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Stuxnet Allegedly Loaded By Iranian Double Agents
First time accepted submitter rainbo writes "According to a report from ISSSource, a saboteur who was likely a member of an Iranian dissident group loaded the Stuxnet virus on to a flash drive and infected machines at the Natanz nuclear facility. Iran's intelligence minister, Heydar Moslehi, said that an unspecified amount of 'nuclear spies' were arrested on ties to this attack. Some officials believe these spies belonged to Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), which is used as the assassination arm of the Israeli Mossad."
The US and Israel aren't the only countries that would rather Iran not be a nuclear power.
... still waiting for this free-as-in-beer free beer I keep hearing about.
And who are against them, other than US or those who lick US' asses? Both Russia and China support them.
TFS doesn't outright say it but TFA is pretty clear -- the /vector/ was an Iranian. The /source/ was Israel. This isn't some attempt to pull wool over your eyes, dude. Chill.
No matter who was responsible, they pushed the world closer to war with that virus.
I'm not convinced by what we've seen so far, what little evidence there is, that Iran is producing nuclear weapons or wants to. Even if you could prove that to me, it wouldn't change my position that we shouldn't be involved in their affairs and have no right to punish or sanction a nation for doing the same thing we do. It's the US after all with the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, and the only nation to have ever used them (we get sort of a pass since they were unprecedented at the time).
Iran is a sovereign nation and if they wish to produce nuclear weapons because they feel threatened by their neighbors (Israel, a nuclear power) or as a deterrent then that is their prerogative. Israel claims to feel threatened and vulnerable, that they're being menaced by Iran, yet they're the ones murdering scientists and sabotaging industries of other nations.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
The same MEK that's on the U.S. terror list, and yet openly supported by several high ranking figures in national politics.
Saudi Arabia is probably as violently opposed to the Iranian's getting nukes as the Israelis. The Israelis have a large nuclear arsenal as a deterrent to Iran. The Saudi's don't have any deterrent of their own and would have to rely on the U.S. which could prove to be a fickle ally in a crisis, just ask Mubarak in Egypt.
The Iranians are Shia Muslims, the Saudis are Sunnis, the two hate each other with the passion you often find in long running sectarian conflicts.
There is a fair chance that if the Iranians get nukes the Saudi's will probably start developing their own to try to maintain the balance of power between Sunnis and Shia in the Middle East. The Saudi's getting nukes will probably not sit well with the Israelis.
The Middle East will become either more stable thanks to three way MAD or very, very dangerous, thanks to three fanatically religious countries, who really hate each other, are very close together and will have lots of apocalyptic weapons.
@de_machina
The answer to this question will become obvious if Iran gets nukes. If Iran goes nuclear, expect a number of Middle East countries to start taking steps to acquire nuclear weapons themselves, as a deterent to a nuclear Iran. These will be the same counties that didn't have an issue with not having nuclear weapons when Isreal was the only country in the region to have them.
The Iranians are Shia Muslims, the Saudis are Sunnis, the two hate each other with the passion you often find in long running sectarian conflicts.
By some accounts, the strife in Syria is a proxy for a general sectarian war.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
israel probably did this, and they went to great lengths to make sure it was clandestine. we all know the horrible political repercussions israel would face from america if it were caught doing something as nefarious as killing scientists or hacking into power plants in a foreign nation with the largest minority jewish population in the middle east.
The same America that did nothing when they bombed Iraqi nuclear facilities in 1982? The same America that bombed those same facilities in 1991?
Why do you think we support Israel in the first place? We can train and equip them, and everyone once in a while they'll invade a non-aligned country, or carry out assassinations of suspected terrorists without having to get our hands dirty. They are a military client state that exists, for us at least, expressly for the purpose of carrying out matters of American national interest, including murdering people that we don't like.
"On occasion, scientists working on the nuclear program in Iran turn up dead. I think that's a wonderful thing, candidly... I think we should send a very clear message that if you are a scientist from Russia, North Korea, or from Iran, and you are going to work on a nuclear program to develop a bomb for Iran, you are not safe."
--Rick Santorum
...with:"Hey, can I check my email on that centrifuge?" -"Yeah sure!"
Never say never. Ah!! I did it again!
MEK is an organization of militant Islamic, Iranian leftists guerrillas. There are certainly a reasonable number of conspiracy nuts taking a break from their '9/11 was a Zionist Conspiracy using planted charges supplied by aliens' tirades who claim an association between them and Israel. But describing them as the assassination arm of Mossad seems to be a stretch based on the current available facts. If there's a clear tie - is there somewhere we can read about it? The conspiracy bloggers make my head hurt.
