Israel may have destroyed Iranian centrifuges simply by cutting power
theintercept.com
theintercept.com
The Manhattan project was able uranium purified to get a bomb working without PLCs and networks.
All else being equal it's more expensive, but not compared to being unable to keep your network safe from attack. You need to reconfigure the line? Send eight techs down one by one to set new parameters and octople check the first tech's work.
Parts of the Russian government have reverted to using mechanical typewriters in lieu of computers, which are too susceptible to malicious hacking.
Also, the US Navy started instructing enlisted seamen how to navigate at sea by the stars, in case GPS stops working.
I think a potential lesson of the story is to use technology that you understand at least as well as your enemy does. The communist bloc maintained registries of typewriter fingerprints so they could identify which typewriters were used to reproduce samizdat; I think it’s fair to assume that the Russians understand typewriters very well.
Is the threat model there that someone hacks the GPS signal, or that someone shoots down the GPS satellites? Lots of countries have ASATs these days.
It's interesting that the Manhattan project had to build everything themselves - which if Iran was NOT using off-the-shelf parts and instead was developing everything in-house they'd be less susceptible to certain types of attacks.
This article says they used air-gapped Siemens industrial control systems:
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/revealed-how-a-secret-du...
By enlisting thousands of young women to watch the knobs and dial buttons.
https://outrider.org/nuclear-weapons/articles/women-who-buil...
They didn't even know they were building the bomb. They just had to enter the room, dial knobs back-and-forth for 8-hours/day, and then go home.
Today, that sort of stuff SHOULD be automated. It made sense back then because there weren't computers, but... you really can't just get people to balance knobs 8-hours / day anymore.
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EDIT: https://www.energy.gov/articles/five-fast-facts-about-calutr...
Seems like Department of Energy has some historical articles on them too.
So yes, they can probably afford to have a bunch of people tweak knobs in a factory all day.
So the idea might not work for Iran, but it probably would for North Korea.
In the US, I can’t afford a full time maid. In India, I could probably afford 10.
Or more pointedly, in the US you can afford a car far earlier than you can afford a maid. In India, it’s the opposite.
It‘s why, for example, middle class households in the US don‘t have live in maids, because rising living standards made that unaffordable at a middle class income level.
An interesting aspect of poorer economy I’ve noted but haven’t seen anyone discuss otherwise is you can live a much better life being poor in India, than you can in the US — the really low income economy is far healthier (the quality of everything degrades continuously). I’m sure it’s not a novel insight, but I don’t know what others would call it.
In the US you pass under the minimum wage bar of value production and you’re immediately in a tent under an LA bridge — with everyone else ranging from $7.99/hr to $0.01/hr. Of course an economy exists to support them anyways, but it’s largely underground, illegal (bypassing safety and regulations, e.g. selling very old cars; selling cigarettes individually) and actively zoned into oblivion
But what would prevent this system from being compromised?
Seems pretty easy for an adversary to "inject an exploit in these controllers" by paying a few of them to keep the knobs in the wrong position for a bit more time than strictly necessary, or to flip a switch earlier/later than ideal.
Auditing this is seems worse than checking the code for an old-style, non-networked, PLC.
Legend has it that Stalin knew about the American bomb before Truman knew about it. Hiring literally thousands of high-schoolers without much job training has the advantages of being cheap back then, but you don't really know who was or wasn't a Soviet Agent.
Similarly: having literally thousands of modern techs build a bomb manually would only turn the computer-security problem into a human-security problem. Who do you trust? Who do you keep track of?
There's something to be said about trusting fewer people: and checking those few people more vigorously. That simplifies the human-security portion of the puzzle, even if it complicates the computer-security portion.
Why not?
Reverting to old methods might not work so well when you face that situation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlestar_Galactica_(fictiona...
I can imagine all of those systems need to communicate within their domain somehow, so they need to be connected. You could make a point that they have “not been connected to the internet”, but then it only takes one node to become a bridge between WAN and LAN and you are Pwned.
It’s even worse now because there’s a tendency in software development to discount security this way: “we don’t need to think about security because we have a firewall”.
I don’t think this is a valid scenario.
It's pretty hard to buffer overflow
if (read_gpio(Ignition_Enable_Pin)) {I agree that this scheme doesn't protect against hardware implants modifying lines, but the threat model discussed thus far was around propagation of software implants throughout a system.
The show created an aesthetic like an old submarine, even using set pieces salvaged from other submarine movies. That was an aesthetic choice, making everything look cluttered and cramped and slow, increasing tension in exactly the way old submarine movies used to. In those movies, the computers weren't connected because they didn't exist. Actions were coordinated by phone.
