Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Obama Order Sped Up Wave of Cyberattacks Against Iran
NY Times ^ | 1 June 2012 | DAVID E. SANGER

Posted on 06/01/2012 10:46:13 AM PDT by Fractal Trader

From his first months in office, President Obama secretly ordered increasingly sophisticated attacks on the computer systems that run Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facilities, significantly expanding America’s first sustained use of cyberweapons, according to participants in the program.

Mr. Obama decided to accelerate the attacks — begun in the Bush administration and code-named Olympic Games — even after an element of the program accidentally became public in the summer of 2010 because of a programming error that allowed it to escape Iran’s Natanz plant and sent it around the world on the Internet. Computer security experts who began studying the worm, which had been developed by the United States and Israel, gave it a name: Stuxnet.

At a tense meeting in the White House Situation Room within days of the worm’s “escape,” Mr. Obama, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and the director of the Central Intelligence Agency at the time, Leon E. Panetta, considered whether America’s most ambitious attempt to slow the progress of Iran’s nuclear efforts had been fatally compromised.

“Should we shut this thing down?” Mr. Obama asked, according to members of the president’s national security team who were in the room.

[SNIP]

This account of the American and Israeli effort to undermine the Iranian nuclear program is based on interviews over the past 18 months with current and former American, European and Israeli officials involved in the program, as well as a range of outside experts. None would allow their names to be used because the effort remains highly classified, and parts of it continue to this day.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Breaking News; Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS:
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-30 next last
This has always been suspected, but this is the first published acknowledgment.
1 posted on 06/01/2012 10:46:17 AM PDT by Fractal Trader
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Fractal Trader

Since Obama has no accomplishments to run on, I expect him to continue to endanger national security by revealing progress in classified programs that he inherited but did not initiate.This thug will do and say anything to get re-elected.


2 posted on 06/01/2012 10:49:50 AM PDT by thethirddegree
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Fractal Trader

WHY CAN’T THESE BOZOS KEEP SECRET INFORMATION SECRET???

Is our government working toward the full destruction of the US? You would certainly think so.

Read my tag!


3 posted on 06/01/2012 10:53:13 AM PDT by Noob1999 (Loose Lips, Sink Ships)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: thethirddegree

He’s our guy, Battlefield Barack, Chicken Hawk-in-Chief.


4 posted on 06/01/2012 11:01:00 AM PDT by DPMD
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Fractal Trader

One sort of paradoxical thing thing about secret information is that the bad guys can claim anything they want to, secure in the knowledge that the good guys won’t reveal the truth, because the good guys actually care about national security more than personal ambition, even when that means letting a lie go unchallenged.


5 posted on 06/01/2012 11:02:03 AM PDT by Hunton Peck (See my FR homepage for a list of businesses that support WI Gov. Scott Walker)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Fractal Trader

And how do we know that this is not part of the game?


6 posted on 06/01/2012 11:06:20 AM PDT by arthurus ( Read Henry hazlitt's "Economics In One Lesson")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: All

they left out that he single-handedly wrote and transmitted the code while repelling down from the super secret stealth blackhawk, (which he designed and approved)to kill Bin Laden.


7 posted on 06/01/2012 11:42:03 AM PDT by newnhdad (Where will you be during the Election Riots of 2012/2013?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Fractal Trader

This is Tom Clancey novel Krap. Is Ol’Tom writing for the NYDit’s now? What sane, thinking person would suppose that screwing with the Persians’ computers would keep them from building a bomb? We did it without any kind of computer geek help and so can they. Their older engineer types were educated here and can figger it out.

Now I’m all for every possible effort to clusterflock the Persians-—they got it coming——but my personal preference is to use them to test our weapons in places where it would really count. The idea that slowing their program is beneficial is somehow desirable is pure bullstuff. The idea is to KILL their program and make them remember it.


8 posted on 06/01/2012 12:01:37 PM PDT by cherokee1 (skip the names---just kick the buttz)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: LucyT; Brown Deer; Seizethecarp

ping


9 posted on 06/01/2012 12:05:41 PM PDT by Fractal Trader
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: cherokee1
What sane, thinking person would suppose that screwing with the Persians’ computers would keep them from building a bomb?

