Hacker News Reader

Comment by ck2 | Hacker News Reader

It's a new cold war. Eventually Iran will write viruses in return to attack US power grid.

All fun and games until Homeland Security Theater is given new powers to raid your home and shoot your dog if they think your computer is being used as part of a botnet.

View on HN

This isn't nearly as terrifying as the Cold War with the USSR. We're not threatened with nuclear war, nor having the near misses that could trigger it (Cuban missile crisis). No one is building bomb shelters in their backyards, because right now the balance of power is very much in the United States' favor.

Could things get there with another nuclear enabled power like China? Maybe, in time. Iran is not an existential threat to the US, not anywhere close to what the Soviets were. The Israelis see things differently I'm sure, but this is far from the situation in 60s - 80s.

Just like the TSA it's our government that is far more terrifying than any imaginary threat they are supposedly protecting us against.

And don't underestimate the Iranian government, they are not a third-world country like some people imagine out of ignorance - I really feel sorry for the Iranian people getting caught up in this mess.

> imaginary threat

Err... while I'm not stepping in to defend the TSA, I think that to call the threat imaginary ignores recent history.

While the threat of terrorism is not imaginary, it is certainly negligible compared to other threats.

The physical terrorism threat is negligible. The generalized cheap-attack-with-disproportionate-damage threat I can't in good conscience write off quite so readily. Biological attacks are still scarily possible, and if we start talking computer viruses it becomes scarier again. Recall Stuxnet didn't merely inconvenience people, it destroyed hardware. If someone manages to write a virus that, say, destroys a significant number of power plant turbines, we're talking about a disaster that does in fact start killing people in addition to general inconvenience. Electricity really really is one of the lifebloods of civilization, and while the phrase lifeblood is obvious not literal it's more literal than it may appear on first glance. Cut it off and real people will really be hurt and killed.

Personally I'd rate this class of threat comfortably above asteroid impact or solar flare-type disaster.

Terrorist victims in 2001: 3,000

Murder victims in 2001: 15,000

Car collision fatalities in 2001: 42,000

Cancer deaths in 2001: 550,000

The only thing that's disproportionate is how we react to terrorism.

(statistics are for United States)

That's a canned knee-jerk response, not one that shows you read my message. That's not relevant data to the question of what future bioattacks or computer attacks are possible... and note my continued avoidance of the term "terrorism". Once an attack is launched the source isn't very relevant. Failing to secure our infrastructure because "terrorism isn't something to be afraid of" is still a stupid move because it leaves you open to not-terrorism just as much.

My original response was more thoughtful, but I felt that summed up my point better.

The question is not what's possible, but what's likely and how much it will cost. If the likelihood is low and the cost is small, then you cannot justify extravagant preparation.

An attack against civilian infrastructure is terrorism no matter who does it. It may be a singular event, part of a chain of attacks, or a prelude to a full-scale military offensive. It's still terrorism, because it terrorizes the civilian population.

Irrational fear should not dictate our budget priorities. We can certainly take some precautions, and develop contingency plans. But at the end of the day, if someone is capable and determined enough, it's going to happen, regardless of how many much money and how many contractors and consultants we throw at the problem. The best we can do is take it in stride and rebuild.

You continue to not really be thinking about my point, insisting on framing it in a pre-canned terrorism argument. I am explicitly talking about high-cost events, and at best you can call the probability unknown, for things like a biological attack or a computer attack that perhaps even accidentally ends up taking out some very important part of the infrastructure. We already have good reasons to be concerned that a high-cost biological attack could be launched out of someone's literal garage, and it is not an irrational fear; we have plausible plans on how it could be done. Indeed I'd argue that being unconcerned about it is irrational, and being unconcerned about it because so far "terrorists", a small subset of the group of people I'm concerned about, have only managed to "fly planes into a couple of buildings". It's basically a non-sequitur argument, because a great deal of the point I'm making is that is only a small part of the total interesting threat profile.

What is your point then, exactly?

Are you arguing that there are eventualities which could be disastrous, and they need not be the product of willful malice? Then of course I agree with you.

Is your point that we can and should take all possible precautions against such eventualities, regardless of cost? That's where I take disagreement. We are, after all, arguing in the context of a larger discussion here.

Our efforts at preparedness must be in proportion to the risk, which is derived from both the potential cost and our best estimate of the likelihood. Bad things happen; it's terrible, it sucks, but it's unavoidable. We can and will bankrupt ourselves trying to swat every fly. It doesn't matter that a disaster could be catastrophic if we create a catastrophe by trying to avert every disaster.

"We already have good reasons to be concerned that a high-cost biological attack could be launched out of someone's literal garage, and it is not an irrational fear."

It's easy for people to just pick up a knife at a restaurant and stab someone too. People don't spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about this though because it just doesn't happen that often.

But the problem is that it ends up being a self-fulfilled prophecy.

People without any part in the original conflict is getting affected by it and then suddenly they are part of it.

That is the root of problems here.

While I agree that terrorism is given disproportionate attention (add car-collision fatalities in September 2001 as 3300 and it becomes even more useful comparison-wise), I also think it misses the point.

The sorts of terrorism we are afraid of tends to hype fear over risk. Take anthrax for example. Anthrax has been floated as a biological weapon because it's unlikely to spread back and contaminate one's own area, but experiments with weaponized anthrax shows an abysmally low rate of contracting the disease (between 0.1% and 1%) and so it's nearly exclusively a weapon of fear. The very things that make it attractive as a biological weapon also make it ineffective (no person-person transmission for example).

