US, Israel Behind Flame Malware

The Washington Post is reporting that the sophisticated 'Flame' malware was created by the United States and Israel in order to collect intelligence on Iranian computer networks. The intel was to be used in a cyber-sabotage campaign intended to slow Iran's development of nuclear weapons. This follows confirmation a few weeks ago that the U.S. and Israel were behind Stuxnet, which caused problems at Iran's nuclear facilities. From the article: "The emerging details about Flame provide new clues to what is thought to be the first sustained campaign of cyber-sabotage against an adversary of the United States. 'This is about preparing the battlefield for another type of covert action,' said one former high-ranking U.S. intelligence official, who added that Flame and Stuxnet were elements of a broader assault that continues today. 'Cyber-collection against the Iranian program is way further down the road than this.' ... The scale of the espionage and sabotage effort 'is proportionate to the problem that's trying to be resolved,' the former intelligence official said, referring to the Iranian nuclear program. Although Stuxnet and Flame infections can be countered, 'it doesn't mean that other tools aren't in play or performing effectively,' he said."

Comments

Duh - Who else would have done it?

[Gothmolly]

I mean seriously? Who else besides the Israelis a) hate Iran and b) have the technical chops to do it?

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[bhlowe]

Good thing Eric Holder is appointing two Obama partisans to investigate the leaks. Should be able to get to the bottom of things.. right after November.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[DynamoJoe]

Sabotage: yes. Cyber terrorism? No. Warfare, yes, but not terrorism.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't agree with it, and it sure makes America look like a hypocritical dick, but yeah it's not really terrorism. You could argue what's happening in Iraq and Afghanistan by America is terrorism, which to be honest is the only way to win there, you can't occupy it for ever and if you can't scare every one into submission the problem will return when you leave, because you won't of fixed any underlying issues, and may of even made them worse. But i don't see the same terror that happened on 911 or with the civilian deathroll in the middle east happening in Iran research centres, at least not due to cyber terrorism (I’m well aware of the Israeli assassins taking out Iran scientists).

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[slashmydots]

Um, most Russians and Chinese and they're both in closer proximity.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[FrootLoops]

"Duh" is right, since almost everyone thought it was Israel and possibly the US anyway. (I'm sorry, but your post is hardly insightful.)

Various old, mostly highly modded /. comments to that effect:

1. I'd bet the malware was developed either in Israel or the USA...probably Israel with USA support.
2. The Iran fixation suggests two possible suspects- Israel and the United States. [...] Flame is primarily concerned with countries that are either enemies or potential enemies of Israel... That strongly suggests Israel as the culprit.
3. ...would tend to prove the point that it was Israel.
4. If that's true, it is another pretty large piece of evidence in favor of Israeli authorship.
5. So, who made Flame? USA made Flame.

In my brief search I didn't see a single person contending that it wasn't Israel and/or the US, though I imagine a few exist.

Sources:
1; 2; 3; 4; 5.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[TapeCutter]

This isn't a leak for domestic political purposes, it's a diplomatic press release concerning the current talks between the US and Iran. Basically it's saying "don't bullshit us we know what you are up to". However it's unlikely to have any effect on the talks since if they really did know what Iran was up to they would be presenting evidence rather than boasting about their hacking skills.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[girlintraining]

I mean seriously? Who else besides the Israelis a) hate Iran and b) have the technical chops to do it?

Believe it or not, we're not the most technologically sophisticated country. China has more honor students than we have students. Most of Europe has a more developed telecommunications infrastructure than we do; internet, mobile phones, cable tv, you name it. We are not number 1.

As to who else hates Iran and has the capability to do something about it... it should be pointed out we don't hate Iran. We hate any country who tries to acquire nuclear weapons. Something the size of a suitcase can destroy a major city... it's why we worked so damn hard with the Russians to disarm as many of them as we could. Not every country will play nice: Some of them will do whatever it takes to beat their enemies, even if that means killing themselves in the process. Unfortunately, all the countries currently working on making nuclear weapons fall into that category, including Iran.

The only reason we're fucking around with 'cyber' warfare instead of curb stomping them is it's an election year and our economy is in ruins thanks to fighting two unnecessary wars based on our President deciding to finish what his daddy started rather than leave well enough alone, and our country having a momentary fit of stupidity where we had to kill everyone and everything wearing a funny hat because a couple of our sand castles got kicked over by a bully.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[thrich81]

How about doing some research or at least keeping up with the news before spewing? One of the two US attorneys on the leak case is Rod J. Rosenstein, a Republican appointed into his current position as US Attorney in 2005 by George W. Bush -- hardly the profile of an Obama partisan.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[RulerOf]

Sabotage: yes. Cyber terrorism? No. Warfare, yes, but not terrorism.

To be fair, terrorism is rather broadly any act that incites fear, specifically for political purposes. I don't know about you, but Stuxnet and Flame scare the hell out of me.

And I don't even begin to represent their targets.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can kinda see both arguments, but "We're spying on your obviously high profile nuclear program" and "our virus broke some of your enrichment hardware", probably just don't have the same shock and terror as "someone just randomly blew up a bus with your family in it". If you find yourself going to the dictionary to figure out if something is terrorism, you're trying too hard.

Though when the Israelis sent people to execute Iranian nuclear scientists and such... that might well qualify in a more traditional way.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[Dahamma]

It's hard to claim that the primary *intent* was to incite fear when it was created to be so stealthy it may have been running for years without anyone even noticing...

To quote a well-respected Dr. on the subject... "Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost, if you *keep* it a *secret*! Why didn't you tell the world, EH?"

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[SeaFox]

You seem to be assuming that Obama is actually behind this. The three letter agencies that make up the U.S. government don't ask for the President's approval every time they want to tie their shoes.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[Dahamma]

Yeah, sure. And every president since Roosevelt, as he was the last one who actually asked Congress before going to war.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[Dahamma]

I think the term you are looking for it "espionage". I'd hardly call it sabotage when the point was to collect information without being detected and after being discovered it was programmed to remove itself without a trace.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[dpilot]

Which scares you more, Stuxnet and Flame, which at the very least appear to have been fairly specifically targeted, or Iran with nuclear weapons?

In another way, at least Stuxnet and Flame have come to light, show us what's possible, and start us thinking about how to counter. Imagine a world where such capabilities had been kept in the dark until used on a public infrastructure attack.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[highphilosopher]

You mis-spelled "centers".

P.S. Please mod this funny

P.P.S. Please do NOT mod this Informative... You'll look stupid.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[metrix007]

No, they don't. Most Chinese live in poverty, only dreaming of the luxury of higher education.

Oh, and the reason you're not curb stomping Iran is because you can't. It took 10 years to make Iraq into something manageable, with Iraq being a far less prepared and formidable enemy than Iran.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[AlphaWolf_HK]

War tends to be when you are hitting military and/or government targets.

Terrorism tends to be when you are hitting civilian targets.

Destroying equipment used to make nuclear weapons is cyberwarfare. DDoSing the vatican is cyberterrorism.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[InspectorGadget1964]

What scares me most, is Israel's nuclear weapons, not Iran's. Iran does not have any yet and so far, no proof has been provided that they actually are planning to produce them. Furtermore, if such a "proof" were provided by the US would have the same validity as the proof that Saddam Hussein had chemical, biological and nuculear (It is not a typo, I'm mocking W.) weapons. Would most probably be just another lie.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[postmortem]

And what do you think it would be called if somebody did this to US?

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Big badaboom, but hardly enough to destroy a major city.

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

In nuclear weapon design, there is a tradeoff in small weapons designs between weight and compact size. Extremely small (as small as 5 inches (13 cm) diameter and 24.4 inches (62 cm) long) linear implosion type weapons, which might conceivably fit in a large briefcase or typical suitcase, have been tested, but the lightest of those are nearly 100 pounds (45 kg) and had a maximum yield of only a fraction of a kiloton (190 tons).

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[mister2au]

Not every country will play nice: Some of them will do whatever it takes to beat their enemies, even if that means killing themselves in the process. Unfortunately, all the countries currently working on making nuclear weapons fall into that category, including Iran.

Just dripping in irony as the "American Empire" continues to disappear

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[symbolset]

Iran uses XP as desktops for their top nuclear physicists. I think that's all we need to know about their IT technical proficiency and operations security. They're the Wile-E-Coyote of secret technology.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[symbolset]

This is seriously old stuff. You have no idea.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[symbolset]

Israel has had nukes for a very long time and not hurt anybody with them. When somebody new gets nukes we have to worry if they'll settle a grudge right away.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[Anonymous Coward]

We hate any country who tries to acquire nuclear weapons So do you hate your leaders of your country, You country already have nuclear weapons.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Statistics are fun aren't they. honor student means nothing as stated. if you are going b sheer numbers the top 1% of Chinese students are far more than the top 1% of American students. you can't argue with that math. but the question is are the top 1% of Chinese students better than then all of the other 99% of American students. being the smartest kid in your class is a lot more impressive when you are surrounded by einstiens and not dunces. mind you, it's not that i think China is dumb, i just hate baseless statements that get repeated without thought.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[Anonymous Coward]

"We hate any country who tries to acquire nuclear weapons."
This sounds funny from a country that has massive number of nuclear weapons and which has a history of aggression against the native people of the region.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Which scares you more, Stuxnet and Flame, which at the very least appear to have been fairly specifically targeted, or Iran with nuclear weapons?

A loaded question. I'm either with you or with the terrorists? I fear the US more than any other country, but I think the US fears any other country more than I do the US.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[Raenex]

We hate any country who tries to acquire nuclear weapons.

Except India, Pakistan, and of course Israel.

The only reason we're fucking around with 'cyber' warfare instead of curb stomping them is it's an election year and our economy is in ruins

Wait, so you mean we couldn't have "curb stomped" them before?

thanks to fighting two unnecessary wars

Is going to war to stop Iran from acquiring nukes "necessary"?

our country having a momentary fit of stupidity where we had to kill everyone and everything wearing a funny hat because a couple of our sand castles got kicked over by a bully.

No hyperbole here, no sir. Yep, we killed everybody wearing a funny hat, and those skyscrapers in New York City were just sandcastles instead of economic centers of activity.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[Tom]

Which scares you more, Stuxnet and Flame, which at the very least appear to have been fairly specifically targeted, or Iran with nuclear weapons?

That's so easy, it's unfair: Stuxnet and Flame, of course. They already have caused considerable damage on a wide scale, and while they are targeted, it would be way too easy to re-target them on something that matters to me.

Iran with nukes, on the other hand, is still theoretical, still has a long way to go, and even if they had nukes the chances are 99:1 that they would use them for MAD and not actually use them and even if the extremely remote chance of a nuclear detonation came to pass, it would almost certainly not affect me in the slightest.

And, quite frankly, I don't buy nuclear fearmongering coming from the only country ever to actually drop nuclear bombs on civilian cities, twice.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[ravenshrike]

Bullshit, the original leak on the Stux/Flame bit was from a BOOK coming out before the elections, which the NYT then published an excerpt from along with additional details.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[Anonymous Coward]

We hate any country who tries to acquire nuclear weapons.

Yup, until they have those weapons and then we calm down again. India, Pakistan, North Korea. Hell with India we're happy to share nuclear secrets now.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[DemoLiter3]

How about "Someone just blew up the nuclear reactor near the city where your family lives", would that be more in the same level of shock and terror? Besides, Israel itself has described cyberattacks as terrorism.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[TheRaven64]

That was what I read, although that was third hand with the BBC quoting the Washington Post (I think) quoting an anonymous source, who said that Obama specifically authorised it in his role as Commander in Chief. Generally, attacking a foreign power needs to go quite a long way up the chain of command to get approval. The CIA wouldn't have launched the Bay of Pigs debacle, for example, without approval from the President.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Russia and China don't hate Iran. In fact, these two countries have been regularly vetoing anti-Iran resolutions in the Security Council. So what's their motive for writing Stuxnet?

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[stainlesssteelpat]

Centre = center or did i miss something? English comes in different flavours. Here in Oz we speak 'Strine'.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[sirlark]

The scary thing about children is that are self-obsessed and tend to throw their toys when they don't get their own way... oh wait.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[sirlark]

s/that are/that they are/

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[newcastlejon]

Iran uses XP as desktops for their top nuclear physicists. I think that's all we need to know about their IT technical proficiency and operations security. They're the Wile-E-Coyote of secret technology.

You're saying they'd be slightly more competent if they used Vista?

