Iran Claims New Cyber Attack On Its Nuclear Plants, Blames US and Allies 289
judgecorp writes "Iran has reported that its nuclear facilities are under a sustained cyber attack which it blames on the U.S., UK and Israel. America and Israel created Stuxnet, and have been accused of starting the Flame worm." And once a country admits that it's created such software, publicly deflecting such blame gets a lot harder.
Re:Oh, stop acting surprised, Iran (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder how many of those scientists came to untimely ends due to the actions of our spies, and how many of them disappeared due to the actions of their spies.
Now that the existence of these cyberweapons is out in the open, every time something actually goes wrong with Iran's programme, the first thing they'll do is assume sabotage and find someone to punish, even if it was just a routine fuckup. For bonus points, maybe in their paranoia, the Iranian secret police take out the very people who could have helped fix the bug.
In turn, this makes their remaining engineers even more paranoid -- about each other, as much as they're afraid of both our spies and their own secret police.
What makes these new targeted attacks intriguing is that while some of them are almost certainly aimed at Iran, some may not be. But that doesn't matter. It's like kids releasing four skunks into a high school as a senior prank -- after having spraypainted "1", "2", "3", and "5" on their backs.
The more paranoid the organization, the more likely it is to tear itself apart finding a nonexistent saboteur. Looks like we might be due for another big old storm of chaos. (As a Westerner, I certainly hope so :)
Re:Oh noes (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, it's been shown that, at the least, CANDU reactors can be modified to produce weapons-grade plutonium. India got the plutonium for the bomb used in Operation Smiling Buddha from a modified CANDU reactor.
act of war (Score:4, Interesting)
A recently drafted cyber strategy formulated by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) classifies digital sabotage as an act of war. [tgdaily.com]
Here's a fact: The U.S. and Israel have started war against Iran. I don't remember congress ever approving this war, I don't remember the public ever being notified that our country is now at war with yet another country, despite being unable to pay for the half dozen other wars we're currently engaged in. This is completely unacceptable.
Quick way to Tuff Guy Status (Score:4, Interesting)
Quickest way to tuff guy status? take Credit for someone else work. Guy drops dead all of a suddent take credit for his death, even if you had nothing to do with it. The US and Isreal are riding this wave that now everytime something in the cyber world drops dead its because they did it, no matter what happens, even if they are just as suprised as everyone else. This plays well into the Iranians need to blame their inability to produce anything in their nuclear program on someone else. We would have had a Bomb if it was not for those medling kids!
I can say without a doubt that their is no Goverment Service worker that could have produced Stuxnet or Flame. I doubt it was a US contractor. They would have worked on it for sure, but they would have never delivered a final product and had that gravy train dry up.
I have a strong feeling that all this "accidental" leaking is just a way to take credit without actually claiming you took credit.
So when the iranians claim another attack I take it with a grain of salt. To many people have to much at stake claiming that something happend. Having something actually happen is besides the point.