6 ms·

Dutch man sabotaged Iranian nuclear program without Dutch government's knowledge

55 points by yread 3y ago

i67vw3 3y ago
>Van Sabben immediately left Iran after successfully sabotaging the country’s nuclear program, the researchers concluded. He died two weeks later in a motorcycle accident near his home in Dubai. Nothing points to foul play, the Volkskrant said after speaking with people at the crash scene. Definitely killed by either Dutch/Americans/Saudis or Iranians.
- cf1241290841 3y ago
  >It is unclear whether the Dutchman knew about his role in the sabotage operation, the Volkskrant wrote.
- unsupp0rted 3y ago
  An activity that accidentally kills a relatively huge % of people: https://www.medpagetoday.com/transplantation/transplantation/101938 https://www.medpagetoday.com/transplantation/transplantation... > After Major Motorcycle Rallies, More Organs Available for Donation > — Study estimated 21% more organ donors, 26% more transplant recipients per day during rallies
- ecmascript 3y ago
  If the americans killed him it would be a great way to make sure less people are willing to help them in the first place.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- protastus 3y ago
  Or maybe he's alive and well under a new identity.
- mithras 3y ago
  Seems unlikely Iran already figured it out within two weeks of the event.
- andruby 3y ago
  Dutch news seems to give different information. The operation happened in 2007. 1.5 to 2 years later, Van Sabben returned to Iran. Then he suddenly left and two weeks later died on 16/01/2009. https://www.volkskrant.nl/nieuws-achtergrond/aivd-speelde-cruciale-rol-bij-sabotage-kernprogramma-iran~ba24df9f/ https://www.volkskrant.nl/nieuws-achtergrond/aivd-speelde-cr... https://nos.nl/artikel/2504114-nederlander-saboteerde-atoomcomplex-in-iran-den-haag-wist-niets https://nos.nl/artikel/2504114-nederlander-saboteerde-atoomc... The Dutch tech site tweakers.net is discussing it here https://tweakers.net/nieuws/217216/volkskrant-identiteit-van-nederlandse-stuxnet-installateur-is-bekend.html?showReaction=19489432#r_19489432 https://tweakers.net/nieuws/217216/volkskrant-identiteit-van...
  - i67vw3 3y ago
    I think he was a simple AVID informant who may have thought he had planted a audio/video recording device on behest of AVID and not the virus. A local news outlet states that he was an 'avid motorcycle rider' meaning he was an expert at riding motorcycles. Such a rider has low chances of getting into an accident than average. Or the accident was a mere coincidence. https://www.thenationalnews.com/uae/engineer-who-helped-build-the-maqta-bridge-1.553285 https://www.thenationalnews.com/uae/engineer-who-helped-buil...
    - cwmma 3y ago
      An avid motorcyclist is just somebody that motorcycles a lot, while their per mile chance of having an accedent might be lower, their overall chances are much higher.
spaghetti1535 3y ago
I hope they can pull this of again. Not looking forward to a world where Iran has nuclear weapons
- amingilani 3y ago
  I’m curious as to why that is. I understand that the regime is loathed by plenty but why should a portion of humanity be excluded from nuclear weapons when their enemies have it? Genuinely asking because I’m curious, and not trying to flamebait.
  - Ygg2 3y ago
    To answer your question with a question: What is so bad about giving a regime that (re)invented suicide bombings a nuke?
  - UberFly 3y ago
    You are trying to flamebait. Why is the regime loathed by plenty?
    - wkat4242 3y ago
      Oh I don't know. Perhaps murdering women because they refuse to wear a piece of cloth?
    - amingilani 3y ago
      Asking questions to gain a better perspective ≠ flamebait. Plenty of people have their own reasons to hate the regime. It doesn’t matter to me personally since I have no stake in Iran or her politics.
  - ioblomov 3y ago
    All politics aside, the more countries with nukes there are, the likelier one gets used, whether intentionally or by accident.
    - 3y ago
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
dannyw 3y ago
> An anonymous executive at the AIVD said that the government may have deliberately not been informed of the operation due to the potential political consequences Pretty bad when intelligence services customarily operate above the law and don't even tell the government they're supposedly beholden to.
- checkyoursudo 3y ago
  Pretty bad for the rest of us, but not bad for the people in government who want plausible deniability for actions taken by the espionage services. I would assume that every government has this, at least to some extent, don't you think?