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[Savage-Rabbit]

Iran with nukes, on the other hand, is still theoretical, still has a long way to go, and even if they had nukes the chances are 99:1 that they would use them for MAD and not actually use them and even if the extremely remote chance of a nuclear detonation came to pass, it would almost certainly not affect me in the slightest.

I'm not really sure which would scare me more, an already nuclear weapons capable Israel or the possibility of a nuclear weapons capable Iran (if it isn't there already). The Israelis call Ahmadinejad irrational and judging from some of his public utterances that seems to be true. However, I'm not all that impressed either with the rationality of some of the ultra right wing nutters that we have seen manning Israeli governments over the last couple of decades. Thankfully cooler heads have prevailed until now and at least in the case of Israel, the USA has proven to be a reasonably effective brake on the mindless aggressiveness of some of the more hawkish Israeli politicos.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[AliasMarlowe]

Besides, Israel itself has described cyberattacks as terrorism.

So that implies Stuxnet was "state-sponsored terrorism". In which case, the US should add itself to that list it keeps...

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[cozziewozzie]

No, they don't. Most Chinese live in poverty, only dreaming of the luxury of higher education.

Most Chinese live in big cities (more than a million inhabitants) and have access to government scholarships if they score well on the university entrance examination (gaokao).

The scholarships are a pittance, and many students have to work part-time to get through university, but their universities are loaded with brilliant people.

China is a developing country and many people do live in poverty, but there are likely more kids with (real!) Gucci bags in Chinese cities than in the US. You have no idea how fast the place is developing.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[dpilot]

> the only country ever to actually drop nuclear bombs on civilian cities, twice.

True, and the US has used nuclear blackmail more than any other country, regrettably.

But there is another perspective on having used the nuclear bomb in war - historical necessity. There are many who say that a "demonstration event" would have sufficed, that the nuclear bomb need never have been used in war. Unfortunately I don't believe that. I don't believe that there would ever be sufficient fear of the nuclear bomb until it had actually been used to demolish a real city and kill real people. Also unfortunately, there was a very narrow window when that could be done "safely" - without the threat of a full-fledged nuclear exchange. That was the few years when the US had the Bomb and the USSR didn't.

Plus if you ever studied the period, you'll see that many feel that using the bomb saved at least a million lives on both sides - the cost of a protracted air/sea/land war in the Pacific. Even the Hiroshima bomb didn't convince Japan to surrender - they felt that there could only ever be one bomb like that. After Nagasaki, the surrendered because they thought that we could just keep dropping bomb after bomb like that - the first one wasn't unique. What they didn't realize was that at the time we'd made 3 bombs, Trinity, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki - that we'd shot our wad. I don't know how far in time we were from a fourth, and I don't know how Japan would have acted had they known we couldn't do it a third time, even.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[AmiMoJo]

We hate any country who tries to acquire nuclear weapons.

You hate yourselves? Or do you mean that literally - you already have them which is fine but no-one else is allowed to acquire them?

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[AmiMoJo]

And, quite frankly, I don't buy nuclear fearmongering coming from the only country ever to actually drop nuclear bombs on civilian cities, twice.

And not really for military purposes either, just to test them out and observe the effects on human beings and cities to improve their own defences.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[qwak23]

It was supposed to be revealed the next Monday.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[griffjon]

I'm not sure that Stuxnet and Flame getting revealed means that we've gotten to the bottom of this particular rabbit hole.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[Frankie70]

The best way is to set an example - by giving up ones own nuclear weapons before telling other nations to stop building nuclear weapons.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[GodGell]

No, he didn't. You nitpick about something that's completely fine while missing that godawful "should of" thing blaring at your face!

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[DarkOx]

Oh, and the reason you're not curb stomping Iran is because you can't. It took 10 years to make Iraq into something manageable, with Iraq being a far less prepared and formidable enemy than Iran.

Not buying that one. The existing regimes in Iraq and Afghanistan were push overs. The Taliban fled practically the moment we showed up and Saddam's military was more or less defeated after three days.

The hard and expensive part, that we have had much less success with, is the nation building and occupation of those two areas.

I would suggest we don't need to do that. Libya was a mistake because Quadaffi was an SOB but he was our SOB. He was cooperating with the war on terror etc. The message we send to these dictators and oligarchs is steer clear of us or cooperate and we will leave you to run your nation. If however you become a pain in our sides we are coming after you, not your country, YOU and your family. Your choices are play ball and enjoy ruling your little slice of hell or find yourself dead or hiding in pit someplace. No we are not afraid of what it will cost us because we are not going to hang around after we going to pack up and leave and assume the next strong man who takes over for you will see how you met your end and realize it would be best not to poke the bear.

There is no reason we need to be pulled into these ten year wars of occupation. We just need to maintain a healthy level of fear of our power, and behave in a consistent and predictable way.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[SCHecklerX]

Indeed.

And considering the incompetency of most government agencies, especially the DoD, to properly manage their networks, well, is provoking an attack on us really wise? All it takes is one idiot and one flash drive. And we know the massive amount of idiots working as 'lowest bidder' on all of these government contracts.

Yup, we have a big complex military that can physically stomp you into the ground. That big, complex network, however, is quite an easy target to a motivated attacker. Probably not best to provoke that 'war'.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[dpilot]

Oh, I'm sure we're not. But at least more people are aware that the rabbit hole exists.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[Whorhay]

From my reading of Wikipedia the USA could have likely produced a couple implosion style nuclear devices a month in short order. The implosion design only needed 6.2 kg of plutonium while the little boy design required more than 60 kg of enriched uranium. While plutonium was being produced more slowly the fact you needed one tenth as much material more than made up for it.

The main holdup on using implosion devices was that they required using explosive lenses, which were a bleeding edge field at the time.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[dhaines]

Swordfish 2?

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[ukemike]

Good thing Eric Holder is appointing two Obama partisans to investigate the leaks.

What exactly is an "Obama Partisan?"

Perhaps Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, Army Secretary John McHugh, and Ambassador Jon Huntsman? All of these people are Republicans, conservatives, or people who served in Republican administrations. Finally as another poster here pointed out one of the two investigators appointed is a, gasp!, Republican! If you're drinking the Fox coolaid you may believe that the current administration is partisan, but it flies in the face of the facts. This President reaches across the aisle repeatedly looking for compromise only to have his open hand slapped. If you're looking for partisanship you'll have to look elsewhere.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[Bob the Super Hamste]

An American version of the device was designed to be used with the Davy Crockett recoiless rifle and the complete round weighed in at around 76 lbs (34.5 kg) with the nuclear device coming in at 51 lbs (23 kg) and having a yield between 10 and 20 tons of TNT. They had a maximum range of about 4 km (launcher dependent) and as such were meant to be used as a weapon of last resort as you would more than likely be in the fallout zone unless the weather was really in your favor. They had poor accuracy and a very small yield so the most damage that they did was in the form of radiation poisoning as they quite close to being a dirty bomb as they are very close to the smallest possible fission device that can be created. There was also various nuclear artillery shells developed by the US that were also weapons of last resort because of the fallout zone. The smallest of these was the W48 155mm howitzer shell with larger ones being 203mm and 280mm. As a side note you can see a display (not sure if disarmed real ones or just mockups) of some of these at the Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas just a couple of blocks off the strip. It is actually a branch of the Smithsonian Museum and they have a lot of really neat stuff on the atomic age all related to the bomb. The traveling or special exhibit I saw, Russian cold war propaganda, was well worth the extra admission and I would imagine the current ones would be as well.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[metrix007]

It was a mistake, it was one extra time. Chill, child.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[phantomfive]

the only country ever to actually drop nuclear bombs on civilian cities, twice.

Whenever anyone says this, you know they are a troll, or stupid. Hiroshima and Iran are two completely different situations, and if you can't see that, you have problems......

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[babblefrog]

I wish we could get rid of the word "terrorism" completely. It seems to mean whatever the individual speaker wants it to mean. Let's do it this way: If it's a military target, it's OK to attack. If it's a civilian target it's definitely not.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[GigaBurglar]

Yeah but don't mention it to your average person for fear of being labelled a conspiracy theorist.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[bhlowe]

I should have said "one partisan". Yes, Rod Rosenstein was appointed under GW Bush and may (or may not be) a Republican.
The other attorney assigned to investigate the leaks is Ronald Machen, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. In a 2010 profile in the Washington Post, Machen referred to Obama as a "legend" at Harvard and admitted that he was a great admirer of Obama and donated money to the president's 2004 senate campaign. I'd say that is pretty partisan.
A special prosecutor would be more appropriate.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[darkmeridian]

There is no doubt in my mind that we can curb stomp Iran if we really set our minds to it. Iraq was an anomaly because we weren't really into it. The people kind of knew the war was bullshit, and the leadership realized this, so they didn't want to bother the people with a huge war. Therefore, we invaded with a small force, never planned to provide security or reconstruction for the people, then promptly fired everyone and then disbanded the military and police forces. Just the same, we curb stomped Iraq, the Taliban, and Al Qaeda. Sure, we took losses, but ask them how they're doing.

If we went to war against Iran, it would not be a good time to pussy foot. If we went in with 300,000 soldiers, heavy tanks, AC-130 gunships, and a large complement of drones, the Revolutionary Guards would give up very quickly. We would take them apart.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[catmistake]

Iran does not have any yet and so far, no proof has been provided that they actually are planning to produce them.

In February 2010, the IAEA issued a report scolding Iran for failing to explain purchases of sensitive technology as well as secret tests of high-precision detonators and modified designs of missile cones to accommodate larger payloads. Such experiments are closely associated with atomic warheads.

Source

the Central Intelligence Agency and other intelligence agencies believe that Iran has yet to decide whether to resume a parallel program to design a nuclear warhead — a program they believe was essentially halted in 2003 and which would be necessary for Iran to build a nuclear bomb.

Source

You are massively uninformed. There is plenty of evidence of Iran's past intent, plenty of evidence in the last decade that Iran had a secret nuclear weapons program. Due to the effectiveness of Olympic Games, their ability to enrich weapons grade uranium has been considerably reduced. But the fact that Iran was so vocal for so long about not having a nuclear weapons program when they absolutely did, and the efforts they went through to deceive U.N. oversight, doesn't make me feel any more secure that today we have no evidence of the future intent of Iran to restart their nuclear weapons program.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[kaatochacha]

citation please.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[catmistake]

Which scares you more, Stuxnet and Flame, which at the very least appear to have been fairly specifically targeted, or Iran with nuclear weapons?

The scariness of Stuxnet and Flame is easily mitigated by running BSD or Linux, or more specifically, by not running Microsoft Windows on any machine with access to data intended to be secure. What scares the crap out of me is there are nuclear weapons out there somewhere with control systems that do run on top of Microsoft Windows. Microsoft Windows is far more devastating to economy and infrastructure than any virus or malware, directed or otherwise. It is known. I know I'd sleep better if Microsoft abandoned this foolish notion of the need to support legacy software in perpetuity, and at least attempted to do what Apple has successfully done at least three times in the last 20 years. Microsoft should abandon the Digital Equipment Corporation's NT kernel, and move towards using their own rather impressive creation, backwards compatibility with legacy software used by a backward minority be damned!

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[nbauman]

What scares me most is countries like the US and Israel, which instead of finding reasonable compromises and accommodations with their enemies and occupied entities, turn to bullying, aggressiveness, killing and exceptionalism.

That attitude leads to escalation. As Clausowitz said, war is unpredictable. You never can tell when the other side is going to come back at you with something you didn't expect. Like 9/11. Or the resistance to the US occupation of Iraq. The US war dead is now how many, 4,000? For what?

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[nbauman]

Point of fact:

Combatants don't always have to wear uniforms. There's a provision in the Geneva convention that local forces defending their own country don't have to wear uniforms. In WWII, General Eisenhower warned the Germans that they should treat captured French resistance fighters as prisoners of war, and Germans who didn't do so would be prosecuted.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[Dahamma]

Yeah, Bush went even further, he and his administration basically lied to Congress to get the votes. Throw perjury and contempt of Congress onto their offenses...

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[moogied]

Does it hurt being so wrong and stupid? I bet it does.. ANYWAYS. Even *after* we nuked them TWICE the emperor surrendered.. but what did the military do? They fucking attempted a coup. So EVEN if the emperor had agreed to surrender before the nuke the military STILL would of attempted a coup and probably won before the nukes landed.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[amoeba1911]

"... you won't of fixed any...."

Someone should of corrected you before. I could of corrected you, but I ofn't. Instead, I of made fun of the "of" misuse.

