Throwing the First Cyber-Stone

[marmar]

from Consortium News:


Throwing the First Cyber-Stone
March 25, 2013

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper calls cyber-attacks a top national security concern, but these U.S. alarms sound hypocritical after the joint U.S.-Israeli cyber-sabotage of Iran’s nuclear industry, as Dutch computer expert Arjen Kamphuis explains.

By Arjen Kamphuis


A few years ago, Israeli and American intelligence developed a computer virus with a specific military objective: damaging Iranian nuclear facilities. Stuxnet was spread via USB sticks and settled silently on Windows PCs. From there it looked into networks for specific industrial centrifuges using Siemens SCADA control devices spinning at high-speed to separate Uranium-235 (the bomb stuff) from Uranium-238 (the non-bomb stuff).

Iran, like many other countries, has a nuclear program for power generation and the production of isotopes for medical applications. Most countries buy the latter from specialists like the Netherlands that produces medical isotopes in a special reactor. The Western boycott of Iran makes it impossible for Iran to purchase isotopes on the open market. Making them yourself is far from ideal, but the only option that remains.

Why the boycott? Officially, according to the U.S., it’s because Iran won’t give sufficient openness about its weapons programs, in particular, military applications of its nuclear program. This concern is fairly recent and, for some reason, has only been reactivated after the U.S. attack on Iraq in 2003 (a lot of the original nuclear equipment in Iran was supplied by American and German companies with funding from the World Bank before the 1979 revolution).

The most curious aspect of the West’s allegations about Iran is that they are never more than vague insinuations. When all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies in 2007 produced a joint study there was a clear conclusion: Iran is not developing a nuclear weapon. ....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://consortiumnews.com/2013/03/25/throwing-the-first-cyber-stone/