Slashdot Mirror
Flame: The Massive Stuxnet-Level Malware Sweeping the Middle East
An anonymous reader writes "Wired is reporting on a massive, highly sophisticated piece of malware has been newly found infecting systems in Iran and elsewhere and is believed to be part of a well-coordinated, ongoing, state-run cyberespionage operation. Kaspersky Lab, the company that discovered the malware, has a FAQ with more details."
You must have just missed it. I read through the whole article -- it's written by a researcher working on the project, not just a journalist who's trying to make it understandable for everyone. It's certainly not a white paper on the technical aspects, but it's fairly robust in it's description on the information they have today.
Is it coincidence that a Russian security firm keeps finding these clandestine state-sponsored Middle-eastern directed malware? Or are US and European security firms simply instructed to look the other way? /tinfoilhat
It seems those kinds of viruses are going against the trends, which is using social engineering nowadays, and not very sophisticated software. For example, the oh-so-dangerous Chinese hackers mostly use tactics which boil down to sending emails asking you in clever ways to execute the attached exe or to enter your username and password on their website that looks like your legitimate one.
It's refreshing to see a virus which targets, you know, the actual computer instead of the user.
Wikipedia links to this PDF: http://www.crysys.hu/skywiper/skywiper.pdf
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/256370/researchers_identify_stuxnetlike_cyberespionage_malware_called_flame.html
TFA purports that somebody wrote a bunch of code that is a virus, trojan, malware and toaster driver all at once. Nobody knows who did it or why, but they must be very smart. It hijacks data, voice, video and neural transmissions and appears to be able to perform telekinesis. It was likely written sometime after 1996 and before 2021.
It's big.. Really big. So big that it would fit on any USB drive or email attachment created since, well, 1996.
It's smart. Really smart. So smart that it's going to take us literally months of press reports to get it out.
It goes after the Usual Suspects. It may or may not be related to Stuxnet, tilde, Steven P. Jobs or George Bush (either or both of them).
For some strange reason, the coders wrote the thing pretty much unobfuscated. Except that unobfuscated isn't a word.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Sorry, all I got.
Yeah, because when similar malware hits us in the West we want it to be a total surprise.
A good move? Starting a arms race in a field where you are the most vulnerable player? Is isn't a nuclear thermonuclear one, but in this one the best move is not to play too.
Here we declare that any such actions against us are an act of war, right? If it's an act of war against us, isn't it an act of war against them? Are we behind this? If so, WTF?
Take the Red Pill.
Ahhh, and they just started enriching uranium again. I guess it's back to yellow cake, and mud pies. Thanks for playing "You bet your P.C.
Yes it is clearly not in the best interest of the intelligence community to be discovered with whatever plot they're currently plotting away at. On the other hand Kaspersky wants profit, being the first to report on something like this will likely gain them space in the spotlight for the moment at least which translates to profit, so it is probably not in the best interest of Kaspersky to comply with the intelligence community's need for obscurity unless they pay them enough enough(or use some less pleasant means of coercion).
Who made Flame?
Flame seems to use libraries with permissive licenses only. No hacktivists or cybercriminals would care about this issue, they would use whatever works best.
This leaves governments, they might. Why? Because if it ever becomes known who actually made it, that party would need to release all of the sources, had they used libraries under some copyleft license! Why? Well, whoever made Flame has already obviously distributed binaries, so suing for copyleft violation would happen in court, and it would be many people suing, especially the counterparty is the government. It would be a PR disaster, and to risk that on an election year? No way.
Also, Flame requires a considerable infrastructure to store and analyze the spied information. Which governments would be capable of pulling this off? All the big ones with a lot of money to spend: China, Russia, Great Britain, France, USA, Japan, ...
So, which government cares a lot about intellectual property? China? Nope. Russia? Nope. Great Britain - well, yeah. Personally, I don't think it was Great Britain. It would be enlightening to check the Flame Lua-parts (or other plaintext in the main Flame) for spelling of -ise vs. -ize. I bet there's -ize and not -ise.
