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Real Mossad Operatives Ship. These guys weren't making a paean to beautiful, hardened software to impress their hacker friends. They needed to get the simplest
by danilocampos 16y ago
Real Mossad Operatives Ship.
These guys weren't making a paean to beautiful, hardened software to impress their hacker friends. They needed to get the simplest, most reliable and effective code possible out the door in as short a time as possible.
Israel bought itself a few more years of a nuke-free Iran. This is a successful, amazing, even miraculous outcome. Outside of nerd circles, software is measured by results, not architecture or complexity. Beautiful systems that never ship are fine for weekend projects but, uh, we're talking about stopping a nuclear weapons program here. It's a bit like saying that Apollo 11 was bullshit because the accommodations weren't anywhere near as nice as flying on Pan Am.
Stuxnet is the Jack Bauer of software. Rough edges but badass and gets the job done under impossible circumstances.
- MichaelSalib 16y agoIsrael bought itself a few more years of a nuke-free Iran. Do we actually know that? Is there any evidence that this delayed the program by "years" rather than a few months?
- tkahn6 16y agoSeems like they really messed them up. According to Western intelligence reports, Russian scientists warned the Kremlin that they could be facing "another Chernobyl" if they were forced to comply with Iran's tight deadline to activate the complex this summer. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/8262853/Stuxnet-virus-attack-Russia-warns-of-Iranian-Chernobyl.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/8262...
- MichaelSalib 16y agoI am really confused. I thought the goal of Stuxnet was to delay the production of Iranian enrichment efforts at Natanz. Not to delay a civilian reactor at Bushehr, which is hundreds of miles away. Assuming the Telegraph report is correct, I don't see how this tells us anything about how effective Stuxnet was at delaying enrichment efforts.
- tkahn6 16y agoWhat evidence would you accept
- MichaelSalib 16y agoI'll accept anything, but I'll give more credence to some sources than others. But this seems backward. If there is no evidence that Stuxnet was effective at significantly delaying Iranian production, then people should stop saying that there is. My willingness to accept evidence really shouldn't have anything to do with it.
- tkahn6 16y agoI'm asking because it's unlikely http://presstv.ir http://presstv.ir is going host an article saying that Iran's ability to obtain a nuclear bomb has been delayed. Mossad is saying that Iran doesn't possess the capability to build a nuclear bomb before 2015 and it says attacking Iran would be unwise [1]. Can you think of any reason why they would be saying this unless they believed it to be true? [1. http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/01/07/132525.html http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/01/07/132525.html]
- MichaelSalib 16y agoI'm asking because it's unlikely http://presstv.ir http://presstv.ir is going host an article saying that Iran's ability to obtain a nuclear bomb has been delayed. True, but that doesn't mean we should accept every claim as true. Can you think of any reason why they would be saying this unless they believed it to be true? What? This doesn't tell us anything about the effectiveness of Stuxnet. Even if they did, intelligence services have a nasty habit of exaggerating their own effectiveness, so I'd find it more credible if that assessment came from another Israeli government organization or another nation's intelligence service altogether.
- tkahn6 16y agoEven if they did, intelligence services have a nasty habit of exaggerating their own effectiveness This is where we disagree (I also don't know where this perception comes from). In no way is it in Israel's best interest to do an about-face on their assessment of the time frame for a nuclear Iran unless they had good evidence that indeed Iran's capability to obtain nuclear weapons was severely diminished. Israel has been trying to convince the international community that Iran has been on the cusp of nuclear weapons for the past two years. You're arguing that the organization Mossad is acting irrationally. What benefit does Mossad exaggerating their effectiveness bring Israel?
- tptacek 16y agoThis doesn't add up. Russian scientists are extremely concerned about Iran's lax attitude towards nuclear safety issues (note plural). Against this backdrop we're supposed to be able to read tea leaves from a captured virus and determine the level of damage it did to a shoddily-operated highly-secret massively-complicated nuclear plant?