  - cm2187 3y ago
    Yes but this "independence" regularly leads to abuses. In France the secret services are strongly suspected to be behind several major political hoaxes against their president (Markovic affair against Pompidou, Japanese bank account against Chirac). I won't even get into what the CIA is suspected of...
    - bananapub 3y ago
      Don’t forget French security services also terrorist attacked a notional ally, even: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warri...
      - cm2187 3y ago
        Yeah but that wasn’t the DGSE going rogue, that was ordered by the gvt.
  - turquoisevar 3y ago
    It would be great for governments, if that’s how it worked in European countries. The Netherlands specifically had cabinets (i.e., governments) fall due to the responsible ministers not knowing what their agencies were doing, with snap elections as result. In fact, in the last decade or so this happened quite often. Accountability in The Netherlands isn’t just based on knowing something and still doing the wrong things, its often also based on “should’ve known something as the person responsible for the agency in question” and not being in the know. In terms of accountability, in both cases the person in question is considered to have fucked up. So the plausible deniability angle, is not really a benefit. Provided it comes out during that person’s tenure, although in rare instances even current office holders have been held responsible for the lack of knowledge of their prior office holders, based on the idea that the current office holder should’ve been aware such a thing happened and should’ve informed parliament post haste upon learning about it.
wkat4242 3y ago
> According to the newspaper, the Stiekem committee, which translates to “secret committee," It doesn't translate to secret committee really. Secret = geheim in Dutch. The term stiekem has a definite negative connotation. A more accurate translation would be the "sneaky committee"
- pprotas 3y ago
  To add on to that, it's a very "childish" word, something a little kid would say. It's like you did something without your mom's permission, implying a child-like sneakiness or mischievousness.
  - wkat4242 3y ago
    Yeah it's not the official name for it anyway. Just the one busied by the parliament members. The official name is Commissie voor de Inlichtingen- en Veiligheidsdiensten (committee for the intelligence and security services). I'm not sure how the nickname even ended up in such a newspaper article. I can kinda imagine they would leave significant multilateral geopolitical developments out of that by the way. There were many members in those days, including from small opposition parties. Maintaining secrecy would be difficult, especially since the Dutch parliament has a very bad track history (almost every year the "troonrede" - similar to the state of the union in the US) is leaked by someone beforehand. These days they only seem to have 5 members from the biggest parties.
forcer 3y ago
After reading "According to the newspaper, the software cost over a billion dollars to develop" , I stopped. Can anyone believe that claim ?
- moltar 3y ago
  If a Payroll system can cost 2-3 billion (see phoenix Canada), which is basically a CRUD, ledger and business rules - something we’ve already done 1000s of times. They probably add the costs of test equipment which I presume they had to procure and even destroy several times to make sure the virus worked.
- mdhb 3y ago
  I think you might be a bit hung up here on the word software which in your defence is not the correct word here. Replace it with “operation” and it’s not at all a crazy number to suggest that an incredibly complicated multi year multi national intelligence operation to disrupt a covert nuclear weapons program inside of an actively hostile nation who have a serious counterintelligence and counter espionage apparatus ended up costing that amount. You end up coming to the conclusion rather quickly that it’s actually great value for money. While not at all about this particular operation but if you want to hear someone who actively ran another incredibly successful nuclear non proliferation operation inside of CIA I’d recommend checking out this interview with perhaps the “spookiest” CIA person I’ve ever seen https://www.youtube.com/live/AFnfTDbcPOA https://www.youtube.com/live/AFnfTDbcPOA?
KingLancelot 3y ago
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55 points by yread 3y ago