It's "HAVE" you dumb ass. Putting "OF" makes no sense at all. In spoken language "OF" sounds vaguely similar to "HAVE", but that doesn't mean they're interchangeable. You should have known better.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[amoeba1911]

You're not the only one! I of noticed it too. It bothers me when people put "of" instead of "have".

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[amoeba1911]

...somebody new gets nukes we have to worry if they'll settle a grudge right away.

You mean the way America got nukes an immediately tested them on Japan, twice?

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[FreshlyShornBalls]

The only reason we're fucking around with 'cyber' warfare instead of curb stomping them is it's an election year and our economy is in ruins thanks to fighting two unnecessary wars based on our President deciding to finish what his daddy started rather than leave well enough alone, and our country having a momentary fit of stupidity where we had to kill everyone and everything wearing a funny hat because a couple of our sand castles got kicked over by a bully.

Seriously? I'm not here to defend Bush or Obama or....well...the U.S. government in general. But calling the events of September 11th "our sand castles getting kicked over" is just infuriating. Three thousand innocent people were murdered. You can debate whether it was all the fault of U.S. foreign policy or religion or whatever. But please don't equate the death of 3,000 innocents to a bully kicking over a sand castle.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[Tom]

Yes, they are. That does not make the statement untrue. If you are the rapist in the room, telling everyone to be careful of the other guy because he just might rape someone is kind of... well, one could say it takes one to spot one, but no matter how you twist it, there's no angle from which this looks good for you.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[reboot246]

Did either of you see the "may of"?

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[girlintraining]

Oh, and the reason you're not curb stomping Iran is because you can't. It took 10 years to make Iraq into something manageable, with Iraq being a far less prepared and formidable enemy than Iran.

Well, I personally can't crush a small country by myself. I'm not a CEO. However, the United States has nukes. Push one button, and there's a big crater where that country used to be. So no, it doesn't take 10 years to do it... it takes 10 years to do it without killing millions of innocents.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[girlintraining]

Seriously? I'm not here to defend Bush or Obama or....well...the U.S. government in general. But calling the events of September 11th "our sand castles getting kicked over" is just infuriating. Three thousand innocent people were murdered. You can debate whether it was all the fault of U.S. foreign policy or religion or whatever. But please don't equate the death of 3,000 innocents to a bully kicking over a sand castle.

Spare me your moral indignation. Five times that number are killed yearly by drunk drivers. More than that die in workplace accidents. They kicked over a sand castle. Get over yourself.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[lister king of smeg]

that is so those with the nukes already are afraid of M.A.D. so they won't use them on us. we get rid of them and we have lost our defense from them

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[hey!]

Also if it's war...where is the Congress declaration authorizing this?

Obama needs to be impeached.

What, for cyberattacks that affect non-target systems, or drone attacks that kill non-combatants?

In any case, declaration of war? What century are you living in? The last US declaration of war was on December 11, 1941 against Germany. Last time I checked there have been six wars that were undeclared but "authorized" by US legislation. Seven or eight were undertaken under UN security council resolutions and funded, but not expressly authorized by Congress. One was undertaken without any congressional approval or funding (Ronald Reagan's invasion of Grenada). There have been countless *acts* of war undertaken without the permission of Congress and sometimes without Congress being informed.

I suspect just about every act of war we've been involved with since WW2, under Democratic or Republican presidents, is unconstitutional, but everyone looks the other way.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[lister king of smeg]

no we had already tested them. we just dropped them on them. and no weren't just settling a grudge. we were in the middle of a total war and we were facing a invasion that would of cost both sides tens of thousands of lives in a very bloody very protracted war. we bypassed that in favor of two air drops. not grudge settling just war ending. and if we didn't it would have been very possible that japan would have fallen to Russia which would have put it in a much worse situation.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[lister king of smeg]

hell backward comparability could still be maintained via visualization and compatibility layer like (like wine only with access to the source code). singularity kernel does look interesting but I think a more Unix like kernel would be better and give them a larger code base to draw from go with something closer to say plan9 with a integrated supervisor for running legacy applications.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[InspectorGadget1964]

Evidence provided by either the USA or any country associated with or influenced by the USA lacks credibility, specially after all the evidence that the USA, UK and NATO provide about the so far non existing weapons of mass destruction that Saddam Hussein allegedly had. (In short, their evidence was bullsh#$t

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[catmistake]

Hell, backward compatability could still be maintained via virtualization and compatibility layer like (like WINE only with access to the source code). Singularity kernel does look interesting, but I think a more UNIX-like kernel would be better and give them a larger code base to draw from go with something closer to say plan9 with a integrated supervisor for running legacy applications.

FTFY

Singularity is a UNIX flavor. I simply don't believe maintaining compatibility with old applications is in anyone's best interest, neither users nor developers, and certainly not Microsoft. But I must agree that if backward compatibility was essential, virtualization is the way to go, and not kernel-level compatibility of legacy code.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[InspectorGadget1964]

Are you with mossad?

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[catmistake]

Evidence provided by either the USA or any country associated with or influenced by the USA lacks credibility, specially after all the evidence that the USA, UK and NATO provide about the so far non existing weapons of mass destruction that Saddam Hussein allegedly had. (In short, their evidence was bullsh#$t

Unless you can back that up, it is only you that lacks credibility. The IAEA is an international agency whose charter was granted from the United Nations.The New York Times is not the USA, and by the most powerful law we have, the 1st Amendment to the US Constitution, it cannot be influenced by the government. Further, Iran is not Iraq. Pick up a book. Read. Learn. Stop confabulating.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[lennier]

Which scares you more, Stuxnet and Flame, which at the very least appear to have been fairly specifically targeted, or Iran with nuclear weapons?

I think Stuxnet and Flame scare me most, as Flame has already caused measurable harm while Iran hasn't nuked anyone yet.

But what scares me more than either of them is Stuxnet/Flame infecting nuclear control systems, which is more than an academic question since it already has.

LulzNucSec, here we come.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[InspectorGadget1964]

The USA has veto rights in th UN and constantly pressures every other country to get it's way. the IAEA, beign part of the UN is just under as much control of the US and Israel as any other organization that pretends to have any independence.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[phantomfive]

When someone says that, they are demonstrating that they have little understanding of the problems and issues surrounding nuclear proliferation. Because that point is irrelevant to whether Iran gets nuclear weapons or not.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[catmistake]

Prove it. Show me any evidence whatsoever of this nefarious conspiracy. The veto rights which you mention are also held by China and Russia and are limited to U.N. provisions. The US can't veto an international agency, whatever that may mean.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[InspectorGadget1964]

Get your facts right. The following link points to the IAEA factsheet in Iran. No evidence of any weapons there http://ola.iaea.org/factSheets/CountryDetails.asp?country=IR

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[ildon]

Who else besides the Israelis

our economy is in ruins thanks to fighting two unnecessary wars based on our President deciding to finish what his daddy started rather than leave well enough alone,

Wow, who would have thought Israel had an identical recent history to the USA? I guess I just don't know as much about world news as I thought I did.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[catmistake]

Cleverly, you linked to some all encompasing fact sheet... elsewhere on the site are the actual reports. Many, like this report details military dimensions to Iran nuclear program including evidence for Iranian development of nuclear payload for missiles.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[cold fjord]

I don't know about you, but Stuxnet and Flame scare the hell out of me. . . . . And I don't even begin to represent their targets.

What you just described is a personal problem, a psychological issue, not terrorism.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[Tom]

I guess it goes to show that you lack the outside perspective. Your inability to see the problem does not necessarily mean that there is no problem - it could mean you are part of the problem.

In this case, the problem is the unapologetic approach of the US to the nuking of two cities. Germany has spent 50 years apologizing for their Nazi parents, and by now grandparents. The US hasn't even spent 5 minutes saying sorry for melting civilians into the sidewalk.

And that, together with your continue aggressive politics and wars (if I recall correctly, since WW2 there has not been a single year during which the US did not engage in military conflict in some foreign country) makes the point very, very relevant. Because here we have a wolf crying wolf. When is the last time Iran started a war? One source says the year was 1739.

Compare the military history of the USA and of Iran and you'll notice something odd. It is 4 paragraphs for Iran since 1945, and about four pages for the USA.

Yes, it is relevant to point out that the one constantly warning you about some danger has a much, much worse track record on that same danger than the guy he's warning you about. It does impact the believability of the claim. It matters because it put the question of hidden agendas on the table. It matters because it provides context. Lastly, it matters because the US has not exactly been hiding its geo-strategical interests, and Iran lies smack in the middle of them. It is no stretch to say that no matter what they do or don't do, Iran will not be able to satisfy the US demands, because the US isn't really looking for the best interest of the world, it is looking for its own interests and that is in containing and isolating Iran in order to expand its own influence in the region.

And that is why all this matters, because US claims about Iran, its atomic program and all that crap are equally likely to be lies and misdirection than true. Plus, after claiming similar things about the neighbour country and being found out, there isn't exactly much credibility you have left.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[phantomfive]

All that spewing forth of hate against the US, and you still didn't demonstrate you understand the issues surrounding nuclear proliferation. Not only that, I'm starting to think you are ignorant of WW2. For example, did the Tokyo fire bombings not enter your consciousness at all?

Do you want to try again?

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[Tom]

Tokyo, Dresden, the list goes on. I'm not on a mission to list the horrors of war, the point still is that the only guy in the room who actually raped someone once is not in the best position to yell "watch out for that evil dude, I'm sure he wants to rape you all".

Do I want an Iran with nukes? No, not really. But I can understand why they want them. History shows very, very clearly that once the USA has you in its sights, nuclear weapons are the only thing that has a perfect track record of stopping them from invading you.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[RulerOf]

That's so easy, it's unfair: Stuxnet and Flame, of course.

I answer the same to that question.

I think it's a lot more reasonable to assume that Iran or any other country at war with the US would likely not be dropping nukes all over the place, even if they had them. Weaponized malware, on the other hand, has already proven to be VERY effective, and the most chilling aspect of those weapons is that they completed their missions without even being detected.

The thought of some clandestine scheme to wreak havoc with the precision that computer viruses can have but that nuclear weapons most certainly cannot is not only more plausible in my mind, but it's already been done. And no one is sitting back, looking at the horrible collateral damage they caused.

So as this type of warfare continues---and it most definitely will---and some day a SCADA system fails and it kills people, there won't be the "benefit" of a giant, impossible-to-miss mushroom cloud sitting on the horizon to tell us why it happened.

Scary because you can't see it. Much like ionizing radiation... but at least that is something relatively straightforward to detect, and doesn't reprogram your geiger counter to tell you everything is just fine while you suck up lethal doses of gamma rays.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[jheath314]

Your post is an excellent summary of everything that is wrong with American foreign policy. :

- "He's an SOB, but he's our SOB"... which has resulted in us abandoning our democratic ideals to support dictators who murder, torture, and rape their own countrymen. Besides, having the ruler of a country on our side doesn't mean when it comes to terrorism... most of the 9/11 hijackers came from our "ally" Saudi Arabia.
- "Invade only, no nation-building necessary"... so in other words, kill a bunch of people and destroy their critical infrastructure, and then leave a power vacuum and simply hope it gets filled by someone better for us than the previous leader.
- "Maintain a healthy level of fear of our power"... because ruling via a climate of fear worked so well for the USSR, whose example we want to emulate in the worst possible way, right? Plus, fear doesn't work so well against terrorists who glorify martyrdom.

Remember, the attacks on our soil weren't perpetrated by Iraq, or any other nation-state... they were the work of a terrorist network spanning multiple countries, most of which are our nominal allies. The old foreign policy paradigms are worse than useless in this war... they are ultimately self-defeating. Propping up dictators, leaving power vacuums in destroyed countries, and trying to rule through fear will only serve to inflame more anti-American sentiment--more terrorists, and more terrorist supporters helping to hide them.

Bitter experience has taught us that abandoning our principles in the pursuit of temporary foreign policy goals is a losing strategy. Being the "good guy", hard as that is, is the only way to win.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[peawormsworth]

We hate any country who tries to acquire nuclear weapons.

All countries would be better off with nuclear weapons. I mean they would have more negotiating power. This is just true for the countries who have them already.

America really hates countries that have a lot of oil and do not provide a large portion of their exports to them. Iran is #3 as far as world oil reserves. Iran exports to China, Japan, India, South Korea, Italy, Turkey, Spain and a few others. They are supplying a lot of the worlds oil and the US gets none. They are cruising for an invasion and in order to have support of the people when/if this happens, our government scares us into believing they are a dangerous country because of their nuclear dreams. Fact is... all countries want the bomb. Not even to use it as a weapon, but rather as a means to negotiate better trade.

