Iran Arrests Alleged Spies Over Stuxnet Worm 261
kaptink writes "Reports surfacing from Iran claim 'nuclear spies' have been arrested over the infection at the Busheher nuclear station, which opened in August. According to Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi, because Stuxnet is so sophisticated, cost so much to write and uses two stolen security certificates, he believes only a national intelligence agency or a huge private company could have devised it, calling them 'enemies' spy services."
The country that cried wolf (Score:5, Insightful)
They may be right this time, but who will believe them? For those living under a rock, I'm referring to the 3 American hikers who allegedly strayed over the border from Kurdish Iraq, two of which are still being held as spies.
Bah! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bah! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It needed in country personnel? WTF (Score:1, Insightful)
Because, the Iranian government acts like a paranoid nut job, and they also control the media within Iran. Their actions and arrests are not about truth, but about posturing and control within their own country. And, also about seeming to be doing something so they can point the finger at the West.
They'll arrest practically anybody and call them a spy if it meets their purposes. Who they have arrested in this case is likely irrelevant -- either they are some random schmucks who are going to be used as scapegoats, or they might be loosely linked to the actual worm. Either way, they won't be above imprisoning, stoning, hanging or what have you.
Either way, they'll pursue them with the same zeal, and they will be a talking point for their president to babble and make veiled threats against everybody. Expect to see him in the UN blathering on incoherently about how they've defeated the enemy or how aliens are about to come out of his asshole and help then achieve their destiny.
I can't decide if his actions are tactical, or if he really is an unstable person who is in control of a military and backed by a bunch of other zealots with an equally skewed perception of the world.
If anybody has a president (and others) who someone should be assassinating, it is Iran. A couple of the Ayatolas are also wack jobs the world would be better off without.
"only a national intelligence agency" (Score:5, Insightful)
So called security experts - most of them in fact peddlers of software who depend on the fear of malware for their incomes - are not unbiased commentators. Remember how USL claimed that Unix was too complicated for Berkeley grad students to have replicated without copying their proprietary code? And SCO claimed that Linux couldn't possibly be that good without belonging to them? In fact, there's no software "so sophisticated" that it can't be produced by a bunch of sufficiently dedicated geeks.
It's an argument particularly appealing to conspiracy theorists - look at how the authors of "The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail" insisted that no-one would expend the effort to forge the documents they relied on, even after the hoax was admitted. You just can't judge this kind of thing on that basis.
Eh.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Rest assured, you'll never catch those in charge. I doubt there are names on it. Maybe an agency, but they aren't going to be dumb enough to step into Iran. Iran is simply using these arrests as as political tool to further their own goals.
Re:Bah! (Score:2, Insightful)
Sure, the leadership is run by corrupt figures who use religious zealotry to organize the poor in order to remain in power, but that's no different than many Western countries.
The Republicans are doing a hell of a job - just look at how they took over the TEA Party. The religious nuts are pushing out the libertarians and are ruining something that had a lot of potential.
Re:The country that cried wolf (Score:2, Insightful)
Just the actions, manerisms and behavior of the woman since she was freed already has CIA written all over them. Put that together with the propaganda and where they were and I'd start wagering money on it.
Oh wait, I'm sorry, did you actually have proof they weren't CIA?
Re:Bah! (Score:5, Insightful)
Your post is more or less the wired article linked to a last week. Nataz was certainly targeted by Stuxnet. That said, the news article isn't BS. The news article is reflecting what the Iranians are doing: using Stuxnet to arrest and jail undesirables and furthering their "us vs them" ideology that keeps them in power. Any accident at any plant going forward will not be a sign of incompetence but a sign that western powers are targeting Iranians.
Anyone that pissed off someone in power at Bushehr is now a spy and will be executed. They'll also probably arrest some foreigners and use them to trade for real spies of their own caught overseas. That's how these oppressive regimes work. Theocracy isnt a valid form of government.
Re:They don't say who they think it is (Score:4, Insightful)
I know it is a rhetorical question, but it has to be said. Given that the United States signed over 29 nation-to-nation treaties with the people of Lakotah, and gravely violated every last one, as well as every single nation-to-nation treaty made with the other captive nations of North America, it seems rather hypocritical to me this very same nation complains about breaches of treaties by others.
Bullshit: what about Pakistan and Israel? (Score:4, Insightful)
The reason the West is so hostile to the possibility of a nuclear Iran is that the only peaceful doctrine nuclear weapons allow, MAD, assumes rational actors on all sides. In Iran that rationality might well be subservient to theology.
Both Pakistan and Israel are western allies with direct US funding for their military. Both have nuclear weapons. Both are filled with religious nutcases. Both have refused to sign the NPT.
Vilifying Iran is a sideshow to the real issue of nuclear proliferation. If the West wants to be taken seriously for nuclear disarmament, it should bring Israel, Pakistan, and India to the table to make the Middle East nuclear free. Iran is doing what any reasonable state would do after seeing what happened to Iraq versus North Korea and Pakistan: If you want to avoid a US invasion, the first step is to get nuclear weapons as a deterrent.
Re:The country that cried wolf (Score:2, Insightful)
Svartalf? You shillin' dude?
Do you understand what you just stated? Script Kiddies don't become competent with time or practice .. that's why they're called 'Script Kiddies'
Re:The country that cried wolf (Score:3, Insightful)
"No one does."
Never underestimate human stupidity. If they weren't spies, they should have been shot for being idiots.
No USian not on government or military business has any reason to be where they were.