It is believed that Iran is behind Hezbollah which has been attacking Israel for years... there were also the recent attempted killing of embassy staff by what appears to be the Iranians.
Don't let semantics get in your war, a proxy war is still a war, despite not having actual classical armys on the ground.
That being said, I am not excusing Israel or America's actions in this situation, but Religious fanatics don't always foliow logic.
The Iranian people themselves are freaking awesome, I just can't stand their government.... actually, I can't stand most governments.
By all accounts, sectarian war is also how Saddam Hussein took power and ran his regime. Saddam was a Sunni, as were approximately 20% of the Iraqi population; meanwhile, he gassed the Kurds and engaged in major terror operations against the Shi'a.
Arab society runs roughly thus: (sorry I can't paste the arabic script, Slashdot doesn't like it much):
Me against my brothers until a cousin comes;
Me and my brothers against my cousins until a neighbor comes;
Me and my brother and my cousins against the neighbor until a foreigner comes;
all of us against the foreigners.
And when was the last time Iran attacked some other country?
Iranian agents regular attack people around the world, such as in Argentina: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_AMIA_bombing
Iran has cannon fodder to do their dirty work (like Hizbullah).
and civilians killed in the process are no problem
In Iran's case, civilians killed in the process is the desired result.
Russia and China may make noise in support of Iran in public. But do you really think either one of them wants to see Iran and Israel flinging nukes at each other, disrupting middle eastern oil production, and screwing up the whole world's economy? That outcome is, after all, where a nuclear-armed Iran leads. Russia and China may enjoy publicly poking a stick in the eye of the US, (And after all, after the bush presidency, who can blame them?) but they're not idiots. And they don't want to see nuclear war in the middle east any more than anyone else.
In fact, It'd be well within the capabilities and quite pragmatic of either of them to have secretly fired off stuxnet while publicly making nice with Iran. After all it's pretty much assured that the US and/or Israel would be blamed whether they really did it or not.
They pushed the world further from war. Because various countries are able to sabotage and assassinate to slow down the Iranian nuclear project...an all out military option has not be used as of yet. You can bet your ass...that there would have been one by now had there not been options like Stuxnet.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
As a geek myself, there are times I can't help but feel disgusted at the way they treat my fellow geeks
Who were the ones doing all the new inventions?
The Geeks
Who were the ones reaping the benefits of the new inventions?
The Investors
On the other hand, whenever things go wrong, who do they blame?
The investors?
Don't be silly, nobody will blame those poor investors who have lost their life-savings
They will of course blame the GEEKS for the failings
Like in this Iranian case
Who invented the nuclear thingy? Geeks
Who use this nuclear thing to blackmail the world? The Politicians
Who invented the Stuxnet virus?
The Geeks
But who order the Geeks to invent the Stuxnet virus?
The Politicians
Now, about those "Nuclear Spies" the Iranians rounded up - and we can assume very brutal torture, killing, etc included - because of the Stuxnet virus?
The Politicians? No, nobody would touch the politicians
They rounded up and torture the Geeks
It's the Geeks who are being blamed for everything and anything when things gone south, but yet, never get to reap any benefit when things go north, way up north !
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Is stuxnet now being used as an excuse for a good ol' fashioned witch hunt? Just accuse your workplace foes of espionage, get them hauled away, and step into the guy's shoes with a pay raise?
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
There is plenty of evidence of nuclear weapons production. It's just that nobody wants to believe this while there is a one-in-a-trillion chance to deny it.
1) Their only nuclear reactor is an old design heavy-water reactor, while it is known they have designs for better ones
2) It is flanked by a building known to have an 8000 enrichment cascade
3) It's producing radiation that proves that they're producing large quantities of tritium
4) It doesn't have a decent power connection to the Iranian grid
1-2-3 combine, to anyone who has a basic introduction to nuclear technology, to proof that they're producing significant quantities of weapons-grade uranium and/or plutonium. But it's not a smoking gun.
ALL 4 are violations of the NPT by themselves. So sadly that's one thing we're absolutely sure about : Iran signed the NPT, and doesn't abide by it. Does that necessarily mean they're producing a nuclear weapon ? No. But it means that Iran respects the NPT only in words, and violates it in deeds. They further violate it by refusing full access for international inspectors with measurement equipment.
Could they be producing medical isotopes ? No, this doesn't require enrichment cascades, never mind ones that are that long. Research isotopes ? Again, doesn't require an enrichment cascade. Besides, why would they want to produce large quantities of either ? Nobody else does.