Similarly when we look at nerve gas attacks and the problems and sole case in history, it's clear these are relatively ineffective terrorism-wise. VX may be more effective than Sarin given high-tech dispersal systems but it's also very sensitive to things like droplet size and it's not volatile. Sarin, OTOH, is volatile meaning you can expect it to dissolve in the air and spread that way. Despite that, Aum Shinrikyo would have been more successful using plain old high explosives than nerve gas, and only one of their two nerve gas attacks (the one under entirely ideal circumstances) resulted in any fatalities whatsoever.

Nuclear terrorism could be significant but I suspect you'd have to blow up a small nuke in a major city every ten years to have an effect similar to car crashes nationally. I am sorry but I just don't see that happening so as long as I don't worry about getting behind the wheel I don't give that a second thought either.

All the above being said, cyberwar by non-state actors is different. Traditional terrorist attacks seek to cripple a society or socially disrupt it by killing people and making them afraid. I don't know that this necessarily has to be the intermediate goal of what people call cyber-terrorism (which is why I don't call it that). Instead it can disrupt society and hold it hostage by, well, disrupting it directly.

Imagine if power blackouts and communications infrastructure was disrupted repeatedly. Imagine if we suddenly the power grid were taken down repeatedly. What would be disrupted? How well could we recover? What if telecomunications infrastructure was attacked as well?

People would die but that's not really the goal. Just as in conventional terrorism deaths are a means to an end, sufficiently successful attackers could hold a society hostage by holding the infrastructure hostage.

Terrorist victims in 2001: 3,000 ... Cancer deaths in 2001: 550,000

I don't think it's fair to the families of the victims, to the people of NYC, or any peaceful, healthy person who has that threat in the back of their mind when minding their own business in public, to equate a cancer death with a death caused by a crumbling skyscraper, a burning skyscraper, or jumping out of a burning, crumbling skyscraper. I know cancer can be just as ruthless and indiscriminate, but it never has struck in such a concentrated, evil manner.

The only thing that's disproportionate is how we react to terrorism.

Are you implying that we shouldn't react disproportionately?

That's not to say I agree with the current level of disproportionateness or that we shouldn't be spending billions of public dollars combatting a disease that's claiming more and more people because they are now living long enough to acquire it.

Neither is any less dead than the other. The cause matters only to the living. My entire point is that fear of the threat in the back of your mind is entirely irrational. You're much more likely to die of cancer, and even then, you're not very likely to die at all.

The Stalin quote about "a single death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic" comes to mind here. I understand your point that terrorism is the result of direct, willful action by people with malicious intent, whereas cancer is just a force of nature. But you have no real control over either, so why make such a big deal of the former?

But you have no real control over either, so why make such a big deal of the former?

Not true. Even thought they need to be much smarter about it, people with guns, whom our tax dollars fund and who's power and number I fear and would like to limit, can reduce the likelihood of a terrorist ruining my life. Scientists can do the same for cancer, but unfortunately, we have more people who can fight terrorism that who can fight cancer.

We can elect leaders are vote in the marketplace to shift resources one way or the other, or be a better cancer or terrorism fighter if we are in those fields. Our individual control might be negligible, but not society's.

You cannot effect much control over a signal that you cannot distinguish from random noise. There are so many factors that affect the likelihood of terrorism, and yet even in a bad year that likelihood is insignificant.

Our ridiculously outsized counterterrorism efforts are akin to putting a shroud around the Earth to block out cosmic background radiation. It would cost more money than we can fathom, and in the end we probably couldn't even measure the benefit. Meanwhile, the radiation you absorb from living near a nuclear plant or an old testing site is orders of magnitude greater, and yet you probably won't ever suffer a harmful effect from it.

My argument isn't that terrorism isn't real, or it isn't a threat. My argument is that it's such an insignificant threat that it fails to justify our existing efforts, nonetheless ever-more-expensive new efforts.

It's equally hard to measure how much of a threat terrorism actually poses. One could easily make the argument that the reason it's perceived to be so little of a threat today is because we've gotten damn good at stopping terrorist plots. See the recently intercepted ALQ documents which describe how good the West has gotten at tracking their movements and foiling their plans.

There have been numerous terrorist attacks in the West since 9/11, in Israel (2002-), Madrid (2004, 2006), London (2005, 2007), and Moscow (2010, 2011).

Also, I grew up with several major terrorist attacks against the United States, in New York (1993), Oklahoma (1997), Africa (1998), against the USS Cole (2000), and finally 9/11.

The death toll from all these incidents barely breaks 4000. More people died last week of cancer.

The former has a large political impact.

How many dissidents a year do you think you need to kill to suppress any opposition?

Targeted acts of terrorism are different than indiscriminate attacks, and a coordinated series of attacks is different than an isolated incident. If the group of potentially affected people is very small, or the number of attacks very large, then the probabilities are drastically increased and a larger response is justified.

"Are you implying that we shouldn't react disproportionately?"

I would say that even when you factor in malicious intent we still react disproportionally, and that this is an inherent problem.

Any individual involved in any security-related field will have to work with the concept of acceptable risk at some point. The damage that terrorists can cause us is not that high compared to the way we victimize ourselves to try to prevent very modest harm.

Our reaction has become comparable to a cytokine storm in reaction to a flu virus, really. That can't be good.