>Van Sabben immediately left Iran after successfully sabotaging the country’s nuclear program, the researchers concluded. He died two weeks later in a motorcycle accident near his home in Dubai. Nothing points to foul play, the Volkskrant said after speaking with people at the crash scene. Definitely killed by either Dutch/Americans/Saudis or Iranians.

cf1241290841 3y ago
>It is unclear whether the Dutchman knew about his role in the sabotage operation, the Volkskrant wrote.
unsupp0rted 3y ago
An activity that accidentally kills a relatively huge % of people: https://www.medpagetoday.com/transplantation/transplantation/101938 https://www.medpagetoday.com/transplantation/transplantation... > After Major Motorcycle Rallies, More Organs Available for Donation > — Study estimated 21% more organ donors, 26% more transplant recipients per day during rallies
ecmascript 3y ago
If the americans killed him it would be a great way to make sure less people are willing to help them in the first place.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
protastus 3y ago
Or maybe he's alive and well under a new identity.
mithras 3y ago
Seems unlikely Iran already figured it out within two weeks of the event.
andruby 3y ago
Dutch news seems to give different information. The operation happened in 2007. 1.5 to 2 years later, Van Sabben returned to Iran. Then he suddenly left and two weeks later died on 16/01/2009. https://www.volkskrant.nl/nieuws-achtergrond/aivd-speelde-cruciale-rol-bij-sabotage-kernprogramma-iran~ba24df9f/ https://www.volkskrant.nl/nieuws-achtergrond/aivd-speelde-cr... https://nos.nl/artikel/2504114-nederlander-saboteerde-atoomcomplex-in-iran-den-haag-wist-niets https://nos.nl/artikel/2504114-nederlander-saboteerde-atoomc... The Dutch tech site tweakers.net is discussing it here https://tweakers.net/nieuws/217216/volkskrant-identiteit-van-nederlandse-stuxnet-installateur-is-bekend.html?showReaction=19489432#r_19489432 https://tweakers.net/nieuws/217216/volkskrant-identiteit-van...
- i67vw3 3y ago
  I think he was a simple AVID informant who may have thought he had planted a audio/video recording device on behest of AVID and not the virus. A local news outlet states that he was an 'avid motorcycle rider' meaning he was an expert at riding motorcycles. Such a rider has low chances of getting into an accident than average. Or the accident was a mere coincidence. https://www.thenationalnews.com/uae/engineer-who-helped-build-the-maqta-bridge-1.553285 https://www.thenationalnews.com/uae/engineer-who-helped-buil...
  - cwmma 3y ago
    An avid motorcyclist is just somebody that motorcycles a lot, while their per mile chance of having an accedent might be lower, their overall chances are much higher.

spaghetti1535 3y ago

I hope they can pull this of again. Not looking forward to a world where Iran has nuclear weapons

amingilani 3y ago
I’m curious as to why that is. I understand that the regime is loathed by plenty but why should a portion of humanity be excluded from nuclear weapons when their enemies have it? Genuinely asking because I’m curious, and not trying to flamebait.
- Ygg2 3y ago
  To answer your question with a question: What is so bad about giving a regime that (re)invented suicide bombings a nuke?
- UberFly 3y ago
  You are trying to flamebait. Why is the regime loathed by plenty?
  - wkat4242 3y ago
    Oh I don't know. Perhaps murdering women because they refuse to wear a piece of cloth?
  - amingilani 3y ago
    Asking questions to gain a better perspective ≠ flamebait. Plenty of people have their own reasons to hate the regime. It doesn’t matter to me personally since I have no stake in Iran or her politics.
- ioblomov 3y ago
  All politics aside, the more countries with nukes there are, the likelier one gets used, whether intentionally or by accident.
  - 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

dannyw 3y ago

> An anonymous executive at the AIVD said that the government may have deliberately not been informed of the operation due to the potential political consequences Pretty bad when intelligence services customarily operate above the law and don't even tell the government they're supposedly beholden to.