What may yet protect us is the way nuclear science is taught. Their data necessarily must mostly come from Iranians who studied abroad. Academics do sabotage this. If you buy books, or even restricted materials about weapons-grade uranium production, you'll find they're wrong. Except this is not a coincidence. Anyone in a course about this, whether in Canada, US or Europe will be told in class what a few of the mistakes are but not all of them, and they'll be told why they do this. If you follow the instructions academics teach, it won't work. You'll be generating radiation that ionizes the vaporized uranium, preventing it from crossing the enrichment chamber. You'll be taught to set them up so the uranium hits the wall of the enrichment chamber instead of the line that's supposed to take away the enriched material, the value for the electric field of a uranium atom listed in every mendeljev's table is a lie and there's several other problems with the designs of the equipment. Furthermore, the bomb production materials that leaked also contain a configuration that won't work. Well, it'll work enough to merge the bomb material with the nearest wall, making sure you have to restart from scratch, but it won't actually start a fission cascade. So presumably this is stopping them at least for the moment.
At some point, they'll have redone all the experiments that matter though, and found the errors, just like North Korea did. Let's hope their scientists are sane enough to keep teaching everyone the mistaken version, and just have the correct values and methods in their mind and nowhere else.
But you can be sure about one thing : Iran is trying to produce a weapon, this is blatantly obvious and denying it is moronic. It is only a matter of time until they get it if they just keep at it.
Russia has absolutely no reason to care if oil production in the Middle East is disrupted. They are one of the world's largest oil and gas producers. If the Middle East blows up Russia, or rather Putin and the oligarchs running Russia, will get obscenely rich, more so than they already are.
Even if Iran does acquire nuclear weapons, and its very much open to debate if they are even trying, it doesn't follow at all that they would actually use them. Outside of the U.S. no one has ever used nukes, and its for a reason, they suck as actual weapons.
They suck because there are very few situations where you can use them where the consequences of using them wouldn't be worse than whatever problem you are facing. You use them and you become an instant pariah or you get incinerated yourself. If you are about to be overrun in a conventional war maybe you would use them as desperate last resort, but if you have nukes it unlikely anyone would have invaded you in the first place.
The only real value of nukes is as a deterrent, something that sits in a stockpile and is never used, but which discourages anyone from openly fucking with you, so they have to fuck with you through assymetric means instead. They are a pretty big win for countries like North Korea and Iran because they dramatically decrease the chances that a country like the U.S. which is increasingly fond of aggressive warfare and regime change won't fuck with you because it instantly becomes dangerous and messy invade a country with nukes.
If you have them and your adversary doesn't or you have massive nuclear superiority over your adversary they have a limited value in that you can try to bully your adversary using them as a threat but any adversary with any sense will call your bluff because they know you will never use them.
@de_machina
"The Iranians are Shia Muslims, the Saudis are Sunnis, the two hate each other with the passion you often find in long running sectarian conflicts."
That statement is a bit misleading. The hatred and conflict is not because of Sunni Vs Shia, but rather Wahabi/Salafy Vs Shia where Wahabi sect is considered a subset of Sunnie Islam. The distinction is important because even though there is unease between Sunnie and Shias in general, but it's not at the level of hatred with passion.
Just thought to point that out
In other news:
Zionists control the media!
Dog bites man.
Zionist dog!
Water is wet.
Zionist liquid!
Sky is blue.
Zionist atmospheric conditions!
Republicans are racist.
Zionist Christians!
Clouds primarily composed of water vapor.
Working in concert with the Zionest atmosphere!
Ratio of circumference of circle to radius = tau.
Heathen Zionest mathematics!
Nickelback is lame.
We agree.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
I'm sorry. You're correct right up to your last sentence where you state that Israel is a "fanatically religious country". You're making intelligent arguments look bad.
Israel has a population of 25% non-Jewish. They are run by a secular democratically-elected government with an electorate selection skewed "against" the religious majority. They are a very small country which has not only not expanded it's borders through military might since its founding but shrunk it's borders. Their cities are under a near-constant rocket barrage and regularly (more regularly than earthquakes in California) have suicide bombers in their major cities which hold the Sharia brand of Islam in high esteem (the so-called 'radical Islamists').
They are a nuclear power. they have a conventional military which could take out the combined military force of several other countries in the region and still hold reserves - without touching the nuclear stockpile.
Calling Israel a 'religious extremist' country has about as much stock in reality as calling Twighlight an epic masterpiece of Kermit the Frog one of the best philosophers of the 18th century.