Edit: As a side note, our reaction is such that it allows for what I call "grey-terrorism" vulnerabilities. If we define terrorism to only include acts which are violent or directly dangerous to human life, then leaving cardboard boxes marked "do not touch" in airport restrooms around the nation is not "terrorism." The act is not dangerous to human life. The act is not violent. The act however may be very disruptive to our airports, and it may be very good at inspiring terror.

Terrorist victims in 2001: 3,000

That's not entirely true. There were ~3000 terrorism-related deaths, but the point of terrorism is that it victimizes an entire society by creating a culture of fear and uncertainty. That's what differentiates terrorism from (conventional) murder.

To "create a culture of fear and uncertainty" is certainly the aim of terrorism. However, its effectiveness is dictated by the reaction of the affected population, not by the perpetrators or their actions.

Your fear about computer attacks appears to be a bit sensationalized and a typical knee jerk doomsday reaction. You parrot that "Electricity is the lifeblood of civilization" and that people will die when the power goes off but then seem to forget that blackouts already occur in highly populated areas. Are they a major annoyance? Of course! Do they cause mass death larger then asteroid impacts? Where did you get that idea? Many of our critical facilities have backup generators for a reason. If such an event did occur you'd be damn sure that any damage would be repaired ASAP.

I'm thinking that terrorists would have to do enough damage to warrant full replacement of a number (n = ?) of turbines at a number (m = ?) of plants to do significant, lasting damage in an area (you won't necessarily have a 'back-up turbine' lying around).

Yeah, that's certainly something you can argue in good faith.

I just disliked the "imaginary", which clearly is not true.

The threat is absolutely imaginary. Obviously we have real threats, but that is NOT what the security theater is about. The security theater is mostly about purely imaginary threats. And is in fact worse at stopping the few real threats we have. Original security theater idea is from Bruce Schneier, Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_theater

> The threat is absolutely imaginary. Obviously we have real threats

I'm not following you.

Nor am I saying that I think the TSA is a good thing or an appropriate response to the threats.

It is an imaginary large threat based on a real small threat. Wolves that attack Puerto Rican goat herds in the night are real, but the mythological chupacabra based on them is still imaginary.

Can you please cite your example(s)?

I am probably in a minority but I find it more terrifying than the Cold War. At least in the Cold War when the balloon went up everybody died. In this scenario we could be alive and under increasingly onerous affronts on our civil liberties. During the Cold War I might have been called up to attack and kill Soviets, if internal threats were used to install a police state I would be called up to attack and kill my own government. Not a good choice, just ask the folks in the middle east that have been called to do that.

Onerous affronts on civil liberties were occurring during the Cold War too.

I disagree, any attempt to shutdown a significant part of our power grid is terrifying to me. We are at a point in our society that we cannot survive without electricity for a large amount of time. Our economy would shutdown, people will starve as easily obtainable food would go away, certain medicines that keep people alive would spoil, hospitals would shut down, and more. We are so deeply ingrained in having electricity that being forced back to not having it at all would likely kill millions before we could adapt. Especially if the attack caused a semi-permanent power grid failure, such as with an EMP.

Obligatory pointer to One Second After by William R. Forstchen[1], which is a factionalized account of what came out of the US EMP Attack Commission[2].

A power hiccup is not a problem. A systemic power failure is a catastrophe!

1. http://www.onesecondafter.com/ 2. http://EMPCommission.org/

I was thinking of that book but couldn't recall the name of it.

A serious solar storm could damage the power grid more severely than a deliberate attack. If power surges burn out more transformers then it's going to take a long time to bring the grid back in some areas.

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/06/solar-storms/ferri...

As more of the world goes digital and becomes accessible on the public internet, more damage can be done. Attacking power grids, wall street, phone networks etc could very easily cause chaos, whilst it isn't as terrifying as blowing a country to pieces, it's certainly up there.

I think it's more terrifying today. Who would have thought a small place like North Korea kill lots and lots of Americans? It may happen indirectly, via sharing nuke technology with Iran, who is buddy-buddy with Latin American countries, which may, by proxy, end up within striking distance of millions of Americans.

I might have read you wrong, but in case you meant China doesn't have nuclear power, you are mistaken.

I believe the point is, what if a cold war scenario was to happen between China and USA; China being nuclear-equipped

> I believe the point is, what if a cold war scenario was to happen between China and USA; China being nuclear-equipped

It wouldn't matter: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutually_assured_destruction

Your faith in rational human behavior is much stronger than mine. All it takes is one person making an irrational decision (driven by anger, false sense of security, accident or other) to essentially doom everyone. Death-row is filled with people who made similar decisions (do something even though the consequences of that were dire), all it takes is one person making a similar decision on a bigger scale.

MAD doesn't prevent anything, it at best postpones things and at worst forces both sides to escalate to the point where they feel they can completely destroy the other even given significant losses (i.e. building significantly more bombs than they need to destroy the planet).

…because a virus like Stuxnet could never, ever infect a command a control system for nuclear weapons?

The war itself isn't nearly as terrifying, but somehow the US government is finding it even easier to erode civil liberties now than it ever did during the Cold War.

Even easier now? McCarthy.

>>somehow the US government is finding it even easier to erode civil liberties now than it ever did during the Cold War.

Iran is probably the worst country on the planet when it comes to supporting terrorism.

