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Did Stuxnet Take Out 1,000 Centrifuges At Natanz?
AffidavitDonda writes "In late 2009 or early 2010, Iran decommissioned and replaced about 1,000 IR-1 centrifuges in the Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP) at Natanz, implying that these centrifuges broke. Iran's IR-1 centrifuges often break, yet this level of breakage exceeded expectations and occurred during an extended period of relatively poor centrifuge performance. Although Iran has not admitted that Stuxnet attacked the Natanz centrifuge plant, it has acknowledged that its nuclear sites were subject to cyber attacks."
It's interesting how US was jabbing so much about cyber warfare and how they need to defend themself, and still they're the first one to attack.
From TFA, the rumored culprit is not the USA, it is "IDF’s Military Intelligence Unit 8200".
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Attacking is easy. Defense is hard. ( ex. Nuclear Weapons use)
Not true, numerous counterexamples; the simplest one being barricaded somewhere on a mountain with the weather on your side, batteries, ammo, a trustworthy sniper rifle, lots of food, and an internet connection (for your idle time between headshots)
The three laws of thermodynamics:(1) You can't win. (2) You can't break even. (3) You can't even quit.
The IR-1 is an older model centrifuge. It's basically a copy of an old URENCO design. Iran has an IR-2 and an IR-3 model, which use carbon fibre rotors, and new installations use those. Iran has at least three enrichment plants, incidentally, and they're all different. Various reports indicate replacement of the older models by newer ones, so some of this might be a routine phase-out.
Because normal people consider removable media to contain data but MS and by extension Windows considers it something that must be executed without gaining consent from or even informing the user.
Windows must be kept locked up in a padded cell and straitjacket. If it sees a bottle marked poison, it will drink it. If it sees a pencil it'll jam it up it's nose. Give it a pillow and it'll suffocate itself.
I'm a chemist and I actually did some freelance investigation into UF6 centrifuges a while back - quite fascinating. They're tall thin cylinders, barely a handsbreadth wide, with maglev vacuum bearings and a rotation speed in excess of 100,000 RPM. The outer wall of the centrifuge experiences a million G's of acceleration, and a sweaty thumb-print can off-balance one enough to self-destruct. Also, one cylinder only enriches uranium by 1% or so, so you need to daisy-chain many hundreds together flawlessly to get pure 235 out the end.
I imagine with a system that fragile, you don't need to find the precise resonant frequency. IIRC, all stuxnet did was blip the frequency down to 0 Hz for a short time - which I imagine would eventually throw the drive off-center and cause it to fail noisily.
I am one of many. My idea is not unique, nor do I expect my voice alone to sway you. I speak in a chorus of opinion.