It is said that Stuxnet and Flame share similar 0-day holes. The nation which developed Stuxnet is Israel and they have a strong history of military and intelligence collaboration with USA. Israel would not have had the capability or capacity to run two such parallel programs on its own.
So who HAS likely NOT made Flame? Drop the nations which are one way or another unlikely candidates, and only one name is really left.
So, who made Flame?
USA made Flame. This is what I think. What's your analysis?
And if this was turned around and directed at the US this would be suddenly bad, right?
Because you're the "good guys" so if you do it then it must be OK and if everyone else did it, it should be a crime?
Fuck, no wonder people think America applies a nice double standard to themselves -- fuck you and your Manifest Destiny.
I'll take security researchers who aren't going to just shut up to let security holes be out there to be exploited.
Sounds like a description of "Good Times." Will it chase gradeschoolers with my snow blower?
TFA purports that somebody wrote a bunch of code that is a virus, trojan, malware and toaster driver all at once.
You mean it's like a Facebook phone?
Apart from the toaster bit, which might be useful...
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Well, hard to say if it's realy a weapon, but if so I also approve.
Think about it: this may well be a war, an agreessive confilct between twonations, one of which has nuclear weapons, and the other is close. And how many casualties so far? How many cities levelled? This is a good weapon, as weapons go!
Sure, eventually we'll be attacked by the same, and there will be casualties, but it somehow seems less dangerous to civilians than dropping skyscrapers.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Seriously? The USA has a history of supporting/sponsoring terrorists, among other political shenanigans, and has enough nuclear material to make more than five nuclear weapons. By your reasoning it should be perfectly acceptable to carry out this kind of attack against them, too.
Kaspersky discovered the malware about two weeks ago after the United Nations' International Telecommunications Union asked the Lab to look into reports in April that computers belonging to the Iranian Oil Ministry and the Iranian National Oil Company had been hit with malware that was stealing and deleting information from the systems.
Why do you jump to the conclusion that if it is targeting Iran it must be a good thing? Do you ever question what you see in the media? What if it was written by programmers hired by wall streeters that were trying to gain an upper hand on the oil market, thereby basically stealing money from the Iranians and from you? Still a good thing? This is probably not the case, but that's just it: until we find out all of the details we need to keep our minds open and quizzical, and question who is feeding us what bullshit and why.
Propaganda is getting more and more sophisticated; it is coming at you from all directions. I'm not saying be paranoid, just to realize that most media that gets presented to you has a purpose. Once in a while see if you can divine that purpose.
Try some critical thinking.
Look where all this talking got us, baby.
1. a scarier version of stuxnet
2. a Facebook smarphone
3. secret backdoors on military chips
4. workplace havoc because of OS fake holidays
I was going to accuse Slashdot of fearmongering, until I doublechecked and found out that, yes, Facebook really is trying to build a smartphone.
The Apocalypse is near.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The story also states:
its complexity, the geographic scope of its infections and its behavior indicate strongly that a nation-state is behind Flame, rather than common cyber-criminals â" marking it as yet another tool in the growing arsenal of cyberweaponry.
What I don't understand is why a massive and technically complex piece of malware necessarily has to be written by a "nation-state"? There are no really smart hackers around that might want to do something like this for the challenge? One might think that a smart hacker might want to point the smoking gun in a different direction?
Explain, please.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
"Except that unobfuscated isn't a word."
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/unobfuscated
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
I think it is both a matter of money and resources. A "nation-state" has as much money as anyone can, and they also can place moles/agents in a lot of places where your average, even "smart", hacker would shit his pants. Not only that, a lone man can only do so much
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
It destroys, then removes all traces of itself.
FTA: "The disk destroyed by Wiper/Viper was filled primarily with random trash, and almost nothing could be recovered from it,"
Very impressive piece of work, done in a language my keyboard can understand.
Wait.
Do you seriously believe Iran will eventually attack the USA?
For real? Do you think Khamenei will, someday, wake up, drink his coffee and say "What a nice day! I'll deploy the long-range missile technology I don't have to blow up a location half the planet away from me, just because Rush Limbaugh said I probably would do it."?
