So When Does Saudi Arabia Say Thank You to Israel?
It’s a good bet that in Tehran and Pyongyang, officials will be poring with great interest over every detail in a lengthy piece in Sunday’s New York Times, all about the “digital trail” of the Stuxnet computer worm that crippled some of Iran’s uranium enrichment centrifuges: “Israel Tests on Worm Called Crucial in Iran Nuclear Delay.”
Iran and its uranium-enriching pal, North Korea, should be grateful to the Times for the gumshoe reporting put into trying to track exactly how a computer worm was used to set back the uranium-enrichment portion of Iran’s nuclear weapons program. I would assume Iranian intelligence has also been on the trail, but there are some sources that western reporters can more easily access, and some folks they can more readily interview, as you can infer from reading the article. If there is civility in international affairs, surely Ali Khamenei, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and their proliferation partner, Kim Jong Il, owe the Times a thank you note.
But if the broad picture painted by the Times is accurate (and there are gaps in the trail described), then surely there is another group of countries which for more wholesome reasons owe a profound thank you to Israel. Prominent among this crowd are the Middle East potentates, from the king of Saudi Arabia to the king of Bahrain to the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, whose private pleadings — as made to U.S. officials and exposed by Wikileaks — were to do whatever it takes to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Or, as King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia reportedly put it: “Cut off the head of the snake.”
Stuxnet hasn’t cut off the head, but it does appear to have given the snake a bad bout of indigestion. Civility suggests this would be a fitting moment for the Saudis to lead the way in sending Israel their fervent thanks. If that’s a bridge too far for Riyadh, then here’s another thought. Saudi Arabia hosts the headquarters of the Organization of the Islamic Conference — ringleader of the chronic pounding delivered to Israel at the United Nations. Surely the Saudis could use their clout to exhort the Iran-fearing members of the OIC to lay off Israel. Who else in the region are they depending on to stop an Iranian nuclear threat? The Palestinians of Hamas?
Hopefully by 2013 the US will have a president who will finish the job the Israelis started.
Also I have a problem with the part of the Times story that says that Obama went along with the plan. It is completely out of character for the man. It is far more likely he would have tried to stop the effort as part of a good will gesture.
I just love it when our inflatable Commander in Chief gets flim-flammed. “Stay tuned; There’s more to come”, as Johnny Carson used to say.
Nah, laying the pressure off of Israel is too much to ask those guys.
Antisemitism is the approved vent for social pressures for those dictators.
Claudia,
The NYT report pretty much tallies with cyberterrorism experts I spoke with at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism, at the Herzliya-based Interdisciplinary Center near Tel Aviv, for a feature I wrote in Nov. 2010, where I noted:
“Many scientists and online security analysts who have pored over Stuxnet’s code, including industry leader Symantec, are convinced that the attack “a never-before-seen ability to take over and run complex industrial processes from afar” was the first shot in a new age of cyber-hacking and warfare.”
How about warfare itself being relegated to a big 3-D video game held at the United Nations? We could have all the nuclear winters and regional slaughter we want. The NFL should do the same; voila! No more concussions or Terrel Owens.
…read Ender’s Game…
Let’s face some ugly facts-rather than a thank you from the Sunni Arab ingrate leaders, rest assured the vitriol/incitement will continue apace.
Moreover, NO one had more motivation nor better cyber warfare skills, than Israel’s Unit 8200, to develop this killer-worm.
Furthermore, the NY Times tried its utmost to leave a cyber trail for the mullahs and their fellow nuke fiends to thwart Stuxnet.This is their main motivation, aside from other anti-American/anti-Israel agendas, for posting this ‘news’.
They are pure evil-and this time I am not referring to the Iranian regime!
Nevertheless, Stuxnet is a gift of time, but it is the way in which this time is used which will determine the fate of the civilized world.
And THAT we can all take to the bank.
Hopefully there is another worm that will retarget Iran’s missiles onto Iranian targets.
I think the NYT just added about 5 million dollars a year to Sieman’s security bill.
The “bout of indigestion” may be more serious than it appears. What the trail shows – as I point out on The Tatler – is that the Iranians are pretty dependent on Western technology from companies like Siemens. If those companies are cooperating with Western intelligence agencies, the Iranians are not in good shape. In fact, as a naturally paranoid culture, they’re in particularly bad shape.
Roger -
If that is the case, let them develop their own electronics, they might get it done in the next 100 years, they might not. Iran cannot even build a desktop computer unless it is a pre-spec’ed kit. They depend on CPU’s from AMD (“Arab Made Device” – re: their ownership) or Intel (Israeli to a large degree) for the Heirs of Cyrus and the Persian Empire this is BLOODY EMBARRASSING! Dr. Shalit
I plead guilty to more than a bit of schadenfreude about that. What, do they technically have to ritually cleanse themselves every time they work a PC?
Indeed. But then, since the Middle Ages or so, what has the Arab world, handicapped by Islam, produced in the way of science?
My understanding of the computer systems in those facilities is that they are a closed circuit — thus for the worm to be introduced, someone in the plant had to feed it into the system. So the place of origin for the creation of the worm seems less important to me than the realization that a brave Iranian — at much peril to him or herself — sought to sabotage the facility.
