People is writing about the Stuxnet thingie. It an automatic weapon directed at Iran's uranium gas centrifuges. These machines are controlled by SCADA, a common control program. I had many aireators and so on in my plant all operated by SCADA. The Stuxnet thingie gradually accelerated the centrifuges, damaging them. Getting into SCADA is very difficult, but it was done by whoever did it. The wiki says that
The name comes from the River Styx (Greek: Στύξ, Stux, meaning "hate" and "detestation") which formed the boundary between Earth and Hades. The gods respected the Styx and swore binding oaths on it. Its water had miraculous powers and could make someone invulnerable. Achilles was dipped in it in his childhood, acquiring invulnerability, with exception of his heel, by which his mother held him. This is the source of the expression Achilles' heel, a metaphor for a vulnerable spot.כל הכבוד to the person who imagined that this thing was doable, to the one who approved the budget, and the project manager who made it happen. Great.
The USA or Israel?
No doubt Israel is the most dynamic and challenging small country of the world. Only in the USA and Israel a young Jew has the opportunity to participate in such exciting projects. Only the USA and Israel are in a state of permanent "hot" war. For a young Jew, this is the most interesting place. That is my personal experience.
Out of context addendum: Reading the autobiographies of Eastern European Jews, they all describe the schtetl as a very exciting place, where things were always happening. Schtetl were isolated small market villages lost in the tremendous vastness of Poland, Ucraine and Russia, with impassable roads and ignorant subsistance farmers. Yet the inhabitants of the schtetl lived lives full of enterprise and projects, full of family events and serious intellectual debate. It is not where you are, but with whom.
7 comments:
This is a new milestone in warfare, comparable to the first use of aerial bombing or mechanized armor. It introduces a new chapter in warfare conducted by remote control. In the future, the soldiers may be distant from the battlefield, sitting safely at a console in their home states. Rather than fighting with feats of strength, we will outwit our enemies with our brains.
I can't imagine who wrote Stuxnet. Perhaps it was written by the Sunni Arabs, who are the enemies of the Shia. Or the British who are always pulling dirty tricks on Persia. I wonder who it could be? A nation that is an enemy of Iran, that has advanced software writing capabilities, that is skilled at conducting covert operations which are not announced in the pages of wikileaks, that is willing to extend a long arm to hunt down the enemies of its people wherever they may be. Hmmm. Who could it be?
K
Getting into SCADA is amazing. Getting into Iran's centrifuges's SCADA is incredible. I think only the USA has the imagination and the resources for such an operation.
Re: the Shtetls, isolation is a myth. News travels fast to the farthest corners of the earth - when gold was discovered in California in 1849, Chinese villagers heard of it and sailed for San Francisco. We are proud of our internet, but the era of instantaneous electronic communication began with Morse's telegraph in 1847.
Stuxnet required considerable financial resources - the code required thousands of man hours. Sample centrifuges would have been needed to experiment with - these are not something you pick up at a garage sale. There are super-secret US agencies involved with code breaking and signal intelligence that would have the necessary technical sophistication and budget. But I'm still not sure this is a US operation. Perhaps a joint US-Israeli effort?
K
Actually, it was Lloyd who approved the budget, Orsine who wrote the code and Koko who got into SCADA.
Curious George is very, very unhappy about it and has asked the Man in the Yellow Hat to cut their banana rations in half, for at least a week.
Anon.
The infected SCADA controllers were from Siemens. Someone from there exposed the OS code no doubt intentionally, it could have been a multinational effort or some Israeli hackers. It may even have been dissident Iranians, they have some very good programmers there too. I am glad that the white and gray hats are on top of it. Think of the possibilities, by sowing doubt about the provenance of the virus, the mullahs cant be sure of the reliability of their weapons, they cannot even be sure of the trustworthiness of their personnel.
Indeed, they may think that once launched it will reverse course and drop somewhere on Iran.
And who will they blame?
Anon.
Anything that sows fear and doubt in the enemy is wonderful. The enemy will do as much damage to himself as we can, by arresting the wrong people, by the air of fear and suspicion that is the enemy of productivity, etc. McCarthyism probably did more damage to the US than the (extensive and real) Russian spy program that he worried about. When Iran falsely arrests its scientists as spies, Israel and the US should not deny this but admit the "espionage" and make it clear that there are more in place - "For every one you catch, we have 10 more. We have spies everywhere in your country. We dare you to find them."
Anon makes a good point that if their secret uranium processing facilities are penetrated then why not their missile guidance systems. How can they be sure that any missile they fire will not loop back to Teheran?
K
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