A sane, thinking person who has read about the effects of the Stuxnet worm on the centrifuge control firmware that Iran was running. There are several reports that, by tweaking the operating speeds of the centrifuges just a bit, the worm was able to disable almost half of them.

Fewer centrifuges working = less enriched uranium produced = longer to create enough to build a bomb.

10 posted on 06/01/2012 12:37:32 PM PDT by Bob
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: Noob1999; ASA Vet; BIGLOOK; LonePalm

“WHY CAN’T THESE BOZOS KEEP SECRET INFORMATION SECRET???

Is our government working toward the full destruction of the US? You would certainly think so.”


11 posted on 06/01/2012 12:55:02 PM PDT by Grampa Dave (ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION IS DESTROYING AMERICA-LOOK AT WHAT IT DID TO THE WHITE HOUSE!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: cherokee1

Nevertheless, even if it was just an excuse to let the NSA hacker brigade have at an enemy for the practice, it would have been worth it.


12 posted on 06/01/2012 12:58:35 PM PDT by ichabod1 (Cheney/Rumsfeld 2012)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: All
Øbama is a pussy and nothing will ever change that fact.

Hiding behind an elective office <spit> won't change it;
nor will cringing behind Moo's fat trailer-trash ass;
nor will cowering behind all the race pimps and NewKKKs in the world.

It's a symptom of a deep and abiding inner cowardice, of which every fiber of 'his' narcissistic psychosis is aware, every minute of every day.

13 posted on 06/01/2012 1:18:50 PM PDT by tomkat (:^)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Fractal Trader; SeekAndFind; AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Berosus; bigheadfred; Bockscar; ...

Thanks Fractal Trader, additional:

US officials leak claims of credit for Stuxnet in partnership with Israel
Hotair | 06/01/2012 | Ed Morrissey
Posted on 06/01/2012 11:48:11 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2890418/posts


14 posted on 06/01/2012 1:45:46 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (FReepathon 2Q time -- https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Fractal Trader; All
I applaud the 'act,' not the person that gave permission for the CIA to go ahead with this.
No admiration for the egomaniac OZero the Mr. "Me, myself and I," that wants 4 more years.
15 posted on 06/01/2012 1:48:20 PM PDT by Milagros (Y)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Fractal Trader; Berlin_Freeper; Hotlanta Mike; Silentgypsy; repubmom; HANG THE EXPENSE; Nepeta; ...

16 posted on 06/01/2012 2:02:53 PM PDT by Brown Deer (Pray for 0bama. Psalm 109:8)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: tomkat

The dangerous thing about pussies is when you back them far enough into a corner, they overreact.

You take some depressed, bullied kid who’s been pushed too far and he comes to school looking to kill every kid with a ‘white hat’ on. This actually happened at Columbine.

Obama, well and truly, is a pussy, but the problem is he’s never actually had to stand up for himself. There’s always been someone or something running interference.

What if he overreacts to a provocation made by guys like Putin, or Dinner Jacket?

It’s just a thought. You see it from pussies who are resolute that they will never be known as a pussy ever again. It’s the only thing I can ascribe the Osama kill nonsense, and the Obama the dronemaster meme too.

Dangerous stuff.


17 posted on 06/01/2012 2:10:14 PM PDT by RinaseaofDs (Does beheading qualify as 'breaking my back', in the Jeffersonian sense of the expression?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: Fractal Trader

SANS NewsBytes newsletter has info on this today.

http://www.sans.org/newsletters/newsbites/newsbites.php?vol=14&issue=44


18 posted on 06/01/2012 4:26:12 PM PDT by MarineBrat (Better dead than red!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: RinaseaofDs

Precisely.


19 posted on 06/01/2012 4:52:47 PM PDT by tomkat (:^)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: Milagros

I can’t help but wonder why this was divulged (if true, which I believe it is).

I have three guesses:

1-It’s to make him look tough, like a “warrior”, and boost his sagging popularity.

2-It is to invite retaliation, which would raise the distinct possibility of the internet “kill switch” to protect our networks.

3-He is just stupid.

I can’t decide; please help.


20 posted on 06/01/2012 5:29:27 PM PDT by kevslisababy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-30 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson