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Holy shit. Stuxnet was just confirmed as being developed by the US and Israel.
by pbrook 14y ago
Holy shit. Stuxnet was just confirmed as being developed by the US and Israel.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- josteink 14y agoThis really makes you wonder at what point do you go from calling something "some digital nudging about between nations" to "war". To me this seems to qualify as terrorism and sabotage on all accounts. I'm pretty sure I know how the US would react if they had been on the receiving end of this sort of attack.
- nyellin 14y agoI don't know about the states, but we (Israel) have been on the receiving end of actual terrorism and sabotage through Iranian proxy groups. Stuxnet seems mild compared to funding suicide bombings.
- sleepyhead 14y agoAnd Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
- nyellin 14y agoI could be wrong, but I don't think this is speculation: * Iran funds Hezbolla: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funding_of_Hezbollah http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funding_of_Hezbollah * Iran funds the Islamic Jihad: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Jihad_Organization http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Jihad_Organization * Iran funds Hamas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Israel_relations#Iranian_Funding_of_Hamas_and_Hezbollah http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Israel_relations#I... * Example of suicide bombing by the Islamic Jihad: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2145621/Family-Daniel-Wultz-awarded-332M-judgement-Iran-Syria-Israeli-suicide-bombing.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2145621/Family-Danie... I understand this is a highly-loaded political issue in the states, but, for Israel, Iranian funded terrorism is a threat in and of itself, nuclear weapon or not.
- derrida 14y agoBoth sides commit terrorism, where terrorism is defined as "politically motivated violence against civilians".
- hmottestad 14y agoWait 15 minutes and then check wikipedia.
- justsee 14y agoYes, I thought as an outside observer that if successful, Stuxnet would have been a great nonviolent approach to achieving geopolitical ends.
- xaver 14y agoRelevant: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/01/us/politics/01cyber.html https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/01/us/politics/01cyber.html
- ars 14y agoIt becomes a war when you do it openly. And this sort of thing is nothing new, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberian_pipeline_sabotage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberian_pipeline_sabotage for example, and there is lots more. The way you react is with total silence - you don't want anyone to know you were vulnerable. And that's also why these types of activities tend not to escalate. Personally, if countries have to fight I'd prefer they do it quietly like this rather than open war. It's a lot easier to ratchet down the tensions when there has been no rhetoric about the enemy. For example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Israeli_airstrike_in_Syria http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Israeli_airstrike_in_Syria - mostly silence on both parties part and no increase in hostilities.
- briandear 14y agoThe difference is that the US doesn't threaten to wipe countries off the map. Iran is an evil theocracy and can't be trusted with nuclear weapons. Drawing moral equivalencies between the US and a totalitarian terrorist state is ridiculous. It's like comparing North Korea with Belgium.
- Historiopode 14y agoI think that this comment bears a certain indulgent mixture of patriotism and naïvety. Dismissing Iran as an "evil theocracy" and a "a totalitarian terrorist state" is not entirely without grounds, but I would invite commenters to tone down their statements if geopolitics is not among their interests.
- PGenes 14y agoOn the other hand if you found yourself on the receiving end of Belgian terrorism and brutality in the "Belgian" Congo, the comparison is not so unreasonable.
- ttt_ 14y ago>> Iran is an evil theocracy and can't be trusted with nuclear weapons. As per history, I believe the US is the only nation that cannot be trusted with nuclear weapons.
- potatolicious 14y agoSabotage sure, but I have a hard time seeing this qualified as terrorism - terrorism is an a violent act against civilians designed to instill fear in the general population. e.g., bombing trains, airports, buildings, poisoning food supplies, etc. Actions against the military establishment of a country can hardly be qualified as terrorism. That said, if the US had been on the pointy end of this stick I'm sure many politicians would not have hesitated to the use the T-word themselves...
- gaius 14y agoIt would more usually be qualified as an act of war.
- thaumaturgy 14y ago> ...terrorism is an a violent act against civilians designed to instill fear in the general population. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/16/iran-scientists-state-sponsored-murder http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/16/iran-sci... http://rockcenter.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/09/10354553-israel-teams-with-terror-group-to-kill-irans-nuclear-scientists-us-officials-tell-nbc-news?lite http://rockcenter.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/09/10354553-is...