It's a bit contrived that they had computers but not networks. It was just a conceit of the show, and actually it was really mostly just in that one episode. But the aesthetic carried through and made for great atmosphere.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlestar_Galactica_(2004_TV_...
High tech combat gear with VR and exoskeletons is more of a gun dealer's wet dream(e.g. costs a ton, breaks often) than anything that usually gets deployed.
"Kids these days etc."
It needed a coordinated 3-axis motor servo motor control, which we initially planned to use PLCs for, however after looking around and seeing the price tag of the stuff that matched our required feature set, we decided to build our own. We were up and running within 2 months, and I can tell you, writing code in C for the control loops is infinitely preferable to whatever monstrosity PLCs can be programmed in. I'd say this is a much more complex scenario than running a single motor at a certain speed depending on some sensor readings.
watching the cyberwars happening is surreal. Nuclear material production being attacked by Stuxnet, this current event, others I'm sure, is amazing.
The cyberwars of disinformation as well - completely surreal to see this all play out. Sorry I don't have more to add. It's hard to describe how it feels to see the future arrive like this. Pandemic. Rocket milestones, Mars plans. Nuclear-targeted cyberwar. Cryptocurrency. And flying cars are seemingly coming before self-driving cars perhaps. (Edit: And all backed by an increasingly divided America.)
What a weird twist into the future the last few years have been.
I expect things will "calm down" over the next fifty years as defense-in-depth and security become ingrained into how we work. Compare a "modern network" with the first ARPANET.
As an aside, it probably would have been smarter to make Cyber Command it's own branch rather than the Space Force. Space operations are basically figured out with the Air Force taking most of the lead. Cyber Command is apparently a cluster fuck of separate command structures all vying for power. Spending the time making a Space Force always seemed like a 20th century move in a 21st century env.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=drone+lasers+protestors&t=fpas&iar...
[0] "The future is already here — It's just not very evenly distributed" -- William Gibson
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4I9nquHUE0Y&list=PLtPP_-rkrT...
I'm with you on all of the things except for flying cars. I don't want some drunk driver(pilot?) flying over my house, but I want to be able to land at home. There are twice as many regulatory issues as tech challenges in my book.
How do the Israelis keep managing to get explosives into Natanz? They blew up a hall last July. I would have thought everyone entering the premises goes through a body scanner like an airport to make sure you're not carrying bombs, spy cameras, etc.
One also wonders whether an Israeli planted the bomb, or an Iranian. You'd have to be pretty daring either way.
Here's a good read for you: https://archive.ph/uG9Lu
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/15/us/politics/iran-israel-m...
How Israel, in Dark of Night, Torched Its Way to Iran’s Nuclear Secrets
> The Mossad agents moving in on a warehouse in a drab commercial district of Tehran knew exactly how much time they had to disable the alarms, break through two doors, cut through dozens of giant safes and get out of the city with a half-ton of secret materials: six hours and 29 minutes.
> The morning shift of Iranian guards would arrive around 7 a.m., a year of surveillance of the warehouse by the Israeli spy agency had revealed, and the agents were under orders to leave before 5 a.m. to have enough time to escape. Once the Iranian custodians arrived, it would be instantly clear that someone had stolen much of the country’s clandestine nuclear archive, documenting years of work on atomic weapons, warhead designs and production plans.
> The agents arrived that night, Jan. 31, with torches that burned at least 3,600 degrees, hot enough, as they knew from intelligence collected during the planning of the operation, to cut through the 32 Iranian-made safes. But they left many untouched, going first for the ones containing the black binders, which contained the most critical designs. When time was up, they fled for the border, hauling some 50,000 pages and 163 compact discs of memos, videos and plans.
...
> In most Mossad operations, spies aim to penetrate a facility and photograph or copy material without traces. But in this case, the Mossad chief, Yossi Cohen, ordered that the material be stolen outright. That would drastically shorten the time that the agents — many, if not all, of them Iranians — spent inside the building. (continued in the article)
I wonder what the calculus is like on whether to be an Iranian mole. Either the Israelis were blackmailing them into cooperating, or they're offering some very lucrative rewards, or the Iranian is doing it for some other reason (e.g. personal beliefs, or maybe just "being a super{hero,villain} for fun".)
Why should anyone believe they are pursuing a peaceful nuclear energy program when they do things like this? Surely the best way to convince people you are the peaceful victim is to continue to demonstrate peaceful intentions even when others don't reward you for it.