Consider that democracies in general seems to go crazy when they have active terrorism problems and throw out human rights and the law book. E.g. Germany, USA, Israel, Great Britain, Italy, Spain, etc. (The only exception afaik is India.)

It is logical because the whole point with terror is to scare civilians -- and politicians wants to be elected again. They have to solve terror problems, no matter what.

You don't have to like this, in fact no one except companies earning money doing security likes it. All choices in the real world also has disadvantages, even democracy.

>> Iran is probably the worst country on the planet when it comes to supporting terrorism.

Maybe you want to update your knowledge and find out what is the worst country. You will surprised to see the so calle "best" democracies there.

http://blog.amnestyusa.org/us/shocking-facts-about-whos-armi...

That link shows what countries are exporting weapons to other countries. This isn't the same as "supporting terrorism," as the parent clearly states. Iran directly supports groups like Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, etc.

>>Iran is probably the worst country on the planet when it comes to supporting terrorism. Really? Sounds like rewriting the history again. Everything I read pointed 911 to pakistin intelligence and Saudis

That's a strawman in that 9/11 isn't the only terrorist attack to happen in the 21st century.

Thanks, now I understood what the gp wrote. :-) I have too little experience with conspiracy theories.

I don't think it's as simple as "Iran is probably the worst country on the planet when it comes to supporting terrorism."

Every powerful country uses violence to advance it's political goals. Every powerful country kills the civilians/citizens of other countries, publicly expressing varying amounts of regret.

The parallel comment by salimmadjd has a point about Pakistan maybe being even worse than Iran, when it comes to terror support (I do doubt that Saudi A as a country is worse).

I might stand corrected, there.

>>Every powerful country kills the civilians/citizens of other countries

To explicitly target civilians is serious because it breaks the laws of war, etc. Democracies generally don't do that.

You are leaving out a rather glaring example. Neither atomic bomb, dropped by the one and only country ever to use them, were dropped on military targets.

The "Democracies" of the world kill many innocent civilians, an order of magnitude in fact than any terrorist related event if you really want to compare the two. Not because the people running them are cartoonishly evil or anything, it simply reflects the massive imbalance of military power between us and whoever the terrorist are supposed to be. It's cloaked in talk of noble intentions and euphemistically referred to as collateral damage. I doubt it makes a difference to the populations affected whether they were an intentional target, or the gps on the smart bomb that just leveled your house glitched out.

"I doubt it makes a difference to the populations affected whether they were an intentional target, or the gps on the smart bomb that just leveled your house glitched out."

You're wrong.

If an airliner (or even a weapon) goes astray and kills my family, I am going to be angry, no doubt about it.

If you've deliberately targeted my family, my anger is going to be greater by several orders of magnitude.

For example, this case that was in the news today:

http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/156366185.html

Suppose the phosphorous did get there through some type of negligence on one of the nearby bases (seems plausible, at least).

Are the woman and her family going to be angry? You bet. Are they going to file a monster lawsuit? Almost certainly. Are they going to declare war on the United States, or (try to) kill a few Marines? Not a chance in hell.

Intent matters.

That, as well as the story linked (which I read carefully), are really bad analogies, for what I think of obvious reasons.

I do think intent can matter at times. Perhaps what I'm more zeroing in on is that idea that I don't find saying you didn't mean to, when you repeatedly kill civilians in very large numbers, such that certain countries have a long history of being on the receiving end of American collateral damage, as an acceptable rational/excuse. (This last part is why I think you're examples are not particularly apt)

Your intent just stops mattering as much when the body count gets to a certain number and you show no signs of changing the behavior.

If I understand right: You argue that no war is worth high collateral damage, even if involved democracies (more or less) follow the laws of war?

How about if a junta relies on that a democracy don't want to pay those prices and creates a situation where blood will flow if they don't get their will?

Arguably, both Japan 1945 and Saddam Hussein are cases of that.

Do you REALLY want dictators to rely on using their own people's suffering to get out of e.g. sanctions or surrender? I doubt it...

Sorry for coming in late. I bother writing these answers because I used to have similar opinions as you before my hair started to fall out. You are a standin for a young berntb, I guess.

I wrote: To explicitly target civilians is serious because it breaks the laws of war

Got the answer: "kill many innocent civilians"

Sigh, it is illegal to target. In a war, civilians will die. My point was that some sides do try to avoid civilan casualities. You didn't argue against my point, you made a spin.

Then, someone isn't morally right by being weaker, so different strength have nothing to do with it.

The nuclear bombs over Japan was 1: a long time ago, 2: a complex choice (e.g. military production in cities, different standards in WWII, the target selection process, etc, etc). You condemn without discussing that.

And so on.

I am sorry, but I must say that you write simplified propaganda. Please increase quality, I want a better HN. :-(

> Sigh, it is illegal to target. In a war, civilians will die. My point was that some sides do try to avoid civilan casualities. You didn't argue against my point, you made a spin.

You place a lot of emphasis on intentionality. While it's an aspect worth considering, I don't find it as nearly as persuasive as you seem to. Many military actions are undertaken knowing full well the result with be civilian causalities, often many, and they are done anyway. Like I said earlier, I don't think your distinction means much to the victims whether they were intentional targets or not.

> The nuclear bombs over Japan was 1: a long time ago,

Uh, not really. It's still within living memory for many. And I think highly pertinent when discussing current issues of nuclear weapons/proliferation.

> 2: a complex choice (e.g. military production in cities, different standards in WWII, the target selection process, etc, etc). You condemn without discussing that.