I live in Canada and we are the #1 supplier of oil to the US. If we decided not to share oil with the US, all of our current nuclear programs would suddenly become a desire to make a nuclear bomb and media would teach you quickly to fear and hate us. This would be required in order to have u support the inevitable invassion.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[phantomfive]

ok, you're getting closer to demonstrating that you have some knowledge of reality. You're doing better.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[minchazo]

Terrorism: The use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims. (according to google).
Wearing a uniform means you're government-sponsored; your actions will determine whether or not you're a terrorist.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[jpstanle]

No, they don't. Most Chinese live in poverty, only dreaming of the luxury of higher education.

China is also home to the largest middle class population of any nation, already exceeding 300 million people and growing rapidly. Most Chinese by percentage of China as a whole may still live in poverty, but in absolute terms, the Chinese middle class is the size of the ENTIRE POPULATION of the United States. Considering a larger middle class, and a greater societal emphasis on academic excellence, it's not far fetched to think that China may have a larger population (in absolute terms) of well educated young adults than the US.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[dpilot]

I didn't make the stuff up - I've heard it from multiple sources, though I'll admit that they may have been biased. In fact, the last source was the displays at Paerl Harbor. It's also entirely possible that Weber is biased, as well.

My wife is a bit of an FDR nerd and is fairly well-read, so I'll have to ask her about this one.

Re:Duh - Who else would have done it?

[dpilot]

One underlying cause I heard for the Pacific element of WWII was that the second-tier of Japanese government had too much power. They had managed to accumulate enough power to push the nation into war, without the experience to understand the probable consequences. Though I'll exclude Yamamoto from that last statement - he seemed to understand what was likely to happen, obeyed orders like a good soldier, and planned the best strategy he could to avoid what he anticipated.

When we do it to you

[niftydude]

it is an act of espionage and sabotage proportionate to the problem that is trying to be resolved.

If you do it to us, it will be considered an act of war.

Re:When we do it to you

[artor3]

You're referring to a previous story that you misinterpreted to mean that the US would consider cyberattacks to be an act of war. What that story actually said was that cyberattacks against certain key infrastructure might be considered an act of war if it were serious enough. Quoting:

If a cyber attack produces the death, damage, destruction or high-level disruption that a traditional military attack would cause, then it would be a candidate for a "use of force" consideration, which could merit retaliation.

That basically says that they won't rule out military force in certain extreme cases. Nor should they.

And for Iran's part, if they'd like to consider Stuxnet to be an act of war, they can. Heck, they could consider Obama forgetting to say "bless you" after Ahmadinejad sneezes to be an act of war. That's the fun thing about the word "consider". But they won't, just as they didn't consider Israel's assassination of their nuclear scientists to be one.

I'm sorry that international espionage isn't as cut and dry as you'd like it to be, but that's just how it is and has been for most of history. There were pretenses of chivalry in Europe (and likely other places) for a time, back when royalty was a good ole boys' club and the peasants would be the ones dying. We're past that now, and I for one am glad of it.

Re:When we do it to you

[Hamsterdan]

If a normal person does the same, it's gonna be prison time. Gotta love how the governments are accountable to the same laws.

Re:When we do it to you

[Anonymous Coward]

in other words... if someone were to inject a cyber attack on say... or nuke facilities??? posted anon due to moding

Re:When we do it to you

[artor3]

If a virus set back some research at Raytheon, do you really think that the US would jump into another war?

They made it very clear that they were talking about the sort of attack that thus far only exists in movies, not just some computer worm that damages some equipment.

Re:When we do it to you

[Darkness404]

However, there is a double standard. Iran is trying its best to be recognized by the international community as a modern Islamic democracy, Obama is looking for more blood to put on his Nobel Peace Prize. The American public on both sides of the political aisle are crying out for another war and even the smallest thing could set off a "drone war" leading to a full-scale conflict.

Re:When we do it to you

[artor3]

And if a normal person builds an aircraft carrier and conducts military exercises in national waters, they'd also go to prison. What is your point? If a government isn't allowed to do things that individual citizens can't, then it's not a government. It's a social club.

Re:When we do it to you

[niftydude]

You're referring to a previous story that you misinterpreted to mean that the US would consider cyberattacks to be an act of war. What that story actually said was that cyberattacks against certain key infrastructure might be considered an act of war if it were serious enough.

I didn't misinterpret anything. It is you who are playing with semantics.

Stuxnet was an attack on industrial control systems used in Iranian nuclear power plants.
Are you implying that US nuclear power plants are not considered key infrastructure? And that a cyberattack bringing down that infrastructure would not be considered an act of war?

I'm sorry that international espionage isn't as cut and dry as you'd like it to be, but that's just how it is and has been for most of history. There were pretenses of chivalry in Europe (and likely other places) for a time, back when royalty was a good ole boys' club and the peasants would be the ones dying. We're past that now, and I for one am glad of it.

I don't know what the Iranians have done to you that makes you happy that the US and Israeli government is dangerously meddling with Nuclear power plants and risking the lives of Iranian citizens - but the Iranians haven't done anything to me, and so I'd prefer to take an approach of innocent until proven guilty before instigating a war against them.

If you want my support for acts of espionage escalating to a potential war against Iran, you are going to need a better reason than "they hates our freedoms" in order to convince me of the need for these actions.

Re:When we do it to you

[demachina]

The U.S. law on computer intrusions specifically exempts law enforcement and intelligence agencies:

"(f) This section does not prohibit any lawfully authorized investigative, protective, or intelligence activity of a law enforcement agency of the United States, a State, or a political subdivision of a State, or of an intelligence agency of the United States."

This is the price we pay for electing people who are willing to criminalize nearly every action of ordinary citizens, and almost no action by government officials, even when they engage in actions that most people would consider criminal.

For example:

- torturing people
- computer hacking
- spying on people without a warrant
- snatching people for rendition in violation of the laws and sovereignty of the countries where they are snatched
- holding people, sometimes the wrong people, in indefinite detention without a hearing
- assassinating people including U.S. citizens without a trial
- using drones to assassinate people, often innocent civilians, in countries where no state of war exists while violating the sovereignty of nations we are not at war with

This list goes on for a long time so I'll stop now.

Re:When we do it to you

[artor3]

Oh come on, you know full well that Stuxnet was targeting the centrifuges. Screwing with centrifuges is not going to take their power grid offline, and it's certainly not "risking the lives of Iranian citizens". You're either being dishonest, or you are woefully ignorant of how nuclear power works.

As for your support, I couldn't care less about it, and I've certainly never said anything even remotely like "they hate our freedoms".

Re:When we do it to you

[Anonymous Coward]

The point is the hypocrisy, as in when the US promptly killed more civilians by bombing Afghanistan just after 9/11 than had died on 9/11 and few Americans seemed to notice -- as in Israel condemning Iran's nuclear program when they themselves developed nuclear weapons in the 60s while literally lying about it.

Re:When we do it to you

[rockout]

Iran is trying its best to be recognized by the international community as a modern Islamic democracy,

Oh for fuck's sake, give it a rest. There should be a -1 "Naive" mod for this.

I'm no apologist for the US government, they can do and continue to do terrible things, but to pretend that things in Iran are better for the average citizen than they are for the average US citizen is ridiculous.

Re:When we do it to you

[betterunixthanunix]

high-level disruption that a traditional military attack would cause

Like, say, causing a bunch of centrifuges to self-destruct? I mean, if that is not the sort of disruption that a well-placed bomb would cause, I am not really sure what is...

Re:When we do it to you

[Darkness404]

Iran is a terrible government (heck, all governments are terrible) but their international relations are much nicer than the US. The last major war that Iran fought was against Iraq, who invaded Iran in the 1980s. The last major war that the US fought was against Iraq which was several thousand miles away from the US. Last time I checked, Iran didn't have friendly drones in other countries constantly bombing them and writing off civilian casualties as being "terrorists".

Iran isn't good, they have a terrible record of human rights and generally have a dictatorship. However, their foreign policy is a heck of a lot more friendly than the US.

Re:When we do it to you

[Sasayaki]

That was my thought exactly.

So if the United States sabotages Iranian efforts to develop nuclear power, and they have an energy shortfall which results in 100 preventable deaths of Iranian civilians who were on life support, this is just as bad as if the Iranian cyber-warfare division deliberately cut the power to a US hospital and 100 American civilians on life support died?

Yes, I'm sure they would be seen in exactly the same light by the U.S. administration and public.

Re:When we do it to you

[Anonymous Coward]

you make it sound as if nuclear tech couldn't possibly harm anybody! Sabotaging mysterious foreign nuclear facilities is a completely safe pastime. Nothing could possibly go wrong.

Re:When we do it to you

[Maudib]

Ugh, overrated nonsense.

There are stories every other day about Chinese and Russian efforts to compromise U.S. military networks, agencies and schools. When was the last time the U.S. declared war over foreign attempts at espionage?

Re:When we do it to you

[TubeSteak]

I don't know what the Iranians have done to you that makes you happy that the US and Israeli government is dangerously meddling with Nuclear power plants and risking the lives of Iranian citizens

Stuxnet only attacked specific hardware configurations known to exist in Iran's uranium enrichment facilities.
Stuxnet infected other computers, but did nothing malicious to them.
There was no risk to nuclear power plants or Iran's civilian population.

but the Iranians haven't done anything to me, and so I'd prefer to take an approach of innocent until proven guilty before instigating a war against them.

Innocent until proven guilty is a legal fiction created so that our system of justice can be fair.
It does not mean you are innocent and outside the legal system no one has to abide by that standard.

That said, allowing Iran to go nuclear would lead to nuclear proliferation amongst its neighbors.
At the same time, directly attacking Iran would cause them to lash out, in all directions, at once.
It's a lose-lose situation that Stuxnet turned into a moderate win.

Re:When we do it to you

[artor3]

Well since you asked...

I have a strong dislike for irrationality, fear-mongering, and lies. I see a lot of all three whenever the topic of the United States comes up on Slashdot. The US certainly has its flaws. Lots of them in fact. But if you believe Slashdot, you'd think the US is some sort of comic book dystopia. So yeah, I push back against that sort of paranoid fear-mongering. I know I'll never get through to the true believers -- just as I'll never convince truthers that Bush didn't plan 9/11 along with Rockefeller and the queen of England -- but hopefully I can stop some forum lurkers from being lured down that path of irrationality and lies.

As for Iran, I don't consider them to be a threat to the US. But if they obtain nukes, it will cement the leadership in power, as it did in North Korea. We all saw the beatings, rapes, and murders that the Iranian government employed against its people when they protested Ahmadinejad's reelection. Do you really think it would be a good thing for that regime to have even more power? I would never support a war in Iran, because that would kill innocent people. I don't even support Israel's assassination of nuclear scientists. But by the same token, I do support actions that prevent the current regime from obtaining nukes, because I think that Iran having nukes would also cause more death. Not through nuclear attacks, mind you, but by perpetuating a regime with a horrid record of human rights abuses. Delaying or preventing that possibility, without bloodshed, is a Good Thing.

Re:When we do it to you

[JoshuaZ]

Whether Iran considers assassination of their nuclear engineers to be an act of war by Israel isn't that relevant since Iran is in a state of war with Israel. In fact, they are at this point the only country in the region which has essentially refused to ever even remotely attempt to consider sitting down at a negotiating table with Israel. (Even Syria has done more). For all purposes that matter, Israel and Iran are at war. The only marginal way that they might not be from a legal perspective is that Iran doesn't recognize Israel's existence. So assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists just means that the state of war is heating up.

Re:When we do it to you

[JoshuaZ]

That ignores that Iran is helping prop up the Syrian government, and that Iran has been one of the chief funders of Hezbollah and other organizations which have repeatedly attacked Israel. Moreover, comparing small countries to large countries when it comes to foreign policy is not generally representative- large countries have much more wide-ranging interests and have much more ability to project power in the pursuit of those interests. So to really do very badly on foreign policy you need to be large.

Re:When we do it to you

[antifoidulus]

Able and willing are 2 different things, you have to be both to go to war. Just because you arent able does not mean you arent willing. Iran has pretty strained relations with pretty much every other country in the region(with perhaps the exception of the new Iraqi government). There are a lot of countries in the region that would have no qualms going to war with Iran if they thought it would be an easy victory, and Iran would have no qualms going to war with them if they could be assured the same.

