Note to Iran's Mullahs: Play with Nukes, You're Going to Get Burnt

Stuxnet -- the gift that keeps on giving. Shut down the nuclear weapons factory and no one gets hurt. Works for me. Savages with sticks are far preferable to savages with nukes.

Report warns of Iran nuke disaster Arab News hat tip Rut

VIENNA: The control systems of Iran’s Bushehr nuclear plant have been penetrated by a computer worm unleashed last year, according to a foreign intelligence report that warns of a possible Chernobyl-like disaster once the site becomes fully operational.

Russia’s envoy to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, also has raised the specter of the 1986 reactor explosion in Ukraine, but suggested last week that the danger had passed.

The report, drawn up by a nation closely monitoring Iran’s nuclear program and obtained by The Associated Press, said such conclusions were premature and based on the “casual assessment” of Russian and Iranian scientists at Bushehr.

With control systems disabled by the virus, the reactor would have the force of a “small nuclear bomb,” it said.

“The minimum possible damage would be a meltdown of the reactor,” it says. “However, external damage and massive environmental destruction could also occur ... similar to the Chernobyl disaster.” The virus, known as Stuxnet, has the ability to send centrifuges spinning out of control and temporarily crippled Iran’s uranium enrichment program. It is believed to have been the work of Israel or the United States, two nations convinced that Iran wants to turn nuclear fuel into weapons-grade uranium.

Iran has acknowledged that the malware — malicious software designed to infiltrate computer systems — hit the laptops of technicians working at Bushehr, but has denied that the plant was affected or that Stuxnet was responsible for delays in the startup of the Russian-built reactor.

The Islamic Republic is reluctant to acknowledge setbacks to its nuclear activities, which it says are aimed at generating energy but are under UN sanctions because of concerns they could be channeled toward making weapons.

Only after outside revelations that its enrichment program was temporarily disrupted late last year by the mysterious virus did Iranian officials acknowledge the incident.

Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s chief representative to the IAEA, cut short attempts by AP to seek comment on possible damage by Stuxnet at Bushehr.

But Rogozin, the Russian envoy, described how engineers at Bushehr “saw on their screens that the systems were functioning normally, when in fact they were running out of control,” conjuring up a frightening dimension to the potential fallout from the virus.

“The virus which is very toxic, very dangerous, could have had very serious implications,” Rogozin told reporters, adding it “could have led to a new Chernobyl.” Experts are split on how powerful the Stuxnet virus might prove.

Olli Heinonen, who retired last year as head of investigations of Iran’s nuclear programs at the International Atomic Energy Agency, believes it could have infected control systems at Bushehr, or elsewhere, causing “a lot of havoc.” Bur German cybersecurity researcher Ralph Langner says that, while the virus has infested the reactor’s computers, “Stuxnet cannot technically mess with the systems in Bushehr.

“Bottom line: A thermonuclear explosion cannot be triggered by something like Stuxnet,” said Langner, who has led research into Stuxnet’s effects on the Siemens equipment running Iran’s nuclear programs.

A spokeswoman for Atomstroyexport, the Russian company in charge of construction at Bushehr, also cast doubt on there being major damage at the plant, saying its control system is fully autonomous and virus-proof.

Comments

[aprilnovember811]

If we have any honest FBI agents they better start looking at Obama and all of his Weather Underground, Code Pink, and Muslim Brotherhood connections. He is the Jihadist within.

[The Sphinx]

I posted a purely technical rebuttal of this article, which can very easily be fact-checked even on Wikipedia, and it got deleted.

Or you don't want facts getting in the way of your fearmongering?

Pathetic.

[Rita]

"Note to Iran's Mullahs: Play with Nukes, You're Going to Get Burnt"

The problem with the global danger that the Mullahs represent is that they (unlike war mongerers of old) dont care getting burnt, or even blown up, they think they have an islamic paradise chocker block full of big eyed virgins waiting for them.

[Tom Billesley]

Tell that to Associated Press, who originated the story.
Taken up by
http://arabnews.com/middleeast/article247992.ece
and elsewhere.
You could post it on your own blog (seemingly dormant - is it really yours?).
The article balances material sourced from Dmitry Rogozin, Russian envoy to NATO, with contrary opinions from Ralph Langner and from a Atomstroyexport spokeswoman.

I wonder if stuxnet has also penetrated the uninspected nuclear facilities of Iran's ally Syria at Dair Alzour and three other sites?
Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704832704576113961390459464.html?mod=WSJEUROPE_hpp_sections_world

It's probably quite easy to get malevolent software into such a site: just put it on memory stick labelled kiddyporn and leave it on the ground near the entrance to the facility.

[John K]

"Shut down the nuclear weapons factory and no one gets hurt."