Since Iran support/sponsors terrorists and has enough nuclear material to make an estimated five nuclear weapons (although the material may be slightly too crude to weaponize at the moment),
I'd bet the malware was developed either in Israel or the USA...probably Israel with USA support. This could create problems but I think this is a good move.
I think you should work on your premise there. I don't know which terrorists you speak of. The US and Isreal support terrorists ("freedom fighters") when it is in their interest. Both have large amounts of nuclear weapons. Aren't you applying double standards here? How do you know Iran are the evil guys here (just because they are being portrayed as such in the media)? Iranian leadership is whacky, but it isn't warmongering.
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
Paging John Connor...
On the other hand Kaspersky wants profit, being the first to report on something like this will likely gain them space in the spotlight for the moment at least which translates to profit...
Profit? If I had been a victim of this malware I'd be pretty pissed at Kaspersky since I'd definitely prefer to keep a very tight lid on this. There is great value in using a tool like this, once it has been discovered, to feed it's operator (presumably the Mossad) a big and steaming pile of plausible bullshit.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Well yes, but which OS does this malware run on?
LUA is cool. Very compact - good for writing small VMs.
because the average cyber criminal is gonna go after a large target because like all criminals they are lazy and want the most bang for their time, whereas these things are HIGHLY specialized, with Stux it was specialized to the point of absurdity, so while your average or even smart cyber criminal isn't gonna bother attacking a system with such a small target area and which takes more work than say...ohh...fooling someone with an SMS scam nations on the other hand that want to fuck something specific up without going to war will spend the bux to build something like this.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I do not parrot what the media says but the timing is right for a preemptive disruption of Iran's nuclear capabilities. Sure, it could be Wall Streeters but then isn't it you who believe everything you hear in the media (e.g. Wall Street = bad, fat cats, etc.)? They can make plenty of money without this conspiracy...and the last time this was done a couple years ago it was deemed to be state sponsored, not a private company or organization. I'd rather stick to my theory than your made up theory, though yours makes a much better novel. The timing tells me enough and I still think it's good although as someone else pointed out (and as I assumed and mentioned) the attacking country would be retaliated against either via a cyber attack or a physical attack. I believe the USA stated a cyber attack on us would be considered an attack like any other and retaliated against via whatever means necessary.
I thought the previous administration's decision to attack preemptively was bold though uncalled for and will ultimately hurt the credibility of the USA but the current administration has ignored a lot of the issues of the Middle East and shunned Israel so action had to be taken while the time's right.
I personally support diplomacy and peaceful negotiations, but this I approve of because of the timing, the political landscape, and the repercussions of doing nothing.
Not only that, a lone man can only do so much
You massively underestimate the capabilities of determined individuals. One guy on his own reinvented Unix. Napoleon *almost* subjugated all of Asia. Larry Wall invented the world of perl.
Given the chance, I could fix this for Iran by myself, but it'll take a while to train subordinates. Debian wheezy or squeeze?
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
the important somewhat scary question: how does Kaspersky accumulate so much sensitive data?
Think about it. We're talking about personal computers in the middle east. We're talking about some kind of top-shelf spyware. So where does Kaspersky pull their data from?
I think cyberweapons could be seen as useful to computer defense companies. Since I can remember, programmers interested in viruses and virus defense have been apt to bring up the question, "why shouldn't we infect everybody's computer with the latest virus scanner in the form of a virus? Why leave it this voluntary thing?"
Obivously Kaspersky and any other computer virus defense company could benefit from spreading a virus that allows them to actively scan the contents of a computer's drive or memory, if they are looking across a huge geography for a specific signature. They could benefit even more if the virus allowed them to attach modules that will tell them if the cyberweapon attempts to contact other computers either to spread or to report back, because this would allow them to quickly and easily build a vector map.
