I couldn't care less about what the TSA is doing...or Palin's latest brain droppings...but STUXNET

[HipChick]

has some serious implications..


http://www.scmagazineuk.com/what-is-stuxnet-doing-who-is-to-blame-and-what-has-been-learned-from-it/article/190004/

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/205827/was_stuxnet_built_to_attack_irans_nuclear_program.html

A highly sophisticated computer worm that has spread through Iran, Indonesia and India was built to destroy operations at one target: possibly Iran's Bushehr nuclear reactor.

Iran Was Prime Target, the emerging consensus of security experts who have examined the Stuxnet worm. In recent weeks, they've broken the cryptographic code behind the software and taken a look at how the worm operates in test environments. Researchers studying the worm all agree that Stuxnet was built by a very sophisticated and capable attacker -- possibly a nation state -- and it was designed to destroy something big.

Though it was first developed more than a year ago, Stuxnet was discovered in July 2010, when a Belarus-based security company discovered the worm on computers belonging to an Iranian client. Since then it has been the subject of ongoing study by security researchers who say they've never seen anything like it before. Now, after months of private speculation, some of the researchers who know Stuxnet best say that it may have been built to sabotage Iran's nukes.

<snip>

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/11/could-stuxnet-mess-with-north-koreas-new-uranium-plant/

Some of the equipment used by the North Koreans to control their centrifuges — necessary for turning uranium into nuclear-bomb-ready fuel — appear to have come from the same firms that outfitted the Iranian nuclear program, according to David Albright, the president of the Institute for Science and International Security and a long-time watcher of both nuclear programs. “The computer-control equipment North Korea got was the same Iran got..

[Common Sense Party]

1. Two cheers for Stuxnet.

I'd much rather have us sending cyber-missiles than real missiles.

(My guess is it was Israel.)

At the same time, if we're going to be doing this kind of stuff, we'd better be prepared for people aiming these wormweapons at US.

[HipChick]

2. I've been following this for while

The sophistication is amazing..

[Common Sense Party]

9. No kidding. Somebody knows what they're doing.

And then they have the balls to actually do it.

[aquart]

3. Horrors! Victory without mass murder!

Damn those evil Israelis!

[LostInAnomie]

4. Good on Stuxnet then.

[AnnieBW]

5. The Israelis did it

Well, they're not *admitting* it, per se. But whenever someone asks them about it, they just smile and say, "no comment."

[Common Sense Party]

8. That's my guess, as well.

[NoodleyAppendage]

6. The problem is Stuxnet is "out in the wild" and may come back to bite us on the ass. n/t

J

[bananas]

10. Another reason not to waste money on nuclear energy.

Nuclear energy isn't needed at all - it isn't needed to deal with global warming, and it isn't needed to deal with peak oil.
Nuclear energy is dirty, dangerous, expensive, and unnecessary.

[Catherina]

7. Yes indeed. Rec'd n/t

[cliffordu]

11. I wonder if them two young fellows at IBM who I used to discuss

bullet trajectories with were in on this. They were working on crazy algorithms.....the only two guys from computer security that didn't work anywhere near the rest of the computer security dudes and dudettes....