Leave It To A Bunch Of Nerdy Yids
The Stuxnet virus, speculated to have originated in Israel, set back Iran's nuke program by two years, says a German computer consultant. Yaakov Katz writes for the Jerusalem Post:
"It will take two years for Iran to get back on track," Langer said in a telephone interview from his office in Hamburg, Germany. "This was nearly as effective as a military strike, but even better since there are no fatalities and no full-blown war. From a military perspective, this was a huge success."Langer spoke to the Post amid news reports that the virus was still infecting Iran's computer systems at its main uranium enrichment facility at Natanz and its reactor at Bushehr.
Last month, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nation's nuclear watchdog, said that Iran had suspended work at its nuclear-field production facilities, likely a result of the Stuxnet virus.
According to Langer, Iran's best move would be to throw out all of the computers that have been infected by the worm, which he said was the most "advanced and aggressive malware in history." But, he said, even once all of the computers were thrown out, Iran would have to ensure that computers used by outside contractors were also clean of Stuxnet.
"It is extremely difficult to clean up installations from Stuxnet, and we know that Iran is no good in IT [information technology] security, and they are just beginning to learn what this all means," he said.
When you hate the Jews, and ran them all out of your country, it's a little difficult to go hire Yoshi the freelance computer nerd to fix your problem.
Jewish Nobel prize winners versus Arab/Muslim ones here. I try not to think about how the cure for cancer, Parkinson's, M.S., and other diseases may have died with some nerdy Jew during the Holocaust.
Bully for them!
They could be onto something here. I hope they continue to do stuff like this.
Patrick at December 16, 2010 12:15 AM
I hope they continue to do stuff like this.
- - - - - - - - - - -
They probably already have...
Just like to point out that Intel and Motorola chips and large parts of the Windows operating system are designed by Yids right down the street from my office. And one of my friends was recruited by Google Israel.
Which isn't to say that the Arabs aren't contributing to science:
http://www.islam-qa.com/en/ref/83423
Ben David at December 16, 2010 2:41 AM
The geeks the Persians will conquer.
Ruth at December 16, 2010 3:58 AM
IMHO, there's more compelling evidence that the Chinese created Stuxnet.
AllenS at December 16, 2010 6:13 AM
IMHO, the Chinese had no motive to create stuxnet and uleash it on Iran, and plenty to lose.
Unfortunately, creating this sort of agent is difficult, but modifying it to do other things is not nearly so difficult. We have not seen the end of this.
MarkD at December 16, 2010 7:15 AM
I still bristle everytime I read Yassar Arafat won the Nobel Peace Prize. Terrorist, embezzled billions from his own people...
Eric at December 16, 2010 7:51 AM
...infected little boys with HIV while torturing & executing Palestinians for being gay...
http://www.preemptivekarma.com/archives/2007/07/confirmed_gay_y.html
Martin at December 16, 2010 9:09 AM
I always knew these 22-yr-old videogame boys living in their parents basements were going to help us when the bad guys tried to take over the internet.
Hackers, even the spammy ones, can be useful!
But of course, there are limits to their power.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at December 16, 2010 11:06 AM
And never forget, at one point there photos in internet circulation showing Americans torturing and sexually humiliating prisoners in Abu Gharib.
But the Army went out and got them back.
Genies can be returned to bottles.
Hackers are useful, but not our salvation.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at December 16, 2010 11:10 AM
"But the Army went out and got them back.
Genies can be returned to bottles.
Hackers are useful, but not our salvation."
Once on the internet, always on the internet. Genies cannot be put back into bottles. Stuxnet will be adapted and put to sinister uses. Hackers are dangerous and will be the end of us.
AllenS at December 16, 2010 1:38 PM
AllenS: Once on the internet, always on the internet.
How true! Ask Dr. Laura.
Patrick at December 16, 2010 1:42 PM
Rule #1 of military development is that you never reveal a new weapon until you have devised a countermeasure for it. Stuxnet, as I understand it, is attacking industrial automation controllers, which is very interesting since these types of systems typically don't have the types of operating system features that worms and viruses typically exploit. Iran isn't the only place in the world using those particular controllers (Siemens-made, IIRC).
I'm willing to bet those things contained a backdoor. I don't know if those particular ones were the only ones that got the backdoor, knowing where they were destined for. Or perhaps it was introduced as part of a targeted software/firmware update. The other possibility is that all units of those models shipped with a backdoor, but that backdoor has now been locked in the other units around the rest of the world. Either way, I'm guessing that Stuxnet is, as Daffy Duck put it, an act you can only do once. However, it does leave the question of what other acts haven't been staged yet.
Cousin Dave at December 16, 2010 6:00 PM
Cousin: More likely they just knew that the Iranians had crap-all for computer security on those systems, which is not uncommon. No need for a back door at all.
(I've heard people with experience with the Siemens controllers say that they, by default, have essentially no security at all. Which is fine on an isolated or unnetworked system, or one with good external security, neither of which seem to apply to Iran's system.)
And note that the Stuxnet worm specifically looked for and targeted the specific hardware in question, to activate it in very specially tuned ways to damage it.
This is not some software that just attacks any Siemens industrial controller and "destroys it" or something at the software level; it's the software equivalent of the so-far-science-fictional "tailored virus" that only damages its intended target.
Even if Stuxnet was introduced to another installation using the same Siemens hardware, it would notice that it wasn't a nuclear enrichment facility (because the attached hardware wouldn't be right) and thus wouldn't do anything... because ti was programmed to do exactly one thing (at the macro level).
There's no need for "a countermeasure" for Stuxnet, since the countermeasures for a worm are already known - actually using some security software and procedures.
Sigivald at December 17, 2010 4:06 PM
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