two different secret signing keys, one from Realtek and one from JMicron (both of which were revoked back in July when it was discovered.) Someone had to break into both of those companies, steal their signing keys, and leave undetected. If the companies were following good security protocols (no guarantees) the signing machines should have been offline and inaccessible to any but a physical attack. Yet another instance where highly qualified spies would have been used.

To answer your "alternatives to Siemens" question, I'm not an industrial logic guy (my factory experiences are limited to pre-SCADA serial communications with G-code based CNC tools, and prior to that a mop bucket) so I'd recommend you ask one. I do know Siemens is one of the biggest and most respected players in the field, and that another big player is GE Industrial. But I know nothing about their control software, what platforms they run on, or other such useful data.

I think the immediate Siemens problems with Stuxnet can be dealt with via security patching. For example, removing the hard-coded password the worm exploits would be a good start (sorry, another omitted detail.) But they really need to redesign their product line in terms of security, and that's going to take a long, long time, given what I've learned following the story of this worm.

One more thing to consider is a point raised by another commenter. After investing the millions of dollars needed to create this precisely crafted and targeted weapon, would its creators leave to chance that a USB stick would somehow just find its way from an infected engineer's PC to a control station? It's possible that the USB air gap "hack" was added to divert attention from an inside agent who intentionally slotted the Stuxnet-laden stick into the control system; the same agent who possibly gave them the details of the system in the first place. It would eliminate chance. My point is that Windows may have been targeted simply because that's what the Iranians use. Had they been running on a different system, the attackers would likely have still found a different way to breach it, just not in public via a worm like Stuxnet.

One thing has changed

[khallow]

Two weeks ago, people talked about the diplomatic problems this worm attack would cause for Israel. There was even a few people that didn't think Iran was trying to make a nuclear bomb. What a difference two weeks makes. It turns out (from the Wikileaks release a couple of days ago) that the entire Middle East (except for the usual suspects like Hamas and Hezbollah) thinks Iran's nuclear bomb program is far more worrisome than Israel. The King of Saudi Arabia asked the US in April 2008 for military strikes against Iran's nuclear program. The UAE stated in the beginning of 2010 that it is expecting some sort of war involving the US or Israel against Iran.

From an analysis of the Stuxnet worm, it turns out to target a frequency converter made by a Iranian company that the Iranians kept secret from the IAEA. That's the agency which is supposed to be inspecting Iran's nuclear facilities and which should have been informed of this technology.

Finally, we have assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists. If you think putting a worm into a uranium enrichment plant is diplomatically upsetting how about killing people? Also, there's a lot more players who can kill people than who can write sophisticated worms that only target particular systems.

I think this is going beyond diplomacy. A lot of governments agree that Iran is working on a nuclear bomb. The clever finesse moves, such as fancy computer worms, are probably exhausted. Trade blockades probably won't work (especially with China having special deals with Iran). But what will still work is destruction of the facilities and killing of the staff who work there. To be blunt, I favor this approach.

My view however is that Obama won't do it. That means then that we'll have a nuclear Iran, then nuclear Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Even if you don't give a hoot about the Middle East, it'll worry Europe and Turkey. I see expansion of nuclear forces in the EU as a distinct possibility. Turkey is one of many tricky spots. Russia will freak out if Turkey gets nukes. But how will Turkey defend itself, if a major war with a nuclear armed Iran occurs?

This is the thing that people don't get about proliferation of nuclear weapons. The fewer countries that have nuclear weapons, the easier they are to control. Conversely, once a dangerous country like Iran gets them, then all of their neighbors are going to want them as well for self-defense. Israel has been nuclear armed for perhaps forty years, but the Middle East is worried about Iran.

Re:One thing has changed

[royallthefourth]

"The middle east" meaning American puppets like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, sure.

It's quite absurd for you to call Iran dangerous; they haven't been at war for years. Of course they are concerned that the US may invade since Iran has wealth to extract and won't play along with the US, so they're developing nuclear weapons. They know the US won't invade a country that actually has them because it would be too dangerous. It's really the only safeguard they've got.
The most dangerous places in the middle east are Afghanistan and Iraq, both of which were created in their present form by the United States. Further meddling over there (like blowing up scientists) is only going to make a bigger mess than already exists.