The world is a lot more complex than "America bad, others good!".

Re:When we do it to you

[detritus.]

I think nuclear centrifuges are some pretty serious pieces of equipment to be messing with, partner.

Re:When we do it to you

[symbolset]

We love the people of Iran, and crave as they do the day they can join us in the modern world. The government of Iran though... not so much.

Re:When we do it to you

[ethergear]

So if the United States sabotages Iranian efforts to develop nuclear power, and they have an energy shortfall which results in 100 preventable deaths of Iranian civilians who were on life support, this is just as bad as if the Iranian cyber-warfare division deliberately cut the power to a US hospital and 100 American civilians on life support died?

We and other countries have bent over backwards to offer Iran access to nuclear energy. If that's all they wanted they could have had it a decade ago, for cheap. No, they wanted to enrich uranium to make a nuclear weapon. When we blew up those centrifuges, we did it using computers AND NOBODY GOT BOMBED.

And before you get your jimmies rustled about those poor people in that energy starved hospital, may I remind you that Iran is one of the world's biggest oil producers. I think it might just be barely possible they could make up this imaginary shortfall with some of that oil.

Re:When we do it to you

[detritus.]

Iran is trying its best to be recognized by the international community as a modern Islamic democracy,

Oh for fuck's sake, give it a rest. There should be a -1 "Naive" mod for this.

I'm no apologist for the US government, they can do and continue to do terrible things, but to pretend that things in Iran are better for the average citizen than they are for the average US citizen is ridiculous.

You really should watch this video. They had things pretty good for them until we and Britian got involved.
.
Iran has not attacked a nation since 1946. In addition, they are considered a very liberal "democracy" when compared to Saudi Arabia. Likewise, do you think we truly live in a such a perfect democracy in the US? Indefinite detention, torture, civil rights abuses, constant acts of aggression against foreign countries now both virtual and physical, poverty, no health care system, domestic spying, censorship, etc... If you removed religion from the equation, are they really that much worse than us? They are far from perfect, but we aren't that much better.

Off topic, but a common misconception is that Iran is a barren desert wasteland out of Star Wars, so i'll throw this out there. http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=39048

Re:When we do it to you

[ethergear]

Stuxnet was an attack on industrial control systems used in Iranian nuclear power plants. Are you implying that US nuclear power plants are not considered key infrastructure? And that a cyberattack bringing down that infrastructure would not be considered an act of war?

Stuxnet was an attack on the centrifuges. Iran has no nuclear power plants to harm, in fact we have OFFERED them nuclear power plants. A lie, and then a straw man argument. You're not arguing honestly.

Re:When we do it to you

[Swampash]

Do you really think it would be a good thing for that regime to have even more power?

Why is it any of my business?

Re:When we do it to you

[Lemmy Caution]

Within the US, bringing a bottle of water onto an airplane is considered a potentially terrorist act.

If this had happened to the US (especially in the context of attacks on nuclear scientists) it would unquestionably be treated as a terrorist attack.http://it.slashdot.org/story/12/06/20/0027250/us-israel-behind-flame-malware#

Re:When we do it to you

[Raenex]

Iran is trying its best to be recognized by the international community as a modern Islamic democracy

Is that a joke? 2009-2010 Iranian election protests

Re:When we do it to you

[mpe]

That ignores that Iran is helping prop up the Syrian government

Countries such as the US and UK are very active in supporting a great many dodgy governments.

and that Iran has been one of the chief funders of Hezbollah and other organizations which have repeatedly attacked Israel.

Hezbollah are a Lebanese militia which came into existance when Israel was occupying Lebanon. Their role being to get the Israeli military out of Lebanon and keep them out. Something they appear to have done very well. Especially considering what happened the last time Israel tried to invade Lebanon. IIRC Israel would be in a worst state than Greece without the financial support of the US taxpayer too.

Re:When we do it to you

[niftydude]

Iran has no nuclear power plants to harm, in fact we have OFFERED them nuclear power plants. A lie, and then a straw man argument. You're not arguing honestly.

Last I heard, the Bushehr nuclear reactor was running quite nicely. That happens to be in Iran. Maybe you are thinking of somewhere else.

I haven't heard of the US offering Iran nuclear power plants recently, I assume that might have been one of the deals offered to Iran if it stopped its enrichment program. Either way, I can't see why Iran would allow itself to rely on a nation that is so openly hostile to it for energy security. Accepting that kind of help would be incredibly naive. It's like hiring a wolf to guard your chickens.

Re:When we do it to you

[cold fjord]

Thai official: Iran terrorists targeted Israeli diplomats

Iran’s End Times Documentary

Re:When we do it to you

[Aceticon]

Your argument rests on the assertion that possession of nuclear weapons would increase the hold of the Iranian regime on power within it's own country, and yet you fail to explain how could that be.

Nuclear weapons are hardly crowd control devices: you don't put down a rebelion by nuking the shit out of them. Even the most tightly controlled nuclear explosion would affect the whole country due to radioactive fallout.

In fact the only path I can see that would keep the current regime in power for longer due to them getting nuclear weapons is if the aquisition of nuclear weapons increased the pride of their people in the Technological and Military achievements of their country, hence supporting the regime. However, that being the case, the regime's hold on power would effectivelly be coming from the will of the majority of the Iranian people rather than from oppression.

Re:When we do it to you

[Khashishi]

Yes, but this is the real world, where might is more important than right. If the USA is destroying your shit, you don't declare war on the USA. You bend over and take it. In this kind of asymmetric power relationship, you don't really have many options.

Re:When we do it to you

[slimjim8094]

Not to mention kidnap people (we call it arrest) or break into someone's house (we call it a search warrant) or murder people (we call it capital punishment). The government is the institution we transfer some of our power to, then we control it with elections and checks on power to prevent it from being used recklessly. Before we figured that out, we had dictatorships (where one person assumed power due to force/divine provenance/etc), and before that we had anarchy (where everybody had all power, at least potentially)

This is pretty basic theory on society, more than 250 years old. It was pretty well understood by the time Paine's Common Sense was written, for example.

Re:When we do it to you

[rockout]

However, their foreign policy is a heck of a lot more friendly than the US.

Oh yeah, very friendly. Except for calling for the destruction of Israel, the funding of groups like Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, giving weapons to the Iraqi insurgency, and attempting to put a nuclear weapon in the hands of a totalitarian theocracy, you're right, there's nothing for other nations around Iran and around the world to worry about. What a joke.

Re:When we do it to you

[shutdown -p now]

Iran is trying its best to be recognized by the international community as a modern Islamic democracy

There's no such thing. If you mean a majority Muslim country that's also a democracy, then they only need to look at Turkey to see what they need to do to get their shit together. But "Islamic democracy" is self-contradicting bullshit - it's basically vote this way or it doesn't count - which is rightly pointed out every time they claim to be one.

Re:When we do it to you

[shutdown -p now]

Hezbollah are a Shia Lebanese militia. And yes, Iran is their major financial and military sponsor.

Re:When we do it to you

[cusco]

The offer was to ever-so-generously "allow" them to buy fuel from (IIRC) GE, at that company's jacked-up prices. Iran has three fairly rich energy deposits, uranium is number two, after petroleum and before natural gas. Unlike most of the western governments Iran's leadership is quite aware of how quickly fossil fuel deposits are disappearing and how rapidly those resoures are going to escalate in value. The wisest statement ever uttered by the Shah before he was deposed was in answer to the question as to why Iran wanted nuclear power when they had all that oil. He said, "Petroleum is much too valuable to burn."

Re:When we do it to you

[cusco]

Actually Blackwater/Xe has done just that. They have their own helicoptor gunships, helicopter carriers, gunships, and armored cars, as well as the largest non-governmental weapons depot on the planet, and employ quite a number of known war criminals.

Re:When we do it to you

[JoshuaZ]

Hmm, you are correct. Looking over http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Israel_relations#Khomeini_era_.281979.E2.80.9389.29 it seems that although Iran has repeatedly funded attacks on Israel through Hezbollah and other organizations, they've never formally declared war. Given a complete non-recognition though, that's to a large extent a formality.

Re:When we do it to you

[T Murphy]

Their role being to get the Israeli military out of Lebanon and keep them out.

Sending mortars over the border on a regular basis is an interesting way to keep Israel out.

Beating the War Drums

[cosm]

My conjecture is that we will be at war with Iran in time for the election, call it a November surprise. Bunch of FUD stories from the Ministry of Information's various major news network puppets, and then we'll all be chest-pumping while the populace sings let's roll in the tanks.

Re:Beating the War Drums

[Darkness404]

Yep, I just love it.

Last November people said: I'm voting for Obama because he's anti-war and wants to see peace!

2009 Peace Prize: goes to Obama

for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples

2010: Let's bomb Pakistan with even more drones!

2011: Let's bomb Libya!

2012: Let's use "cyber-terrorism" against Iran!

Re:Beating the War Drums

[artor3]

So will you come back and admit to being wrong when you inevitably are?

Israel has been trying to get Obama to go to war alongside them for quite some time now. He's refused. Maybe because we can't afford it, maybe because he doesn't think its necessary, maybe because his base would desert him, maybe because he just thinks that wars of aggression are bad. But declaring war right before an election? Absolute political suicide. His base would desert him, his opponents would mock him for his transparent ploy, and independents would look at the bill from Iraq and blanch.

Now, if Romney wins, we might be in Iran by November of 2013... maybe. But I think Syria is the more likely candidate. He already wants to arm the rebels, and his party wants to go further than that.

Re:Beating the War Drums

[wmac1]

You forgot the kill list.

Re:Beating the War Drums

[phantomfive]

Still better than Bush.

Re:Beating the War Drums

[Darkness404]

And Herpes is better than AIDS, doesn't mean I want either of them.

Plus, last time I checked, Bush wasn't running in 2008.

Re:Beating the War Drums

[phantomfive]

I know a guy who voted for Obama because of his foreign affairs, and he is still happy with Obama.

The reason is because Obama defers to the UN, or at least NATO on decisions like Libya. To people who prefer that style, then Obama is a good leader. He hasn't invaded Syria, for example, where other presidents might have.

Re:Beating the War Drums

[0123456]

Ah yes, Obama the man of peace. You know the one that decided to start another war in Libya...

He is the Peace Prize President.

Re:Beating the War Drums

[clarkkent09]

War is hell and all that but sometimes a decision to go to was is the right decision. Like we were right to go to war with Germany for example, or like G.W. Bush was right to go to war with Iraq.

Re:Beating the War Drums

[rockout]

Actually he decided to commit our country to support a popular uprising against a dictator, which ultimately succeeded in deposing said dictator without putting American boots on the ground. You and I obviously have our differences if you don't see the contrast between that and Iraq2003, but I for one have no problem with the way he handled our involvement in Libya.

Re:Beating the War Drums

[lightknight]

Is this before or after we attack China? Never under-estimate the evil a politician will commit to be elected / remain in power.

Re:Beating the War Drums

[TubeSteak]

Maybe because we can't afford it, maybe because he doesn't think its necessary, maybe because his base would desert him, maybe because he just thinks that wars of aggression are bad.

None of the above.
Report after report has been written explaining, in great detail, the stupidity of attacking Iran.

Iran is kind of like Cold War Russia: it has lots of proxies that can act independantly.
Attacking Iran would spark a regional war against US allies and assets that would be nearly impossible to stop with military force.
Even the Mossad's former chief thinks attacking Iran is a bad idea

http://www.google.com/search?q=attacking+iran+bad+idea
Almost all the people saying "attacking Iran is a good idea" are from hard right think tanks &/or are neoconservative war hawks.br./And their record on foreign policy speaks for itself.

Re:Beating the War Drums

[Maudib]

What kind of dipshit would consider this terrorism?

Oh, probably the kind that fails to see how espionage can often prevent wars.

Re:Beating the War Drums

[timeOday]

OK, let's compare the number of lives lost (US or total, your choice) in wars under Bush vs. Obama. Good grief, it's not even within a factor of 10.

Re:Beating the War Drums

[TapeCutter]

Says the guy who swallowed the "taxation is theft" meme, hook, line, and sinker.

Re:Beating the War Drums

[Jeremi]

Last November people said: I'm voting for Obama because he's anti-war and wants to see peace!

A key insight: when Americans say they are anti-war, they mean they don't want to see American soldiers coming home in body bags.

Regarding deaths of anonymous foreigners, the bar is set quite a bit lower. The difference between Bush and Obama is that Bush sent thousands of US soldiers overseas, and Obama (so far) has not.

