

NSA Claims Iran Learned from Western Cyberattacks - adamnemecek
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/02/10/nsa-iran-developing-sophisticated-cyber-attacks-learning-attacks/

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cromwellian
A counter argument would be that this is moot. You should secure your systems
from these kinds of attacks. To assume that the Iranians or anyone else would
not have developed them independently from the Western intelligence agencies
is security through obscurity.

In some ways, perhaps Stuxnet did the world a favor, but showing the
vulnerability of airgapped infrastructure that people assume is safe from
attack. Stuxnet may have accelerated the capabilities of adversaries, but
sooner or later, it would have been developed anyway.

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rabbyte
By that logic everything that's possible is also inevitable. The feasibility
of something is only one factor and, more often than not, new developments are
extensions of older developments.

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cromwellian
Do you think that the exploits that Stuxnet took advantage of would not have
been discovered or leveraged by Russian, Chinese, or other hackers?

I would argue that if your system has a flaw, and the threat model is such
that it's feasible for an entity with the resources of a nation state to take
advantage of and the value of penetration is high, sooner or later, it will be
taken advantage of.

So yes, in that sense, it is inevitable. There's no benefit to closing our
eyes and hope that no other state'e NSA equivalent will be able to penetrate
our flaws.

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rabbyte
I'm not at all in disagreement on your security ethic. It's difficult to say
what would happen but context does matter. If Stuxnet came from a different
source, had a different target, or was published as a research project the
effects would be different. History is ripe with instances where someone makes
a discovery, keeps it secret, and it remains secret for a long time so I'm not
willing to believe everything is inevitable just yet.

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dang
Url changed from [http://www.wired.com/2015/02/nsa-acknowledges-feared-iran-
le...](http://www.wired.com/2015/02/nsa-acknowledges-feared-iran-learns-us-
cyberattacks/), which points to this.

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stephentmcm
Horrible click-bait title. Why should we fear Iran? O because we keep kicking
them repeatedly?

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bediger4000
In the final year or two of G. W. Bush's administration, there was an attempt
to "run up" to a war with Iran. Israel had a ticking clock on attacking Iran,
couldn't let Iran get nuclear weapons, but Israel's ability to bust Iranian
bunkers was slowly disappearing. That's apparently why Stuxnet got deployed
against Iran, and why Operation Merlin existed. I guess all the hate was about
Ahmedinajad, as soon as he left office, the fooforaw died out. This may be
evidence that not all the media got the memo that Iran isn't "bad" anymore. Or
maybe it's a PR hit in some inter-TLA turf war. The CIA or FBI senses the
opportunity to discredit an NSA project, so this appears. Hard to tell any
more.

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aburan28
Israel has no capability of taking out the facilities at Natanz with "bunker
busters" although just recently the United States upgraded the B2 "stealth" to
carry the Massive Earth Penetrator 30,000lb bomb which could destroy those
facilities. Besides Iran's facilities are some of the most inspected in the
world because they are a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty unlike
the few states that haven't signed this treaty such as India, Israel,
Pakistan, South Sudan. IMO attacking a country that is trying to develop
nuclear weapons while maintaining a massive stockpile of its own is totally
fallacious. If Iran were to develop a nuclear weapon it would be only for the
purpose of achieving parity at international conventions with nuclear states.

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bediger4000
I don't really track the state of Israel's military, I'm just recounting what
appeared in the US press at the time. There was some window during which
Israel could bomb Iran's facilities effectively. In a few months, that window
would close, due to the facilities moving underground or fortifying or
something. So Israel had some kind of time running. This was supposed to scare
the rest of the US leadership into invading Iran. Thankfully, this never came
to pass.

