13 ms·
Israel may have destroyed Iranian centrifuges simply by cutting power
- pcbro141 6y ago> it appears the facility’s main power distribution equipment was taken out with explosives How do the Israelis keep managing to get explosives into Natanz? They blew up a hall last July. I would have thought everyone entering the premises goes through a body scanner like an airport to make sure you're not carrying bombs, spy cameras, etc.
- sillysaurusx 6y agoRight?! Sorry for the empty comment, but I'm fascinated to know this is happening. If there's one place that bombs are unwelcome, it'd be a nuclear facility. One also wonders whether an Israeli planted the bomb, or an Iranian. You'd have to be pretty daring either way.
- pcbro141 6y agoI'm guessing an Iranian. From articles I've read, it sounds like Mossad has a huge network of ethnic Iranian agents carrying out the ground work in Iran. This stuff is fascinating indeed. Here's a good read for you: https://archive.ph/uG9Lu https://archive.ph/uG9Lu https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/15/us/politics/iran-israel-mossad-nuclear.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/15/us/politics/iran-israel-m... How Israel, in Dark of Night, Torched Its Way to Iran’s Nuclear Secrets > The Mossad agents moving in on a warehouse in a drab commercial district of Tehran knew exactly how much time they had to disable the alarms, break through two doors, cut through dozens of giant safes and get out of the city with a half-ton of secret materials: six hours and 29 minutes. > The morning shift of Iranian guards would arrive around 7 a.m., a year of surveillance of the warehouse by the Israeli spy agency had revealed, and the agents were under orders to leave before 5 a.m. to have enough time to escape. Once the Iranian custodians arrived, it would be instantly clear that someone had stolen much of the country’s clandestine nuclear archive, documenting years of work on atomic weapons, warhead designs and production plans. > The agents arrived that night, Jan. 31, with torches that burned at least 3,600 degrees, hot enough, as they knew from intelligence collected during the planning of the operation, to cut through the 32 Iranian-made safes. But they left many untouched, going first for the ones containing the black binders, which contained the most critical designs. When time was up, they fled for the border, hauling some 50,000 pages and 163 compact discs of memos, videos and plans. ... > In most Mossad operations, spies aim to penetrate a facility and photograph or copy material without traces. But in this case, the Mossad chief, Yossi Cohen, ordered that the material be stolen outright. That would drastically shorten the time that the agents — many, if not all, of them Iranians — spent inside the building. (continued in the article)
- sillysaurusx 6y agoThanks so much! I was just reading https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/revealed-how-a-secret-dutch-mole-aided-the-us-israeli-stuxnet-cyber-attack-on-iran-160026018.html https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/revealed-how-a-secret-du... which says the same thing: an Iranian mole was crucial for Stuxnet, smuggling a USB stick into the airgapped facility. I wonder what the calculus is like on whether to be an Iranian mole. Either the Israelis were blackmailing them into cooperating, or they're offering some very lucrative rewards, or the Iranian is doing it for some other reason (e.g. personal beliefs, or maybe just "being a super{hero,villain} for fun".)
- pcbro141 6y agoI imagine a combo of all of those reasons would be effective in convincing them to become agents. Like "hey, you can work for us, and we'll exfiltrate you and your family anytime you want and give you a great retirement package...or you can risk ending up like one of those nuclear scientists..." and they probably target the non-hardliner people.
- whimsicalism 6y agoThe US, at least, is very good at cultivating a lot of HUMINT just by offering massive rewards &/or relocation+citizenship for your family.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- sbierwagen 6y agoYou suborn the whole chain. Instead of one guy, you bribe or threaten the guy at the front gate, the guy who runs the metal detector, the guy who monitors the video cameras. Afterwards you exfiltrate them from the country to some third nation. (Or you don't, and instead do something less nice.)
- kevin_thibedeau 6y agoPeople that don't have a clue are kept in positions of authority. The Keystone Cops did a reenactment of Iranian security 100 years ago.