Not confirmed if Iranian state actors are involved, but...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_attacks_on_Israeli_diplomats
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Bangkok_bombings
"Their cities are under a near-constant rocket barrage"
I'll agree it sucks that Hamas lobs rockets in to Israel, no argument. But they are largely crude and ineffective weapons and they get even more so as the expensive, American funded, antimissile systems are deployed.
You know what probably sucks even worse. Living in Gaza in a walled ghetto with disturbing similarities to the ghettos Jews were forced to live in in Europe before and during World War II. It really sucks to live in a heavily populated urban area where Israel chokes off the most basic supplies and nearly all economic activity so people survive largely on the trickle of supplies from the tunnels. Where Isreale is draining 1.5 million people of all hope of having a life that doesn't suck. It also sucks when Israels military uses tanks, F-16's and attack helicopters to target Gaza because they are vastly more effective at killing people than the crummy rockets Hamas lobs in to Israel.
I don't condone shooting rockets in to Israel but I do understand how the miserable, desperate people in Gaza would want to strike back in such a totally futile way at the people who've been manning the walls of their ghetto for the last half century, even though its largely ineffective and invites periodic retaliation on the people of Gaza that is usually several orders of magnitude more deadly.
"has not only not expanded it's borders through military might"
Only if you choose to pretend that the permenent occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Golan Heights isn't expanding Israel's borders. You might make that case were it not for the massive settlement activity in which Israel is seeking to make the West bank and East Jerusalem a part of Israel in contravention of international law which forbids an occupier from settling in occupied territories. Either Isreal needs to withdraw from the occupied territories or fully annex them in to Israel and give Arabs full citizenship. Permenent occupation, with illegal settlements is purely abusive on the part of Israel.
Israel is only a "democratically-elected government" because they are actively disenfranchising Arabs. If you count all the disenfranchised Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, Golan and East Jerusalem who are under permanent occupation Arabs are fairly close to become a majority. I think the Arab population is growing faster than Jewish so its a near inevitability that Israel will eventually be a true apartheid state with a Jewish minority electing a government that dominates a largely disenfranchised Arab majority.
Listen, I know there are a lot of level headed, forward thinking moderate Jews living in Israel, I follow some of their blogs and on Twitter. But the fact is people like Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman are extremists, they dominate the current government's rhetoric, thinking and agenda, and they seem to go out of their way to provoke confrontation after confrontation. They give Israel a bad name and they put Israel in the pretty similar class to Saudi Arabia and Iran as far as the fanaticism and oppression goes.
@de_machina
By all accounts, sectarian war is also how Saddam Hussein took power and ran his regime. Saddam was a Sunni, as were approximately 20% of the Iraqi population; meanwhile, he gassed the Kurds and engaged in major terror operations against the Shi'a.
Um, the Kurds are Sunnis as well, just non-Persian Indo-Europeans. And like most dictators, he ran his regime by pitting each group against the others. If Tikrit had risen against him, he would have "engaged in major terror operations" against his home town, too.
Lebanon is not "Christian", its currently 60% Muslim, 40% Christian. The Muslim population is evenly split between Shia and Sunni. Syria and Iran are active supporters of Hezbollah, they provide them with most of their weapons and funds. Hezbollah's founders were inspired by Ayatollah Khomeini and Iran's Revolutionary Guard. Hezbollah has a very powerful influence among the Shia community in Lebanon, both militarily and through community activities and charities.
You totally don't know what you are talking about AC.
@de_machina
Yes, and Abbas claimed any peace deal with Israel was only interim until they were powerful enough to take over. When Israel turned Gaza over the Palestinian Authority, the missiles from Gaza soon followed. The Palestinians couldn't even run a strip of ground peacefully without using it to attack Israel. This only confirmed what Israel thinks of the Palestinians in general, i.e., they are incapable of running a peaceful state that is not dedicated to Israel's destruction.
There's no whitewashing the fact that Muslims hate Jews; the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem was a Gruppenfuhrer in the Third Reich. He raised his own SS division in the Balkans from Bosnian muslims and rather thought Hitler should get on with job of wiping out the Jews. He also wanted the Third Reich to set up shop in the Middle East, ovens and all. Arafat was his nephew. He idolized the Grand Mufti.
Don't OD on your kool aid there, buddy.
You remind me of an idiot I saw on TV yesterday who claimed the US government has intentionally forced illegal immigrants to cross the border in the middle of the desert in an effort to commit genocide.