It's not that they don't care. It's that they have said they want a nuclear conflagration to usher in the Mahdi. They said that if Iran is destroyed, it is a small price to pay and that Islam is not about any one nation.

[John K]

Any chance this is true?

BREAKING NEWS! - Is Barack Obama Really A Saudi / Muslim "Plant" in
the White House?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Jhx_2TqffE

Unfortunately, it's only a trailer for an online video rental service
so you can't see the whole program without paying, but I would think
Avi Lipkin is a credible source.

Actually, I can't understand why the FBI didn't do a massive operation to round up, arrest, and break up all the Muslim Brotherhood organizations when the US Court revealed the mission to destroy Western Civilization from within and the 5 step program to support it.

[Jim Baxter]

Each individual human being possesses a unique, highly developed, and
sensitive perception of variety. Thus aware, man is endowed with a natural
capability for enacting internal mental and external physical selectivity.
Quantitative and qualitative choice-making thus lends itself as the superior
basis of an active intelligence.

Human is earth's Choicemaker. His title describes his definitive and
typifying characteristic. Recall that his other features are but vehicles of
experience intent on the development of perceptive awareness and the
following acts of decision and choice. Note that the products of man cannot
define him for they are the fruit of the discerning choicemaking process and
include the cognition of self, the utility of experience, the development of
value measuring systems and language, and the acculturation of
civilization.

The arts and the sciences of man, as with his habits, customs, and
traditions, are the creative harvest of his perceptive and selective powers.
Creativity, the creative process, is a choice-making process. His articles,
constructs, and commodities, however marvelous to behold, deserve neither
awe nor idolatry, for man, not his contrivance, is earth's own highest
expression of the creative process.

Following the 1941 sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, a Japanese admiral said, "I
fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant..." Indeed, they had.
Not surprisingly, the atomic bomb was produced by a free people functioning
in a free environment. Not surprisingly because the creative process is a
natural human choice-making process and inventiveness occurs most readily
where choice-making opportunities abound. America!

Tamper with a giant, indeed! Tyrants, beware: Free men are nature's pit
bulls of Liberty! The Japanese learned the hard way what tyrants of any
generation should know: Never start a war with a free people - you never
know what they may invent!

The message is this: Trust Freedom. Remember, tyrants never learn. The
restriction of Freedom is the limitation of human choice, and choice is the
fulcrum-point of the creative process in human affairs. As earth's
choicemaker, it is our human identity on nature's beautiful blue planet and
the natural premise of man's free institutions, environments, and respectful
relations with one another. Made in the image of our Creator, free men
choose, create, and progress - or die.

Free men should not fear the moon-god-crowd oppressor nor choose any of his
ways. Recall with a confident Job and a victorious David, "Know ye not you
are in league with the stones of the field?"

Semper Fidelis
Jim Baxter
Sgt. USMC
WW II and Korean War
point-man/follower of The Lion of Judah

[Person of the Book]

This is wonderful news! When the bad guys get burned by their own fire, or when the bully hits himself, it's always a great day!

We will know who are the good guys and who the bad guys are when we see who is happy and who is not happy with this development.

Also, which media outlets carry the story and which don't.

Once again, Israel is doing a huge favor to the world (in messing up Iran's nuke program).

[Frank]

Muslim Brotherhood: ‘Prepare Egyptians for war with Israel'
By YAAKOV LAPPIN
02/01/2011 02:00
http://www.jpost.com/Headlines/Article.aspx?id=206130

"Muhammad Ghannem reportedly told Al- Alam that the Suez Canal should be closed immediately, and that the flow of gas from Egypt to Israel should cease “in order to bring about the downfall of the Mubarak regime.” He added that “the people should be prepared for war against Israel,” saying the world should understand that “the Egyptian people are prepared for anything to get rid of this regime.”-from the article

What Stuxnet did for Iran's nukes, food may do for this demented Muslim Girleyhood nonsense. (It's amazing how these people treat beliefs as facts.)

What the Muslim Girleyhood people don't seem to understand is that the entire Mideast may face a severe food crisis in the near term and long term. The rise of China is already raising food prices worldwide, and there will be increased importation of food by China in the future (only 10% of China's land is suitable for agriculture. That is why the Chinese are buying so much farmland in Africa).

These Girleyhood clowns had better start to use reason instead of their delusional fantasies about Israel. Things are not going to turn out (for them) as planned. Mark my words on this.

[karl anglin]

These mullahs live for fire!

[karl anglin]

Thanks for your service MARINE!

[Person of the Book]

Kindof makes you wonder. The flames of hell were prepared for the devil and his angels. And the mullahs love fire.

In other words, THE MULLAHS ARE OF THEIR FATHER THE DEVIL.

[Michael M]

Sphinx, I'm left with the impression that perhaps Stuxnet has infected your head as well... you seem to be spinning out of control just like an Iranian centrifuge.