- weeblewobble 6y agoI don't know the answer to your question, but if you're interested in this topic I highly recommend Rise and Kill First by Ronen Bergman. Very well-sourced and readable account of Israeli spycraft. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rise_and_Kill_First https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rise_and_Kill_First
- sillysaurusx 6y agoSay what you will, but being able to smuggle a bomb into a heavily fortified military installation is pro. I'd give a lot for a peek at that world: the planning, the logistics, the people. They probably have one of the most sophisticated spy networks in the world.
- sschueller 6y agoSo who takes responsibility when one of these attacks results in a meltdown? And why does Iran not have the right to build their own atomic bomb when the US, Russia or China have them and are building new ones? We ALL should be reducing nuclear weapons including the US. But sadly the US has not been taking a leadership role recently Edit: Nice to see that my global nuclear disarmament comment is getting downvoted. /s
- mvzvm 6y agoIran is a theocracy that has stated multiple times a desire to "Wipe X off the face of the earth", where X is another country / race / religion.
- hoka-one-one 6y agoIs Israel that much different? It seems like if you're committed to empowering all BIPOC you would not restrict their access to the weaponry needed to defend their homelands. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samson_Option https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samson_Option
- mvzvm 6y agoIsrael is not governed by religious law, and has full rights for women, minorities, and LGBTQ. Its basis for most policy is a blend of social democracy and neoliberalism. Its military is purely defensive. I cannot say any of those things about Iran in good faith. Also, the what-about-ism is not a great defense of anything geopolitical btw.
- hoka-one-one 6y agoWhat do you think would happen if the US and all of Europe completely pulled out of the Middle East? Would Israel stay the size it is now? If not, can you really say it's "purely defensive"?
- 6y ago
- JarlUlvi 6y agoThe Israeli intelligence services nonstop sabotage campaigns of Iran's nuclear ambitions would probably make a great comedy.
- cryptoz 6y agoSorry for the pedestrian comment, but, watching the cyberwars happening is surreal. Nuclear material production being attacked by Stuxnet, this current event, others I'm sure, is amazing. The cyberwars of disinformation as well - completely surreal to see this all play out. Sorry I don't have more to add. It's hard to describe how it feels to see the future arrive like this. Pandemic. Rocket milestones, Mars plans. Nuclear-targeted cyberwar. Cryptocurrency. And flying cars are seemingly coming before self-driving cars perhaps. (Edit: And all backed by an increasingly divided America.) What a weird twist into the future the last few years have been.
- VonGuard 6y agoInformation Technologies have been weaponized, but not hardened, if that makes any sense. A lot of soft targets and heavy ordinance, not so many fortresses.
- bombcar 6y agoYeah, it feels like the "golden age" in some way - there's lots of developments available on both sides. I expect things will "calm down" over the next fifty years as defense-in-depth and security become ingrained into how we work. Compare a "modern network" with the first ARPANET.
- monocasa 6y agoMicheal Hayden during a Blackhat keynote likened 'cyber' to a new domain (like air, land, sea), that's universally like early WWI with open fields of men with no defenses being mowed down by attackers' machine guns. As an aside, it probably would have been smarter to make Cyber Command it's own branch rather than the Space Force. Space operations are basically figured out with the Air Force taking most of the lead. Cyber Command is apparently a cluster fuck of separate command structures all vying for power. Spending the time making a Space Force always seemed like a 20th century move in a 21st century env.
- ainiriand 6y agoToo much of a dystopia for my taste. I wish that we had solved climate change, stopped a few useless wars, and fixed a big part of the cronic health problems. We are much better than a hundred years ago, but we have much more to improve.
- Sparkyte 6y agoSure, but totally not the U.S.'s job to police this. Best let them address it with their own terms. Internation interjection only made these problems so much worse.
- monocasa 6y agoThis makes you wonder if we might see a resurgence in old school control systems without processors, and def no networks. The Manhattan project was able uranium purified to get a bomb working without PLCs and networks. All else being equal it's more expensive, but not compared to being unable to keep your network safe from attack. You need to reconfigure the line? Send eight techs down one by one to set new parameters and octople check the first tech's work.