Re:One thing has changed

[ColdWetDog]

It's quite absurd for you to call Iran dangerous; they haven't been at war for years...

If you're so smart, how come the majority of the Arab leaders in the Middle East vehemently disagree with you?

Re:One thing has changed

[Dachannien]

It's quite absurd for you to call Iran dangerous; they haven't been at war for years.

Neither has North Korea, but I hope you'd agree that North Korea is extremely dangerous.

Yes, Iran hasn't been at war (overtly) since they were at war with Iraq. Likely the only reason there wasn't an encore performance is because Saddam went to great lengths to make the world believe that he still had WMDs even though he didn't. But Iran has been relentless in its funding of terrorist organizations throughout the region.

The danger inside Iraq and Afghanistan is completely internal. Neither country has the armed forces required to threaten their neighbors. In fact, Iran is a threat to both of these countries because of their funding of terrorists in both places.

Iran's worries about US invasion are not borne out by their actions. If they really wanted to guarantee their safety, they would abandon their WMD programs, allow full international inspections, and stop sponsoring terrorism abroad. Libya did this and was rewarded by the US despite its human rights problems, and it's reasonable to assume that the US would be willing to overlook quite a lot from Iran while still welcoming them back into the international community.

Instead, Iran is working on nuclear weapons, and it's quite likely that once they amass a sufficient stockpile, they will use that as leverage against the Arab nations, which is why the Arab nations are panicked by the thought. Iran's ties to Hamas and Hezbollah makes it reasonable to think that they would supply WMDs to one of those terrorist groups for use against Israel. The only way to prevent destabilization of the entire region and/or the deaths of possibly millions of people is to prevent Iran from creating a WMD arsenal, even if that requires military action.

Re:One thing has changed

[khallow]

It's quite absurd for you to call Iran dangerous

Why? It's obvious that Iran is dangerous and that a nuclear armed Iran will cause a nuclear escalation in the Middle East. Past that, they're not a democracy. They completely threw the last election they had. I would much rather that they don't have a safeguard against US aggression. They haven't earned the right as I see it.

Re:One thing has changed

[cold fjord]

It's quite absurd for you to call Iran dangerous; they haven't been at war for years.

You're joking right?

Longstanding Support for Terrorism

U.S. officials describe the Iranian regime as the world's "central banker of terrorism." Indeed, Tehran has a nine-figure line item in its budget to support terrorism, sending hundreds of millions of dollars to various groups each year; the payments to Hizballah alone are as much as $200 million annually. According to Canadian intelligence, "[I]n February 1999, it was reported that Palestinian police discovered documents that attest to the transfer of $35 million to Hamas from the Iranian Intelligence Service (MOIS), money reportedly meant to finance terrorist activities against Israeli targets." Illustrating how such support is part of official government policy, from 2001 to 2006, Iran transferred $50 million to Hizballah fronts in Lebanon by sending funds from its central bank through Bank Saderat's London subsidiary.

Iranian support for terrorism goes well beyond the financial realm, however. Its well-known sponsorship of Palestinian terrorist organizations, for example, has included training and related contributions. Shortly after the second intifada erupted in September 2000, the regime assigned Mughniyeh himself to help Palestinian militant groups. According to a former Clinton administration official, "Mughniyeh got orders from Tehran to work with Hamas"; he was tasked with assisting PIJ as well.

Similarly, according to the U.S. government, Iran's al-Qods Force -- a wing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) -- has a "long history" of providing all types of support to Hizballah, including training, guidance, and arms. In addition to running training camps in Lebanon, al-Qods has trained more than 3,000 Hizballah operatives at its own facilities in Iran. The unit also played an important role in rearming Hizballah following the summer 2006 war with Israel. According to the Treasury Department, al-Qods has provided a wide variety of weapons and financial support to the Taliban as well, in support of the group's anti-coalition activity in Afghanistan.

Iran also keeps threatening to cut off the world's oil supply by closing the Straight of Hormuz.

Of course they are concerned that the US may invade since Iran has wealth to extract and won't play along with the US, so they're developing nuclear weapons.