- ars 14y agoSo I looked at your links and I don't see how those activities "instill fear in the general population". They instill fear in those working for the military, sure, but that's not the general population.
- thaumaturgy 14y agoI intend no offense, but can we for once not be pedants? The January 11th incident happened in a public, civilian area (http://wikimapia.org/#lat=35.75663&lon=51.450485&z=18&l=0&m=b http://wikimapia.org/#lat=35.75663&lon=51.450485&z=1...), it was the fourth such incident (that I know of), and witnesses described a man on a motorbike that attached the bomb to the car. I'm pretty sure that if you happened to be a block away when a Livermore Lab nuclear scientist was killed by a focused car bomb delivered by a motorcyclist, you'd get a little jumpy and U.S. news reports would call it terrorism. And, U.S. officials are claiming that the bombings are being carried out by the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, a terrorist organization, and Iran's own vice-president called it an act of terrorism. For us to call this anything other than terrorism would be hypocrisy.
- hmottestad 14y agoTerrorism. What about this inflicts terror? I guess you might be a bit scared, but not really all that scared. It's not like someone developed a virus to slowly irradiate people having x-rays.
- Armbrs 14y agoSwap the names of the countries, and think about how it would have been reported if Iran had done the exact same thing to Israel/US.
- chii 14y ago"think about how it would have been reported" so how something is reported changes its reality how? I think the spin media put on the facts creates the fear, not the facts itself. Breaking equipment is certainly not going to cause what the media might've spun it into (which is OMG nuclear meltdown OMG).
- kmfrk 14y agoI'm sure China have done plenty of - successful - attacks already. The States don't have an interest in disclosing these findings, nor do the Chinese, though.
- 3143 14y agoYes, this is an act of war. So what? Is Iran going to declare war on the US?
- Tangaroa 14y agoYes, but they do that every Friday. Iran has been openly at war with the United States for over thirty years and loudly reminding the world of that fact at every opportunity. The only surprise in the US now committing an act of war against Iran is that the US has finally retaliated in some form other than complaining or giving Iran money and weapons in the misguided belief they might become friends.
- chii 14y agothey say they are at war, but they in their minds know they have no chance in hell to beat the USA in a conventional war. They want to keep instigating hate towards the west. I believe the leaders of that country would like their population's rage to be directed at an external entity, and not cause unrest (among other things of course).
- est 14y agoThis is sad. China has one more strong execuse to buff its national firewall.
- ars 14y agoWhy is it sad? I'd prefer a cyberwar over a physical one. And in any case the Chinese national firewall is utterly useless for preventing this.
- johnchristopher 14y agoIt's all fun and games until a nuclear plant blows up. I know, nuclear plant don't blow up, but you get my point.
- ars 14y ago> but you get my point. No I don't. A physical war can also blow things up. How is a cyberwar worse? This is not a game, it's a covert attack.
- johnchristopher 14y agoI didn't say it was worse or better. My point is: "cyberwar" can be responsible for painful and "real" physical damage in the physical world. In that regard it is in no way "better" than the "usual/conventionnal" physical wars.
- ars 14y ago> can be responsible for painful and "real" physical damage in the physical world Well of course, that's the entire point! They are not trying to do entirely virtual actions à la Star Trek's A Taste of Armageddon. However, you have to concede that at least so far the physical damage is far lower, and therefor unlike you I do regard it as better.
- pooriaazimi 14y ago
- bcn 14y ago"...is based on interviews...with current and former American, European and Israeli officials... None would allow their names to be used..." Not exactly confirmed, but at least there are a few more details being (intentionally?) leaked. Good ole NYT is always ready to spill the words of unnamed 'officials', but the more interesting question is why, or why now?
- steelaz 14y agoDidn't Pentagon said last year that they would consider cyber attacks as acts of war?
- rwallace 14y agoYes. That position has now pretty much lost credibility, which in my view is no bad thing. I've had the good fortune to never experience actual war, but I'm pretty sure nobody with such experience, is in the slightest doubt about the difference between that and sabotaging computers, however annoying the latter might be. If cyber-conflict is going to take place, I think it's in everyone's interest to keep it at that level and stop it spilling over into war.