I didn't get into those aspects in the interest of brevity, and because it veers a bit too off topic. I have considered them all at length, and ultimately find them unconvincing from a moral standpoint. Also notice how any actions taken by our society, or those representing it, immediately become complex and a hundred shades of grey. I'm sure those supporting acts of terrorism make similar rationales. No one buys it in that case, and I think we should be highly skeptical when our leaders seek to justify it in ours.

> I am sorry, but I must say that you write simplified propaganda. Please increase quality, I want a better HN. :-(

I'm not sure how to respond to such hyperbole. Everything I've stated is factually true. You can disagree with my interpretation, or the implicit conclusions I've drawn, but labeling it as simplified propaganda is just silly.

"You place a lot of emphasis on intentionality. While it's an aspect worth considering, I don't find it as nearly as persuasive as you seem to."

You are in a very small minority there. Sorry.

> You are in a very small minority there. Sorry.

I'm fine with that.

One last point worth considering - exactly what is the evidence that it is unintentional? None as far as I can tell other our leaders assert it constantly. And then turn around and do it again, repeatedly. To be clear, I don't think likely almost ever is. There's simply no advantage to it, especially in the modern information age. It's willful disregard in my opinion, which is debatably marginally better, but only marginally.

And the reason I focus on the actions of my society, the US, boils down to partly because it's my home, and there's no where you care more about than your own home. As much as I condemn the actions of Iran, or any other state, there's zero I can do about it. I'm not Iranian. I can, however, affect change here, again in the most powerful state, where it matters most. And the most fundamental principle of any moral framework is that you hold yourself to the same standards you seek to apply to others. More stringent ones, in fact, if you're serious about it.

I'm not American, from my viewpoint you are applying totally different standards to two sides.

A few levels up, I noted that democracies in general tend to go bat-shit crazy at terrorism -- and that it is probably built into the concept of democracy.

It should also be noted that modern democracies don't fight wars with each others, not even the USA. The best solution for making a better world is to work for democracy, especially in places like China which already has started to push a bit against neighbours.

>>You place a lot of emphasis on intentionality.

It is quite unusual in not seeing a difference with killing someone by losing control of your car on the way to hospital with a hurt child -- and shooting an unarmed civilian in the face...

>>Many military actions are undertaken knowing full well the result with be civilian causalities, often many

Most westerners do believe in war laws. Here is an US-critical article. Compare it with e.g. the militias in Iraq or Hezbollah. They shoot artillery at cities, etc.

You see no difference in that -- as was noted, it makes you not only in a minority, but also arguing the same position as people that really murder children point blank. You ignore all other laws too?

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v25/n04/michael-byers/the-laws-of-war-u...

>> Then, someone isn't morally right by being weaker, so different strength have nothing to do with it.

They do. In practice someone is often seen as morally right just because he is stronger than his oponent (politicaly or military or in some other way).

> To explicitly target civilians is serious because it breaks the laws of war, etc. Democracies generally don't do that.

Democracies generally try not to publicize doing that. Unless it's done with drones apparently, then you brag about it.

Link to a democracy bragging about intentionally targeting a civilian?

That was a reference to the fact that the election related PR is focused around Obama being tough, having a kill list that he oversees and the successful drone strikes against "militants".

Because the definition of militant explicitly includes civilians in the area surrounding the targets and this was recently highly publicized I tied the two together in a flippant comment.

But I suspect you knew that already and now want to argue about the US use of drones. I'll save you the time, it's terrorism dressed in Orwellian doublespeak and it's pointless to have internet arguments about it.

The war laws are specifying when/how you can risk civilians -- there will always be dead civilians in a war, you are required to try to minimise that.

If you would want to be serious (somehow I doubt it), either (a) argue against the war laws or (b) argue that usa breaks them.

Note that in this case, the terrorists target civilians and seem to use their own civilians as shields. You have no problem with that?

I grew up in London when the IRA were leaving bombs in the trains stations, we didn't have this "throw out rights and laws" nonsense.

And Norway didn't go nuts over the Breivik attack either.

Oh, and are you aware that Israel backed Jundullah, which is a Pakistani AlQaeda?

Command of the facts helps avoid embarrassment.

I'm a little confused.

The UK gov't instituted a number of very harsh laws that severely curtailed the rights of UK citizens.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prevention_of_Terrorism_Acts

"This part allowed for the arrest of individuals without a warrant and on reasonable suspicion that they were guilty of an offence under the Act or otherwise "concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism""

(I don't think you should have too high expectations of facts and logic from ucee054, at least re politics. :-) )

Thanks for the link, I didn't know the name of the law. Also, there were some ... cough ... controversial interrogation methods in the 70s, until there was too much human rights criticism.

Anyway, I'm not an expert on the UK and IRA, but believe/assume part of the inspiration for the wonderful T Gilliam movie "Brazil" came from this.

Hello again!

Do you still believe in Jewish conspiracies controlling media?

Or that T-shirts of some individuals prove something about a heterogeneous country -- and are as bad as official policies in another state?!

Ah wait, you refused to touch that "logic" of yours in comment after comment...

Breivik was an individual crazy/nazi/xxx. There are hardly realistic threats for more attacks in Norway. I argued about fear of terror, not mourning after one attack.

(Edit: It is really fun that you condemn Israel for working with unpleasant groups where they have common interests -- all countries with physical threats do similar things -- but previously refused to criticise similar groups.)

