Zero Days (2016 Stuxnet Doco)

Just came across this great doco about Stuxnet and felt it needed to be discussed on ATS. Most the good stuff comes in the second half of the film but the whole thing is worth watching if you don't know much about Stuxnet. For the most part I think the doco was really well made, if I had one complaint it would be that I think the tone of the film is slightly biased against Iran. In one part of the film they try to explain why the U.S. and Israel would be so scared of Iran and why they would create Stuxnet as a result, but they neglect to point out how there was never any evidence of Iran having a secret nuclear weapons program and nuclear inspections have never shown Iran refining uranium at weapon grade levels. However the film does still take a good hard look at the morality and ethics of malicious software sponsored by nation states. This is probably my favorite quote:

In international law, when some country or a coalition of countries target a nuclear facility, it's an act of war. Please, lets be frank here, if it wasn't in Iran, lets say a nuclear facility in the United States was targeted in the same way, the American government would not sit by and let this go. [Following the Stuxnet attack] Iran's number of centrifuges went up exponentially to 20,000 with a stockpile of low enriched uranium, these are high numbers. Iran's nuclear facilities expanded with the construction of Fordow and other highly protected facilities. So ironically, cyber warfare, assassination of its nuclear scientists, economic sanctions, political isolation, Iran has gone through A to X of every coercive policy that the U.S., Israel, and those who ally with them have placed on Iran, and they have actually made Iran's nuclear program more advanced today then it was ever before. If you were a youth, and you see an assassination of a nuclear scientist and your nuclear facilities are getting attacked, wouldn't you join your national cyber army? Well many did, and that's why today Iran has one of the largest cyber armies in the world. So who ever initiated this and was very proud of themselves to see that little dip in Iran centrifuge numbers should look back now and acknowledge that it was a major mistake.

~ Emad Kiyaei

Another thing I think this whole series of events shows is that large scale secret programs CAN be maintained for a long time without being leaked. Stuxnet went several years before it was discovered and even then it was only discovered because Israel was apparently in a rush to update and release a new version of Stuxnet and they got sloppy. Stuxnet would have required at least several hundred people to know about it, if not several thousand people and it would have cost several million to create at the very least. Also consider the mass surveillance program which was exposed by Snowden. Thousands of other people, such as other analysts like Snowden must have had access to that information, yet it went on for many years before a single person decided enough was enough. If you think high level conspiracies cannot be maintained you are only fooling yourself and underestimating other people.

a reply to: ChaoticOrder

Stuxnet is a malicious computer worm believed to be a jointly built American-Israeli cyber weapon.[1] Although neither state has confirmed this openly,[2] anonymous US officials speaking to The Washington Post claimed the worm was developed during the Obama administration to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program with what would seem like a long series of unfortunate accidents.[3]

Stuxnet specifically targets programmable logic controllers, which allow the automation of electromechanical processes such as those used to control machinery on factory assembly lines, amusement rides, or centrifuges for separating nuclear material. Exploiting four zero-day flaws,[4] Stuxnet functions by targeting machines using the Microsoft Windows operating system and networks, then seeking out Siemens Step7 software. Stuxnet reportedly compromised Iranian PLCs, collecting information on industrial systems and causing the fast-spinning centrifuges to tear themselves apart.[5] Stuxnet’s design and architecture are not domain-specific and it could be tailored as a platform for attacking modern SCADA and PLC systems (e.g., in automobile or power plants), the majority of which reside in Europe, Japan and the US.[6] Stuxnet reportedly ruined almost one-fifth of Iran's -

link
for anyone wondering exactly what it is and does.

a reply to: Kapusta

Although neither state has confirmed this openly,[2] anonymous US officials speaking to The Washington Post claimed the worm was developed during the Obama administration to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program with what would seem like a long series of unfortunate accidents.

The information presented in this film indicates it actually goes back to the Bush administration, however it also claims Obama kept the program going. There are some really high level people interviewed in the doco and some of their statements are very candid, although most of them refuse to say anything about Stuxnet.

a reply to: ChaoticOrder

Thats a very relevant quote and not just in the context of this virus, although I would expect the documentary to try and justify a virus which has left much of the United States vulnerable to cyber attack.

The irony of-course being that actions which are "normal" in the Middle East would have resulted in world war everywhere else.

Iraq was bombed, attacked and invaded over lies.

Libya the same.

And now the West is openly arming rebels in Syria in hopes to overthrow the government while using ISUS as a pretext to bomb the nation...

I think it goes back to the old world idea that the there is a ruling elite and that everyone else is a subject or slave.

And of-course none of these people are brought to justice because the people/nations committing the atrocities are the same ones who control the courts.

It was the Allied nations which convened the Nuremberg Trials.

Its now some of those same nations which are committing the atrocities...

originally posted by: gladtobehere
a reply to: ChaoticOrder
I think it goes back to the old world idea that the there is a ruling elite and that everyone else is a subject or slave.

This. And the programming for everyone to accept this concept starts as soon as you are born.

How many movies/TV shows have you seen with the theme of Kings, Lords, Princes and Princesses? The desire to be a part of such a monarchical style of structure is imbedded in humans as soon as possible. And remains a constant theme. This is not by accident.

We can live without a ruling "elite" and their make believe pretend monies....we as a species just can't seem to escape this programming. But awareness of what is being done is a start.

S&F nice reminder of this.

originally posted by: AutOmatIc

originally posted by: gladtobehere
a reply to: ChaoticOrder
I think it goes back to the old world idea that the there is a ruling elite and that everyone else is a subject or slave.

This. And the programming for everyone to accept this concept starts as soon as you are born.

How many movies/TV shows have you seen with the theme of Kings, Lords, Princes and Princesses? The desire to be a part of such a monarchical style of structure is imbedded in humans as soon as possible. And remains a constant theme. This is not by accident.

We can live without a ruling "elite" and their make believe pretend monies....we as a species just can't seem to escape this programming. But awareness of what is being done is a start.

Starting to live without a ruling elite's control would be having to collapse their control. Unfortunately it's integrated into everything.