Re:Beating the War Drums

[poity]

The only way to ensure peace is to remain neutral.

I'm not so sure. In human history, long periods of peace occurred when a power was able to dominate its surroundings and achieve a sizable hegemony. The Roman Empire, the many Chinese empires, the British Empire, all encompassed periods of relative peace and cultural advancement. They snuff out the upstarts before anyone could grow powerful enough to start a prolonged war that might have cost 10 or 100 times the number of deaths.

Re:Beating the War Drums

[phantomfive]

The only way to ensure peace is to remain neutral.

Uh, please tell me you've at least read a history book?

Re:Beating the War Drums

[wannabgeek]

are you being sarcastic? How the hell does Bush's Iraq war compare with WWII? Forget relative to WWII, how on earth can you justify Bush's war?

Re:Beating the War Drums

[Raenex]

You say potato, I say CIA.

Considering that Gaddafi was playing along with the West with regards to Muslim extremists and WMD, that would be really stupid.

With marauding criminals from a hotbed of terrorism burning down court houses, who wouldn't send in the army?

Right, it's just "terrorists" and not protestors involved in the Arab Spring, which also swept through countries like Egypt, which the US and Israel had good relations with.

Re:Beating the War Drums

[cold fjord]

See if you can figure out why this American citizen was killed.

In essence he received the same treatment legally as these other Americans shot down en mass by the Federal government. All completely legal, and correct. Their leader even asked for that treatment. Go figure.

Re:Beating the War Drums

[LS]

People were making the same prediction right before the last election, including myself. Didn't happen dude.

Re:Beating the War Drums

[gtall]

"The only way to ensure peace is to remain neutral.", Poland was neutral before Germany decided it didn't like them. Switzerland remained neutral through the entire war. Some would call them neutral, I would call them cowards. Remaining neutral in the face of tyranny is no virtue.

Re:Beating the War Drums

[gtall]

Yeah, the nerve of him trying to stop The Q Man from slaughtering his own people. What was Obama thinking?

Re:Beating the War Drums

[thoromyr]

You might want to read up on the Gulf of Tonkin. Or the "he has WMD!" rhetoric that preceded the invasion of Iraq. Or... if people in power want to start a war and have the political savvy to get people behind it, it isn't very hard.

Re:Beating the War Drums

[fnj]

Just curious. Why were we right to "go to war" with Germany? Assume you mean WW 2. Hint: it's a trick question. Germany declared war on the US first. But the question still stands. Why was war with Germany "right"?

Re:Beating the War Drums

[rockout]

The tinfoil hat conspiracy theories never stop with guys like you, do they? As soon as one of your points is refuted, you invariably move on to some pure conjecture (read: bullshit) because you know you're batshit insane. Make up facts to suit what you want to believe, fine; but don't expect the rest of us to play along, crazy man.

Re:Beating the War Drums

[darkmeridian]

Yes, Mitt Romney is. He said, "[Obama] almost sounded like heâ(TM)s more frightened that Israel might take military action than heâ(TM)s concerned that Iran might become nuclear.â John McCain, the Republican senator, was also annoyed that we haven't lead the national community in a war against Syria in support of the rebels. Note that Russia has already deployed troops and equipment in support of the Syrian government, so the probably of a clusterfuck between the US and Russia are huge, and that the rebels are affiliated with Al Qaeda, who are not exactly tree huggers.

So yeah, let's put things in perspective because you're either going to get AIDS or herpes, and while you can't choose gonorrhea, it doesn't mean that AIDS isn't much worse than herpes.

Re:Beating the War Drums

[ffflala]

Yep, I just love it. Last November people said: I'm voting for Obama because he's anti-war and wants to see peace!

This is the same "howdja like that hopey/changey stuff?" disinformation campaign that Sarah Palin has been spewing since she lost, and you have to be willfully ignorant to buy into it. Anyone who listened to then candidate-Obama's position at the time voted for the man because he was explicit and precise on his hawkish policy: pull out of Iraq, refocus on Afghanistan. And he has stuck to that. Iraq was a wasteful use of US military resources whose only objective was to gin up KBR and Blackwater profiteering.

Obama's 2008 platform --one people like you always, always overlook and/or mischaracterize-- was a plan to escalate the war in Afghanistan, primarily to inflict further casualties on Al Qaeda. Do feel free to disagree as to whether that was effective or wise, but Obama has kept his word on that count. If you thought that would be a good idea, it was a major reason to support Obama in 2008. Obama had a plausible military plan to start to un-fuck the fucked-up middle-east position Cheney got us into. McCain's plan was basically to continue spreading our already-stretched-out resources still further: remember bomb-bomb-bomb, bomb-bomb Iran? McCain didn't bother to present a credible approach to addressing the multiple, resource-draining clusterfucks we were in at the time.

Sounds like all of your info on candidate-Obama has been secondhand and echo-chamber material straight from his opponents. Why didn't you bother listening to what your political opponent *actually said*? Here's a suggestion: howsabout you give listening to the candidates yourself this time around, rather than just taking anything Michelle Malkin et al spoon-feeds you as absolute truth.

Re:Beating the War Drums

[clarkkent09]

How do I justify it? Iraqis are better off, Iraq's neighbors are better off, and we are better off as a result of the war.

Oh yeah, you mean cyberterrorism?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what it's called if anyone other than the US does it...

Evidence

[phantomfive]

In case anyone was wondering what the evidence was, here is the relevant quote:

[Flame] was directed by Israel in a unilateral operation that apparently caught its American partners off guard, according to several U.S. and Western officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Generally these kind of leaks, especially when they happen as much as they have lately, happen at the direction of officials. It's not an accident. The question is why are all these anonymous leaks being passed to the press? Is it because they want Iran to think we have greater capability than we actually do? Some people have speculated that this is an attempt to give Obama an election boost, but one leak is enough to do that, he doesn't need to keep leaking....So what is the purpose?

Re:Evidence

[phantomfive]

Rabbit holes are often very, very deep.

Nah, rabbit warrens are usually 9 feet at most. Not too deep. They aren't well diggers or anything.

Re:Evidence

[demachina]

"So what is the purpose?"

Its probably not the primary purpose but it is a pretty effective way to flaunt that you are above the law, all laws including the constitution and to flaunt that you have power.

In reading the U.S. Criminal Code on computer intrusions Section 1030. Fraud and related activity in connection with computers it is interesting to note that Congress went out of their way to exempt various 3 letter Federal agencies from laws against hacking computers while everyone else goes to Federal prison for it:

"f) This section does not prohibit any lawfully authorized investigative, protective, or intelligence activity of a law enforcement agency of the United States, a State, or a political subdivision of a State, or of an intelligence agency of the United States"

Someone is also flaunting the fact that they can leak apparently classified information and get away with it. If its being done with the knowledge of people like Obama it is especially arrogant because the Obama administration has been one of the most aggressive in going after people for leaking stuff that they don't want leaked, while they are one of the most prolific leakers of classified information they see and advantage in leaking. Thomas Drake, formerly of the NSA, being one of the sadder cases of a whistleblower being abused by Obama and Holder.

Re:Evidence

[arth1]

So what is the purpose?

The simplest explanation is that it's dick waving.
Which, when all comes to all, just shows us that you're dicks.

An alternative explanation is that it's an attempt to bully AV companies into silence, and reduce further investigation and looking for more malware of the same type.

Either way, I think the TLAs and Israel misunderestimate the animosity this causes among normal people who could very well be hit by this warfare. A backlash may be coming, including official protests from other countries, and perhaps even independent blackhats turning the munition around at its creators (no, friendly DHL agent, this is not a threat, but a guess).

Re:Evidence

[arth1]

Er.

DHS, not DHL. Although these days you never know!

Re:Evidence

[arth1]

Nah, rabbit warrens are usually 9 feet at most. Not too deep. They aren't well diggers or anything.

Yes, but the world is full of Alices, and we are very small.

Re:Evidence

[phantomfive]

You think an ordinary blackhat could hack Siemen's equipment?

Re:Evidence

[arth1]

You think an ordinary blackhat could hack Siemen's equipment?

Your question makes no sense.
I think there are several extraordinary blackhats. For every one that the government has recruited, there are likely ten more which they haven't.
And they don't even have as narrow a target as Siemens - they can target any critical system used by the US or Israel.

Re:Evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

I work for Siemens, though on their medical devices, and, in a word, yes. In two words: fuck, yes. Hell, the girl from "Jurassic Park," who "knew UNIX" could hack at least one line of Siemens medical products.

Re:Evidence

[Maudib]

Spot on. All of this could very well be attempts at misdirection. The leaks come out just as talks are starting to fail, so it could also just be an attempt to ratchet up the pressure and force them back to the table.

Re:Evidence

[EETech1]

I have no proof besides what I've read on the subject (but that is everything I could find on it, at least twice, I find Stuxnet very interesting) but my guess is that it's easier than a PC (even without antivirus) just ripe for the picking! Something like Stuxnet was probably not even considered in the design of the PLC firmware, and there's nothing available similar to AV software you have to worry about avoiding.

The OS is not worried about other programs accessing shared memory and resources, it does it all, so no need to waste too many clock cycles protecting something that nothing else can normally access. I doubt there's anything in there to verify a number sent to the HMI is the same number sent out on Profibus. It just should be, so it's treated like it is.

Just my $0.01

Cheers.

Re:Evidence

[phantomfive]

In order to target the system, they will need to have some understanding of the equipment. Are they willing to pay the money to get the equipment?

Re:Evidence

[arth1]

In order to target the system, they will need to have some understanding of the equipment. Are they willing to pay the money to get the equipment?

Why assume they play by the rules? Do they have the ability to hack in to at least one system out of tens of thousands that would give them access to the equipment?

Anyhow, you can order potential target chips online for a pittance:
http://www.mouser.com/Semiconductors/Programmable-Logic-ICs/_/N-3oh8v?Keyword=PLC&FS=True

Re:Evidence

[phantomfive]

To do something like Stuxnet, you would need to have some sort of replica of the system. You would not be able to experiment on a live system, because there was an air gap. You need to send it over a USB stick.

Double standards?

[Darkness404]

When the US uses "cyber-terrorism" its portrayed as a heroic action. If Iran does the same thing to the US, we'd use it as an excuse to start yet -another- costly, expensive, and needless war.

Why does it seem like the past 15 years of politics have been "Wag the Dog" repeated over and over again?

Re:Double standards?

[gmuslera]

Costly for some, very profitable for others, in fact that others really need more wars, interventions and forced putting them in control of oily resources and related management. Lot of people will die, billons will be wasted on weapons, and the country image will degrade even more, but some people at government and military (and some special civilians) will become even richer, and thats what really matters. You can assessinate, rob and rape entire countries in plain view if you are strong enough.

Don't worry, not all is lost... yet, a lot more will follow.

Re:Double standards?

[cold fjord]

Why does it seem like the past 15 years of politics have been "Wag the Dog" repeated over and over again?

Apparently you aren't getting past the fringe politics and conspiracy theories to an understanding of actual events. 9/11 - Wag the dog? No.

Re:Double standards?

[argStyopa]

If you think this 'double standard' is anything new, I'd love to hear you explain the essential difference between US's "patriots" in 1776 and any other anti-colonial "insurgents".

Every nation forever has interpreted things this way.

So we're waging a prolonged attack against them

[Leuf]

Isn't the only sane response at this point from Iran to get nuclear weapons as quickly as possible to stop us from fucking with them? Then we either decide to leave them alone or go to war with them and bankrupt ourselves.

Re:So we're waging a prolonged attack against them

[Errol backfiring]

I thought you already did bankrupt yourselves?

Re:So we're waging a prolonged attack against them

[fnj]

If (when) they did (do) have nuclear weapons, exactly how will that stop the US from "fucking with" them? Eh?

Other Disruptive Measures

[raftpeople]

The CIA has revealed that an entire warehouse of AOL CD's has been shipped to Iran...

Are you worried about a nuclear Iran?

[approachingZero]

For myself I am convinced that the leaders of Iran will use an atomic bomb if they were to possess one. So as far as I'm concerned any means used that will delay the day when Iran tests a bomb are morally justified. There seems to be no small amount of sanctimonious hand wringing here at Slashdot over this use of software to damage Iranian uranium enrichment hardware. So I am curious to know on a scale from 1 - 10 (1 being no threat and a 10 being we should be shitting ourselves) how members of this community view the threat of a nuclear armed Iran.

Re:Are you worried about a nuclear Iran?