That's a laugh. The US gets the oil it needs from other countries while Japan, China, and other US allies and friends buy Iran's oil. That also doesn't take into account the large oil reserves that the US has that are undeveloped.

No, the Iranian's have a very different outlook.
Ahmadinejad: Destroy Israel, End Crisis
Iran's missiles are ‘ready to destroy Israel’

“If this [an Israeli attack] happens, which, of course, we do not foresee, its ultimate result would be to expedite the last breath of the Zionist regime,” Ahmad Vahidi, the Iranian Defence Minister, said on state television.

Iran says can cut energy to Europe, hit enemies

“Iran is standing on 50 percent of the world’s energy and should it so decide Europe will have to spend the winter in cold,” Hossein Salami, deputy commander of the elite Revolutionary Guards, said in a meeting with war veterans and volunteers in Ker

Re:One thing has changed

[WindBourne]

Actually, it was obvious from Iran's action on these centrifuges what Iran's intentions were. The worm is designed to 'fuzz' the results of fuge run. With the fuge's running correctly, then you would have great separation between the various isotopes. With the virus, it does not separate them cleanly. So, the material is perfectly fine for running in ANY nuclear reactor including Iran's. The fact that they required better separation can only mean one thing: they are building bombs.

What is even more interesting is that Iran is not just trying to deny it, but they are sending ppl all over the world to astroturf about it. Even here on /., we have astroturf trolls that are claiming that Iran is not making bombs. Yet, Iran's own actions on this virus prove that they are liars.

Re:One thing has changed

[Clandestine_Blaze]

I have mixed feelings about this.

I honestly believe that a safeguard against preemptive aggression is a fundamental right that every sovereign nation should have. It's why any country has a standing military. The fact that Iran should even feel threatened by the US justifies this safeguard, not the other way around. Just like how America did not need permission to arm themselves with nuclear weapons, and actually used a couple when it felt necessary to win WWII, proves this. Do you honestly believe that any amount of UN treaties or protocols would actually prevent the United States from ever using a nuclear weapon if it ever felt the need to in the future? U.N. treaties certainly did not stop France from allegedly helping Israel develop their nuclear program.

America's invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan was a giant kick in Iran's butt. With US troops operating within two bordering countries, Iran felt it was necessary to hasten their nuclear ambitions. Why did the U.S. invade two nations that had virtually no real military, but continues to avoid North Korea, who even shelled South Korea? The biggest response that could be mustered by South Korea and the US were war games? Seriously? That's precisely why Iran feels the need to develop their nuclear program. Also, the fact that Iranian scientists are getting assassinated (a very disgusting, cowardly move) shows that this safeguard is necessary. I consider assassinating scientists and civilians as terrorism. I would be equally appalled if contractors for Northrop Grumman or Lockheed Martin were to be killed using that same logic.

I do agree with you though that Iran is not a democracy. Every election that they've had has been a sham. The last leader that they democratically elected was over 50 years ago, and he was overthrown and replaced with a dictator. Their government kills and maims more of their own citizens in political prisons than you could ever imagine. While I wholeheartedly agree that the world would be a better place if the current Iranian government was not in power, I do not agree with assassinating scientists, especially since many of them have no choice but to either work on government-sponsored projects or to try to defect, but risk getting their families that they leave behind killed if they manage to escape. Some of the scientists actually support opposition movements, and are stuck in a really bad situation.

I hope that you can understand my position. I dislike the government of Iran since it's my relatives over there that are always at risk of getting killed if they speak out, but am also disgusted by US aggression and double-standards, which I also see as a threat to my relatives over there. It was bad enough wondering if each missile lobbed by Iraq in the 1980s would actually hit one of my relatives' residence. Now I have to worry the same about an Israeli strike or a U.S. invasion.

Re:One thing has changed

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the thing that people don't get about proliferation of nuclear weapons. The fewer countries that have nuclear weapons, the easier they are to control.

The strawmen who do not get this are a product of your imagination. Less states with nukes is a goal most rational people share. However given the desire and means, nuclear knowledge is not something you can suppress, not even by killing everyone involved. At most you can delay production by bombing production infrastructure, but that will have the likely effect of strengthening their desire to acquire weapons. To be blunt, you are a warmonger.

