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Israel may have destroyed Iranian centrifuges simply by cutting power

theintercept.com

141–150 of 287 posts

Re: Israel may have destroyed Iranian centrifuges simply by cutting power

#141
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If much of the world wants you dead (your words, not mine) then maybe it's time to look in a mirror. Edit: HN commenters are so thick. First of all GP says everyone hate Israel. So that must include you the reader of this comment. If you actually take that shit serious and then have a problem with my comment instead all I can say is that you should look in a mirror too. It's a fat lie. Not everyone hates Israel. Actu…

Israel is a democracy, has human rights, conducts elections, has free trade and great tech scene, currency is stable and they've got one of the best intelligence agencies. Israel's population is some 9 million which is half of Beijing city and little bit larger than SF Bay Area. Let's contrast it with fundamentalist Iranian islamic government, hell bent on developing nuclear weapons despite of non-proliferation treat…

> hell bent on developing nuclear weapons despite of non-proliferation treaty signed by the whole world in 1960's

I have no ideea why you think this is relevant to your otherwise valid point. Iran and Israel are very similar here, one never signed the NPT and other signed it but is in non-compliance with the terms. Both states essentially don't care about what the other countries think of their nuclear activities - as is their right under international law.

Re: Israel may have destroyed Iranian centrifuges simply by cutting power

#142
post #80

Israel is fighting for its existence. Iran leadership routinely makes threats to destroy America and Israel. This often get ignored or dismissed. But like waving a gun in a cops face. Well bad things happen. One nuke will piss America off. One nuke and Israel will just be gone, completely. Iran is probably capable of this, or close. From Israel standpoint the logical step is to bomb Iran military into the Stone Age.…

> One nuke and Israel will just be gone, completely. Iran is probably capable of this, or close. Area of Hiroshima: 350.1 square miles Area of Israel: 8,019 square miles Yeah I'd say [citation needed] for that. > From Israel standpoint the logical step is to bomb Iran military into the Stone Age. This really isn't helping you, because if you're an Iranian and your government says "That country over there says their o…

Nukes are way more powerful than they were at the end of WW2, and most of southern israel is not populated. I'm pretty sure an H-bomb to Tel Aviv would kill >20% of Israel's population. So yeah, not exactly "One nuke and Israel will just be gone, completely", but still "one nuke and 1/5 of the population is gone, and countless more injured"

Re: Israel may have destroyed Iranian centrifuges simply by cutting power

#143
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think would happen if the US and all of Europe completely pulled out of the Middle East? Would Israel stay the size it is now? If not, can you really say it's "purely defensive"?

I am not sure what you are implying. Can you elaborate? Are you saying Israel would go attack its neighbors and seize land? From Egypt? Jordan? Lebanon? If so, that's an absurd proposition with absolutely no geopolitical data points to back it.

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Re: Israel may have destroyed Iranian centrifuges simply by cutting power

#144

Israel is fighting for its existence. Iran leadership routinely makes threats to destroy America and Israel. This often get ignored or dismissed. But like waving a gun in a cops face. Well bad things happen. One nuke will piss America off. One nuke and Israel will just be gone, completely. Iran is probably capable of this, or close. From Israel standpoint the logical step is to bomb Iran military into the Stone Age.…

There's no indication that Iran is any less deterrable than every other nuclear power. We didn't start WWIII when Kruschev banged his shoe at the UN like a maniac, it would also be a bad idea to do it over Iran's posturing. The US killed their national hero last year and we got a measured, proportionate response rather than lighting Iraq on fire. Trying to pre-emptively "bomb Iran into the stone age" would not only b…

First we feared the godless communists having the bomb because they were not held to a higher moral authority.

Now we fear the theocratic muslims because their fanaticism is stronger than their sense of self preservation.

It turns out this is all propaganda, no state is keen on destroying the world, and it's entirely rational for a country under constant threat like Iran (or Israel) to want nuclear weapons.

Re: Israel may have destroyed Iranian centrifuges simply by cutting power

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is truth in this comment. Parts of the Russian government have reverted to using mechanical typewriters in lieu of computers, which are too susceptible to malicious hacking. Also, the US Navy started instructing enlisted seamen how to navigate at sea by the stars, in case GPS stops working.