There may be such a brave Iranian, but I suspect that loyal Iranian scientists who take work home ended up with infected laptops. When they brought their machines into those facilities and logged on, the worm propagated. The worm would not have damaged the laptops, to avoid suspicion.
Claudia, over at Kim Zigler’s blog, larussophobe, I aired the suggestion that governments-in-exile recognize governments-in-exile.
Walid Phares’ newest book puts the spotlight on true reformers, instead of those who pay lip service to true reform. I submit the only way they will be boosted is via alternatives to the current powers that be.
That should have been Kim Zigfeld.
I despise the Saudis as much as anybody (if Israel has to go to the Samson Option, I say Mecca and Medina the first targets), but let’s face it – as bad as the Saudi Royal family is, any open cooperation with Israel would lead to something even far worse- a complete al-Qaeda takeover.
It’s a choice between the very bad (Royal family) and the catastrophic (full al-Qaeda control). It’s not difficult for Israel to choose.
The entire planet owes a debt of gratitude to Israel. What do you think would happen to the oil fields if Israel gets nuked?
I doubt an Israeli retaliation in such a scenario could remain regional; I think it would in some way blow up into a global nuclear war.
But even if it remained regional, the Muslim world will live with economic collapse if it finishes the work of Muhammad and their second Muhammad – Adolf Hitler. Half the Muslim world already is in the Stone Age, it would make no difference to them.
If the Saudis, or other Arabs, had the ability to recognize someone doing something good for them, even if they never say “thank you”, they wouldn’t be in the broken toilet of civilization.
Arab culture begins and ends with a sense of entitlement and superiority. Rather than trying to do favors to help the dysfunctional Muslim world we should cultivate the innate belief in magic and mystery to our advantage. Yes, we can read your mind and make people disappear. Yes, we can tell that your uncle raped you as a little boy and that you like gay sex. Yes, we are using TV/movies/internet to poison your mind and destroy you. We should stoke their paranoia and let their self-destruction accelerate out of control.
Instead, we see everything from our own perspective, assume everyone is pretty similar to us, and offer them what we would want. Then we are shocked when that doesn’t work. How many centuries would you sit in a desert if your world collapsed? There is a reason why they haven’t done the things that will propel anyone from the Stone Age into modern times and they haven’t done those things for centuries.
Allah is just their big tribal leader able to do what he likes with no rhyme or reason. Therefore they sit and wait or they simply murder and wait for them to magically benefit.
Obama wants NASA to promote Muslim scientific achievements. That should take about 5 minutes. Copying doesn’t count.
“There is a reason why they haven’t done the things that will propel anyone from the Stone Age into modern times and they haven’t done those things for centuries.”
Yes, and the reason is Islam.
I think Scott has it, unfortunately.
Reminds me, and I don’t want to push this analogy too far, of a Military Channel program I saw recently where the commentator pointed out that Germany could have found a receptive populace in places like the Ukraine and missed a chance to get the local people on their side. But then they wouldn’t have been Nazis.
Similarly, if Arab culture could encompass the idea of “thank you” to anyone else they wouldn’t be mired in the corruption, malaise, and backwardness that they are–we may as well forget about the prospect of showing gratitude to Jews which is an idea AI don’t think they can grasp.
I love Stuxnet because it is, for the first time, warfare the way women would do it. We like to poison instead of heaving projectiles. In this case, we not only poisoned, but these genius designers made the poison contagious, then programmed it to disappear like herpes but better, untraceable, and later reappear upon some new trigger. Kudos, I’m bowing down in reverence.
I would also add that the burqa, madrases and polygamy should be banned throughout the entire world, and all women should have access to birth control and education
The explosive population growth in Islamic countries is partially a result of polygamy, and ensures the poverty of the next, exponentially increased generation, with no use for the extra men resulting from each extra wife one man takes. Saudi Arabia is just as virulent as Iran, but with a smiling face while grabbing our balls Obama has only tighten the vise of dependence on despots.
SAUDIS THANK ISRAEL? NO WAY!
What? The Saudis showing thanks to the “little Satan” who has successfully defied the wrath of Allah and Islam for 62 years? NO WAY! Isreal remains a painful refutation of many Islamic truths and the Saudis will continue to work for its destruction.
Privately, the Saudis may have an understanding with Israel based on the enemy of my enemy approach seeing as how the Saudis have a Shi’ite minority perched among their oil fields and Israel Hizbollah as next door neighbors.
Publicly, you’ll see an American tactical nuke flying into Mecca with “Enough” written on it before you see a Wahabi apologize to a “Zionist”.
Where do I go to contribute to that effort?
What makes you think the Saudis did not fund Stuxnet?
To put together the team and to test the worm before release, it had to cost $100mm.
The house of Saud nets billions a day, they can afford a quick payoff to kill their biggest enemy.
Sadly they don’t have enough money to buy off their own people; the riots in Tunisia had to make the Saudi leaders soil their dishdashes.
Because of professional interests, I have followed the Stuxnet story from the very earliest days. I really do not know where the NYT gets its speculation from; and as far as I’m concerned, it is just speculation.