Which leads me to ask how they get their data in the first place. It's not like they are paying off all the Geek Squads in the Middle East, to send them copies of the entire contents of any drives brought in as having "problems". So how are they discovering threats in the first place, and how can they write paragraphs such as this one:
"According to our observations, the operators of Flame artificially support the quantity of infected systems on a certain constant level. This can be compared with a sequential processing of fields â" they infect several dozen, then conduct analysis of the data of the victim, uninstall Flame from the systems that arenâ(TM)t interesting, leaving the most important ones in place. After which they start a new series of infections."
This suggests that they have become intimately knowledgable about the owners of the infected machines, whether or not those owners are persons of interest, and know seemingly just about as much as the owners of the cyberweapon know. So where is the line drawn, to distinguish between threat and defense??
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
Many countries, including the US and Israel, support/sponsor terrorists or state sponsored terrorists. For the most recent example just look at the Iranian nuclear scientists that keep blowing up.
The whole loose lips sink ships debate is mooted in the face of the liberal hacker community. Hackers talk about every threat not for pride or profit but because it's a Darwinian thing: if a threat is discovered, it's obviously no longer (or not much longer) a real threat, so you might as well out it. Meanwhile, threats are competitors. Don't you think it's suspicious enough that some company profits from protecting you from viruses?
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
"Shunned Isreal" - This is an attempt at humour, right?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
In the case of Stuxnet, your average hacker doesn't have access to nuclear centrifuge controllers to develop and debug on. For code that is as finely tuned as it was, you need a development lab that includes the target systems or at least true simulations thereof.
For something like Flame, with it being as targeted as it is, you'd expect something similar.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
"Es lebe mpoulton die selbstgerechte, selbstgefÃllige GeschwÃtz!"
"Sieg Heil!!!"
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
Both times I clicked to reply to this same response, the response was instead threaded to the parent. What gives, Slashdot?? I'm curious to see which one this ends up threaded under.
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
No but to play devil's advocate here it is far more likely they would lob one at Israel. When that happens, because of treaties we have with them (lots of Jewish folk here to push it through), we would be at war with whoever did attack Israel. It's the same situation with North and South Korea.
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
Assuming you're talking about Linus and Linux, he had a LITTLE bit of help along the way.
Napoleon didn't almost subjugate anything without the resources of one of the world's most powerful nation states.
Larry Wall also had quite a bit of help from others making Perl what it is today.
Nice job picking examples that make the GPs point though.
Do you seriously believe Iran will eventually attack the USA?
I'm sure I never said that. I don't think I ever implied that. Israel is a nuclear power engaged in low-level conflict with Iran. There's a war of assassination and proxy (and likely malware) going on between those nations.
Wow, do you have some cartoon charicature conservative in you head, and whenever anyone says somehting you don't agree with, you just assign that stereotype and all it's beliefs to the speaker? Trying to understand the actual arguments being made is a much better way to go through life!
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Update 1 (28-May-2012):
According to our analysis, the Flame malware is the same as âoeSkyWiperâ, described by the CrySyS Lab and by Iran Maher CERT group where it is called âoeFlamerâ.
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
And don't forget that the research shop that discovered it is headed by a guy who is a vocal proponent of having an Internet Police and absolutely no anonymity. Don't get me wrong, Kaspersky is a really good malware research team with a really good product, but I stopped buying their products as soon as I heard the CEO make those ridiculous statements.
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
I think the issue is that the more complex and sophisticated an attack, the more people you need, and then you run into an additional problem - for a criminal enterprise, the more people are involved, the more likely it is to be caught, either through carelessness or snitches.
So the "nation-state's backing" doesn't have to mean that a country's intelligence service is actively doing something, but just that they are sheltering and giving legal immunity to a group of civilian blackhats. And maybe free Mountain Dew.
Also, the deployment of this was apparently done using infected media physically planted on people or at the sites in multiple countries, so it would require some more resources than your typical spread-via-internet virus or worm.
Napoleon? Asia? I think you might mean Europe, it's a little to the left.
because the average cyber criminal is gonna go after a large target because like all criminals they are lazy and want the most bang for their time, whereas these things are HIGHLY specialized, with Stux it was specialized to the point of absurdity, so while your average or even smart cyber criminal isn't gonna bother attacking a system with such a small target area and which takes more work than say...ohh...fooling someone with an SMS scam nations on the other hand that want to fuck something specific up without going to war will spend the bux to build something like this.
