A Finnish-Chinese Connection For Stuxnet?

Lingenfelter writes "I recently wrote a white paper entitled 'Dragons, Tigers, Pearls, and Yellowcake' in which I proposed four alternative scenarios for the Stuxnet worm other than the commonly held assumption that it was Israel or the US targeting Iran's Bushehr or Natanz facilities."

Rather basic question

[Anonymous Coward]

On the presumption that this is some electronic device with a user-modifiable firmware (how else would the worm be able to modify it?) - what would stop Iran from taking an unaffected piece, dumping the firmware, and re-uploading it?

Do a clean reinstall of Windows, and you're set to go.

Is there something I am missing?

Chinas viewpoint on Iran and nukes

[antifoidulus]

China is actually worrying about Irans nuclear ambitions but for different reasons than most of the west is. They arent worried too much about Iran attacking any of its interest but dont want to see US influence continue to grow in the region

Its already well established(and the leaked cables support this) that many of the other countries in the area are quite wary of Iran and its ambitions, and a nuclear armed Iran would give the US and these countries a rationale for increasing US presence and influence in the region. China does not see this as being beneficial in the long run as it sees the US as its biggest, and really only, potential rival. Therefore they are against a nuclear armed Iran but on the other hand Iran is one of Chinas biggest oil suppliers and it really does not want to piss them off. So Chinas position is to try to prevent Iran from getting nukes while at the same time looking like the `good guy`. They often times abstain when it comes time to vote on Iranian sanctions in the security counsel. This essentially gives them an out, they can continue to see sanctions and pressure put on the Iranian nuke program without looking like a bad guy to Iran. They can always tell the Iranians that they were worried about vague and unspecified reprecussions if asked why they didnt vote no.

It's about oil and coal

[moxsam]

Iran not only gets money but also Chinese coal in exchange for their crude oil that they sell to China. Now when Iran finishes their reactors, Iran needs less coal for making electric energy. But China will still need the oil. Thus they have to pay more for the oil. Even worse, the less coal Iran needs the less dependent they become on China, so they are more likely to sell thei oil to other countries.

Sabotaging the nuclear plants of Iran is a cheap way to sustain the co-dependancy between Iran and China.

If Lingenfelter is right

[Kupfernigk]

he has soberly pointed out a case of China engaged in cyber-warfare using means which have got out of control. (There seems to be a fair number of medical doctors who suspect that "swine flu" is actually a Chinese military virus that escaped from a lab.)

This will go against the entire business mantra, but if he is right the West really needs to pull back manufacturing of electronic devices and make more serious efforts to combat Chinese electronic warfare, because in this case they were either incompetent or simply didn't give a shit about collateral damage. Either option is exceedingly worrying,