- nikcub 16y agoThe source on the disruption to the nuclear program wasn't from analyzing the worm, it was from: Three UN diplomats who were sources to an AP story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101122/ap_on_re_eu/iran_nuclear_3 http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101122/ap_on_re_eu/iran_nuclear... A "former top IAEA official": http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/22/AR2010112206746.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11... Iran stopped all uranium production, according to official IAEA report: http://www.isis-online.org/uploads/isis-reports/documents/Iran_report-nov23.pdf http://www.isis-online.org/uploads/isis-reports/documents/Ir... IAEA again: http://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/-/world/8378260/iran-temporarily-halted-enrichment-in-mid-november-aea/ http://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/-/world/8378260/iran-tempor... Head of Mossad and Hillary Clinton both announced: "that they believed Iran’s efforts had been set back by several years." (from the very NYT article) And no less than the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: "Iran's enemies used computer code to make "limited" problems for centrifuges involved in uranium enrichment at some of its nuclear sites, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Monday" http://israelinsider.net/profiles/blogs/ahmadinejad-those-who-planted http://israelinsider.net/profiles/blogs/ahmadinejad-those-wh... but he would say 'limited', wouldn't he. Afterall two weeks earlier they were vehemently denying that Stuxnet had any effect.
- tptacek 16y agoAll these stories say the same thing: Natanz suffered a major setback, and various researchers suspect Stuxnet played a role. Here's what I think: Natanz suffered a major setback, and the role Stuxnet played was to provide a smokescreen for the actual sabotage. I have no evidence to support my take, but then, there's not much evidence for the alternative take. I also think it's plausible that Ahmedinijad (who, remember, is not necessarily a key player in Iranian nuclear politics) or his handlers might play along with a bogus Stuxnet story if it suits the narrative; for instance, if humdrum human sabotage dealt a much greater blow to their plans than has been acknowledged, Iran might prefer the "virus cost us a few months" story to the "we're back to square one" story.
- rdtsc 16y ago> Real Mossad Operatives Ship. How do you know that?
- neworbit 16y agoI suspect your question is "how do you know that they're behind stuxnet" for which none of us probably have the answer - or if one of our loyal HN readers does, they're not really likely to divulge it. The statement quoted in general, though, seems pretty true. That particular agency has a track record for being rather active rather than just quietly/passively gathering intel.
- rdtsc 16y ago> ... none of us probably have the answer - or if one of our loyal HN readers does, they're not really likely to divulge it. Exactly, if he works for them and boasts about how efficient they are, it sort of makes them look unprofessional. If he doesn't then how can he say that they are "shipping"? Maybe they waste lots of taxpayers money on projects that never make it out of the door. From what I know their general policy is to never confirm or deny _anything_.
- gruseom 16y agowe're talking about stopping a nuclear weapons program here. But the unanimous consensus ("with high confidence") of all 16 US intelligence agencies remains that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program. I haven't seen that mentioned once in any discussion of this subject here. That's just weird. I don't follow this stuff closely and obviously have no idea what's going on behind the scenes, but it seems likely that everything about this business is stuffed to the gills with propaganda. Is there any credibly objective source anywhere?
- rprasad 16y agoYet. The unanimous consensus was that Iran does not yet have a nuclear weapons program, but that it was attempting to establish one. The purpose of Stuxnex was to push back Iran's progress by a few years.
- gruseom 16y ago"Halted in 2003" is how I remember it. How can you push back the progress of something that was halted in 2003 (if it was)? Anyway, (a) I haven't read the report; (b) an objective discussion of this matter seems impossible; (c) I already regret contributing to something that probably shouldn't be on HN; (d) I think I'll stop here.