If the criminal in a hostage situation starts shooting their hostages, does that give them leverage in negotiations? I would think it just devalues their hostages and gives the police more incentive to shoot before things get worse.
In addition unlike irreversible killings, they can freeze high enrichment as leverage. Of course both party must let IAEA do the works.
Because - and correct me if I'm misunderstanding things - so far as I can tell it wasn't really an "agreement" to begin with. The US essentially just said they would tolerate an Iranian nuclear program so long as it adhered to a set of guidelines which assured Iran was being honest about their goal of pursuing a peaceful nuclear energy program. The US was providing Iran an incentive to keep its word.
For better or for worse, that incentive was removed. But that doesn't mean Iran is incentivized to go against its word. Continuing to adhere to those guidelines would help build trust from the rest of the world that Iran really just wanted a nuclear energy program. Instead, their recent actions only continue to build distrust.
Your somewhat understanding things. It definitely was an agreement, passed by the UN, the EU, and thus somewhat the US.
The disagreement is whether a congressional vote is necessary as well, which most UN agreements don't require but allow for congress to vote against them. There weren't enough senators against the agreement for that to happen, but because there weren't enough to vote in favor of it either Trump's team argued it wasn't an official treaty.
So whether it was an official agreement is somewhat unclear, but your description that it was an ad-hoc trust building exercise is not correct.
In all seriousness, if what you say it's true it really makes me want to watch Tehran.
And why does Iran not have the right to build their own atomic bomb when the US, Russia or China have them and are building new ones?
We ALL should be reducing nuclear weapons including the US. But sadly the US has not been taking a leadership role recently
Edit: Nice to see that my global nuclear disarmament comment is getting downvoted. /s
Also, the what-about-ism is not a great defense of anything geopolitical btw.
Also, "pulling out" is too simplistic. There are not only troops on the ground, but also military bases, joint exercises, weapon sales, commercial ties, industrial ties, scientific collaborations, cultural influences, and so on and so forth. Short of disappearing from the globe the US cannot just 'pull out'
> full rights for women, minorities, and LGBTQ
So not full rights for religious minorities. Moreover, conversion is quite difficult and the process is made much easier if you have a parent who is Jewish (which generally forms an ethnic group). Only recently were non-Orthodox conversions recognized for this purpose: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/01/world/middleeast/israel-j...
Also, if you are from Palestine or Iran, you are excluded from citizenship via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenship_and_Entry_into_Isr...
ie. specifically on the basis of your ethnicity &/or national origin.
I find it hard to take seriously claims of equal & full rights for minorities when those rights require converting to a different religion or being of a different ethnicity in order to apply to you.
Empowering BIPOC isn't about expecting all the same things. It's about giving BIPOC the resources they need for their ethnic and cultural self-determination.
It's too bad Afrikaners didn't try harder to "preserve the traditional and culture" of minority rule in South Africa as well.
Historical persecution doesn't justify enthnostates in my mind, I didn't realize this was a controversial opinion.
e: Since you've now edited your comment to include the statement about "BIPOC", Jewishness is orthogonal to "BIPOC" and most Jewish people are white.
I say that as someone of Sephardic descent.
"a small amount of ethnic homogeneity" seems like a deliberate minimization.
Israel is an apartheid state that has been persecuting based on ethnicity and religion for decades.
https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2020/10/15/...
Of course the right of return is just for Jews. Every country gets to set its own rules for citizenship. But Israeli citizens enjoy a reasonable democracy, with advanced civil rights, and respect human rights of others, too. Of course not at 100% but way better then all of their neighbors
Israel grants privileges for being Jewish and denies citizenship if you are from Palestine.
I'd liken it to something like Country X giving special immigration privileges if you have ancestry from country X.
They don't deny citizenship if you're palestinian, granted it's as difficult if you were trying to get citizenship coming from any other country
> it's as difficult if you were trying to get citizenship coming from any other country
Nope, it's more so. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenship_and_Entry_into_Isr...
In general, I am opposed to ethnostates and granting nationality based on what bloodline you come from. I think it is ironic that there is a right of "return" for Jewish people, but no such right of return for people who were displaced during the Nakba.
I'll be honest - I'm also opposed to "ethnostates" in general, and would much prefer the world moved beyond looking at each other based on ethnicity.
But given the fact that Israel was kind of explicitly created because the world hasn't moved past looking at ethnicity, I'm not sure what my solution is. I'm an Israeli Jew - I know that if Israel wouldn't exist, my life would be far more dangerous. And that's not a hypothetical - a huge chunk of my family were murdered for no other reason than being Jewish. The only guarantee I have that this won't happen again is that there is a strong Jewish state.
