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US and Israel created Stuxnet, lost control of it

arstechnica.com

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Re: US and Israel created Stuxnet, lost control of it

#61

Post by nicholassmith »

46Bit wrote: post #57
nicholassmith wrote: post #55

You know what's most surprising about this? That the developers, knowing fine well it was for a single target and the damage it could do in the wild, didn't implement a kill switch. Quite frankly cowboy coding like that is why we'll end up with Skynet becoming self-aware.

How do you put a kill switch in? The entire point was for it to be on an offline system, and the traffic for it checking for Internet to in turn check for an order like that might have given the game away. It sounds like they had something to check it wasn't outside and someone just screwed up.

You engineer a solution. Quite frankly if you can't think of how to put a kill switch into something like this then it shouldn't be getting written or allowed into the wild. You can't add that to Bugzilla and hope to fix it later.

Re: US and Israel created Stuxnet, lost control of it

#62

Post by cynoclast »

ck2 wrote: post #28

It's a new cold war. Eventually Iran will write viruses in return to attack US power grid. All fun and games until Homeland Security Theater is given new powers to raid your home and shoot your dog if they think your computer is being used as part of a botnet.

No, we are the aggressors here and I remain highly skeptical that Iran is even trying to do develop nuclear weapons. All the news outlets that speak English are biased as hell on this.

If you want real news instead of propaganda you have to watch RT or Al Jazeera. Both of which condemn the US and Israel. Not Iran.

Re: US and Israel created Stuxnet, lost control of it

#63

Post by slurgfest »

rooshdi wrote: post #43
slurgfest wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you please respond in addition to (or instead of) just downvoting something you disagree with in order to suppress it? Thank you

I didn't down vote you and I'll show you hard evidence when you show me hard evidence Iran is in violation of the NPT. We don't want any sort of hypocrisy going on around here, right? What the hell, here's some evidence just for kicks: http://compliancecampaign.wordpress.com/2012/02/03/iran-and-... http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2619

You are changing the subject a little. The burden of proof for a strong and controversial claim is still on the person making the claim.

I haven't made any claim about what the Iranian revolution is doing, so I don't know why I would be obligated to show you evidence regarding what they are doing. Nobody else really knows what they are doing, that is the nature of intelligence secrets in Iran and everywhere else. If the general public knew, they would not be intelligence secrets any more. That is not license for inferring whatever you want to see.

I'm certainly not carrying water for the Bush administration's attempt to legitimize 'tactical' nukes (which accounts for the entire substance of your links, as far as I can tell). On the contrary, I strongly oppose that idea. But saying stupid, obnoxious, unwise things doesn't amount to a material violation of NPT. If it did, then there would definitely be plenty of hard evidence against the Iranian regime, which routinely says things just as gob-smackingly stupid and undiplomatic and ultimately harmful to Iranians as Bush's best.

It seems that you have stereotyped me as holding a whole package of views that I do not hold, and implied that I am engaging in some kind of hypocrisy, simply because I asked for substantiation of a claim. But if I disagree with you on one thing, it does not follow that I hold all the views of your rhetorical enemies.

Cheers

Re: US and Israel created Stuxnet, lost control of it

#64

Post by SkyMarshal »

wissler wrote: post #52
ck2 wrote: post #28

It's a new cold war. Eventually Iran will write viruses in return to attack US power grid. All fun and games until Homeland Security Theater is given new powers to raid your home and shoot your dog if they think your computer is being used as part of a botnet.

The centrifuges could have been destroyed, and with loss of human life. The system itself was damaged. I wouldn't call this a "cold" war. It is a very real, very physical war(albeit precisely targeted, for now).

The same sort of stuff used to happen during the Cold War with the Soviets [1]. Cold War doesn't mean no loss of life or destruction, just that there aren't two armies going at it on the battlefield.

1. http://www.damninteresting.com/the-farewell-dossier/

Re: US and Israel created Stuxnet, lost control of it

#65

Post by bluedanieru »

hieronymusN wrote: post #41
ck2 wrote: post #28

It's a new cold war. Eventually Iran will write viruses in return to attack US power grid. All fun and games until Homeland Security Theater is given new powers to raid your home and shoot your dog if they think your computer is being used as part of a botnet.