Or they hire a freelancer to do the job for them.
And don't forget that the research shop that discovered it is headed by a guy who is a vocal proponent of having an Internet Police and absolutely no anonymity. Don't get me wrong, Kaspersky is a really good malware research team with a really good product, but I stopped buying their products as soon as I heard the CEO make those ridiculous statements.
Plus I been wondering for a while if all those "malware expert shop" don't have a black room to create treat when and where none exist after all you got to keep the business going.
Once again "computer" == "windows pc"?
Does it run on Linux?
Who the fuck would run mission critical systems on Windows? Sorry pal, but malware is what you will get.
You can tell a lot about who made this thing by looking at who it's targeting: Iran, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Eygpt, Saudi Arabia... it's practically a Who's Who of Israel's enemies and potential enemies. If you look at the map in the article, you can see all the infected countries in red, and smack dab in the middle of all of them is Israel. Israel also has some of the most advanced cyberwarfare capabilities in the world, so when you see an extremely sophisticated piece of malware, they should be at the top of your list of suspects. In short, the only way you could possibly make this malware look more Israeli is to circumcise it and put a yarmulke on top.
Two words: Impossible. I don't believe that a backwater like Sudan has 32 computers, nevermind 32 stuxnet infections, unless maybe these are real viral infections of decimated cattle. So that map and analysis looks like total bulldust to me.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
I hate to sound like a Britannica douchbag, but can we have a link from a dictionary that can't have BS entries added to it easily?
Here is Crysys' analysis of Flame (which they call Skywiper) (pdf) Seems to be more informative than the Kaspersky dito.
Yes all true but why exactly would Kaspersky give a rat's ass about whether you want the malware to become public or not? It is in their direct interest to be the first to bring these things public so why would they keep quiet unless you give them some sort of incitement to do so?
They have absolutely no obligation to listen to nor obey your wishes unless you happen to be their government(and there are laws which enable you to enforce their silence)
Flame appears to be a project that ran in parallel with Stuxnet/Duqu, not using the Tilded platform. There are however some links which could indicate that the creators of Flame had access to technology used in the Stuxnet project - such as use of the “autorun.inf” infection method, together with exploitation of the same print spooler vulnerability used by Stuxnet, indicating that perhaps the authors of Flame had access to the same exploits as Stuxnet’s authors.
Because putting stuff into autorun is a revolution in malware design? I couldn't take the FAQ serious from that on.
According the fine article and the BBC report Israel were also targeted.
You may believe that was done to throw people off their trail - but it's disingenuous not to mention it in your accusation.
Indeed. If only he'd started in India rather than France... ;-)
In either case it simply makes no sense for anyone OTHER than a nation to have something like this built. look at Stux, last estimate i saw said there was MAYBE 25,000 machines on the planet that would fit the target profile, hell there are probably more Win2K machines still on the net than that and any halfway successful Android or Windows malware can easily get 10 times that much.
In the end a cybercriminal is like any other criminal, they want the biggest haul for the shortest amount of work. These things like Stux require one to several zero day attacks, all to get such a teeny tiny target that frankly a script kiddie would score more machines and get more bang for their bux than one of these bugs. It simply makes no sense from a criminal point of view but DOES make sense if you are a nation that wants to shut down a specific target without going to war. in that case then a bug like this would actually be a bargain when you consider how much even a small conflict will cost in money and resources.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
It looks like PC malware with modular components. If it's not attacking control systems (which use a different type of CPU and coding), it seems a far stretch to compare it with Stuxnet. Wired is generally very weak on substance in tech articles. Security blogs should have more meaningful discussion of the nature of this nastiness, and hopefully uses steps to mitigate damage. It's hard to believe that malware would be contained to one region.
Articles here really ought to be researched a little to link to core reference sites, not to those ad-driven mass-media sites with attention getting headlines and no meat in the articles.
Napoleon *almost* subjugated all of Asia.
No, that was Chuck Norris...
