
NSA tried Stuxnet cyber-attack on North Korea five years ago but failed - shahryc
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/29/us-stuxnet-cyber-attack-north-korea-failure
======
Zirro
"...imposing further sanctions on North Korea, which he said was “not even
close” to taking steps to end its nuclear programme."

North Korea - under the current leadership - will never end its nuclear
programme. It is their most important leverage in discussions with other
nations, and the main reason they get much more international attention and
aid than other equally poor countries.

They may slow down development for a while, or claim to cease development at
some point in return for aid, but a few years later it will return stronger
than before. We've already seen this happen once.

Efforts to end the North Korean nuclear programme without significant changes
to their situation are futile. The US should know this by now.

~~~
trhway
>North Korea - under the current leadership - will never end its nuclear
programme.

well, Iran wasn't going to too (and add to that that there was Israel against
the deal). I wonder what are the chances that in the time left Obama would do
NK too, after Iran and Cuba (each will prove to be at least a regional history
changing events).

Obama seems to be dropping the blind following of the ancient dust covered
principles which were inherited from different epoch and acts pragmatically
with open mind, and this is exactly what NK situation needs to. NK is already
a nuke nation and they obviously wouldn't give it up (giving the history of
their region, and the current regional situation..., and among other they
obviously aware about the fate of Iraq who failed to develop their own and
Ukraine who gave theirs up voluntarily 20+ years ago - the world is a tough
place). Bringing them back into civilization though would let them to enjoy
its fruit and thus would increase their perceived cost of using nukes, it
would make them into situation where they would have a lot to lose while less
reasons to use, thus decreasing the probability and interest in using the
nukes.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
>well, Iran wasn't going to too

The proposal by the Obama administration does not stop Iran from getting
nuclear weapons. From a very, very optimistic perspective it may delay that by
a few years. Iran will have nukes pointed at Tel Aviv sooner than later. Of
course Israel is upset at the deal. Iran screams about starting a new Jewish
Genocide daily. Israel has the moral right to defend itself and the Obama
administration has throw it under the bus.

Diplomacy didn't stop Syria's nuclear program either. Israeli jet fighters did
(Operation Orchard). When a nation has decided to get nuclear arms, only
violence stops them.

Oh well, here come the downvotes from the anti-Israeli types.

~~~
vezzy-fnord
_Iran screams about starting a new Jewish Genocide daily._

 _the Obama administration has throw_ [sic] _it under the bus_

Probably these two statements that would elicit allegedly anti-Israeli
downvotes. Mostly I do not understand how a preliminary measure is throwing
Israel's "moral right to defend itself" under the bus.

------
strictnein
> "A spokeswoman for the NSA declined to comment. The spy agency has
> previously declined to comment on the Stuxnet attack against"

That may be the easiest job in the history of history.

~~~
shahryc
sure beats being White House Press Secretary

------
shahryc
"Intelligience sources say a covert campaign to attack nuclear weapons
programme was stymied by North Korea’s isolated communications system..." \---
It seems like "process isolation" for an entire country.

~~~
simonblack
Just like the Windtalkers ended up being more secure for communications than
the German super-duper technological Enigma machine.

~~~
madez
Security through obscurity is real.

~~~
jmnicolas
Yeah but once someone casts a light on your obscurity you're screwed and you
probably don't know it.

------
wahsd
It really highlights the true nature of the threat the NSA represents to the
freedom and liberty of all humanity to communicate and share. Their wanton,
extra-legal, militaristic sabotage is a real chilling effect on all of society
and humanity.

It always strikes me that we are so shocked at something like the OPM hack,
when we go around like psychopaths abusing and destroying and manipulating
whole societies on a regular basis. Will it really take something like China
or Russia or Brazil or anyone else infiltrating, e.g., our financial system
and either erasing transactions or falsifying transactions before we realize
that "oops, hold on, let's stop this silliness that we started now that we are
being hit". Do we really need to have a brush with our own vulnerability and
mortality to decide it's a bad idea?

I personally don't think that we have seen the worst of it yet. It took the
massacre at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the creation of exponentially more
weapons that it would take to vaporize our planet to realize that we maybe
shouldn't be such psychos, will it take something like destroying the
financial system to realize we should just stop being psychos ... That some
lines simply should not be crossed?

------
fit2rule
I can't fathom why citizens of the USA don't understand that actions like this
can be considered, by other nations, to be an act of war. Yet the US' people
just let their government get away with it, like its no big thing .. and then
cry about 'blowback' when it - inevitably - happens.

~~~
varjag
Given that legally the USA and NK are still at war, I don't see it changing
much.

~~~
mokus
> Given that legally the USA and NK are still at war

For those, like me, curious about the situation, this is apparently something
that has occurred several times in history[1]. In most if not all cases it
seems to be pointless hair-splitting, but interesting nonetheless.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_extended_by_diplo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_extended_by_diplomatic_irregularity)

(edit: markup)

------
belorn
If a nation used a virus to cause a fast spinning centrifuge to violently
collapse and spread radioactive material in the near vicinity, or if they sent
a unmarked covert drone to blow it up with a precision bomb, is there a marked
difference?

~~~
nightcracker
One is a clear act of violence by a third party, the other might go under the
radar as a software error.

~~~
jdiez17
Besides, infecting the computers in a nuclear plant is not as easy as sending
a technician a tweet with a link to the .exe or pulling a trigger thousands of
miles away.

We still don't know how they infected the Iranian nuclear plant, so chances
are there were some covert operations near the site.

------
clockwerx
Heh, quick, put out a press release about how we didn't succeed to allay fears