Re:Bah! (Score:3, Insightful)
"The religious nuts are pushing out the libertarians and are ruining something that had a lot of potential."
WHAT Libertarians? All two or three of them? There have never been any secular rightists in the US who matter, sad to say.
Anyone awake knew the Tea Party was a front group for the rich, whose foot soldiers are the Religious Right. That was never in question.
"Value Voters", my happy ass! Bible Nazis in a Rovian Rerun (and mostly minus Rove) with a massive money infusion from the Koch Brothers is what they are.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:How come Iran can do it when others can't? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The country that cried wolf (Score:2, Insightful)
Use, "hikers.". Sure. Keep telling yourself and everybody else they were hikers, I'm suee you will eventually believe it.
Hikers do not scout out the border regions of Iraq and Iran. Undercover spies do.
Re:The country that cried wolf (Score:5, Insightful)
Why in the hell would the CIA send three very obviously non-Iranian looking Americans hiking around the Iranian border?
You're an idiot to think they have anything to do with the CIA. They are were "caught" after visiting the Ahmed Awa waterfall, which happens to be only a few miles from the Iranian border. They are nothing more than a bunch of hippie activists who were stupid enough to wander into a questionable area.
And sometimes (Score:3, Insightful)
One guy produces some REALLY sophisticated stuff. One of my favorites, though admittedly obscure examples, is Kega. It is a Sega Genesis emulator written by one guy, Steve Snake, in his spare time. It has gone through many iterations, but back when it was KGen was an amazingly good emulator. So good, in fact, that Sega called him and asked if he'd mind coming and writing an emulator for them for their Smash Pack. That's right, rather than having their array of people do it, they hired one guy because he was already good at it. He did that (Sega gave him access to hardware documents and such to help) and then went back on making free emulators for everyone.
Just one guy working in his free time and he's done a better job than anyone else, and a job so good Sega figured it was easier/cheaper/better to just hire him.
Now that doesn't mean this worm was written by one guy, or a couple of guys, or anything like that. It is just intended to demonstrate that there are some extremely talented individuals out there. In fact it turns out that most high quality programs are written by relatively few people. Programming isn't like digging a ditch, doubling the number of people won't double the speed. You'll find situations, like many games, where there was one lead developer, and maybe 5 other developers under them that wrote most of it. There may have been others that helped on specific things (often in the form of a library that was licensed), but it isn't like there were just hundreds of people thrown at the problem. They'd just step on each others toes. Instead you have a few, highly skilled, people who work on a project.
Now as that applies to this worm you might notice that in no way do governments have a monopoly on good programmers. The opposite in fact, the best tend to be in the private industry. You also might note there are good programmers that do some shady things. Cracking would be an excellent example. It is pretty tricky work. You have to debug and work on a program all in assembly, without the source, to strip out the protection code. You sometimes have to emulate the functions of hardware dongles, you have to get around code traps put there to stop a debugger (tying in to the same interrupts and so on). Not straight forward, not low skill, yet done ALL the time.
All this demonstrates is that there are indeed people out there who have the skill necessary to make a complex worm. They don't have to be working for a government.
For that matter (Score:4, Insightful)
Who says they didn't do it themselves? I mean since all we've got is weak, conspiracy theory level evidence, let's go for a double secret reverse conspiracy theory: Iran wrote Stuxnet. Their nuclear program was not going as well as they'd hoped. It was faced with setbacks they didn't want to have to acknowledge. Also, they'd really been hoping for an Israeli air strike. That would give them justification on many levels. However everyone was just bitching about it and doing things via diplomatic channels, nobody was attacking. They had nobody but themselves to blame for their problems, and the Jews were not being evil like they should.
So they write Stuxnet. It'll unleash some havoc in general in western countries which is nice and guarantees news time, but gives them a good excuse as to why their shit isn't done on time. However they don't want it to actually damage anything really important. Also they can't very well go telling people "Ummm secure your shit against this," since it has to be clandestine. So they add a "do not infect" code. They can then stick that code on the systems they need to be actually safe. They make it an obtuse Jewish reference to cast possible suspicion is Israel.
They let it lose, havoc happens it is big news. Iran says "Ahhh, this has broken our nuclear shit! Those evil Zionists!" They get to play the victim, they have a good explanation as to why things aren't on schedule, they get to arrest people they don't like, etc.
There you go. Another flimsy conspiracy theory that also fits the very limited available evidence. Hopefully this demonstrates precisely why rushing to assumptions of conspiracies based on minimal evidence is such a bad idea.
Re:For that matter (Score:4, Insightful)
Another flimsy conspiracy theory that also fits the very limited available evidence. Hopefully this demonstrates precisely why rushing to assumptions of conspiracies based on minimal evidence is such a bad idea.
Exactly what part of Iran's foreign relations over the last 30+ years would be considered "a good idea"?
For all the stupid stuff that we Americans might be responsible for, from the Shah to funding Iraq during their war with Iran, Iran has consistently been run by fanatics for decades, and the only reasons that they have not been bombed off the map is that they are a major producer of oil. They all but openly support terrorist organizations all over the globe, and their leadership *obviously* does not reflect the will of the people. I just hope that we figure out how to reduce our dependence on their oil quickly, so that when their citizens finally do rise up into civil war, it won't cause a major worldwide recession/depression. And I hope we stay out of it and just let them settle it themselves.
Re:Bah! Silly (Score:3, Insightful)
Do any planks in the Tea Party platform address any of these in a positive way?