Re:One thing has changed

[Anonymous Coward]

Russia will freak out if Turkey gets nukes.

We have been lending Turkey nuclear bombs for a while now
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_sharing

Re:One thing has changed

[iammani]

Wow, you seriously believe Iran cares about Slashdot?

Re:One thing has changed

[WindBourne]

Iran is astroturfing EVERYWHERE. This is no different than what China or MS did.

Yes, Iran DOES care. They want politicians in democracy to drop our guards and forget about them. In fact, the leaders in Iran NEED that.

Re:One thing has changed

[khallow]

Thank you for that correction. According to this article, those nukes would take months to deploy.

* Turkey is one of five European nations that continue to house U.S. tactical nuclear weapons allocated for NATO.
* The weapons, however, are no longer integral to the NATO military mission. In fact, their readiness posture is such that it would take months to prepare them for battle.
* Nonetheless, it will be difficult to remove them from Turkey given Ankara's concerns about the Iranian nuclear program and its somewhat strained relationship with the United States.

And they'd be hard to remove from Turkey precisely because of Iran's nuclear weapons program.

Re:One thing has changed

[khallow]

I honestly believe that a safeguard against preemptive aggression is a fundamental right that every sovereign nation should have

How has Iran earned the rights of a sovereign nation? This is, I think a fundamental issue behind this whole debate, not just of what to do about Iran and its nuclear ambitions, but also countries like the US. My view is that legitimacy only comes from consent of the governed. The Iranian government deliberately rejected the will of their people in the last election. Consent was not granted.

While I wholeheartedly agree that the world would be a better place if the current Iranian government was not in power, I do not agree with assassinating scientists

Even when those scientists threaten the lives of millions of people in the Middle East? They aren't furthering human knowledge but threatening in perhaps a small way humanity's future. It could very well be that this is merely a bit of hysteria. That nothing much will come of any nuclear bombs constructed by Iran. Perhaps, this will all be laughed away a few decades from now.

But Iran already causes much death and destruction throughout the Middle East. I think they would be more aggressive, if they held nuclear weapons. Especially, if the rest of the world switched to a mode of appeasement. Countries like Saudi Arabia or Egypt would in my view attempt to get nuclear weapons as well. I don't know how much of it is racism versus experience (well versus the usual pathological nature of country-level politics), but there's no trust towards Iran.

I hope that you can understand my position. I dislike the government of Iran since it's my relatives over there that are always at risk of getting killed if they speak out, but am also disgusted by US aggression and double-standards, which I also see as a threat to my relatives over there. It was bad enough wondering if each missile lobbed by Iraq in the 1980s would actually hit one of my relatives' residence. Now I have to worry the same about an Israeli strike or a U.S. invasion.

There's a simple solution to your relatives' problems. Replace the Iranian government with a democratic government. Then I won't support military intervention. In comparison, both Pakistan and India have nukes, but they are for the most part democratic governments. While I think both countries are a mess, I wouldn't support military intervention to remove nuclear weapons from those countries.

My view on these things is that the citizens of the country are responsible for the actions of their government. If the government is not democratic, it is by choice of the people. In the case of the US, my home country, I see this as meaning that someday the US may endure terrible things (tyranny, large nuclear war, etc), either for the evil we have done or the evil we have failed to prevent. That is how our responsibility will manifest. The same applies to Iran.

Re:One thing has changed

[Anonymous Coward]

I think they're just buying time with the sabotage, assassinations, stuxnet. My impression is the US wants to be able to pull out of Afghanistan before striking Iran. But it could be Obama's cowardice, too.

Re:One thing has changed

[khallow]

The strawmen who do not get this are a product of your imagination. Less states with nukes is a goal most rational people share. However given the desire and means, nuclear knowledge is not something you can suppress, not even by killing everyone involved. At most you can delay production by bombing production infrastructure, but that will have the likely effect of strengthening their desire to acquire weapons. To be blunt, you are a warmonger.

I don't care about the accusation of "warmonger". Seeing as I am supporting productive moves that would reduce the likelihood of nuclear war, I would not be a warmonger. Sure, nuclear knowledge is merely set back a lot by killing the people who happen to know, but the real goal is destruction of the infrastructure. Sure, it'll strengthen their desire to get nuclear weapons, but it'll vastly increase the cost of obtaining them and delay acquisition of nuclear weapons by many years. In the past, that has been enough to keep dangerous countries from getting nuclear weapons.