And so on, sorry but I can't take you seriously.

Terrorist, the new communist.

That's one thing I've never understood. Why is the power grid connected to the Internet? Does it need to be?

The power companies and grid are just like everybody else with a distributed system these days: they have a lot of monitoring data and the cheapest way to backhaul it is over the commodity internet. They find VPNs useful too.

True that a finely crafted USB stick can be used to bridge an air gap, but the power grid needs to not be connected to the interent. It's a protocol layering violation: the internet depends on the power grid. If the power grid also depends on the internet, what happens when one goes down for any length of time? How long would it take to get such a system turned back on again?

The power grid might not be connected to the internet, but, as the article points out, all it takes is someone with a thumb drive to plant malware.

I wouldn't say Iran has the means (a.k.a knowledge) to go ahead and deploy the whole thing: virus development, infiltration, infection of devices within the power grid, and coming out unnoticed.

Way to show your ignorance. Maybe your comment would be interesting if you provided a single reason or fact to back up your claims. Since you don't it sounds like "Hurr, America number one, Iran savages".

Iran has one of the most sophisticated intelligence apparatuses in the world(just ask the CIA what they think about them), and incredibly talented people at their fingertips. Individuals within their organizations also have little oversight on their actions, and large amounts of cash to buy what they can't provide themselves.

Ignore them at your own peril.

Iran showed some capabilities in the hacking of public certificate authorities last year (Comodo, Diginotar).

But there were plenty of noob mistakes made during those attacks too. They simply haven't shown the same type of capabilities to conduct "cyber war" on the scale of the China, Russia, and the US.

I completely agree that they should not be ignored.

No one has said how they fully downed that supposed Stealth Drone.

Likely a GPS spoofing attack. Not difficult but the designers should have protected against it.

The problem is not when a country does that - it's when a loosely organized bunch of normal-looking lunatics all over the world does it.

Moore's Law of Mad Science.

No, we are the aggressors here and I remain highly skeptical that Iran is even trying to do develop nuclear weapons. All the news outlets that speak English are biased as hell on this.

If you want real news instead of propaganda you have to watch RT or Al Jazeera. Both of which condemn the US and Israel. Not Iran.

>> Both of which condemn the US and Israel. Not Iran.

you know, its possible that the US, Israel, AND Iran are all doing bad things. just because Iran is not being condemned by a some media organizations does not mean it has any meaningful high ground.

why are you skeptical that iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons? if they weren't, why would they be developing secret enrichment facilities? why would "The IAEA Board of Governors passed a resolution[186] by a vote of 32–2 that expressed "deep and increasing concern" over the possible military dimensions to Iran's nuclear program" (from wikipedia)?

and more importantly, israel and the us are clearly concerned about iranian nuclear weapons development. it seems as if private intelligence lines up with public intelligence. why are you so confident that everybody else is wrong and you are right?

> "why are you skeptical that iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons?"

Because the only people saying they are doing so are the same people who've been claiming Iran was six to eighteen months away from having a nuclear weapon since the 1980s.

And everyone whose job it is to collect and analyze intelligence on the matter says they aren't.

And I find it pretty hard to believe the US and Israel can simultaneously have sufficient capability to craft and deliver something like StuxNet to affect actual damage to the Iranian nuclear program (to say nothing of the targeted assassinations) yet somehow insufficient capability to make the best estimate on whether or not there's a weapons program.

How could the people who know which homes/cafes/shops frequented by which scientists, working in which labs, running which operating systems, using which software to drive which hardware have a worse intelligence picture than chronic war agitators and political mouthpieces with a track record of being willfully deceived by charlatans and war profiteers?

It is a stone cold, dead in the ground for a decade, crystalline clear FACT that Iran has no nuclear weapon manufacturing program, and no plausible capacity to engage in one in the near future. Period, full stop, end telegram.

Armed with this certainty, you can now begin to answer the rest of your questions for yourself.

[citation needed]

Why are they enriching above power production levels then?

So, I heard the world is flat.

And I heard there's an organization called the IAEA that's unaffiliated with any particular nation-state that's been at the center of this extremely contentious global issue that would agree with exactly what I said, because that's exactly what they're saying, so uh, enjoy your limp sarcasm.

Not having sufficient evidence to prove something is happening is not quite the same thing as proving it isn't happening.

Let me be clear: there is no evidence whatsoever that Iran has nuclear weapons in its possession. There is no evidence whatsoever that Iran has had an organized nuclear weapons development program for the last nine years. There is some evidence that there was a nuclear weapons program prior to 2003.

This is where you start discussing things: with reality and facts. I am insulted that these facts I am offering are being downvoted ten miles deep when hundreds of millions of lives are affected by the outcome of this prove-a-negative "debate".

I don't know why I'm jumping in, but.

Iran is enriching uranium. A lot of it. This is not disputed.

Iran rattles their sabre a lot, and has large domestic oil production, both of those are also undisputed.

... So you're saying you believe their story that they're enriching uranium beyond where it needs to be for nuclear power, just so they can have nuclear power? Even though they already have more oil than they can sell (with sanctions in place)? Why would they do that?

If I were in their place, I'd be going for a nuclear weapon. All of the available evidence points towards their going for a nuclear weapon. If this was just about nuclear energy, why wouldn't they play ball with the international community and save a shitload of money? Nobody costs themselves billions in sanctions in order to lose more millions in energy production by using nuclear instead of burning effectively-free oil.

