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Iran Claims New Cyber Attack On Its Nuclear Plants, Blames US and Allies
judgecorp writes "Iran has reported that its nuclear facilities are under a sustained cyber attack which it blames on the U.S., UK and Israel. America and Israel created Stuxnet, and have been accused of starting the Flame worm." And once a country admits that it's created such software, publicly deflecting such blame gets a lot harder.
I'm pretty sure you've figured out by now that the U.S. and Israel are trying to sabotage your nuclear program. If the numerous targeted computer viruses didn't clue you in, you must have at least noticed the dead bodies of your nuclear scientists starting to pile up.
Don't you know there's a war on, son?
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
No one "officially" has admitted to Flames, Stuxnet, or otherwise. It's always some anonymous source, or former (apparently the current ones are too busy to give interviews) official.
Your nuclear weapons program for enriching uranium was fucked up because of a computer virus.
You know what DOESN'T need highly enriched uranium? CANDU and Throrium reactors. Gee, I wonder why Iran isn't interested in those, the only difference is that they can't be used to make nuclear weapons...
Where has once have the government admit they created it? Both links are just basically from David Sanger and his book where the first link is an article by him and the 2nd link an adaptation of the story-line from his book (which they state at the very bottom of the article).
I'd hardly call that the government admitting it when it's more like an accusation from someone with possible inside sources. Nowhere in any of these articles has there even been a comment made by the US government. If you are gonna report on something, at least put the correct viewpoint on it. All these "confirmation" articles are just articles respinning the story made by Sanger.
As for it's validity, could be true, could be false. But i definitely don't like the way it's being told. It's more akin to being told a fantasy novel then an actual news report. They don't even have quotes from their sources stated specifically. The entire story is told in a mix of imagination and (possible) facts which aren't clear.
Iran is such a great country, I love how they act like my country is still important.
Depends on your view...
Most of the US would consider a meltdown over there, much better then a bomb over here...
(note: I'm not saying that opinion is morally correct, just prevalent and in some way justifiable)
I do wonder how the heck they keep getting attacked. It sound like some people I know who "Keep getting all thses virus things no matter what I do!" (Like click accept all the time)
Of course, the easiest way to disrupt our network communications is still a well placed physical disruption.
It's called a Slashdotting. Pioneered it, back in the day.
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
Israel spies on the US a hell of a lot. So on one hand it seems like a Faustian bargain for the NSA or CIA to get in bed with Mossad.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
"Your computer could be at risk from infidels! Click here for Jihad!"
Gets em every time.
How does one "meltdown" a centrifuge?
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
Isn't kind of a bad idea to deliberately mess up controlling computers in a nuclear plant?
The only thing deliberately messed up were the speed controllers on the centrifuges which were enriching Uranium, and the 'messed up' meant that the speed would very subtly oscillate in speed to mess up the enrichment process.
There is no part of that which could cause a meltdown.
You think the US government couldn't buy the source to QNX, find an exploit, and embed that in a trojan that they convince someone to sneakernet across the air gap?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
we're in the wrong
LOL. What are you, 15? The USA and Israel have done a lot worse than melt down a nuke plant or two. We've overthrown democratic governments, assassinated thousands of people without trial and violently murdered countless bystanders. All in the name of protecting a bunch of selfish brats who think "god" wants them to live in a specific piece of the desert.
Intellectually speaking, I think you will find that the world's events are a lot easier to understand if you stop thinking of the US as the "good guys". We're not. We're simply out to push our political and religious values on the rest of the world by whatever means are necessary.
What is this, the third time now? Usually you institute rules like "No browsing porn on the centrifuge control computers" after the first time. Maybe your scientists realize that if they start producing anything bomb-worthy, Israel will come in and flatten their facility, likely killing them all in the process. So maybe they just tell you "Oh! Those filthy Americans infected our computers again!" and go back to playing Tetris for another couple of years.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
It's a hostile act. They've admitted to both Flame and Stuxnet I believe. Like it or not, the US has fired the first shots here, and have opened the door for retaliation. You don't get to do it, admit to it, and then just say "just kidding".
Begun, the clone war has.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I'm sure it's great, until an unidentified and presumably foreign person assassinates you on the way to work.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
The USA hasn't built a new warhead since the Cold War ended, and its current arsenal is about 25% of its peak size.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
And once a country admits that it's created such software, publicly deflecting such blame gets a lot harder.
The link leads to another /. article, which leads to another, etc, until it eventually lands at this NY Times article.
This article is not an admission by anyone regarding Stuxnet, Flame, or anything else. It just allegedly quotes a bunch of anonymous sources about supposed top secret information.