Of the Stuxnet malware that is known (there are at least two recognized variants) there are two tantalizing hints that might suggest Israeli involvement (a peculiar file name and a mysterious numeric registry entry). But that’s all we know. There are other plausible theories that point to several other nations ranging from Russia, China, the US, Germany, and so on.
Furthermore, whether by request or incompetence, Siemens has not been helpful with resolving any of this story. The instructions they conveyed to their customers was basically how to remove the Stuxnet payload carrier (the vector), but not the payload itself. It is entirely plausible that new, unknown variants of Stuxnet are still rattling around in the Uranium Enrichment facility in Natanz.
As for whether the target really was the Iranian Nuclear Material Enrichment program, while there is no concrete proof, the evidence is very compelling. The Stuxnet code was looking for two specific models of process controllers (the S7-315 and the S7-417) and it was looking for one of two models of high speed motor drives. These variable frequency drives, were they manufactured in the US, would be subject to export restrictions. However, the drives used by Iran were made locally by Fararo Paya in Tehran and by Vacon in Finland.
I know of no other industrial process that requires the many hundreds of high speed drives this malware was looking for, other than nuclear material enrichment. Again, the evidence is circumstantial, but very likely. That, coupled with the evidence of infection that started in Iran, makes an interesting circumstantial case that this was what everyone thinks it must have been.
However, going past that and claiming that this must have been tested in Dimona, that somehow INL helped (the presentation the NYT pointed to was public knowledge among the control systems community for years, the backdoor password to WinCC and Step7 was also known) looks like someone making stuff up.
Note that the article didn’t say what sources they used to figure this out.
So, while there is a story here, once again, the New York Times seems to be substituting story telling for real journalism. I am not surprised.
We should not base our foreign policy on speculation, nor should any other nation. Unless Israel claims this critter, we have very little evidence that points to them. We can suspect whatever we want. The truth remains obscure.
So there seem to have been three seperate attacks, Stuxnet, assasination of key scientists, and selling faulty equipment through dummy corporations. Combined these have an effect greater than their sum. First, they cost the cash strapped Iranians bigtime and they cant really afford the program they have now. Also, it sews confusion and fear both inside and outside the government. Nobody can be trusted and the secret police need to drag lots of innocent folks out of their beds at night before they actually find what they are looking for. This creates a more brutal police state. Given all of that would you pick nuclear science as a career if you were Iranian? Few people would and they must still rely on outside technical help which they cannot trust.
Victims of their own grandiosity. They would have been way ahead if they had played nice and built up a credible conventional force which the Russians and Chinese would have been happy to sell them.
As Hannibal Smith of the A Team was fond of saying “I live it when a plan comes together.”
The Israelis don’t need a thank-you as much as they need the arabs to leave them the f**k alone.
It is not in Muslim DNA to ever under any circustances express gratitude to infidels.
Sounds correct but then there’s kim jong il and russia’s putin – I guess they’ve converted ?
I’ll bet the saudis denounce israel ever harder at the little hate meeting to make atonement for their behind scenes applauding and whatever other assistance or condonement was rendered.
And I could care less.
I suppose on the upside the fact that the entire media structure can makes this whole story area the talk of the centuries, while ignoring other things as large and larger, is just wonderful, since it indicates the widespread peace that is reality, directly opposite media hyperventilation, of course.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if someone sent the worm directly to the NYT? They certainly deserve it.
well, one of the things made apparent by the wikileaks dump is that there’s more communication and cooperation between Israel and the Saudia than is made public, particularly in re: Iran. So maybe Israel was thanked in private. Good enough for me.
Look people, the “Anointed One” makes his chess move’s and us babbling humans need to realize that the unbelieving conspiracy “heathen” understate the issues when they say that Obama is a radical. Alas, they know not the secrets we are all going to witness. The “Anointed One” is amazing (and according to Biden: he’s so brillant), and takes the people at the highly efficient Post Office and sends them right over to the Student Loan Program. The “Anointed One” knows all. Twitter messages were machine-gunned to cell phones at mach speed. Facebook and MySpace groups spread across the Internet like digital fire. YouTube videos featuring celebrities ricocheted across the globe and into college students’ in-boxes with devastating regularity. All the while, the Obama mega-money-raising engine whirred on at high speed, until the result became inevitable: an unthinking mass of young voters marched forward to elect the “Anointed One.”
I am not surprised to hear these stinking lies about our “Anointed One,” it should be apparent to anyone that this was coming down the pike. I do have a couple questions about future process steps concerning these developments? When the “Annointed One” decides to start bar-coding everyone, will we get to decide if the mark is on our hand or forehead? Allot of people will prefer the hand, (especially women of course), unless your a porn actress or something along those lines. Also, my girlfriend was wondering if the Administration will be getting fashion advice from Hollyweird or the New York City crowd? We are both agree that the Administration “Maoies” as the “Anointed One ” so lovingly calls them,will be getting uniforms similar to the SS uniforms in Germany in WW2. With big letters abreviating “Barack’s Socialists.” So shall we start calling them the BS?