You're not being downvoted because you're offering "facts", you're being downvoted for offering an unsupported opinion that people don't agree with.

This isn't battle-chat, jumping in is called a conversation. :)

I do not dispute anything you've said: enrichment is happening, Iran's government is adept at aggressive rhetoric, and Iran would be far better off militarily as a nuclear power. It would be rational for them to be one.

But nothing I have said is incorrect or an opinion. They do not have a nuke, they don't have remotely enough infrastructure or capability to get there anytime soon, and their enrichment activities are not resulting in weapons quality product. That multiple nations and media interests are claiming otherwise is unacceptable.

Their energy policy is not of any interest to me. I am interested in ending this war for the sake of peace.

To answer your points in order:

1. Iran's sabre rattling is in response to the outright threats of invasion and/or military strikes by the US/Israel.

2. Iran has oil which is more economically valuable sold on the market and not burned in local power plants, arguing they have no right to nuclear power is silly.

3. Iran enriches up to 20% for use in medical research reactor that produces isotopes for cancer treatment, the entire process is monitored by the IAEA.

4. "All of the available evidence points towards their going for a nuclear weapon" Which rock have you emerged from and more importantly, was it comfortable there? The CIA itself not to mention some very high ranking retired or otherwise members of Israel's intelligence/military have clearly stated that they don't believe Iran has nukes or is working towards them, for e.g. see: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-17879744 and http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Backchannels/2012/0425/Israel...

5. They do "play ball" with the international community, they don't play ball with the US which has been threatening them for quite a while now even though it's own intelligence agency has said Iran is not pursuing a nuke. Unless of course "International Community" in your lexicon equals the US.

oh and just a piece of advice; you shouldn't jump in if you're going to parrot unsupported claims

>> why would "The IAEA Board of Governors passed a resolution[186] by a vote of 32–2

Because of pressure from Israeli lobby. I follow this very carefully, and most of it is propaganda to provide impunity to Israel for current and future actions.

The fact is, Iranian still unable to refine oil in industrial scale without outside help. Enriching U like any thing else becomes harder as you reach higher purity. US intelligence confirmed there has been no move to militarizing their nuclear technology.

Just curious, isn't refining oil on an industrial scale easier than enriching uranium? Any idea why they are unable to do it?

I just don't think the they have the capability. The country is very nepotistic, so anyone in charge got their position because they knew someone rather than purely on merits. The regime is also rather paranoid, so probably they only promote within their own ranks. Combine all those and you get an ineffective bureaucracy. The best they could hope for is all the hype the western media is giving them. Their ability to grow their enrichment facility has basically halted.

But of course no one in media mentions that, because that goes against the narrative they want to play. That's until we go there and mess everything up, then we'll hear all these data the was there and everyone glossed over. Deja vu Iraq.

So here's the thing with news: it's expensive to run a news operation, and almost impossible to make any money doing it, since there is so much competition. All serious news operations get their funding elsewhere. The BBC is funded by the UK taxpayer (and thus behaves like a branch of the civil service). Reuters is funded by its financial services wing (the point of it is to provide news to traders, who will then trade via Reuters). Al-Jazeera is funded by the local Sheikh. Once you understand this, all the inherent biases become obvious.

Slight correction: The BBC is not funded by taxpayers, but TV license payers, that is to say by people who chose to watch TV. While I won't argue that the BBC doesn't have biases, they aren't as simple as "like a branch of the civil service".

Much of the news is based on propaganda and assumptions.

>No, we are the aggressors here and I remain highly skeptical that Iran is even trying to do develop nuclear weapons.

You may believe that but it doesn't make it so. There was a recent story about how UN inspectors found traces of uranium that were enriched higher than they were supposed to be for civilian purposes.

140kg of uranium was enriched to 20% isotope purity for ostensible use in a medical isotope reactor. That's a civilian purpose.

Weaponized uranium requires 85% isotope purity.

>If you want real news instead of propaganda you have to watch RT or Al Jazeera. Both of which condemn the US and Israel. Not Iran.

You realize that both RT and AJ Arabic are very, very anti-US biased? Especially RT?

They're also state-funded media outlets.

RT by Putin's political structure, Al Jazeera by the Qatari Monarchy.

Having the same uncritical acceptance of what a news outfit prints - but for a different news outfit from the people around - doesn't make you better, just different.

I've always felt that in one way or another, everyone involved is an aggressor. This is the real problem, most won't take a step back to break the cycle.

Any news outlet that openly condemns any nation is biased and is propaganda for whatever agenda. A news agency should be just reporting the news so the viewer can decide their feelings on the nations that the reports are about. Now if Al Jazeera wants to have that stance, then that's fine as long as everyone understands what it is that they are doing.

I have not seen any solid proof that Iran is developing nuclear weapons but I have to assume that they are. It is what nations do, they will build what they feel is necessary to protect their interests. If the nations around them have nuclear weapons then most likely they feel the need to have them as well.

Yes, they bought all those centrifuges to make smoothies. {sarc}

Al Jazeera has always had an anti-US/Israel bent, and they have always made that pretty clear. So, while they might provide useful coverage of the issue, it seems to me who them condemn and who they do not may not be the final, unbiased say in the matter...

Iranian officials repeatedly denied the right of existence of Israel. As a German who at least tries to learn something from history, these are signals i can not ignore. Also, from my point of view, the political system of Israel and the way its society works, is something worth fighting for. Whereas the political system of Iran is something worth fighting against. Ask any Iranian, who is not brainwashed and wants to live a life not controlled by religious nutcases.