Do I like that the world is like this? No! Not at all. But that's the way the world is. And considering that most other groups do have effectively their own countries, I don't see a reason that Jews shouldn't also have their own country.
(This is all talking about the concept of an "ethnostate" in specific, not getting into the question of whether Israel being founded in the location it is was wrong in the first place - the arguments above would work just as well if Israel had been founded anywhere else.)
Why should the US allow Israel to have nukes when we spend so much energy preventing Iran from doing the same?
Now, under this paradigm, we as the free world have to ask ourselves - is it of our interest that Iran will gain access to nuclear weapons? The answer is absolutely no.
A detailed answered would require several pages, but in short - Iran and the west have opposing views and conflicting interests. The western interests would be put in compromise if Iran gains such a leverage.
As a theocratic regime, Iran has been actively exporting it's shiite fundamentalist ideology by force (from Yemen to Lebanon and even some non-muslim countries in South America). It would be naive to think that Iran will stop there.
For example, just imagine what would happen if a nuclear Iran invades Saudi Arabia and take over its oil fields.
Or if a nuclear Iran decided to block the Suez canal, effectively cutting off all of Europe from China, India and Japan.
They don't have to use nuclear weapons to inflict damage upon the west.
I'd wager the US will dismantle it's nuclear weapons the day other nations stop seeking to produce nuclear weapons. ie, this will never happen.
The US, China, Russia, India, UK, etc having nuclear weapons is a lot less of a threat to global security than a nation-state such as Iran, which vows to destroy it's surrounding nations every chance it gets.
The history of humans has been rife with armed conflict. It's an anomaly that the last 70 years have not seen massive global armed conflict, particularly in the "digital age". Perhaps nations that have nuclear weapons, but don't desire to use them are the reason? Perhaps not... but what is certain is Iran has stated they intend to use nuclear weapons, and that's not ok by anyone.
I doubt they would initiate a nuclear strike, knowing it means their annihilation.
Also, most modern statements by Iran focus on the "Zionist regime", not the literal killing of the residents of Israel. You can find similar rhetoric in the United States about the CCP.
> what is certain is Iran has stated they intend to use nuclear weapons
Is that certain? When have they said that?
Your other points rely on a rational actor... rational actors don't take freight ships hostage nor kidnap tourists.
Israel has kidnapped tourists before. Vanunu is still trapped in Israel.
Where has Iran said that they intend to use nuclear weapons?
Mordechai Vanunu? His situation is quite a bit different than kidnapping a tourist that literally has done nothing to Iran except show up - or a freight ship traversing international waters. Vanunu leaked a ton of nuclear secrets about Israel and fled - ie, he was no tourist and your point makes no sense.
Whataboutism isn't a good reason to excuse Iran's extremely poor international behavior, nor condone their relentless threats against Israel and other nations (including the US). Nor does whataboutism excuse Iran's direct funding of terrorist groups that have killed Americans and other nationals alike.
With all these discussions, it's important to note the regime of Iran is not the people of Iran. The people are likely amazing and full of culture and history - the regime is oppressive and aggressive, which is not tolerated in modern times.
Nothing to do with the discussion here, just a random thought on the Vanunu matter.
If someone with a gun holstered at their waist asked you to give you your money, would you refuse?
If Iran will get access to nuclear weapons, it's status in international politics will change drastically, all leverages the west has on Iran (like the ability to impose sanctions upon human right violations and counter their violent export of the shiite ideology) will more or less disappear
I don't think that the middle east, being an unstable region to begin with, would benefit from yet such a major destabilizing factor.
Iran has an ability to inflict much more damage upon the west than NK and Pakistan combined. It is an oil rich country, neighbor to the one of the biggest oil exporters in the world and is located in the center one of the busiest naval traffic routes.
I think there are parallels with Iran, in that a lot of BS & insane rhetorical bluster we hear(d) feed the base so they can maintain power. They need to keep the religious base flustered and angry at an enemy to maintain their own power.
Sorry that's probably too much editorializing for HN but it's extremely farcical on its face.
https://time.com/4437089/donald-trump-nuclear-weapons-nukes/
JCPA was working, except for a small group that benefit from its cancellation. Iran agreed to remove its uranium under strict checks and verifications. Why killing it?
Libya and Syria is your mess.
Militaries are political tools, and different countries have different goals. It'd be like saying a laptop is better than a data center.
Really, the marketing far exceeds the implementation.