- aswanson 6y agoAnalog is the future. Steampunk nuke ops.
- HenryKissinger 6y agoThere is truth in this comment. Parts of the Russian government have reverted to using mechanical typewriters in lieu of computers, which are too susceptible to malicious hacking. Also, the US Navy started instructing enlisted seamen how to navigate at sea by the stars, in case GPS stops working.
- formerly_proven 6y agoBut then again the Russians themselves famously placed very difficult to detect bugs in the mechanical typewriters of the American embassy.
- philwelch 6y agoAnd the Americans put one in the Soviet embassy’s Xerox machine. I think a potential lesson of the story is to use technology that you understand at least as well as your enemy does. The communist bloc maintained registries of typewriter fingerprints so they could identify which typewriters were used to reproduce samizdat; I think it’s fair to assume that the Russians understand typewriters very well.
- philwelch 6y ago
- nullserver 6y agoIsrael is fighting for its existence. Iran leadership routinely makes threats to destroy America and Israel. This often get ignored or dismissed. But like waving a gun in a cops face. Well bad things happen. One nuke will piss America off. One nuke and Israel will just be gone, completely. Iran is probably capable of this, or close. From Israel standpoint the logical step is to bomb Iran military into the Stone Age. Pushed hard enough they may just so that. However it’s a massive gamble if surrounding counties would eliminate Israel afterwards These hack jobs, assassinations, etc are all half measures to prevent a full scale war. Life is hard when much of the world wants you dead.
- cyberscientist 6y agoLet's be honest though, had Iran carried out such attack we would have called it a terrorist attack. I know you're about to go on about how awful Iranian regime is and they SAY they want Israel gone. But remember, Israel actually DOES carry out associations.
- Zhenya 6y agoTerror attacks are against civilian targets - hence terrorizing civilians. An attack like this is military - which could be carried out by terrorists or a govt. The difference is important.
- cyberscientist 6y agoLike your mental gymnastics. If Iran carries out such attacks on Israeli installations, who do have nuclear weapons. We would be framing it as terrorist attack. I think the narrative build that Iran is evil and Israel is devine only allows one side to do what they want till full blown out war breaks out.
- whimsicalism 6y agoBoth Iran and Israel carry out rogue bombing and assassinations targeting civilians. This is in contrast to the MO of most of Europe and even the United States.
- CivBase 6y ago> To mark the event and send a message to its negotiating partners, technicians at Natanz began to operate a small batch of IR-6 centrifuges as well. The majority of centrifuges at Natanz are a model known as IR-1, which is much less efficient at enriching uranium than the IR-6 design. The nuclear agreement signed with Iran in 2015 (known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA) limited it to using only IR-1 centrifuges, so the installation of the IR-6s is widely seen as a provocation designed to give Iran leverage in the revived talks. To add to the tension, Iran has been enriching uranium gas to 20 percent since the Trump administration withdrew from the agreement two years ago. Prior to this, it was enriching uranium to 3 to 5 percent. The higher levels put Iran closer to the 90 percent enrichment that is needed for nuclear weapons, all of which raises the stakes for Israel. Why should anyone believe they are pursuing a peaceful nuclear energy program when they do things like this? Surely the best way to convince people you are the peaceful victim is to continue to demonstrate peaceful intentions even when others don't reward you for it.
- eunos 6y agoLeverage for the next JCPOA.
- CivBase 6y agoCould you elaborate on what kind of leverage this gives them? Does anyone doubt they had the capability to employ more efficient centrifuges and enrich uranium beyond 20% prior to this. How does choosing to actually do those things benefit them in negotiations? If the criminal in a hostage situation starts shooting their hostages, does that give them leverage in negotiations? I would think it just devalues their hostages and gives the police more incentive to shoot before things get worse.
- eunos 6y agoIn this case the prev-police broke a promise with the criminal, while the criminals held other VVIP hostages. Current police hates the prev-police , but thats fait accompli. In addition unlike irreversible killings, they can freeze high enrichment as leverage. Of course both party must let IAEA do the works.
