From a recent New York Times article: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/world ... .html?_r=1

It was obvious that Stuxnet was government written, but now we know for sure that the US was directly involved. Wouldn't surprise me if the recent discovery (but not recent malware) Flame had a similar origin story. Now that governments have entered the fray, malware attacks should get a whole lot more interesting.

I love how it was proudly stated in a news article. Just disgusting to be quite honest...

Governments into worm development...
Bad, bad, bad, bad.
They shouldn't have got to the internet ever.

Godawful. our government shouldn't be able to do this sort of thing! The internet's it's own entity under it's own jurisdiction -- Why should the 'physical' government have any say about what goes on it?

They were stopping the Iranians from purifing uranium to make bombs. What's wrong with that?

Please, when it's the choice between a highly-targetted virus like Stuxnet, or dropping bombs on large stretches of Iranian territory, who can really say they'd rather the latter?

Because that's what the choice is. Stuxnet had little to no known collateral damage and has given diplomacy more time to work before it reaches a truly military option. I'd call that a huge win for the world personally.

I don't really see anything wrong with this.

You all have a pretty good point. honestly, i hadn't really thought of it from that perspective. Still, i think it's a pretty underhanded thing to do... War as a whole is underhanded.

You don't mind USA releasing a virus? A virus that could be reprogrammed to attack America itself. In my opinion releasing a virus is an act of war, and Iran would be fully justified in retaliating. Especially since they might not have been doing anything wrong in the first place, essentially making USA's attack a terrorist attack against the Iran's power plants.


By the way, this has been on NY Times for a week now, and no other news sites seem to have reported it, eg. news.com had big articles about Flame, but I haven't seen anything about America making Stuxnet.

Amen. Although the US needs to cut back on sending troops to the middle east. Everyone knows it's just for the oil there.

Could have easily sparked something more major to be quite honest. And it's highly unlikely that the virus has actually stopped them at all other than slowing them down
Yes overall the idea is great but in this case was it really necessary or just a potentially dangerous test?

Even though it could be a win for the world, I can't really trust the US gov. anymore.

You can't trust any governments. Every government hides the most important things to citizens away from them.

I doubt it could have sparked anything major. While Iran has enough of a defensive capability to make an invasion something to avoid, they don't really have any power far beyond their borders. They could make life difficult for some of our middle-eastern "allies", but they are already, and frankly, our allies in the middle-east are hardly reliable themselves.

Of course it hasn't stopped them, but nothing short of regime change is going to stop Iran seeking nuclear weapons. Instead, it's bought valuable time for diplomatic work to progress, and sactions to bite. Even if the US and Israel do end up taking military action, there'll be greater intelligence thanks to the virus and a weaker opposing force thanks to the time it bought.



You wouldn't "reprogram" a virus, it's hardly that simple. Iran aren't exactly known for their reluctance to avoid state-sponsored terrorism either. Indeed, it's their long track record and active terrorist links that worry the west so much about them obtaining nuclear weapons.

I'd also point out the virus does not attack Iran's civil nuclear program as you suggest. It attacks their refinement plants which enrich uranium. Though these are officially a part of the civil nuclear program, they enrich uranium too highly for use in their current plants, and Russia already provides all the uranium they need for these plants, so stuxnet has not impacted their right to a peaceful civil nuclear program.

Flame looks likely to be a misdirect. Further investigation has revealed it to be far less complex or impressive than initially thought apparently. Just bloated.

I thought you could reprogram viruses, but if its harder to reprogram this virus than make a new one, I suppose you've got a point. Iran might not be known for their reluctance to avoid state-sponsored terrorism, but I would have hoped America would, but if the target was indeed only those plants that enrich the uranium more than what is needed for civil usages, America was doing the right thing. I just thought they were targeted at an integral part of an Iranian power plant-I haven't read much about it. So if this couldn't hinder their peaceful nuclear program, and their program stopped, that would indicate to everyone that this was related to nuclear weapons.

A country founded by terrorists (sold to citizens today as brave revolutionaries) who overthrew a supposedly imperialist government in the name of instituting democracy, which has a strong track record of using state-sponsored terrorism to subvert governments, including democracies, abroad in order to further its aims.

Amazing how that sentence equally fits both Iran and the USA.

Now, I'm not saying the two countries are comparable, but to suggest that the USA does not engage in state-sponsored terrorism on a regular basis is quite naive. Hell, it was the USA that armed and trained Al-Qaeda.

John, It's well documented - the CIA armed and trained the Mujahideen in Afghanistan to fight the Soviet invasion in 89. This band of "freedom fighters" subsequently installed the Taliban in power and proceeded on to their ideological war on non-muslim countries, forming Al-Qaeda for this very purpose. Osama Bin Laden himself was a senior commander who would have dealt with the CIA personally.

I wouldn't know about the 80's, so I need to read up on it. Probably important history I haven't yet learned.

Also, most Americans don't realize that our CIA (in the name of British oil interests) helped to overthrow a democratically elected government in Iran in 1953. And people go around wondering why they don't like us.

The USA needs to learn to mind it's own business in foreign affairs, and follow the wisdom of John Quincy Adams:

Well, at least I'm not American. But really, you would think that USA developing a virus with Israel to attack Iran would be a bigger issue, but maybe not.

Conflict is an inevitable side effect of nature.

Anything that reduces the impact of such conflict on civilians is welcome in my book.