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Stuxnet Source Code

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Re: Stuxnet Source Code

#21

Post by cies »

In Iran the copyrights of foreign works are not well protected. This lead to a lot of copying: western software and books are/were available for little more than the price of the writable CD-ROM or paper+ink you got it on. Translations of works were slightly more expensive, that the translator did have to get paid.

Since Windows (etc.) was free, and the university thought curriculum based largely on US uni-books, Windows is/was everywhere, even in sensitive environments. Window has the worst track record privacy and security (remember NSA_KEY?), and Iran got bitten by this very hard.

Re: Stuxnet Source Code

#22

Post by H8crilA »

jmcgough wrote: post #16
rereasonable wrote: post #12

Technical wonder aside, the argument for using nuclear power over fossil fuels really hits a faultline in situations like this. I wonder how the majority of folk rationalise their viewpoint surrounding this situation without being seen as massively hypocritical?

Nuclear power is vastly better in terms of emissions, so I'd argue that blowing up a plant or two is worth stopping global warming. But why target plants when a dirty bomb attack would be way easier and more effective? Additionally, most countries don't have the resources to pull off something like Stuxnet, and the ones that do have much more to gain through corporate and government espionage.

There is some problem there though - peacefully using nuclear power creates plutonium, which could be later extracted.

Re: Stuxnet Source Code

#23

Post by marsRoverDev »

fulafel wrote: post #19

According to the README, this is not the Stuxnet source code. Rather it's authored by people mentioned in the license by reverse engineers from the binaries. The real source code would probably have lots of juicy interesting things revealing how it was developed.

// TODO: תקן את זה

Re: Stuxnet Source Code

#25

Post by tetrisgm »

rereasonable wrote: post #12

Technical wonder aside, the argument for using nuclear power over fossil fuels really hits a faultline in situations like this. I wonder how the majority of folk rationalise their viewpoint surrounding this situation without being seen as massively hypocritical?

This is fearmongering disguised as "just asking questions" and critical thinking. If your concerns were genuine, the answers about the effectiveness of nuclear would be easy to find.

Re: Stuxnet Source Code

#26

Post by snird »

marsRoverDev wrote: post #23
fulafel wrote: post #19

According to the README, this is not the Stuxnet source code. Rather it's authored by people mentioned in the license by reverse engineers from the binaries. The real source code would probably have lots of juicy interesting things revealing how it was developed.

// TODO: תקן את זה

// TODO: משה מהמוסד אמר שזה בסדר

Re: Stuxnet Source Code

#27

Post by meeuwer »

rereasonable wrote: post #12

Technical wonder aside, the argument for using nuclear power over fossil fuels really hits a faultline in situations like this. I wonder how the majority of folk rationalise their viewpoint surrounding this situation without being seen as massively hypocritical?

The exploited software is conveniently developed and controlled by Iran’s adversaries. In another episode of the geopolitical sabotage show,

“In January 1982, President Ronald Reagan approved a CIA plan to sabotage the economy of the Soviet Union through covert transfers of technology that contained hidden malfunctions, including software that later triggered a huge explosion in a Siberian natural gas pipeline, according to a memoir by a Reagan White House official.”

True or not, the risk of software Trojan horses in the big energy game was recognized pretty early. The lesson here is, potentially dangerous technology ought to be matched by a comprehensive security protocol.

Re: Stuxnet Source Code

#29

Post by Arson9416 »

jonplackett wrote: post #28

Can anyone explain why Stuxnet was admitted to and publicised so much. Aren’t secret operations usually kept… secret? What was the motivation for the PR drive?

Chilling effect? "We have the ability to infiltrate any system and catastrophically destroy your hardware."

Re: Stuxnet Source Code

#30

Post by sofixa »

moontear wrote: post #20
wiz21c wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A nuclear plant is just as weaponizable as any large dam...

Is it? The nuclear fallout of a plant may linger for longer than any destruction done by the water of a large dam I would say or do you mean something else?

A modern nuclear powerplant is incapable of exploding, at worst it can meltdown and leak radiation in the vicinity. This can of course have very bad results, but check Fukushima - more people died from the evacuation, and from a fire caused by a fuel tank in another city due to the natural disasters that caused the meltdown, than did from radiation. A radiation leak is easy to detect (and all areas near nuclear power plants in semi-developed countries have automated collection of radiation), and isn't an immediate death sentence.

Meanwhile when a dam breaks, immediately everyone and everything in its path will be obliterated. Vastly more people have died from dam failures than even the worst of the worst of nuclear power plant incidents, Chernobyl, where staggering incompetence met horrific design flaws and bugs. Something like that is impossible to happen today.

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