this is all show. Israel cannot attack Iran, hit nuclear facilities and cause massive nuclear radiation. Iran will strike back, if not with nuclear than with chemical weapons. it will be a war with no end. the only solution for israel is to make their inoffical nuclear armament offical. than the balance of fear will hold the peace in balance.

> Arby3 wrote:

> The Middle East and Africa are lost to the Western world. As soon as they accept that and act accordingly, the better off we will all be.

What do you mean by that?  Do you think those regions cannot be saved by Western interference from sliding into chaos?

> DaveMacleod wrote:

>What do you mean by that?  Do you think those regions cannot be saved by Western interference from sliding into chaos?

A large part of the reason they're currently in chaos is Western interference.  The colonial era has badly scarred large regions of the world and it's probably going to take a lot of effort to mend those wounds.

I do think that Africa and other problematic parts of the world can be fixed though.  I agree with you on that.  It's just gonna be hard.

And one more bit to add:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2396348,00.asp

Iranian officials are still working on a "final report" about the attacks, BBC said.
Reports of Duqu first emerged in October when international security researchers alerted Symantec about a virus that was similar to Stuxnet but was intended to gather information rather than sabotage certain systems.
"Duqu's purpose is to gather intelligence data and assets from entities, such as industrial control system manufacturers," Symantec said in a blog post. "The attackers are looking for information such as design documents that could help them mount a future attack on an industrial control facility."

So Iran has discovered a second worm, similar to the first (perhaps because someone modified the original or maybe used a base template for both?  I'm honestly not familiar, and defer to someone with real computer knowledge), but with the goal of espionage instead of sabotage.  More than likely for a round 3, involving yet another computer worm.

Yep.  There's 21st century warfare for you. 

I'm not saying a real military strike isn't a possibility.  That being said, I do believe these computer worms are a result of some sort of foreign effort to screw up Iran's nuclear facilities.  Stuxnet was clearly an early attempt to disrupt Iran's nuclear production process, while Duju was an attempt to gather further information for another attack (what sort of attack depends on what type of information was being gathered, but system data was definitely among the information collected, so a further cyberwarfare campaign is definitely a possibility).  Either way, though, Israel is being bought time, either on its own or through another actor, via the series of cyber attacks occurring against Iran.

Meanwhile, Ahmadinejad issued a notice to all employees at its Busher reactor.
1: Please update your McAfee antivirus software.  We can afford the $49.95 per year subscription for 3 computers.
2: STOP DLING PORN!!!!!

I'd suggest Iran might want to consider keeping hard copies of Playboy, financial adviser contact information, and "Never gonna give you up" on hand in each nuclear reactor's break room... but that's just me.

> Fenix wrote:

> But that's not just from Israel, there's strong evidence that both the united states and German aided greatly, if not participated in the development of the Stuxnet work, I wouldn't  classify this as any form of "war" (cyber included), not yet any way.  When there's even a hint of war, you'll know, Fox news will blow it out of proportion.

Oh, I don't dispute that there were probably additional countries in on the program.

As for the question of whether or not it's a "war..." look... you have computer worms specifically engineered to screw up the Iranian nuclear program doing exactly that, Iranian nuclear officials being assassinated, a second (or third, depending on your stance regarding the April report) worm gathering intelligence on their software for what can be expected as a third attack, and most recently, a missile explosion in Iran.  The only thing that doesn't classify this as "war" is that it's not overt... even though there's a good idea of who is responsible.

> ~Wornstrum~ wrote:

> > Zarf BeebleBrix wrote:

>  The only thing that doesn't classify this as "war" is that it's not overt... even though there's a good idea of who is responsible.

It may be government sanctioned, but to consider this a war you would need to consider every act of cyber attacks from any nation against any nation an act of war. At the moment, these attacks are made to prevent the situation from spiralling downwards, even though it is an act of aggression. It is dealing with a threat in an isolated manner.

A perfect example is hacking attempts originating from certain countries against the US (will refrain from naming names, but we all know who I am talking about). Is that considered a war? Nope, could lead to war, if both sides escalated it, but it is considered just isolated attacks. If the cyber attacks begin to target other systems in an attempt to bring the whole system down, then maybe it could be considered warfare...I wonder how the Iranians will strike back though...

You're overgeneralizing cyberwarfare here.  Two very specific thresholds were crossed with Stuxnet that weren't crossed with hackings against the US.  First, most hackings against the US have been focused on intelligence-gathering, not sabotage.  Yes, they still harm the US, but information-gathering is a relatively common occurrence in international relations, so this is much less novel, only new in that it's using a different medium to achieve the ends.

Second, even if hackings against the US did damage, they generally only do damage within cyberspace (taking down a website, for example).  Stuxnet was different because it used cyberwarfare weapons in order to inflict damage in the real world (in this case, by destroying centrifuges).

But really, the best way to figure out whether something is an act of war would be to ask yourself how the country in question would respond if they knew without a doubt exactly who was responsible.  If, for example, the US and Israel got up and said they were responsible for the killing of 17 people last week in a missile attack and bombing centrifuges... yes, Iran would probably respond in kind, probably working through Hezbollah, especially since the target was one of the most high-value projects in Iran.

By the same token, though, the US doesn't go to war for every little action committed against it... otherwise, we'd be pretty much perpetually bogged down in wars.  Remember, an action can be considered an "act of war" even if it doesn't illicit a military response by the other nation.

Remember, also, that this isn't solely about the Stuxnet attack.  In the past year, at least two separate incidents of attacks against Iran's nuclear program have occurred... one year ago, with the assassination of one member of Iran's nuclear program, in charge of combating Stuxnet.  In addition, the explosion of an Iranian missile which killed 17 people last week (mentioned in one of the links above) may be similarly a covert operations attack by one or more parties.  So even if you're right on the Stuxnet issue, that doesn't answer the question of the physical sabotage-emphasized covert operations occurring.

Oh, I'm in no way saying assassinations, computer bugs, and general sabotage are in themselves solutions to the Iranian crisis.

That being said... they definitely slow down the timetable to an Iranian nuke, and provide intelligence to the Israelis.  If we're assuming a strike on Iran is the best option, it means Israel will buy itself the time until it can diplomatically gain support from the international community, through a mix of passage agreements and the US public opinion efforts against Iran which Obama has been extremely hardline on (you know... I'll never get over exactly how many times I find myself saying that Obama is a hardliner on X foreign policy issue).  However, if the assumption is that military conflict would be bad... the sabotage can create enough kinks in the military complex in Iran to disorganize it... at a perfect time, in line with the extended Arab Spring, now taking root in Iran's close ally, Syria.

Personally, I kind of like the status quo... maybe some more aggressive covert operations... but that's not really a judgment call on my part because none of us know the full story behind the covert war.  Iran is slowly being isolated by a mix of US diplomatic pressure and the Arab Spring uprisings.  Add in some domestic destabilization in the nuclear program, and Iran loses one of their major rallying points.

Now if we could get a gas embargo going, we'd REALLY see some serious internal problems in Iran (Iran exports oil, but imports gas... and subsidizes it so the population doesn't actually pay the full cost of gas.  A gas embargo would essentially shut down the Iranian economy pretty quickly, and easily create a new Arab Spring in Iran).