I promise I don't work for the federal government.
A recently drafted cyber strategy formulated by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) classifies digital sabotage as an act of war.
Here's a fact: The U.S. and Israel have started war against Iran. I don't remember congress ever approving this war, I don't remember the public ever being notified that our country is now at war with yet another country, despite being unable to pay for the half dozen other wars we're currently engaged in. This is completely unacceptable.
Where is that clean PC guy when we need him?
I get that Iran has a deserved reputation for abusing their neighbors
Please explain.
...then we're in the wrong.
Thousands of dead Americans and counting, a million dead Iraqis and counting, how are we not already in the wrong?
Oh, should I have sugar-coated that?
1) You are the dumbest person alive.
2) No it doesn't.
3) That doesn't matter at all.
Here is how it works, try to pay attention. A device called a PLC is connected to a device called a drive via copper wires. The drive is connected to a motor, which is connected to a gearbox, which spins the centrifuge. The drive varies the frequency of the electricity going to the motor and thereby varies the speed at which the motor turns (and thus the centrifuge). The PLC contains ladder logic which governs the speed reference it sends to the drive. So, the PLC controls the speed at which the centrifuge turns.
As it comes out of the box, the PLC contains no ladder logic at all. In order to control anything, one must load ladder logic into it. Now, here is where your stupidity prevents you from being qualified to jabber on about this: you can't load ladder logic into the PLC using QNX. You can''t develop the ladders on QNX. QNX cannot communicate with the PLC in any way at all except to read and write to its data tables using interfaces defined by the PLC vendor. In Stuxnet's case that was Siemens.
The payload of Stuxnet was delivered during the above ladder logic development phase. They'd have sent a destructive speed reference to the centrifuge drives whether then supervisory software was QNX, or Wonderware on Windows, or Citect, or whatever else.
Quickest way to tuff guy status? take Credit for someone else work. Guy drops dead all of a suddent take credit for his death, even if you had nothing to do with it. The US and Isreal are riding this wave that now everytime something in the cyber world drops dead its because they did it, no matter what happens, even if they are just as suprised as everyone else. This plays well into the Iranians need to blame their inability to produce anything in their nuclear program on someone else. We would have had a Bomb if it was not for those medling kids!
I can say without a doubt that their is no Goverment Service worker that could have produced Stuxnet or Flame. I doubt it was a US contractor. They would have worked on it for sure, but they would have never delivered a final product and had that gravy train dry up.
I have a strong feeling that all this "accidental" leaking is just a way to take credit without actually claiming you took credit.
So when the iranians claim another attack I take it with a grain of salt. To many people have to much at stake claiming that something happend. Having something actually happen is besides the point.
Papa Legba come and open the gate
Don't know about Flame, but Stuxnet didn't use net-connected computers as its vector for infection. Somehow U.S./Israel got it on the flash drives of the Russian contractors who were working on the centrifuges. The contractors brought it in physically on those drives.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
It's not designed or intended to ever need to run new code!
Then attack the system that programs these systems.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Infidel Inside
It couldn't possibly be to prevent Iran from detonating the first working nuke they can patch together in Jerusalem
I laugh every single time I hear this line of reasoning.
Iran is run by religious nutjobs. I agree with that.
One thing you seem to forget, though...Jerusalem is their holy land too. While they may be nutjobs, they're still religious nutjobs, and blowing up their own holy land is a great way to piss off every member of the three major religions worldwide. Iran would be crushed in the blink of an eye if they actually launched a nuclear attack. They are simply not that stupid and irrational. It would be like Republicans bombing the White House because Obama won the election.
It couldn't possibly be that Iran would want a nuclear weapon so that they can participate in the joy of Mutually Assured Destruction. It couldn't possibly be that multiple world superpowers who have nuclear weapons rattle the saber at them on a monthly basis and that having a nuke of their own might give them some leverage. (or even giving off the appearance of trying to acquire a nuke - that's why Saddam never debunked rumors that he had WMD, because having your enemies think you have WMD generally makes them less likely to attack you)
It couldn't possibly be that the "wipe off the map" comment (which I assume is what you're alluding to) was a mistranslation, considering that idiom doesn't even exist in the Persian language...it couldn't possibly be that the true meaning was "the Israeli regime will be removed from the pages of history", kinda like how the USSR collapsed after the cold war...
Nah. Couldn't possibly be that...
:(){
This willful ignorance is breathtaking.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dome_of_the_Rock
Oh? Really?
They may be saying that they released it "by accident", but I'm pretty sure they've acknowledge they built it.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
This is Amercia, so there are additional steps.
Step 8: ???
Step 9: Profit!
I'm Peggy.