Hackers Stole Information From IAEA Servers 55
porsche911 writes "A hacker group called 'Parastoo' have broken into an International Atomic Energy Agency computer and released details of more than 100 IAEA experts. They are asking the experts to criticize Israel's nuclear arsenal (English translation)."
The IAEA confirms the breach happened, but that it was of a decommissioned server. The statement from Parastoo courtesy of Cryptome.
Pointless. (Score:1)
OK and if they criticize Israel's nuclear arsenal, then what?
Re:Pointless. (Score:4, Funny)
But actually, they're of the opinion that Iranian nuclear scientists have been getting attacked lately [guardian.co.uk], and they want that to stop. The Israel-criticizing was lower on the priority list. I have no idea how the summary missed this.
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I see the sarcasm, but it's important for people to know that Israel is not a signatory to the NNPT and hence is not bound by its requirements for declarations and inspections. Neither is North Korea, Pakistan, or India, all nations with nuclear arsenals (North Korea's is perhaps debatable), and the only nuclear-armed nation that has not threatened to use one, though their policy of deliberate ambiguity basically precludes such threats.
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It's an Iranian attack group. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It's an Iranian attack group. (Score:5, Funny)
African or European?
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Laden or Unladen?
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/bin or /usr/bin?
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It's an Iranian attack group.
Of course it is, because even Spiderman leaves an accurate calling card.
Your friendly neighbourhood Spiderman.
Decommissioned Server (Score:5, Insightful)
"...but that it was of a decommissioned server."
Um, who cares if it's live, going, or in a pile in a room. If it has valid data on it it is still a viable target and needs to be secured in whatever way is necessary. It's even worse if it was a system that was still online, supposed to be marked for decommissioned and they just didn't keep up on securing it anymore.
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"...but that it was of a decommissioned server."
Um, who cares if it's live, going, or in a pile in a room. If it has valid data on it it is still a viable target and needs to be secured in whatever way is necessary. It's even worse if it was a system that was still online, supposed to be marked for decommissioned and they just didn't keep up on securing it anymore.
No kidding. If it was decommissioned the drives would be destroyed at best, powered off and offline at worst.
Israel is not a signatory to NPT (Score:1)
They, along with India, Pakistan, and North Korea, are not signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. That's a pretty poor club to be in, but if we're going to complain, we should complain about all of them for not signing up. I don't see a particular reason to pick on Israel. Unlike the other three, it isn't even clear they've done any nuclear tests.
If this is about other countries that are chafing under the restrictions of the NPT (==Iran), then tough. You signed up for it. Deal with it or
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They just seem to be anti-nuke to me, and addressing the glaringly obvious fact that the IAEA gives one nation a pass. Non-proliferation doesn't work in such an environment.
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The IAEA doesn't have to give Israel a pass, Israel is not a signatory to the NPT. Iran, incidentally, is a signatory and should be cooperating.
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Can't they just take a page from GWB's playbook and simply unsign? I seem to recall he backed us out of the test ban treaty and other treaties he felt were inconvenient.
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Iran could certainly "unsign" or abrogate the treaty, but then that would be tantamount to admitting that they are building nuclear weapons, which they are trying to avoid until their first nuclear test.
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Hmmm but, currently, there seem to be a number of parties that consider them claiming they are not building nuclear weapons as being "tantamount to admitting that they are building nuclear weapons".
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True, but beside the point. If their stated goal is their true goal, (ie. only building nuclear power reactors), then there is no need for them to abrogate the NPT because their stated goals would be in compliance with the treaty.
Of course, as a matter of completely complying with the treaty, they not only have to have the right goals, they also have to submit to inspections for the assurance of compliance. They also have to operate their peaceful program within certain restrictions that are meant to preve
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You should look into why nations sign the NPT to begin with. Hint: there's more to it than just "As a non-nuclear state, I won't seek nukes."
phew! (Score:5, Funny)
I misread that as "Hackers Stole Information From IKEA Servers". I was worried there for a moment.
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Perhaps their coveted cinnamon roll recipe?
If Astronomers get hacked... (Score:2)
If Astronomers get hacked is the scandal a "Star-gate"?
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At this point, I think we could just say that it is multiple Star Wars.
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O'Rly? (Score:2)
Well that's so Tuesday. Would you swallow? Funny that the AP came out with this story just yesterday...
AP Exclusive: Graph suggests Iran working on bomb
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ap-exclusive-graph-suggests-iran-working-bomb [ap.org]
Isn't it great Iranians work in English?
Oh, my favourite part; "leaked by officials from a country critical of Iran's atomic program ..." ROTFL! Geee, wonder who THAT could be?
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The left side of the graph labels the power output in kT/sec with a plateau around 1.6E13 (16,000,000,000,000 kT). This strikes me as problematic.
So, too, does the part of the article that says, "The bomb that the United States dropped on Hiroshima...had a force of about 15 kilotons. Modern nuclear weapons have yields hundreds of times higher than that." A handful of weapons are in the megaton range, but most weapons are 300kT or smaller. It's enough to devastate a military base or a city core, but it's
Israel versus Iran (Score:2)
Anyone have any educated knowledge about what kind of data they could be releasing that would be unknown to the general public?
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It never gets inspected because Israel's not part of the NNPT. They don't have to submit to inspections.
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Israel developed their nuclear program with help from the French in the 1960s before the NNPT took effect. They may have stolen designs from the US, but they also have a very high-caliber arms industry of their own. I doubt the US would have given them weapons after the NNPT took effect, and even before it, the US was expressing concern that the French assistance could lead to an Israeli bomb, something that might have been seen as very unbalancing in those days.
Why? (Score:1)
Why does a decommissioned server still have valid data on it nevermind remaining online and accessible to the world?
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What is the nature of the data they stole? (Score:3)
As far as I know, IAEA is energy focused, not weapons, and so wouldn't keep things like CAD files for nuclear weapons or parts on its server. From the article, it sounds like it was information stolen about people who've worked with/for IAEA?
That's only partly true. . . (Score:2)
"considering the "waste" of power plants is what you put in bombs."
Not in general - spent nuclear fuel from a reactor that's been running for 18 months has a lot of fision products and decay products which make worthless for use in weapons. If you really want to create weapons grade plutonium, you put fuel slugs in the reactor and only run the reactor for something like 30 days, then pull the fuel out - you breed enough plutonium to extract, while not producing much of the "junk" which ruins it for weapons
Stole? (Score:2)
I'm seeing a huge inconsistency between data 'theft' or 'stealing' and 'pirating' here on Slashdot. I read the article and didn't see any reference to the original data being deleted. Was it just copied or "pirated", or was it actually taken off the machine with the original data removed?
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I'm seeing a huge inconsistency between data 'theft' or 'stealing' and 'pirating' here on Slashdot. I read the article and didn't see any reference to the original data being deleted. Was it just copied or "pirated", or was it actually taken off the machine with the original data removed?
The difference between piracy and theft is that theft deprives the original owner of something. In this case, they have deprived the owner of the secrecy/exclusivity of the data. So it would be more technically accurate to say they stole "secrets" but that gets clunky to say so in common language we just say that the information was stolen.
Context matters.
Hackers Stole Information From IKEA Servers? (Score:2)
No! I want to live in my happy pocket universe.
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Hackers stole ... (Score:2)
Now, which one will get more comments about how it is wrong: The use of the word "Hacker", or the use of the word "stole"? :-)
I'm not in their database anyway (Score:1)
Oh, wait...