More Stuxnet News
This long New York Times article includes some interesting revelations. The article claims that Stuxnet was a joint Israeli-American project, and that its effectiveness was tested on live equipment: “Behind Dimona’s barbed wire, the experts say, Israel has spun nuclear centrifuges virtually identical to Iran’s at Natanz, where Iranian scientists are struggling to enrich uranium.”
The worm itself now appears to have included two major components. One was designed to send Iran’s nuclear centrifuges spinning wildly out of control. Another seems right out of the movies: The computer program also secretly recorded what normal operations at the nuclear plant looked like, then played those readings back to plant operators, like a pre-recorded security tape in a bank heist, so that it would appear that everything was operating normally while the centrifuges were actually tearing themselves apart.
My two previous Stuxnet posts. And an alternate theory: The Chinese did it.
kashmarek • January 17, 2011 12:52 PM
Maybe Iran did it. Perhaps what they were doing was going to fail anyway and they needed someone to blame for their own failure. Spread the blame around. It is a common thread that the guilty point to others as being responsible. Most of the discussion simply keeps in doubt as to who is really guilty, but it all starts with the weapons creation.