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Stuxnet Virus Set Back Iran’s Nuclear Program by 2 Years
masterwit writes "The Jpost article states: 'The Stuxnet virus, which has attacked Iran's nuclear facilities and which Israel is suspected of creating, has set back the Islamic Republic's nuclear program by two years, a top German computer consultant who was one of the first experts to analyze the program's code told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday. Widespread speculation has named Israel's Military Intelligence Unit 8200, known for its advanced Signal Intelligence (SIGINT) capabilities, as the possible creator of the software, as well as the United States.'"
Stuxnet Virus Set Back Iran’s Nuclear Program by 2 Years...LOIC set Mastercard back 2 hours. Advantage, Stuxnet!
Guess what? We're going to be seeing this sort of thing a whole lot more. Compare the expense and risk involved in writing this virus versus firing off cruise missiles or sending planes on bombing missions or an actual ground invasion.
And to beat it all, no-one even knows who was actually responsible for this. Oh yes, the future of modern warfare and sabotage is most certainly here.
Better known as 318230.
"SIGINT" is an appropriate name for this:
SIGINT is the signal sent to a process by its controlling terminal when a user wishes to interrupt the process.
Although I would have preferred one of these instead:
SIGKILL
SIGSTOP
SIGSTFU
Okay, I made the last one up.
What one fool can do, another can. (Ancient Simian Proverb)
I don't know why people think the only strong suspects are Israel and the U.S.
If you think about it, Russia not only has a number of potential motives (was paid off by one of the other arab nations like Saudi Arabia, annoyed at Iran for some reason, wants to make money selling the "fix" to the problem...), they have countries with many hackers that are well known for ability and also not as prone to speak out about what they are doing as a team (and this was a team effort) of U.S. hackers would be. On top of THAT, Russia also has (had?) engineers on site, which they could have used as an attack vector even unknowingly.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The problem with this approach and other similar forced social and technological engineering attempts by the west against Iran, is that it forces Iran to become more independent and self-reliant. It is true that there is a temporary short-term win, however in the long run it creates a scenario of technological escalation.
Lets review Technological Escalation ala'Iraq:
Attack Vector: IED v1.0 - Road side bomb with detonator fuse wire, bomber hides in near buy building, waits for US tanks to go past, presses red button
US Countermeasure: Train soldiers to look for suspicious packages or mounds of garbage were wire or some such are leading away from mound, once detected fire at location where wire ends up.
Attack Vector: IED v2.0 - Same as v1 but now uses a wireless trigger mechanism based on childrens walkie-talkies to set-off explosive. As before waits for US tanks to go past, presses red button
US Countermeasure: Provide signal jamming equipment on-board all patrols and tanks.
Attack Vector: IED v3.0 - Same as v2 but now uses continuous signal trigger mechanism to set-off explosive. As before waits for US tanks to go past, presses red button, but now signal stops and explosive goes kaboom!
US Countermeasure: Same as before but instead of jamming the signal, all terrestrial signals are replicated, allowing the tank/patrol to pass by without being blown up.
Attack Vector: IED v4.0 - Same as v3 uses continuous signal trigger mechanism to set-off explosive. Signal begin sent is encrypted and uses a random sequence number, As before waits for US tanks to go past, presses red button, signal stops and explosive goes kaboom!
US Countermeasure: Pray...., play crappy rock/death metal music while driving around bagdad.
Attack Vector: IED v5.0 - Same as v4, but now they have time to refine the design of the ordinates, remember the movie coneheads with Dan Akroid? Well it turns out for a really good focused explosion, all you need is a piece of steal in that shape packed with C4, with the pointy end aim at the direction you wish the explosive to fire - Armoured penetration as per and 09' pentagon report is roughly successful 85% of the time.
US Countermeasure: Pray....
Attack Vector: IED v6.0 - Same as v5, but made to be more weather resistant, with added proximity sensors, modern cars aren't made with as much steel and Iron as patrol cars or tanks - so it makes for a good differentaitor which can be use with a proximity fuse.
US Countermeasure: N/A
Do you really want to force your enemies hand like this?
regardless of how awed the media is in the wake of the stuxnet worm, things like this only work once, and only under certain conditions. In any functional nuclear program there exists a very strict information systems security policy to prevent exactly this type of malicious activity from occuring. I also wouldnt be surprised if the "two years" assertion is an overstatement to placate the middle east.