Re:One thing has changed

[makomk]

With the fuge's running correctly, then you would have great separation between the various isotopes. With the virus, it does not separate them cleanly.

Which presumably means you can't refine fuel as efficiently (or perhaps even at all), even for nuclear power. What's more, the virus appears to have been designed to target their nuclear power generation capabilities directly too, which means that whoever designed it didn't care if it affected their nuclear power program.

Re:One thing has changed

[Ecuador]

Nice post.
One thing you missed out is that you agree that Iran is not a democracy and say the last democratically elected (and very popular in his country) leader was overthrown over 50 years ago, but you don't mention how/why he was overthrown.
So, why is Iran not a democracy? But of course because of US' Operation Ajax (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax) which established a 25 year dictatorship to protect the British petroleum interests.
Way to go guys!

Re:One thing has changed

[Ecuador]

Replace the Iranian government with a democratic government.

My view on these things is that the citizens of the country are responsible for the actions of their government. If the government is not democratic, it is by choice of the people.

Your ignorance actually makes your statements amusingly ironic. It was the US & UK who replaced the democratic Iranian country with a dictatorship in 1953 (look up "Operation Ajax") and that's where the problems started, as a 25-year US controlled dictatorship seems to have really pissed the Iranians off (you can't blame them...) and made them turn to religion, establishing a theocracy after their revolution.

Re:One thing has changed

[khallow]

Your ignorance actually makes your statements amusingly ironic. It was the US & UK who replaced the democratic Iranian country with a dictatorship in 1953 (look up "Operation Ajax") and that's where the problems started, as a 25-year US controlled dictatorship seems to have really pissed the Iranians off (you can't blame them...) and made them turn to religion, establishing a theocracy after their revolution.

It's not the US or UK's responsibility to make sure the Iranian government respects the wishes of the Iranian people. Also, it's worth noting that Operation Ajax was a direct result of an attempted theft of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company's assets in Iraq. One of the signs of a true democracy as I see it is a respect for law and existing contracts (after all, honoring the wishes of the citizenry is just another contract to uphold) even when those laws and contracts are not favorable. Stealing from thieves (the infamous Anglo-Persian Oil Company which later became British Petroleum) violates that, and the consequences of that act led to many decades of brutal tyrannies.

Re:One thing has changed

[Ecuador]

Wow.
And I don't mean world of warcraft.

Re:One thing has changed

[khallow]

And I don't mean world of warcraft.

Maybe you should. Sure it'd be nice if governments looked out for people, but truth is they're a bunch of sociopaths, even the relatively democratic ones. Even so, blatant theft, like the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) asset grab, brings out the worst, even in democratic states. Keep in mind that the West had to do something or most of the Third World would do the same thing in their countries.

There were many lost opportunities over the years. If the Iranian people had either prevented the coup from occurring or deposed the Shah shortly after his coup, they could have had both a democratic government and kept the spoils from APOC. Or if they had instituted a democratic government in 1979. Or even if they had chosen to make the recent elections count.

One of the consequences of these lost opportunities is that many people are now very scared of Iran to the point that bombing nuclear bomb production is considered a reasonable thing to do.

Re:One thing has changed

[KeensMustard]

You would agree then, that the same treatment be dealt with to any state deemed dangerous? For instance, Israel, an apartheid state which practices a policy of near genocide on those who don't fit the chosen racial profile - and possibly the US, the aggressor in the protracted and disastrous recent conflict in Iraq?

Re:One thing has changed

[khallow]

You would agree then, that the same treatment be dealt with to any state deemed dangerous? For instance, Israel, an apartheid state which practices a policy of near genocide on those who don't fit the chosen racial profile - and possibly the US, the aggressor in the protracted and disastrous recent conflict in Iraq?

Feel free to try. But I can't help but notice that past military actions against the US and Israel targeted the wrong people and didn't do a bit to reduce the danger that the US and Israel pose to the rest of the world.

Re:One thing has changed

[Anonymous Coward]

What makes Iran a dangerous country?