- MichaelSalib 16y agoThe purpose of Stuxnex was to push back Iran's progress by a few years. Ah, but why bother? Iran's nuclear weapons are always just a few years away, in the future: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/bad-intelligence-but-in-which-direction/ http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/bad-intelligence-but-in-which... “Late 1991: In congressional reports and CIA assessments, the United States estimates that there is a ‘high degree of certainty that the government of Iran has acquired all or virtually all of the components required for the construction of two to three nuclear weapons.’ A February 1992 report by the U.S. House of Representatives suggests that these two or three nuclear weapons will be operational between February and April 1992.” “February 24, 1993: CIA director James Woolsey says that Iran is still 8 to 10 years away from being able to produce its own nuclear weapon, but with assistance from abroad it could become a nuclear power earlier.” “January 1995: The director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, John Holum, testifies that Iran could have the bomb by 2003.” “January 5, 1995: U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry says that Iran may be less than five years from building an atomic bomb, although ‘how soon…depends how they go about getting it.’” “April 29, 1996: Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres says ‘he believes that in four years, they [Iran] may reach nuclear weapons.’” “October 21, 1998: General Anthony Zinni, head of U.S. Central Command, says Iran could have the capacity to deliver nuclear weapons within five years. ‘If I were a betting man,’ he said, ‘I would say they are on track within five years, they would have the capability.’” “January 17, 2000: A new CIA assessment on Iran’s nuclear capabilities says that the CIA cannot rule out the possibility that Iran may possess nuclear weapons. The assessment is based on the CIA’s admission that it cannot monitor Iran’s nuclear activities with any precision and hence cannot exclude the prospect that Iran may have nuclear weapons.” You'd think that after consistently making false predictions for decades, people might be a little more careful about this, but no....
- kenjackson 16y agoReal Mossad Operatives Ship Someone needs to do that t-shirt, with the Stuxnet code on the back. I'd get one... although I'd probably be too afraid to wear it :-)
- simonsarris 16y agoAfraid of whom? I've never heard of someone afraid to be pro-Israel/Mossad, only the opposite.
- kenjackson 16y agoExactly! The fact that the anti-Mossad regime is so secret is what makes it even scarier. The less proof we can find, the more compelling it becomes!
- nir 16y agoThat statement is extremely location-dependent.
- rdtsc 16y agoJust pointing out that you would be wearing a t-shirt of an agency that doesn't mind assassinating and torturing people.
- fanf2 16y agoIt reminds me of the Israeli treatment of the humanitarian supply ships that tried to help Gaza.
- tptacek 16y agoThat's a nice-sounding narrative, but no assessment of Stuxnet indicates that it foreclosed on Iran's nuclear capability, and if it actually is an intelligence service attack on a foreign industrial process, the fact that it's been analyzed in the New York Times seems to suggest that it wasn't very competently done. A big part of Nate's point in this article is that the virus and DRM communities have known for over a decade how to take programs like this and make them hard to analyze. Nate is pointing out that nothing like that seems to have been done here. Note that Nate was a key contributor to the as-yet-unbroken† Blu-Ray BD+ DRM scheme, which he worked on in his last couple years at Paul Kocher's infamous Cryptography Research. Here he is going out of his way to cite well known, public sources for methods that would have allowed an intelligence agency to carry out this attack without broadcasting to the world "AIR GAP ALL YOUR NUCLEAR FACILITIES IMMEDIATELY OR YOU WILL LOSE YOUR CENTRIFUGES". He's not even suggesting that the authors needed to be world-class content protection experts; only that they would have benefited greatly from a book you can get off the shelf at Barnes and Noble. The C.W. on Hacker News might be that it makes sense for Iran's enemies to brag about destroying centrifuges without a costly military intervention. But real intelligence services don't brag, if only because they'd like to be able to repeat the same trick against Myanmar or Belarus or Syria or whoever the next proliferation threat is. † BD+ is interesting because it was designed to be broken easily and then renewed easily; there are numerous individual disk breaks, but so far as I know no break against the whole BD+ scheme that would enable a bypass of any studio update. BD+ may be the first such renewable content protection scheme ever deployed.
- sskates 16y agoIf that was his point then title of the article shouldn't have been "Stuxnet is embarrassing, not amazing" rather "Here's how Stuxnet could have been even better"
- tptacek 16y agoI think "teenagers have written tfiles that are markedly more sophisticated than this virus" justifies the title, but this is a difference of opinion and a classic example of an unproductive HN argument. If you think his title sucks, fine.
- anateus 16y agoI think that is quite inconclusive that Israel is the source. If it is, it's likelier that Stuxnet is the creation of Unit 8200 rather than the Mossad. Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_8200 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_8200