This isn't nearly as terrifying as the Cold War with the USSR. We're not threatened with nuclear war, nor having the near misses that could trigger it (Cuban missile crisis). No one is building bomb shelters in their backyards, because right now the balance of power is very much in the United States' favor. Could things get there with another nuclear enabled power like China? Maybe, in time. Iran is not an existentia…

The war itself isn't nearly as terrifying, but somehow the US government is finding it even easier to erode civil liberties now than it ever did during the Cold War.

Re: US and Israel created Stuxnet, lost control of it

#67

Post by davidw »

ck2 wrote: post #49
hieronymusN wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't nearly as terrifying as the Cold War with the USSR. We're not threatened with nuclear war, nor having the near misses that could trigger it (Cuban missile crisis). No one is building bomb shelters in their backyards, because right now the balance of power is very much in the United States' favor. Could things get there with another nuclear enabled power like China? Maybe, in time. Iran is not an existentia…

Just like the TSA it's our government that is far more terrifying than any imaginary threat they are supposedly protecting us against. And don't underestimate the Iranian government, they are not a third-world country like some people imagine out of ignorance - I really feel sorry for the Iranian people getting caught up in this mess.

> imaginary threat

Err... while I'm not stepping in to defend the TSA, I think that to call the threat imaginary ignores recent history.

Re: US and Israel created Stuxnet, lost control of it

#68

Post by sleepyhead »

joshmaker wrote: post #20
Fizzadar wrote: post #4

This feels similar to the Megaupload case; America desperately throwing its weight around outside it's borders, with a total disregard for the law. And, just like the Megaupload case, they have fucked up big time. Why does the American govt. feel it has the right to choose who can become a nuclear power or not anyway?

Because Iran is a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treat ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Non-Proliferation_Treat... ) and their development of Nuclear weapons is thus in violation of international law.

Unlike Israel which has not signed the agreement and has not let anyone inspect their nuclear weapons.

Re: US and Israel created Stuxnet, lost control of it

#69

Post by berntb »

bluedanieru wrote: post #65
hieronymusN wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't nearly as terrifying as the Cold War with the USSR. We're not threatened with nuclear war, nor having the near misses that could trigger it (Cuban missile crisis). No one is building bomb shelters in their backyards, because right now the balance of power is very much in the United States' favor. Could things get there with another nuclear enabled power like China? Maybe, in time. Iran is not an existentia…

The war itself isn't nearly as terrifying, but somehow the US government is finding it even easier to erode civil liberties now than it ever did during the Cold War.

>>somehow the US government is finding it even easier to erode civil liberties now than it ever did during the Cold War.

Iran is probably the worst country on the planet when it comes to supporting terrorism.

Consider that democracies in general seems to go crazy when they have active terrorism problems and throw out human rights and the law book. E.g. Germany, USA, Israel, Great Britain, Italy, Spain, etc. (The only exception afaik is India.)

It is logical because the whole point with terror is to scare civilians -- and politicians wants to be elected again. They have to solve terror problems, no matter what.

You don't have to like this, in fact no one except companies earning money doing security likes it. All choices in the real world also has disadvantages, even democracy.

Re: US and Israel created Stuxnet, lost control of it

#70

Post by talmand »

hieronymusN wrote: post #41
ck2 wrote: post #28

It's a new cold war. Eventually Iran will write viruses in return to attack US power grid. All fun and games until Homeland Security Theater is given new powers to raid your home and shoot your dog if they think your computer is being used as part of a botnet.

This isn't nearly as terrifying as the Cold War with the USSR. We're not threatened with nuclear war, nor having the near misses that could trigger it (Cuban missile crisis). No one is building bomb shelters in their backyards, because right now the balance of power is very much in the United States' favor. Could things get there with another nuclear enabled power like China? Maybe, in time. Iran is not an existentia…

I disagree, any attempt to shutdown a significant part of our power grid is terrifying to me. We are at a point in our society that we cannot survive without electricity for a large amount of time. Our economy would shutdown, people will starve as easily obtainable food would go away, certain medicines that keep people alive would spoil, hospitals would shut down, and more. We are so deeply ingrained in having electricity that being forced back to not having it at all would likely kill millions before we could adapt. Especially if the attack caused a semi-permanent power grid failure, such as with an EMP.
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