[Darkness404]

Worried about a nuclear Iran? Yes. Worried about a nuclear US, China, Russia, India, UK, France, Pakistan, North Korea, Israel? Yes.

Nuclear weapons are terrible and I don't trust -any- government to refrain from the use of them, either as threats to bully others or actually using them as terrorist weapons like the US did in Japan.

Really, I'm no more worried that Iran and North Korea have nuclear weapons than I am that the US, France and India have nuclear weapons.

Re:Are you worried about a nuclear Iran?

[betterunixthanunix]

So I am curious to know on a scale from 1 - 10 (1 being no threat and a 10 being we should be shitting ourselves) how members of this community view the threat of a nuclear armed Iran.

2, maybe 3 if I were feeling pessimistic. Iran is not at war, and the only countries I could conceive of Iran trying to attack are in possession of plenty of reliable, well-designed nuclear weapons. Iran is not run by complete idiots, they know there is no way they could win a nuclear war with Israel or the US.

Iran wants nuclear weapons as a bargaining chip, a way to assert itself during negotiations by hanging the threat of a nuclear attack over everyone's heads. Iran knows that the US and Israel have not ruled out the possibility of a war; Iran having a nuclear bomb is a deterrent to such a war. That's the point of their nuclear program.

Re:Are you worried about a nuclear Iran?

[Mashiki]

Worried about a nuclear Iran? Yes. Worried about a nuclear US, China, Russia, India, UK, France, Pakistan, North Korea, Israel? Yes.

See this is the logical breakdown that some people have. MAD. Some government actually do care, no matter how destructive the soviets were to their own people. They actually did have some understanding of their actions to the world as a whole. Knowing there would be nothing left of the world if they nuked the US. The US knew the same. India and Pakistan are at a similar point. Though as Pakistan slips further towards the militant islamist side it become less so. North Korea wants a bomb to threaten anyone, and will use it against the south, simply to use it. Israel has it to protect itself from arab states that have repeatedly tried to annihilate it(another form of MAD).

Trust is a tricky thing. What you should be asking is, what do they care about if they have it and what do they care about if they use it, and expect to gain from it.

Re:Are you worried about a nuclear Iran?

[Anonymous Coward]

For the umpteenth time, nowhere has it been found that Iran is making a bomb

Re:Are you worried about a nuclear Iran?

[Anonymous Coward]

Iran hasnt waged an offensive war in centuries. The US and Israel do so every few years. Keep the neocon paranoid propagada in check.

Re:Are you worried about a nuclear Iran?

[Jeremi]

For myself I am convinced that the leaders of Iran will use an atomic bomb if they were to possess one.

Yes, they will detonate it as soon as they have it -- at an Iranian test site, to demonstrate to the world that Iran is now a member of the "nuclear club" and therefore largely safe from being bullied or invaded. Iran isn't stupid, they saw what happened to Iraq, whose government made the mistake of not actually having any WMDs on hand to use as a deterrent against foreign aggression.

Would Iran attack a foreign country (e.g. Israel of the US) with a nuclear bomb? Not unless they were suicidal, or desperate. And Iran's government didn't get where it is today by making idiotic self-destructive moves, and they are well aware that a nuclear attack would result in the destruction of their government, if not their entire country. MAD applies just as much to small countries as it does to large ones.

Re:Are you worried about a nuclear Iran?

[DNS-and-BIND]

Really? You're not worried about the Islamic Republic of Iran, a functioning fascist theocracy, getting nuclear weapons? Realllllll-ly? Quick question: what's the 12th imam? And how can nukes help bring him out of hiding?

Re:Are you worried about a nuclear Iran?

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Iran hasn't invaded anyone in a LONG time

2. Even if you believe that Ahmadinejad believes in the 12th Imam, the story is that the 12th Imam will only show up once Iran is attacked and "on fire". An attack by Iran makes this entire story null and void. Of course, I could be wrong and listened to the wrong interpretation of these beliefs.

3. Pakistan has nukes and they have those really crazy whachos there. Heck, Clinton was on the phone with India and Pakistan back when he was president to try to persuade them that a nuclear war was a BAD idea - they *both* believed to the contrary!!

4. Iran says they are not building nukes. I know, crazy, but maybe it is true? What would they gain anyway?

Re:Are you worried about a nuclear Iran?

[Lehk228]

I consider iran. Rather less likely to use nukes in aggressions than israel is.

Re:Are you worried about a nuclear Iran?

[DNS-and-BIND]

1. A nuclear strike is not an invasion.

2. Yes, religious fanatics in charge of fascist theocratic states seldom have nutso beliefs that make no rational sense. You've got me there.

3. Another point! Because the more fervently religious states with nukes, the better. What could go wrong!

4. Enriched uranium isn't used for nuclear power, and Iran has plenty of petroleum for its power needs. But hey, let's believe the working fascist theocracy!

Re:Are you worried about a nuclear Iran?

[Lemmy Caution]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9U8CZAKSsNA

Re:Are you worried about a nuclear Iran?

[Raenex]

North Korea wants a bomb to threaten anyone, and will use it against the south, simply to use it.

Possibly, but unlikely, as at that point even China wouldn't protect them anymore and they'd be pulverized into the ground. Their main deterrent right now is that they could cause massive civilian damage to S. Korea in a war, which is why they can provoke the South any time they want attention without actually starting a war. Use a nuke and that deterrent is gone.

Re:Are you worried about a nuclear Iran?

[Mashiki]

And who do you think the Iran-Iraq war was started by? Just a tip, Iran was the actual aggressor. They simply spent a decade or via proxies inside Iraq rousing up the mob.

Re:Are you worried about a nuclear Iran?

[Mashiki]

Sadly you'd be surprised at exactly how far China would be willing to go to get what they want. It again comes down to trust, and what do they want. Unstable leaderships and all.

Re:Are you worried about a nuclear Iran?

[Raenex]

China wants North Korea as a buffer between the United States and China, and they also want to avoid a flood of refugees into China. However, China knows that a nuclear attack by North Korea could only be met by complete and utter destruction of the North, and they wouldn't want to engage in a war protecting a nuke-happy regime.

The other part you are missing is that despite how whacky the North Koreans seem, they aren't suicidal and don't want to be demolished. That's why they limit their attacks to provocative strikes when they want attention.

Re:Are you worried about a nuclear Iran?

[shutdown -p now]

And who do you think the Iran-Iraq war was started by? Just a tip, Iran was the actual aggressor. They simply spent a decade or via proxies inside Iraq rousing up the mob.

By that metric, US has started war with half of all countries on the globe by now.

Re:Are you worried about a nuclear Iran?

[shutdown -p now]

To be honest, I'm far, far more concerned about Pakistan having nukes than Iran. Iran is a reasonably well-developed state; it doesn't live in poverty. That environment is not conductive to popularity of extreme forms of religion. Their Islamic Revolution was a passing affair - Islamists didn't actually have a majority even back then, and they don't have it now, either. A government that would be mad enough to go beyond sabre-rattling rhetoric would be dealt with by the people themselves, vast majority of which do not look forward to dying in a nuclear fire all at once (even with the promised heaven with houries etc).

Pakistan, now, is a major clusterfuck. They already have nukes, and they are also an Islamic state. Worse yet, they have considerable problems with poverty, and many of those poor folk, especially in FATA, are turning to Taliban and their zakat-based Islamic social programs - which come with obvious strings attached. It's also far easier to radicalize poor folk by showing how much richer the "infidels" live, and then telling them that the difference is because said "infidels" stole everything for themselves. At the same time, they have many sympathizers within government structures, including the army and the intelligence service - so basically a hardline Islamist coup in Pakistan is only a matter of time. And when they win, it'll be backed by mob rule, and that mob might actually be very happy with the idea of a nuclear jihad.

And yet Pakistan is an "ally", and Iran is an enemy. Go figure.

Re:Are you worried about a nuclear Iran?

[gay358]

Typical nuclear reactors need enriched uranium to work. CANDU reactors can use natural uranium instead of enriched uranium, but more common LWR reactors cannot do that.

And Iran will run out of out with time and Iran can get money by selling the oil instead of burning it for energy needs that can be fulfilled with nuclear energy.

Aren't you forgetting that Flame is old?

[linatux]

Flame would appear to have been active for years. Don't think Obama had much say in its creation/deployment.

Leaking details to the Press could be his work - I'm sure anything that gets out will put him in a good light.

Fucking FUD and misinformation

[Anonymous Coward]

Iran is NOT americas's enemy.

Israel is an enemy of iran. Israel makes their enemies Americas enemies. If america is iran's enemy I dunno but prolly not

Learn the fucking difference.

Re:Fucking FUD and misinformation

[lightknight]

Countries have no friends, only temporary positive relations.

Re:Fucking FUD and misinformation

[shutdown -p now]

Iran could actually be America's friend. The primary enemy of US today is Islamic extremism of Sunni variety (Salafi/Wahhabi) - al Qaeda and friends. These guys hate Shia with a passion, considering them munafiq - this is worse than just an unbeliever. Iran is a Shia Islamic state, and so it returns the favor. But because it's also anti-Israel (largely to support Shia sentiment in Lebanon), that doesn't work out.

In the meantime, US supports Saudi Arabia, where Wahhabism is a fucking state religion. And Pakistan, where the state is collapsing as we watch, and is being subsumed by Salafi extremists. Think about the fun they will have when they get their hands on Paki nukes...

Re:not troll

[Maudib]

Its still a troll, as odds are you know damn well that the definition is bullshit.

what should happen next

[slashmydots]

I think that Iran should declare war on the US over it. That'd be good for some lolz. You know, like every youtube video where a little fluffy kitteh picks a fight with a doberman :-P But honestly, what are they going to do? Threaten us and Israel, build weapons, launch test missiles? Seriously, I can't think of anything they can or would do about it and if they formally attacked us, that'd be about it for them. This is going to embarrass the hell out of them when they basically are forced to do nothing about it.

Re:what should happen next

[phantomfive]

lol it would be kind of hilarious to watch Obama handle that situation. First you have to decide if they are actually serious.

Re:what should happen next

[Tom]

I think that Iran should declare war on the US over it.

That would be stupid, and only what the US wants so it has an excuse to bomb them.

But this is an act of war and Iran should take it to the UN and request sanctions against the USA. Of course the veto power would block those, but if that were the case it should be followed up by a formal request to restructure the security council and remove all veto rights, a proposal that would have strong support within the UN as many countries dislike that left-over from WW2. And if this whole mess provides the straw that breaks the camel's back, the whole affair could cost the US a lot more than it was worth.

Re:what should happen next

[felipekk]

Although their military capacity is still to be "proven", I bet they would be able to *at least* disrupt/delay oil vessels going through the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strait_of_Hormuz

Re:what should happen next

[crazyjj]

I think that Iran should declare war on the US over it. That'd be good for some lolz

Would you still be laughing if a U.S. strike on Iran prompted Russia, North Korea, and China to join in and it became WWIII?

Whoever is leaking all this needs to be shot

[Karmashock]

Give him a blind fold and a cigarette... and then shoot him.

As if the US didn't have enough of it's image tarnished by the wikileaks issue. Every diplomatic entity in the world is terrified to tell the US anything because they're afraid we'll leak it accidentally or on purpose. You don't leak cover intelligence.

Find the guy that is doing this... and shoot him. If this is Obama's notion of "smart" diplomacy then he's a fool. This is beyond absurd.

Re:Whoever is leaking all this needs to be shot

[LordLucless]

Yes, that'll serve the cause of democracy. Shoot the people who are revealing to the populace all the immoral things you're doing. While it quite possibly would serve the careers of a number of politicians, I think your suggestion is more treasonous to the people of your nation than the leaker.

Re:Whoever is leaking all this needs to be shot

[Karmashock]

Without secrets diplomacy is impossible... without diplomacy there is only war.

Enjoy the winter... the long nuclear winter.

Re:Whoever is leaking all this needs to be shot

[LordLucless]

Or, alternatively, don't engage in dirty tricks. Then nobody's going to embarrass you with them.

Enjoy your long slow descent into despotism.

Re:Whoever is leaking all this needs to be shot

[Karmashock]

So if a man wants to tell us that his country is developing bio weapons.

We should immediately plaster his name over the international press and thank him for helping us with the issue?

because you just killed his family.

Grasp this.

You. Cannot. Do. Diplomacy. Without. Secrets.

Without. Diplomacy. Nation states. Have. No. Option. But. Intimidation. And. War.

