Posted on 11/26/2010 11:17:09 AM PST by Ron C.
In the 20th century, this would have been a job for James Bond.
The mission: Infiltrate the highly advanced, securely guarded enemy headquarters where scientists in the clutches of an evil master are secretly building a weapon that can destroy the world. Then render that weapon harmless and escape undetected.
But in the 21st century, Bond doesn't get the call. Instead, the job is handled by a suave and very sophisticated secret computer worm, a jumble of code called Stuxnet, which in the last year has not only crippled Iran's nuclear program but has caused a major rethinking of computer security around the globe
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/11/26/secret-agent-crippled-irans-nuclear-ambitions/#ixzz16PtfOuhu
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Yep, reading that really bolsters my confidence in touch screen voting - NOT!
One of the best aspects is Iran’s inability to come clean about it or point fingers. What are they going to do? Admit Israeli scientists skunked Iranian scientists? No, they’re not going to do that.
My guess it’s some 16 year old nerd and his high school chess club buddies working from his parent’s basement.......
Pah. Stuxnet is all well and good, but if someone wanted to destroy the productivity of the Natanz Uranium plant the best way would have been to put the UAW in change. That way the entire Iranian economy would have a) stalled and b) been diverted to paying their pensions.
(Seriously, love those Stuxnet guys.)
$5 and an apartment in Rio Linda.
“Langer argues that no single Western intelligence agency had the skills to pull this off alone. The most likely answer, he says, is that a consortium of intelligence agencies worked together to build the cyber bomb. And he says the most likely confederates are the United States, because it has the technical skills to make the virus, Germany, because reverse-engineering Sieman’s product would have taken years without it, and Russia, because of its familiarity with both the Iranian nuclear plant and Sieman’s systems.”
The Iranians are a psychological mess: Persian pride wedded to Islamic fatalism.
It’s a sad state of affairs for a great people. It certainly puts the liberal lie to rest. Carter was wrong - the Shah was better.
Fascinating post, thanks. Israel and the U.S. for sure had a hand in this, good suppositions about Germany. I wouldn’t be suprised if our British friends played a role either, or the French - both have excellent intelligence services. I can’t see Russia cooperating on something like this however, especially since it was a Belarusian company that discovered it and put it out there. Belarus is a wholly owned subsidiary of Russia. All speculation, but certainly interesting.
This also raises questions about computer components MADE IN CHINA. Tho’ I’m not really qualified to comment on tech issues of this nature, it does seem to me that it would be relatively easy to “pre-embed” viruses, worms or whatever in computer components, to be triggered remotely when required.
Exellent summation.
If you sit and ponder over it...there are five separate and different levels that this virus laid into (some have nothing to do with computers or networks) and basically destroyed their program...not just for a year or two...but maybe for six to eight years.
The NSA has been getting inside others heads for decades. Some of the things I’ve heard, putting a nuclear powered ear on a mountain in the Himalayas in the 60’s. Tapping Soviet undersea military lines, a mile off the Russian beach. Planting memory in new, Soviet bought western copiers.
David Sarnoff, “The General” was made a officer for his work in Dutch/German radio industry before WWI, and during for us.
I’m don’t doubt we still haven’t heard the last of who knew what when about Pearl Harbor. Odd that we went from nothing to breaking most codes so fast.
So much of the turd world punks buy their equipment, service, parts from us. I can’t imagine that it all doesn’t have traps.
In this case, what does Siemens, the German company care, at worst. They get the contract money, and deliver crap, and get a attaboy boy from their, and our governments. Win Win.
Regardless, we have cyberwarfare, or espionage if you prefer, that has been taken to a level far beyond what the writers of James Bond movies ever imagined.
That is a bit scary - but at the same encouraging, in that the bad guys have been the first to be hit.
If anyone's interested, Steve Gibson updates Leo Laporte's TWIT occasionally on Stux. Gibson's most recent podcast w/ Stux info (that I know of) is here. Below is an excerpt from TWIT's wiki from that podcast:
Question: The article points out twice that the computer system was not linked to the www. If so, how did the worm “communicate” back to the servers to report progress, etc. ?
I believe the article says likely via USB storage use
Oh I se what you are asking. Not a clue.
This is very scary, especially since the U.S. is amazingly vulnerable to these kinds of attacks. Something far less sophisticated could wipe out our entire electrical grid in a flash leaving the nation in chaos. We know the Chinese expend enormous effort probing and collecting data on our systems. These kinds of attacks will be the ‘first strike’ of any serious conflict in the future - we ignore them at our peril.
The moral of the story—not all Jews are wimps, New Yorkers or Obama supporters.
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