From what I've just read, the rest (Saudis, Kuwait, Israel, the US..) are out to destroy Iran and plunder it to pieces in a co-operative manner; it is obvious that Iran needs nukes before they will be squashed.

Haven't you read the leaked cables at all?

There's an active, belligerent operation that would result in War if it would happen in daylight AND if the other party would have the means to protect itself from an assault.

Re:One thing has changed

[KeensMustard]

Feel free to try.

It's not for me to try or not to try. However if you want to be consistent, you would need to apply your policy in a consistent manner. That means killing Israelis, Pakistanis, and possibly Americans as well as Iranians. For you to do or advocate otherwise would be hypocrisy.

But I can't help but notice that past military actions against the US and Israel targeted the wrong people and didn't do a bit to reduce the danger that the US and Israel pose to the rest of the world.

I'm not sure specifically what you mean. Are you speaking of the killing of US soldiers in Iraq by insurgents? in that case, I would say that generally that conflict has accelerated the loss of US influence in the region and the world generally, and thus has indeed reduced the threat posed by the US. Although this was a self inflicted wound (ironically as a result of a policy to increase US influence by utilising the military).

Re:One thing has changed

[khallow]

For you to do or advocate otherwise would be hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy in national policy? That's never happened before. Well, I guess we'll just need to make sure it doesn't happen to anyone else.

I'm not sure specifically what you mean. Are you speaking of the killing of US soldiers in Iraq by insurgents? in that case, I would say that generally that conflict has accelerated the loss of US influence in the region and the world generally, and thus has indeed reduced the threat posed by the US. Although this was a self inflicted wound (ironically as a result of a policy to increase US influence by utilising the military).

Yes, as well as terrorist attacks in the US. Very few of them have targeted the US's WMD infrastructure.

"warcrimes"

[Anonymous Coward]

What big war crimes does Israel commit by using cluster bombs or white phosphorous? It did not ratify the Convention on Cluster Munitions and WP is not explicitly banned in any other convention. So what law or treaty have they broken then?

Yeah, I thought so. Please stop using words you don't understand next time.

Re:"warcrimes"

[santax]

Ah I'm sure nazi-germany would agree with you. They didn't gratify anything so therefore they can't have committed warcrimes? The use of clustermunition and fosfor are indeed warcrimes. Retaliation on schools are also warcrimes. Not surprised you don't have the balls to use your account btw.

Turkey is a NATO member

[molo]

You forget that Turkey is a NATO member and falls under the US/UK/France nuclear umbrella. Turkey doesn't need nukes. Supposedly the US had missles based in Turkey (aimed at the USSR) that were removed as part of a secret deal ending the Cuban Missile Crisis. But the nuclear umbrella stays as part of NATO.

-molo

Re:Turkey is a NATO member

[khallow]

You forget that Turkey is a NATO member and falls under the US/UK/France nuclear umbrella. Turkey doesn't need nukes. Supposedly the US had missles based in Turkey (aimed at the USSR) that were removed as part of a secret deal ending the Cuban Missile Crisis. But the nuclear umbrella stays as part of NATO.

"Nuclear umbrellas" only make sense, if someone is willing to use nukes to enforce them. Turkey has to wonder whether they'd get help in case of an Iranian (or for that matter Egyptian or Saudi Arabian) nuclear attack. For example, I wouldn't trust the US to deliver today. Obama doesn't even recognize Iran as a real threat. There might be a future US president who is even more clueless or weak (combined with bad leadership in the UK and France). That will be when Iran starts a war.

Maybe the US or EU will persuade Turkey that it's going to remain under the nuclear umbrella. But if they don't, then Turkey has to deal on its own with the nuclear escalation in the Middle East.

Re:Turkey is a NATO member

[WindBourne]

Obama sees Iran as a VERY real threat. That is why he is moving towards the umbrella. The problem is, that he inherited a nightmare from W.. He has been fighting against a nightmare economy, that had the jobs sucked out of for the previous 8 years, has 2 wars, created in the previous 8 years, has seen NK gotten the bomb and nothing done about it in the previous 8 years, is watching Burma building a secret nuke reactor in the previous 8 years, has a massive debt of just under 11 trillion (now just under 14 trillion) that was built up from 1980 on (though to Clinton's credit he did less than 1 trillion and left a balanced budget ), and massive failings in the economy far beyond what the global economy caused. Seeing as how you have been reading the wikileaks, you can see that the USA gov. recognizes that China views itself as being in a cold war with the USA.

So from Obama's POV, he had time to deal with Iran, while nearly everything else MUST BE DEALT WITH NOW.

OTH, Israel is working on how to stop Iran (consider today's actions), while developing a new MOAB and building missions for how and when to deliver it. You can bet that all of the middle east has given permission to Israel to flyover (including supplying fuel) to deliver these. My guess is that we will see this fireworks in about 1 year. A very real problem is that Iran is working on Chemical and biological bombs as well. Biological may be far far worse then a nuke, depending on what they use. I could see them inoculating their citizens and then hitting Israel and counting on it taking out the population EAST of them (iow, through the sunnis).

Re:Turkey is a NATO member

[khallow]

Obama sees Iran as a VERY real threat. That is why he is moving towards the umbrella. The problem is, that he inherited a nightmare from W.. He has been fighting against a nightmare economy, that had the jobs sucked out of for the previous 8 years, has 2 wars, created in the previous 8 years, has seen NK gotten the bomb and nothing done about it in the previous 8 years, is watching Burma building a secret nuke reactor in the previous 8 years, has a massive debt of just under 11 trillion (now just under 14 trillion) that was built up from 1980 on (though to Clinton's credit he did less than 1 trillion and left a balanced budget ), and massive failings in the economy far beyond what the global economy caused. Seeing as how you have been reading the wikileaks, you can see that the USA gov. recognizes that China views itself as being in a cold war with the USA.

We could go back and forth on this, but I've ranted my opinion of US politics many times on Slashdot. Sure Bush handed off to Obama one of the worst situations a president has been given. My view is that Obama dug the hole deeper and has made a remarkable mess, remarkably worse. I'll just leave it at that.

Ok, so Obama is in fire fighting mode. Iran's nuclear weapons program has been an urgent matter for the past two to four years (Stuxnet seems to have bought a year or so of time, but it's gone now). Bush punted on it and frankly, it looks like Obama will as well. As to Obama's priorities? I got the impression from the Wikileaks stuff that back in 2009, there were times when Obama wanted to talk about the Israel-Palestine thing, and everyone in the Middle East wanted to talk about Iran's nuclear program. I realize Iran is on the radar for the administration (especially this year), but I'm not confident that they have a credible plan for dealing with Iran.

OTH, Israel is working on how to stop Iran (consider today's actions), while developing a new MOAB and building missions for how and when to deliver it. You can bet that all of the middle east has given permission to Israel to flyover (including supplying fuel) to deliver these. My guess is that we will see this fireworks in about 1 year. A very real problem is that Iran is working on Chemical and biological bombs as well. Biological may be far far worse then a nuke, depending on what they use. I could see them inoculating their citizens and then hitting Israel and counting on it taking out the population EAST of them (iow, through the sunnis).

I figure if it was going to be something not completely crazy (say like turning supertankers into a covert aircraft carriers and running a massive air assault off of them or nuking Iran's uranium refining sites), Israel would have done it by now. Some sort of huge bunk buster could work, but how are they going to get it in there and on target? Big bombs require big, slow planes.

Biologicals and chemical don't work fast enough and are two edged swords. You also can't kill Israel with them before it gets a full nuke counterattack off (possibly with plenty of help from other pissed off nuclear powers like Russia and the US). Nukes can quickly remove Israel from the pages of time.

Re:Turkey is a NATO member

[Anonymous Coward]

Your leader is not responsible for the state of your economy. Business Cycles are, and when George W. Invaded, your people did not take to the streets in protest, I believe they supported the idea; therefore it's the American people responsible for the state of both the economy and the fact that they supported an invasion in the middle east. If you removed power from the office of the president then you'd only go to war when all of congress agrees upon it.

Re:Turkey is a NATO member

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, it's all W.'s fault... LOL

Most of what you say is correct.

[WindBourne]

What many miss is that Iran and AQ are obviously working together, which is quite scary. Weapons showing up in Afghanistan being used by AQ, have traced back to Iran and China (neither of these nations are friends to the west, even though economically they seek to dominate the west). What is interesting is that AQ HATES iran, but is willing to work with them for now (and vice-versa). That speaks loudly.

Not

[Anonymous Coward]

The world could be on fire!
No one could hack me but you.
Strange what enrichment will make foolish people do
I never dreamed that I'd meet a virus like you
And I never dreamed that I'd lose a limited number of cyclotrons because of you

No, I don't want to fail in war
No, I don't want to fall in war
With you
With you

What a bad game you play
To make me weep this way
What a bad thing to do
To make me virus scan for you
What a bad thing to say
You never failed this way
What a bad thing to do
To make me virus scan all day for you

And, I don't want to fail in war
And, I don't want to fall in war

World could have been on fire
No one could stop me but you
Strange what enrichment will make foolish people do
I never dreamed that I'd find a virus like you
I never dreamed that I'd get hacked by somebody like you

No I don't wanna fail in war
No I don't wanna fail in war
With you
With you

Nobody wins this one

Endless war

[Anonymous Coward]

Those who make money from weapons and war contracting want war all the time.

They are trying to start a war with Iran. They get support from Israelis and other Jews, who want the U.S. taxpayer to pay for Jewish security.

The U.S. government is VERY corrupt.

Obviously they are bomb building.

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that they required better separation can only mean one thing: they are building bombs.
 
Excellent logic, but it was already clear years ago. They've got oil don't they? Why the hell would they need nuclear power plants? It's far more expensive per watt, and much more risky. Obviously they are bomb building.

Re:Obviously they are bomb building.

[WindBourne]

Not really. They can make a decent argument that they wanted to clean things up, and that they were concerned about how much oil there really is. Right now, all of USA's, France's, and even Japan's OLD NUKE REACTORS have cheaper energy than is coal. As such, any middle eastern nation that wants to think ahead for 5-7 generations would be smart to do nukes (as well as AE such as solar, wind, and geo-thermal).

So what it comes down to, is that until Iran got upset about these fuges, then their program COULD have been either civilian or military. Sadly, with this virus and their reaction, it is obvious that they are building bombs. I would have preferred that it not be the case, but, it seems like China and NK want to spread this tech to totalitarian nations. NK, Iran, Burma, and now Venezuela are all in development nuke programs that have their nuke knowledge and supplies traceable ultimately to China.

I hope this sort of thing does not catch on

[bwalzer]

The evilness of creating a virus that causes large motor drives to damage the systems they are attached to is simply breathtaking. If this gets out into the world it very possibly could create widespread death and destruction. I think that it would be safe to assume that whoever created this virus firmly believed that the ends justified any possible means.

Iran Claims Stuxnet Affected Their Nuclear Program

[Anonymous Coward]

FTFY

Evil is perception

[NuKe_MoNgOoSe]

I worry about any country that has the power to nullify nations. In that aspect there is no country I fear more than the US. Evil is a matter of perception, and from the eyes of the adversary it is the western nations and their allies which are evil. They are better at shrouding their illicit activities because they have a better intelligence network. The US will gladly toss human rights to further their goals in the pursuit of freedom. There are countless examples of the US blatant disregard for international policy, law, treaty etc. I am in no way anti-us i am simply stating that any government with a game changing power should be feared. And, that as much as we demonize entire nations, their citizens and their way of life. Its the governments that ultimately execute policy. Conflict breeds hate, and when you have 2 sides to a coin and both sides are living in line with their beliefs and fighting for causes that they believe is just. Who really is evil? Is the horror of seeing someone get their head sawed off as a political statement really any more insidious than someone clean killing a city block full of civilians from a mile away on a boat to inspire terror and fear....? Can anyone see the logic or just brand it a flame?

Wrong

[WindBourne]

Reactors require less purity in the isotopes than do bombs. The virus only affected the German made-and-sold centrifuges, not the reactor. And ALL main stream reactors do just fine with the fuel mix that comes from the fugues.

So, no. This virus only stops bomb-making. Had Iran been making fuel for reactors, then they would not have cared, and quite likely would not have noticed.