But then again the Russians themselves famously placed very difficult to detect bugs in the mechanical typewriters of the American embassy.

And the Americans put one in the Soviet embassy’s Xerox machine.

I think a potential lesson of the story is to use technology that you understand at least as well as your enemy does. The communist bloc maintained registries of typewriter fingerprints so they could identify which typewriters were used to reproduce samizdat; I think it’s fair to assume that the Russians understand typewriters very well.

Re: Israel may have destroyed Iranian centrifuges simply by cutting power

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing an Iranian. From articles I've read, it sounds like Mossad has a huge network of ethnic Iranian agents carrying out the ground work in Iran. This stuff is fascinating indeed. Here's a good read for you: https://archive.ph/uG9Lu https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/15/us/politics/iran-israel-m... How Israel, in Dark of Night, Torched Its Way to Iran’s Nuclear Secrets > The Mossad agents moving in on a warehous…

Thanks so much! I was just reading https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/revealed-how-a-secret-du... which says the same thing: an Iranian mole was crucial for Stuxnet, smuggling a USB stick into the airgapped facility. I wonder what the calculus is like on whether to be an Iranian mole. Either the Israelis were blackmailing them into cooperating, or they're offering some very lucrative rewards, or the Iranian is doing…

I imagine a combo of all of those reasons would be effective in convincing them to become agents. Like "hey, you can work for us, and we'll exfiltrate you and your family anytime you want and give you a great retirement package...or you can risk ending up like one of those nuclear scientists..." and they probably target the non-hardliner people.

Re: Israel may have destroyed Iranian centrifuges simply by cutting power

#147
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's be honest though, had Iran carried out such attack we would have called it a terrorist attack. I know you're about to go on about how awful Iranian regime is and they SAY they want Israel gone. But remember, Israel actually DOES carry out associations.

Terror attacks are against civilian targets - hence terrorizing civilians. An attack like this is military - which could be carried out by terrorists or a govt. The difference is important.

What about the assassinations of Iranian scientists? Are they also "military" targets?

Re: Israel may have destroyed Iranian centrifuges simply by cutting power

#148
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If much of the world wants you dead (your words, not mine) then maybe it's time to look in a mirror. Edit: HN commenters are so thick. First of all GP says everyone hate Israel. So that must include you the reader of this comment. If you actually take that shit serious and then have a problem with my comment instead all I can say is that you should look in a mirror too. It's a fat lie. Not everyone hates Israel. Actu…

Israel is a democracy, has human rights, conducts elections, has free trade and great tech scene, currency is stable and they've got one of the best intelligence agencies. Israel's population is some 9 million which is half of Beijing city and little bit larger than SF Bay Area. Let's contrast it with fundamentalist Iranian islamic government, hell bent on developing nuclear weapons despite of non-proliferation treat…

It's all blah blah blah to me. The point is that GP is full of crap. Not everyone hates Israel as you yourself have just proven. Yet posts like it are seen multiple times at every thread that mention Israel.

Re: Israel may have destroyed Iranian centrifuges simply by cutting power

#149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always took it to mean fixed purpose control signals rather than sitting on a common bus.

It takes only one buffer overflow within a fixed purpose control signal handler to convert any bus into a general purpose bus.

No buses, only fixed purpose control signals.

It's pretty hard to buffer overflow

  if (read_gpio(Ignition_Enable_Pin)) {

Re: Israel may have destroyed Iranian centrifuges simply by cutting power

#150

Israel is fighting for its existence. Iran leadership routinely makes threats to destroy America and Israel. This often get ignored or dismissed. But like waving a gun in a cops face. Well bad things happen. One nuke will piss America off. One nuke and Israel will just be gone, completely. Iran is probably capable of this, or close. From Israel standpoint the logical step is to bomb Iran military into the Stone Age.…

I think the main reason Iran wants the bomb is the same reason North Korea wanted the bomb and in fact all other countries wanted the bomb: National security. Nuclear weapons are not offensive weapons, certainly not when you're small enough so that any such attack on your part would only result in you being completely annihilated in retaliation. Nuclear weapons are an insurance policy against others deciding that you…

Yes, precisely this. Nuclear is essentially the right to have an opinion.

What a nasty world we live in.

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