(2012-06-02) Us Israel Created Stuxnet

David Sanger says StuxNet was created by us (and Israel). Having falsely accused Saddam Hussein of reconstituting his nuclear program in Iraq, George W Bush had little credibility in publicly discussing another nation’s nuclear ambitions... In the summer of 2010, shortly after a new variant of the worm had been sent into Natanz, it became clear that the worm, which was never supposed to leave the Natanz machines, had broken free, like a zoo animal that found the keys to the cage... It is unclear who introduced the programming error. (Lessons for BioWar. Can you say "BlowBack"?)

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Jun19: the same US/Israeli folks also built a wider-scope "Flame" virus. Flame came to light last month after Iran detected a series of cyberattacks on its oil industry. The disruption was directed by Israel in a unilateral operation that apparently caught its American partners off guard, according to several U.S. and Western officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity... Experts said the program was designed to replicate across even highly secure networks, then control everyday computer functions to send secrets back to its creators. The code could activate computer microphones and cameras, log keyboard strokes, take screen shots, extract geo­location data from images, and send and receive commands and data through Bluetooth wireless technology... Flame was designed to do all this while masquerading as a routine Microsoft software update. John Robb ponders the implications. Flame has been set loose. It isn't just on Iranian government networks. It's on the open Internet. It's self-replicating (making copies of itself) and infecting computers and networks around the world. Breaking into corporate and government system of friends and allies... The question now is: now that people are aware of this cyberweapon, who's going to pay for the cleanup?