Iran will likely switch from windows controllers for their Siemens PLC's to hardened linux or BSD, taking a page from chinese internet security experts and refusing to trust western code that cannot be independently evaluated. and if we remember the cold war, irans woes feel like washingtons foreign policy from the cold war being flexed all over again
Good people go to bed earlier.
If I were the president of the country in the middle of this map, it would be almost criminally irresponsible of me not to develop nuclear weapons as quickly as possible. The US tends to attack countries that have oil, don't have nukes, and refuse to play ball.
A VERY interesting article with a lot of detail from (I know) Fox News: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/11/26/secret-agent-crippled-irans-nuclear-ambitions/ A bit more detail that I'd read elsewhere. I strongly encourage everybody to read this. Quite an admirable job. But then you think that of course this could happen to control systems in the US as well. We all know countries and organizations that might be happy to attack. I'm sure this sort of thing will only grow in the years ahead.
The entire area was owned by the British, and largely backing the Axis due to their support of the genocide. The British gave the land to Israel, who were the ones forcibly taking said land. Not like that's never happened before in history, but people make a big deal out of it because it's Israel. I hope you're not in the US, otherwise you should get out of there, since if you are, you took the lands of native people forcibly as well.
Probably a bad idea to put a bunch of Jews in the center of a bunch of people who hate Jews, but it's not like the only reason they want to kill Jews is because their "homeland is being invaded". They were of that mindset long before Israel existed.
Also, Iran didn't exist for the last 300 years, but if you count the Persians as "Iranians" for this example, most definitely started the second Russo-Persian War.
Israel hasn't started a war, either, just to point that out - they just get embroiled in the whole "Arab Muslims tend to hate Jews" thing constantly, since they're surrounded by a bunch of countries that really, really don't like Jews (just look at the laws regarding Judaism in some of these countries). The only one that you can even possibly consider them starting a war (the Lebanon war) was a retaliation to a Lebanese assassination attempt on one of their ambassadors.
Yes. Hundreds of thousands. Try 7,500, 1,500 of whom were killed in intra-Palestinian fighting. If you are going to claim "well, the Israelis are tergeting primarily civilians," note that the Israeli civilian casualty rate is some higher than that of the Palestinians, despite that most of the intense fighting has been in Palestinian cities.
"It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations..." -Winston Churchill
I hope you don't live in the US, England, Germany, or nearly any other country. Because let's face it: there isn't a fucking place on Earth that hasn't been forcibly taken from the people who (formerly) own(ed) it at some point in history. Anglos took over the Saxons, Norway took over England, Germany at one point owned Europe, the USSR owned everything east of Germany, China isn't a historical state either, Japan wasn't unified a while ago, India wasn't a state, the USA wouldn't exist, Mexico was owned for quite a long time (didn't even get to keep their language)...the list goes on, of how blind you are to history if you think one group of people has never moved in on another group's turf. It's new to history for such a global issue to be created over 8000 square miles, though.
I also said remove them from the map - outright genocide hasn't happened by their hands, despite the sequestering of land. As it turns out, they are, by a longshot, better than the Spaniards, the then-future-Americans, the Normans, the English, the Japanese, the Germans, the French, the Dutch, the Chinese...
Now the incumbents could claim with proof -a tenuous proof, if you like- that the opposition is in bed with the US and Israel and against their own country. Nobody likes collaborationists. They managed to set back the enrichment program, but strengthened the hand of conservatives far more. Time will tell if this isn't another pirric victory like in 1953.
Mexico: 100% conservative's America now!
There were Jews and Arabs living in the area long before it became the modern Israel. The problems today are the result of mass exodus and the (violent) expansion of Jewish settlements. The resistance and politics on either side has grown into a ultranationalistic psychotic fantasy. Nobody actually cared about the opinion of the people already living there when the borders were first drawn, so the first war was inevitable. Jewish nationalism was condemned by many a notable jew at the time.
It's sad how boths sides play politics exploiting their own people. Every death is used to promote selfish agenda, every military action is because of safety. Of course they don't own the people, but that's the convenient illusion to work with. We most probably end up to a single state and a similar struggle as in South Africa.
>>...is that you, General Electric? Or Siemens?
Is that you, shill for the coal mining industry?