checkyoursudo 3y ago
Pretty bad for the rest of us, but not bad for the people in government who want plausible deniability for actions taken by the espionage services. I would assume that every government has this, at least to some extent, don't you think?
- cm2187 3y ago
  Yes but this "independence" regularly leads to abuses. In France the secret services are strongly suspected to be behind several major political hoaxes against their president (Markovic affair against Pompidou, Japanese bank account against Chirac). I won't even get into what the CIA is suspected of...
  - bananapub 3y ago
    Don’t forget French security services also terrorist attacked a notional ally, even: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warri...
    - cm2187 3y ago
      Yeah but that wasn’t the DGSE going rogue, that was ordered by the gvt.
- turquoisevar 3y ago
  It would be great for governments, if that’s how it worked in European countries. The Netherlands specifically had cabinets (i.e., governments) fall due to the responsible ministers not knowing what their agencies were doing, with snap elections as result. In fact, in the last decade or so this happened quite often. Accountability in The Netherlands isn’t just based on knowing something and still doing the wrong things, its often also based on “should’ve known something as the person responsible for the agency in question” and not being in the know. In terms of accountability, in both cases the person in question is considered to have fucked up. So the plausible deniability angle, is not really a benefit. Provided it comes out during that person’s tenure, although in rare instances even current office holders have been held responsible for the lack of knowledge of their prior office holders, based on the idea that the current office holder should’ve been aware such a thing happened and should’ve informed parliament post haste upon learning about it.

wkat4242 3y ago

> According to the newspaper, the Stiekem committee, which translates to “secret committee," It doesn't translate to secret committee really. Secret = geheim in Dutch. The term stiekem has a definite negative connotation. A more accurate translation would be the "sneaky committee"

pprotas 3y ago
To add on to that, it's a very "childish" word, something a little kid would say. It's like you did something without your mom's permission, implying a child-like sneakiness or mischievousness.
- wkat4242 3y ago
  Yeah it's not the official name for it anyway. Just the one busied by the parliament members. The official name is Commissie voor de Inlichtingen- en Veiligheidsdiensten (committee for the intelligence and security services). I'm not sure how the nickname even ended up in such a newspaper article. I can kinda imagine they would leave significant multilateral geopolitical developments out of that by the way. There were many members in those days, including from small opposition parties. Maintaining secrecy would be difficult, especially since the Dutch parliament has a very bad track history (almost every year the "troonrede" - similar to the state of the union in the US) is leaked by someone beforehand. These days they only seem to have 5 members from the biggest parties.

forcer 3y ago

After reading "According to the newspaper, the software cost over a billion dollars to develop" , I stopped. Can anyone believe that claim ?

moltar 3y ago
If a Payroll system can cost 2-3 billion (see phoenix Canada), which is basically a CRUD, ledger and business rules - something we’ve already done 1000s of times. They probably add the costs of test equipment which I presume they had to procure and even destroy several times to make sure the virus worked.
mdhb 3y ago
I think you might be a bit hung up here on the word software which in your defence is not the correct word here. Replace it with “operation” and it’s not at all a crazy number to suggest that an incredibly complicated multi year multi national intelligence operation to disrupt a covert nuclear weapons program inside of an actively hostile nation who have a serious counterintelligence and counter espionage apparatus ended up costing that amount. You end up coming to the conclusion rather quickly that it’s actually great value for money. While not at all about this particular operation but if you want to hear someone who actively ran another incredibly successful nuclear non proliferation operation inside of CIA I’d recommend checking out this interview with perhaps the “spookiest” CIA person I’ve ever seen https://www.youtube.com/live/AFnfTDbcPOA https://www.youtube.com/live/AFnfTDbcPOA?

KingLancelot 3y ago

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