stuxnet

[reaper]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/world/middleeast/obama-ordered-wave-of-cyberattacks-against-iran.html?_r=3&pagewanted=2&seid=auto&smid=tw-nytimespolitics&pagewanted=all
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/world/middleeast/obama-ordered-wave-of-cyberattacks-against-iran.html?_r=3&pagewanted=2&seid=auto&smid=tw-nytimespolitics&pagewanted=all

looks like my predictions were correct.

so the government is sabotaging a nations nuclear development, without the people knowing.   this reminds me of how hitler would try to come up with a "good" fake reason to go free the germans in foreign lands, and do things no matter what the people wanted.  if the situation were reversed how would the US government respond?

I thought going to war had to be approved by congress?

[reaper]

It doesn't differentiate Obama from the republicans on the war front, so it's not meant to help Obama but hurt him.

[bluemeanies]

...not much of a surprise really...several zero day exploits and a stolen certificate to sign drivers...pretty much rules out any normal hacking group...that, along with the precise targeting of a specific Simatic setup pretty much pointed to a nation-state attack...and really only the US and Israel were highly motivated to do something like this...

[reaper]

how do you do all that and have a programming error in the worm propagation, pretty simple function of the exploit.

[reaper]

I feel as a nation we aren't going to have a leg to stand on when other countries start developing similarly sophisticated cyber attacks directed at our own plants and other critical infrastructure.

but no one in our government would say anything bad like "bomb bomb bomb iran".


It's possible that the leaks were not meant to hurt Obama (although I think they take away votes), but the people who leaked the information though the act was basically war, and weren't happy about it.

[Whirlingdervish]

Why are we talking about Obama as if he did anything?

This program was begun under Bush and our current administration just continued with what was being done as it seemed like a decent idea to slow down Iran's progress towards a nuclear weapon.

All told, if it was an act of "war" then Bush Jr was the guy trying to start a 3rd one.

I really can't feel bad about a cyber attack against the military facilities of a people who sold thousands of roadside bombs to Iraqi extremists and got a bunch of our guys killed over a patch of sand, all the while smiling and pretending that they weren't doing so and calling us liars every time we showed them one of their own bombs that we seized from terrorists.

[reaper]

Do you like your government constantly conducting "operations" all around the world all the time?

[quadz]

It doesn't differentiate Obama from the republicans on the war front

Nor should one expect such a differentiation at this point, given Obama's track record on the military, civil liberties, and financial fronts as being so frequently "Bush++" -- that is to say: continuing Bush-era policies with gusto.

For better or worse, Stuxnet appears to be another such example:

Expectations for the plan were low; one participant said the goal was simply to “throw a little sand in the gears” and buy some time. Mr. Bush was skeptical, but lacking other options, he authorized the effort.
[...]
Those first small-scale tests were surprisingly successful: the bug invaded the computers, lurking for days or weeks, before sending instructions to speed them up or slow them down so suddenly that their delicate parts, spinning at supersonic speeds, self-destructed. After several false starts, it worked. One day, toward the end of Mr. Bush’s term, the rubble of a centrifuge was spread out on the conference table in the Situation Room, proof of the potential power of a cyberweapon. The worm was declared ready to test against the real target: Iran’s underground enrichment plant.
[...]
The first attacks were small, and when the centrifuges began spinning out of control in 2008, the Iranians were mystified about the cause, according to intercepts that the United States later picked up.
[...]
 by the time Mr. Bush left office, no wholesale destruction had been accomplished. Meeting with Mr. Obama in the White House days before his inauguration, Mr. Bush urged him to preserve two classified programs, Olympic Games and the drone program in Pakistan. Mr. Obama took Mr. Bush’s advice.

............ ah well, it appears other replies have covered this angle already while i was typing / preempted by work...

[reaper]

why is this not bigger on CNN and mainstream news.  is this proof of a government/corporate/media complex?