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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

#231

Post by johnpowell »

tsotha wrote: post #154
eli wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The story is indeed confirmed, but the NYTimes write-up is definitely better. Ars does not add much and what they do add is speculation.

So... someone involved is going on the record? Someone who can do interviews on, you know, Fresh Air and say "I was involved in this project"? The fact that the NYT thinks it's true doesn't mean much, particularly since they've been punked so many times.

I assume if it wasn't true the administration would have held a press conference denouncing it by now.

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

#232

Post by cpeterso »

freshhawk wrote: post #178
strags wrote: post #170

"[Obama] repeatedly expressed concerns that any American acknowledgment that it was using cyberweapons—even under the most careful and limited circumstances—could enable other countries, terrorists or hackers to justify their own attacks. “We discussed the irony, more than once,” one of his aides said." "Irony" is the wrong word. It's "hypocrisy".

Not when you honestly believe in American Exceptionalism

In a 2009 interview, Obama said, "I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism." That is pretty mild support for American Exceptionalism, as defined by the GOP.

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

#233

Post by bitwize »

azernik wrote: post #152

Security lesson from the article: "It turns out there is always an idiot around who doesn’t think much about the thumb drive in their hand."

Was true before thumb drives. Fun fact: President Carter once sent his suit to the dry cleaner's -- with the nuclear launch codes in the pocket.

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

#234

Post by Pelayo »

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.

That's one thing I've never understood. Why is the power grid connected to the Internet? Does it need to be?

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

#235

Post by cdi »

jbooth wrote: post #189
strags wrote: post #170

"[Obama] repeatedly expressed concerns that any American acknowledgment that it was using cyberweapons—even under the most careful and limited circumstances—could enable other countries, terrorists or hackers to justify their own attacks. “We discussed the irony, more than once,” one of his aides said." "Irony" is the wrong word. It's "hypocrisy".

Welcome to politics. Syria, currently best known for massacring their own citizens, chaired the UN human rights council a few years ago. International politics is always going to consist of covert actions on one hand coupled with righteous moral statements on the other. See, for example, the USSR talking about protecting the eastern bloc from western imperialist exploitation by, well, dominating and exploiting their…

>exploiting their countries.

any evidence for that? In my understanding the USSR was dominating eastern bloc countries, hindering their democratic economic development by enforcing archaic hierarchical undemocratic regime. Exploiting? I haven't heard about that. Countries were pretty autonomous in all things unrelated to ideology/politics.

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

#236

Post by dabent »

Pelayo wrote: post #234
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.

That's one thing I've never understood. Why is the power grid connected to the Internet? Does it need to be?

The power grid might not be connected to the internet, but, as the article points out, all it takes is someone with a thumb drive to plant malware.

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

#237

Post by tptacek »

jbooth wrote: post #191
tptacek wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the New York Times prints: “Should we shut this thing down?” Mr. Obama asked, according to members of the president’s national security team who were in the room. It is generally safe to assume, whether you admire the NYT (like me) or don't (like 'patio11), that there's an actual source with a credible claim to have been in the room with the President who did in fact tell David E. Sanger that this happened. Peop…

Why's it depressing? It seems like it worked, and any failure would have been much less spectacular than US operatives being caught breaking into Natanz.

Sabotage: good.

Sabotage via infiltration of IT: good.

Sabotage via infiltration of IT via propagating malware: not so good.

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

#238

Post by pyre »

wissler wrote: post #176
wissler wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"No open hostilities" is a definition by non-essentials. It's fallacious. As I already said and as you failed to address. Whether certain people happen to know whether there is an attack or who is behind it does not change anything. A state of knowledge does not change the reality: someone is planning and attacking.

It's easy to hit the downvote button. It'd show more courage and intelligence to counter with an actual argument. Incidentally, Wikipedia backs my definition of "cold": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_war_(general_term) "A cold war or cold warfare is a state of conflict between nations that does not involve direct military action but is pursued primarily through economic and political actions, propaganda, acts of e…

  > acts of espionage
Are you claiming that stuxnet is not an act of espionage?

  > Indirect means indirect
By your definition, embargoes are 'direct' because they are not levied against proxy nations.

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

#239

Post by theorique »

strags wrote: post #170

"[Obama] repeatedly expressed concerns that any American acknowledgment that it was using cyberweapons—even under the most careful and limited circumstances—could enable other countries, terrorists or hackers to justify their own attacks. “We discussed the irony, more than once,” one of his aides said." "Irony" is the wrong word. It's "hypocrisy".

"Hypocrisy" is the wrong word. It's "(geo)politics".

Every nation does it.

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

#240

Post by Difwif »

jerf wrote: post #106
cjdavis wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the threat of terrorism is not imaginary, it is certainly negligible compared to other threats.

The physical terrorism threat is negligible. The generalized cheap-attack-with-disproportionate-damage threat I can't in good conscience write off quite so readily. Biological attacks are still scarily possible, and if we start talking computer viruses it becomes scarier again. Recall Stuxnet didn't merely inconvenience people, it destroyed hardware. If someone manages to write a virus that, say, destroys a significa…

Your fear about computer attacks appears to be a bit sensationalized and a typical knee jerk doomsday reaction. You parrot that "Electricity is the lifeblood of civilization" and that people will die when the power goes off but then seem to forget that blackouts already occur in highly populated areas. Are they a major annoyance? Of course! Do they cause mass death larger then asteroid impacts? Where did you get that idea? Many of our critical facilities have backup generators for a reason. If such an event did occur you'd be damn sure that any damage would be repaired ASAP.
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