Your other comments are almost equally stupid. The GP's point was that a country like Israel can use highly trained special forces types to infiltrate even nuclear processing facilities, so they've got a bit more capability than one fat geek with a grudge.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
What is so ridiculous about having internet police? Countries have police that trck down crimes over the internet. There really is nothing magic about the internet, despite the absurd over-hype as the saviour of mankind that it is given by geeks. Mostly now it's just a big shop, and attracts the electronic equivalent of bag-snatchers and small time con men, who should be hunted down and put in jail like their charmless real life counterparts.
No police force outside North Korea or similar gives a shit if you write "anonymous" postings postings on the internet calling for the legalisation of goat porn and weed. They just want to catch actual crims.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
How many years left until people wise up and start working on Capability Based Security? It's the only way to stop this type of stuff.
"In every revolution, it starts with one man." -- Paraphrasing James Tiberius Kirk.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
Napoleon? Asia? I think you might mean Europe, it's a little to the left.
Europe's the Western end of the continent of Asia. He was on his way East when the plan fell apart.
I forgot he also took Egypt.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
In the article I read, it was reported that the most likely method of infecting computers with this malware was through the use of a USB flash drive.
So it would require the use of moles or agents.
Also, the report said the total number of such infected computers was less than 300. Even so, the amount of data being collected from each would require considerable resources to sift and process... which a nation-state would have.
My major scoop is that my senior Israeli source confirms that it is a product of Israeli cyberwarfare experts. Most such products are produced by the IDF’s Unit 8200, though the Mossad also may take some role in such projects. So add to all the previous marginally successful efforts this new one. The goal is apparently to infiltrate the computers of individuals in Iran, Israel, Palestine and elsewhere who are engaged in activities that interest Israel’s secret police including military intelligence. My source also tells me that this is the first known instance in which Israeli intelligence has used malware to intrude on Israeli citizens. Within Israel and the Palestinian territories Flame is implemented by the Shin Bet. The “beauty” of it for the secret police is that unlike “legal” eavesdropping on phones or computers, you don’t need to ask for judicial approval to infect a computer.
Make of it what you will.
You massively underestimate the capabilities of determined individuals. One guy on his own reinvented Unix.
For a Slashdotter, I think you've massively misunderstood this whole "open source" concept.
Breakfast served all day!
Europe's the Western end of the continent of Asia.
Of the continent of Eurasia, maybe. If you consider Asia a continent, then Europe is the entirety of the continent of Europe.
Breakfast served all day!
You massively underestimate the capabilities of determined individuals. One guy on his own reinvented Unix.
For a Slashdotter, I think you've massively misunderstood this whole "open source" concept.
Gee, how many signatures were on that email that Linus sent to the Minix mailing list announcing he'd got something like a kernel working? Oh yeah, one! Then people piled on, throwing stuff at him to incorporate into it. "Does it have a network stack?" "What's a network stack?" "Here, use this."
No, I do not misunderstand Free Software (damnit!) and that a working whole system takes many hands. I do know Gnu had been banging its head on Hurd for years, yet it was Linus who did it!
Go bang your head on a post ten times, Grasshopper.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
Of the continent of Eurasia, maybe.
I will grudgingly give you that but I've got to say, I've never liked that. Continents are supposed to be land masses separated by some very substantial feature, such as oceans or seas, or at least a Bosporus, or the Ural Mountains. "Eurasia" is a hack job, as if you feel Europe's better than Asia, so you want your own name to distinguish yourselves from them.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
Just so's you know you started this:
Your other comments are almost equally stupid.
To which I'll happily respond, Fuck off, asshole!
... so they've got a bit more capability than one fat geek with a grudge.
Archimedes. Isaac Newton. Leonardo DaVinci. Giordano Bruno. Marie Curie. Richard Feynman. Niels Bohr. Albert Einstein. Shakespear.
Shall I go on? By the way, you're an idiot. HAND. :-)
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
How is calling it one continent, Eurasia trying to distinguish between Europe and Asia? And how is calling the entire continent "Asia" better than calling it Eurasia?