No. Secrets. Means. Nations. Communicate. In. Dead. Bodies.

Choose.

Secrets. Or. Mountains of corpses.

Process that.

This is an intelligence test.

Re:Whoever is leaking all this needs to be shot

[LordLucless]

Full. Stops. Are. Not. An. Argument. You. Failed. The. Intelligence. Test.

Re:Whoever is leaking all this needs to be shot

[Karmashock]

Reading comprehension apparently isn't amongst your skills.

Try back later.

Re:Whoever is leaking all this needs to be shot

[LordLucless]

And basic grammar not amongst yours. Write a coherent post and get back to me.

Re:Whoever is leaking all this needs to be shot

[Karmashock]

If you found the above post to be incoherent then you are literally illiterate.

So it's that or you're lying.

Flip a coin... you're either a moron or a jackass.

*yawn*

Really!? No way!

[EvilSS]

Seriously, did the entire staff of the Washington Post just get back from an extended vacation?

Can 'o' worms

[bmo]

Well, it's official.

It's now a free-for-all on the Internet for nations to go head-to-head with malware and cyber-espionage. Just like Ike let the Soviets launch their Sputnik to clear the air (heh) about whether territorial rights extend into space (they don't), now the US and Israel have justified it for everyone else to do their own Flame and Stuxnet cyber-espionage.

Since the US is supposedly the leader of the free world, we can either lead by good example or bad. Setting a bad example gets us exactly what we deserve.

Cuing up "What Goes Around, Comes Around" by Chuck Greenberg and Shadowfax.

--
BMO

Re:Can 'o' worms

[Anonymous Coward]

Me, I'll be cueing in "What Comes Around" by the Beastie Boys.

Re:Can 'o' worms

[bmo]

It's funny how you mentioned Beastie Boys. Both groups were at the height of their talent at the same time in the 80s.

--
BMO

Not terrorism?

[detritus.]

Sabotage: yes. Cyber terrorism? No. Warfare, yes, but not terrorism.

Explain to me what piece of code that destroys itself from existence after receiving a SUICIDE command isn't the definition of terrorism.

Re:Not terrorism?

[symbolset]

All of them. Hiding your tracks is the opposite of terrorism. Terrorism, by definition, requires maximum awareness of the activity. Public fear is quite the point of terrorism, and covering your track defeats that.

Re:Not terrorism?

[detritus.]

How is this different from say, bioterrorism? Some guy releases some really bad shit into the atmosphere. Nobody notices until a few days later. People get infected, doctors warn the public, the news issues warnings, mass fear and panic. How is having a closed-source OS that has been exploited with a piece of malware sophisitcated beyond anything ever seen before not fear inducing? All computers are officially not off limits to governments for whatever they please. That is fucking scary.

Re:Not terrorism?

[symbolset]

In bioterrorism there are dead bodies lying 'round to invoke terror.

Re:Not terrorism?

[KingMotley]

Let's see. I don't think either stuxnet or flame are scaring the hell out of the Iranian civilian population? There isn't a large count of civilian casualties?

What part do you think is the same?

Re:Not terrorism?

[TheRaven64]

By that definition, a lot of US owned missiles are also designed purely for terrorism, as they include hardware that destroys the control system just before impact to prevent any of the components from being reverse engineered.

Re:Not terrorism?

[detritus.]

If I were an Iranian, I would be scared shitless. Would you be if your country's SCADA systems were being attacked and your computers were being infected to do everything from sabotage equipment to capture keystrokes, audio, webcams and screenshots, and your scientists were being blown up in car bombs (not cyber terrorism, but certainly terrorism)? What if the government thinks you were involved in either case and comes knocking? The definition of terrorism is widely disputed and varies from everything from mass casualties to inciting mass fear. I would be very afraid if it were happening in my country -- anybody with advanced skills in computers and/or security should be.

So quickly we forget

[RingoGuchi]

When Stuxnet first emerged, nearly every article touted how this was a "game changerhttp://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-11/stuxnet-worm-game-changer-global-cybersecurity-top-us-official-says/." Now, Kasperky so confidently says, âoeWhoever commissioned Stuxnet also commissioned Flame.â Why can't this be a copycat? Everyone predicted that copycats will emerge... and Stuxnet source code was readily available.

Everybody does it, everybody pretends not to.

[TiggertheMad]

In another way, at least Stuxnet and Flame have come to light, show us what's possible, and start us thinking about how to counter. Imagine a world where such capabilities had been kept in the dark until used on a public infrastructure attack.

You speak in the future tense. If you don't think this is being done by governments the world over already, you are fooling yourself. Consider that hacking IT is done relationally by relatively untrained teenagers as a daily occurrence, so the investment cost is very low. For the price of a single nuke, you could have thousands of professional hackers working 24/7 for years. Shit, I bet you Somalia has offensive hackers on the military payroll.

Second, I doubt that anyone will just dump destructive exploits on the public sector in another country unless it is a prelude to an incoming military attack. Why? If you find a vulnerable exploit that you can use to access or destroy secure assets, you don't waste it on the civilian sector. You save it and use it to get something really valuable. (Like their nuclear material refinement computers).

Re:Everybody does it, everybody pretends not to.

[semi-extrinsic]

If you find a vulnerable exploit that you can use to access or destroy secure assets, you don't waste it on the civilian sector. You save it and use it to get something really valuable. (Like their nuclear material refinement computers).

This. The exploits used in Stuxnet and Flame are bullets in the US/Israeli "cyber-gun". They have to conserve ammo, but I'll bet you they've got atleast a few mags full of 0days stored just in case.

Re:Everybody does it, everybody pretends not to.

[jittles]

And I wouldn't be surprised if they have 0-days for every major platform out there.

Re:Everybody does it, everybody pretends not to.

[scubamage]

And just like any other soldier wielding a gun, they're going to inflict a ton of collateral damage.

Now this is it !

[Mr Europe]

I'm afraid the USA has started the World War Three, which will happen in internet. USA and Israel made the first major strikes and now we are waiting strikes back.

Re:Now this is it !

[Errol backfiring]

Ah. This will be the first war of which you can make a backup copy.

Just for the record...

[jcr]

Attacking other people's computers in this way is a crime. Absent a declaration of war on Iran, everyone involved in this caper has broken US law. It may be technically legal for Israelis though, if there's an existing state of war between Israel and Iran.

-jcr

Re:Just for the record...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, isn't it also a crime that we're sending robot assassins to kill people in Yemen and Pakistan, with whom we're also not at war? Murder or something?

Re:Just for the record...

[jcr]

Yep, that too.

-jcr

End of Microsoft usage

[libcrypto]

This should spell the end of Microsoft Windows usage in sensitive government facilities for sure. Even friendly countries will be wary of US government's power over Microsoft. They should/would prefer open source code which they can audit.

Right, because this went *so* well before

[bradley13]

Iran? Syria? Right, because the efforts in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya have gone *so* well. Instead of brutal dictatorships, the US intervention has led to three enlightened, civilized, peaceful countries.

What was Einstein's definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results?

Unfortunately, you are probably right. Whoever wins in November will have the US involved in another war within a few months...

Selective memory

[SuperKendall]

The difference between Bush and Obama is that Bush sent thousands of US soldiers overseas, and Obama (so far) has not.

Afghanistan surge?

Oh.

The Price We Pay

[SuperKendall]

if that were the case it should be followed up by a formal request to restructure the security council and remove all veto rights,

And then the U.S. withdraws from the U.N, which becomes a tiny shell of itself without financial support. Perhaps then even having to cut back efforts on promoting the good job China is doing on human rights, or attempting to seize control of the internet to censor it.

The horror! Oh all-wise U.N., don't throw us into that briar patch!

Re:The Price We Pay

[Tom]

Rotfl

In your redneck wet dreams.
That would be diplomatic suicide. For a country as dependent on international trade as the US - well, basically, you could kiss your economy goodbye.

Spit and Polish

[SuperKendall]

As if the US didn't have enough of it's image tarnished by the wikileaks issue

Actually the U.S. came out pretty clean from that one, except for a few diplomats. And it made the leakers look like jerks endangering soldiers.

Re:Spit and Polish

[Karmashock]

It's not our own people I'm really worried about but the details of the negociations and our foreign contacts. One of the things that was blown by wikileaks was an offer/plea by the political wing of the pakistani government for support against the military wing. The release of those documents tipped the political wing's hand and was followed by a crack down and elimination by the military wing.

This is what wikileaks is doing. They're getting people that trust us in bad countries where their lives at risk... killed or their few chances at freedom from tyranny dashed.

It also means the US gets cut out of the loop in future negociations because we can't be trusted to keep secrets. We leak.

And to counter that the government will have to be extra secretive since they can't afford to have leaks in some places. It's death to have leaks there. The people that you're talking to... that invite you into their homes and introduce you to their children... you leak could kill them all. Whatever the rules say if the rules will cause a leak then the rules won't be followed.

This is a human thing. All human systems are made up of people. If the system starts killing people you can't bare to have on your conscience or makes doing your job impossible... you won't follow the rules. You'll get good at looking like you're following the rules. And then some idiot can leak reams of bogus reports that are fiction.

These leaks are toxic... they're screwing our system up because its making it hard for the government to trust itself which means it has to keep secrets from itself.

Imagine if your president is known as a leaker. Lets not say it's obama... this is a generic somebody who for the sake of argument is a leaker. You are getting great intelligence from men and women in a dictatorship somewhere that just want their people to have a better life. They want a better life for their children. If you pass on all the intelligence again lets take for granted that the leaker will get some of these people killed by the secret police. What do you do? Follow orders and kill people you broke bread with... or bend them to try and do your job without giving your own side so much information that they'll kill good people out of incompetence?

The leaks are very very bad.

The only way to win is to play

[SuperKendall]

Iran is not run by complete idiots, they know there is no way they could win a nuclear war with Israel or the US.

What you have forgotten is the victory scenario Iran has in mind:

1) Millions of people dead in Israeli cities.

2) Most of Iran a smoldering glowing wreck, the pesky agitating populace shadows on rubble.

3) The leaders of Iran hanging out in Syria or Pakistan or wherever, helping fund and direct the slow-burn nuclear war between the entire middle east and everyone else, certain they will win by attrition and the weakness of the west.

No, the leaders of Iran are not stupid at all. You however lack imagination., foresight ,or understanding of just what is planned.

I am shocked

[Arancaytar]

Utterly flabberghasted.

Who could have guessed this? Noone, that's who.

Also

[MRe_nl]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5rRZdiu1UE
would be more fitting imho.

How lovely

[jandersen]

Isn't it just nice when our allies decide to send this kind of shit out on the network where it risks going on to wreak havoc indiscriminately? And for what - to satisfy cravings of a bunch of paranoid Mossad and CIA officers?

one thing doesn't make sense...

[Cyko_01]

if the US government is behind this malware, why didn't they put an end to all stuxnet/flame related virus research and slap a gag order on the virus researchers?

I object to the word "confirmed" in the main post

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

Yes, we all know that most likely Israel and the USA are behind Stuxnet, but technically speaking nothing has been "confirmed". For diplomatic reasons the US and Israel need this to remain a "Yeah, we know you did it, we just can't offer conclusive proof" kind of thing. Confirming it could cause Iran to declare a state of war. As long as there is a twinge of doubt, the situation remains more stable.

Citation needed

[betterunixthanunix]

[citation needed]

Seriously, you might as well have said that about the US. You know, how our leaders would just be chilling in the UK while our cities were destroyed with nuclear bombs.

Right, well.

[bacon.frankfurter]

I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.

Learn a lesson ...

[PPH]

... from the deployment of the proximity fuse during WWII. This new technology was considered very important to the war effort. Having this technology fall into enemy hands was prevented even where it could have saved numerous Allied lives by restricting its use where duds might have fallen in enemy controlled territory until late in the war.

Stuxnet and Flame represent a technology that, while effective, are certain to fall into enemy hands after first use. And, as was feared with the prox. fuse, the enemy will build countermeasures to prevent or mitigate future damage. This may have been our one big shot with these cyber weapons. Why and for whose benefit did we deploy them?

Really??

[GigaBurglar]

You could have fooled me.. So does that mean it's a declaration of war?

NItpicking again..

[GigaBurglar]

*"won't of"; yes I saw it too. Although I'm British this still pissed me off - I want justice..

no hate...

[schlachter]

They do not hate Iran....they only fear them because of their continued attempts to destroy them via Hamas/Hezbolla/Egypt/Syria/etc...and their stated intent to wipe them off the map...while working on nukes.