- fasteddie31003 6y agoLike them or not the Israeli Defense Force is arguably the most effective military in the world. From the Iron Dome, the Uzi, and the Arrow missile, the IDF has a track record of successful military projects. They seem lean and effective, unlike the US military. The US Military recently has had a track record of project failures from the F-35 to the Comanche helicopter and now they are spending $20B for Microsoft Hololens, which I bet is going to be another bust. The US Military could take some lessons from the IDF.
- whatshisface 6y agoMaybe it helps to have something to do.
- cptskippy 6y agoThe Uzi seems like an odd thing to brag about.
- fasteddie31003 6y agoIt's a pretty simple yet effective gun. Maybe the AK-47 of submachine guns.
- xtreme 6y agoThe US military is a job creation program first, and a defense force second.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- karpierz 6y ago> arguably the most effective military in the world Militaries are political tools, and different countries have different goals. It'd be like saying a laptop is better than a data center.
- aerodog 6y agoThe most effective military...that got owned by some Lebanese guerillas in 2006, and has to bomb kids on beaches with white phosphorous to get their way. Yeah chemical weapons are super effective.
- StreamBright 6y agoWhat are they doing with 60%? It is more than you need for a PWR and much less than you need for a weapon.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- myth_drannon 6y agoHolocaust day was one week ago, I thought a lot about my relatives that were murdered. The atmosphere in Israel right now is very solemn and difficult (was before but now even more). Seeing the unravelling situation with promises of 60% enrichment, I fear the trains are set in motion and hard to stop. And as 70 years ago, Britain and US knew what the Germans were doing with these trains but did nothing, there is a real possibility of repeat.
- seshagiric 6y agoThis has a very uncanny resemblance to the Apple TV show Tehran.
- fatjokes 6y agoTwist: all of this was a very expensive Apple TV ad! In all seriousness, if what you say it's true it really makes me want to watch Tehran.
- aborsy 6y agoFrankly, Israel needs to stop waging these wars in the Middle East. Apart from moral issues, they impact everyone. The refugee crisis is affecting us Europeans. We paid the cost for US wars. JCPA was working, except for a small group that benefit from its cancellation. Iran agreed to remove its uranium under strict checks and verifications. Why killing it?
- recuter 6y agoGosh, well if it is effecting Europeans, dear oh dear.. The ME is just this peaceful relaxed place that wouldn't have any conflicts if it weren't for Israel blowing up Iranian centrifuges whose sole purpose is the fabrication of nuclear weapons, eh? Lets just give nukes to Iran and Iraq and Syria (the later two Israel was similarly criticized for blowing up in previous decades, with Iran cheering Israel on in the 90s... food for thought..) Meanwhile in reality (seems like the EU loves waging war in the Middle East when memory isn't selective): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_military_intervention_in_Libya https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_military_intervention_in_...
- whimsicalism 6y agoLibya isn't in the Middle East
- aborsy 6y agoSorry, I didn’t mean to imply that Israel is responsible for ME problems. On this topic, Israel has significant nuclear weapons. Iran’s pursuit of weapons is likely a deterrence strategy. Thus a good way forward is to work constructively with countries in the region towards establishing a nuclear free zone that includes Israel, Iran and Pakistan. JCPA was a step towards that direction, which could potentially be extended to a broader agreement that gradually includes other countries as well. We really need to get away from these powerful weapons. The crises of past decades have shown us that the issues that we are facing are global.
- recuter 6y agoUnfortunately in reality this is considered wishful thinking by every competent intelligence agency (not just Israel, and not just western). I suppose you could say North Koreas pursuit of nuclear weapons is likely a deterrence strategy. Kim Jong-un and the ayatollahs are afraid primarily of their own oppressed citizens, it is not a difficult concept to grasp. Certainly the threat of terrorism and refugees is a global one as Europe is slowly coming to realize. So is the threat of nuclear proliferation, especially when it comes to unstable regimes.