Stuxnet Called an Israeli-US Joint Project
Larry Seltzer writes on PC Mag's "Security Watch" Blog:
A report in the New York Times gives evidence that Stuxnet, the computer worm which appears to have done material damage to Iranian nuclear weapons development, was developed by an Israeli-US team at an Israeli facility.
The Dimona complex in the Negev desert has long been the reputed, but unacknowledged center for Israeli nuclear development. The Times cites "intelligence and military experts familiar with [Dimona's] operations" as saying that over the past 2 years Dimona has served as a testing facility for efforts to undermine Iranian nuclear weapons development.
Israel has acquired and tested, at Dimona, using centrifuges "virtually identical" to those used by Iran. This scenario is reasonable in that it explains how such sophisticated attack software worked when it finally reached its intended targets in Iran. Whoever wrote it had to test it, and they needed access to Siemens SCADA systems and centrifuges identical, or nearly so, to those used by Iran.
More
here.
Mark Fiore: Shooting From The Lip
More Mark Fiore brilliance.
Via The San Francisco Chronicle.
- ferg
Iceland Summons U.S. Envoy Over WikiLeaks Probe
An AP newswire article by Raphael G. Satter, via The San Jose Mercury News, reports:
The American ambassador to Reykjavik has been summoned to explain why U.S. investigators are trying to access the private details of an Icelandic lawmaker's online activity as they try to build a criminal case against WikiLeaks.
Revelations that the U.S. Justice Department obtained a court order to examine data held by Twitter Inc. on Birgitta Jonsdottir, an Icelandic parliamentarian who sits on the country's Foreign Affairs Committee, immediately caused consternation in the tiny North Atlantic nation.
"(It is) very serious that a foreign state, the United States, demands such personal information of an Icelandic person, an elected official," Interior Minister Ogmundur Jonasson told Icelandic broadcaster RUV.
"This is even more serious when put (in) perspective and concerns freedom of speech and people's freedom in general," he added.
Jonsdottir is a one-time WikiLeaks collaborator also known for her work on Iceland's media initiative, which aims to turn the island nation into a free speech haven. Jonsdottir told The Associated Press she was too overwhelmed to comment Sunday, but in a recent post to Twitter, she said she was talking with American lawyers about how to beat the order—and was drumming up support in Iceland as well.
More
here.