Comparing Iran to Nazi Germany? That's a blatant strawman in no need of answering, and for being a German it looks like you learned the wrong lesson; it's ok for someone to victimize others because they were once the victims?

Also, what do you mean by "the political system of Israel and the way it's society works, is something worth fighting for"? A political system & way of life built on the subjugation of a people, stealing their land and turning millions of them into refugees, all justified by a religious belief that their deity gave them that land over 2000 years ago?

Iran's political system has major problems, but at least they didn't emigrate from Europe to kill and drive a people off their own land and claim it as their own cuz the old testament said it was their's..

I think some points of clarification are in order:

I do not compare Iran to Nazi Germany, this would mean to deny the uniqueness of the holocaust in human history.

I meant, as a German I have a moral obligation to support Israel in its fight for existance. If officials of another country talk about wiping Israel from the map, i get suspicious. You don't? I hope not.

To state, that Israels political system is built on the subjugation of a people is really rather shallow and a grave simplification. What you, Wrap, say, sounds like you think that the "palestinian people" (whatever that is or was) are the victims in that case and have done nothing to nobody. That is just wrong and i advise you to read up on the whole story.

Also, from my point of view, the right of existance of Israel is not a topic of discussion anymore. Maybe it was unfortunate to found it where it's been founded after WW2, but that is not something that can be changed now in any sensible way.

And, come on, Wrap, the Jews where "emigrating" from Europe to "kill and drive a people off their own land and claim it as their own"??? That is just ridiculous. Please get an education.

Last point about Irans political system: It does not have "major problems", it is basically run by sad men greedy for power that use religion as means of suppression. The one thing you have to give them, is that Iran/Persia was not a very aggressive country in the past. But that's it. They do oppress their people (~80 million) which you really can not say of Israel. Also they throw threats all around, and I do not think they do this just for funsies.

You sound like a Zionist shill.

Do these media also, like Iran and the Arab world, support Sudan and claim that HRW etc are conspiracies about the mass murder and mass rapes? (It would be easy to continue with examples like this.)

Edit: A karma 33 account. I've probably been trolled.

The centrifuges could have been destroyed, and with loss of human life. The system itself was damaged. I wouldn't call this a "cold" war. It is a very real, very physical war(albeit precisely targeted, for now).

The same sort of stuff used to happen during the Cold War with the Soviets [1]. Cold War doesn't mean no loss of life or destruction, just that there aren't two armies going at it on the battlefield.

1. http://www.damninteresting.com/the-farewell-dossier/

The gas pipeline sabotage was just the example I was thinking of. Nice.

"Cold War doesn't mean no loss of life or destruction, just that there aren't two armies going at it on the battlefield"

If so, then "cold" vs. "hot" would be a distinction without a difference.

I don't think the populace is generally educated to think that a "cold war" means "overt attacks on the enemy producing destruction and death." Rather, I think most people think that "cold war" means heightened political/military tension without overt attacks.

To define a "cold war" as one in which no soldiers are used is fallacious: it's a definition by non-essentials. What is relevant to war is whether there is a systematically planned and ongoing violent attacks, not whether soldiers happen to be the means of attack.

The "cold" distinction is that there are no open hostilities. There are hostilities wrapped in plausible deniability, and found through proxy wars (Korea, Vietnam, etc).

"No open hostilities" is a definition by non-essentials. It's fallacious. As I already said and as you failed to address.

Whether certain people happen to know whether there is an attack or who is behind it does not change anything. A state of knowledge does not change the reality: someone is planning and attacking.

If I had a downvote button, I would exercise it on your steadfast refusal to acknowledge that the Cold War is so-called for the absence of direct military conflict between the armies of the two quarreling states.

Wikipedia does not back your definition, as the Wiki entry leaves room for espionage, sabotage, and other actions that one might consider an "attack" but certainly do not force a declaration of war, mobilization of armies, etc.

Firstly, talking about Wiki definitions is the wrong thing to focus on.

Secondly, the Cold War is a misnomer, the US was very much involved in an open confrontation with the Chinese+Soviets in Korea, and to a lesser extent with their proxies in Vietnam later on.

Yes, the Korean war was fought under the aegis of a resolution issued by the UN security council, but it was a 'hot' war, and part of a broad push against Communist influence.

Firstly, I wasn't only talking about Wiki definitions, I had a more basic argument that is being ignored.

Secondly, the Cold War has two possible referents among political scientists (see the link I posted), and the one in question is not the Soviet one.

Now, these are basic facts that you are clearly wrong about. But I will get downvoted anyway. There is something very wrong with you people.

Sabotage is not "indirect", it is very direct, and what's more, it's not even listed on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_war_(general_term)

You're wrong, but at least you're not a coward.

Surely you don't expect the WP article to list every act that might be compatible with the idea of a "cold war"... I feel you are trolling a bit. Sabotage is still a plausibly deniable act--contrasted with, say, rolling a tank across one's adversary's border.

Stuxnet is a weapon of sabotage, it is fairly direct, and yet it is not the same as an open declaration of war.

I can't believe the level of dishonesty here. The point is obvious: NONE of the acts cited by the WP article were acts of violence.

Did you miss out on Sesame Street? "One of these things are not like the other..."

No I'm not trolling. I am expected to be treated like a troll by the herd here however.

You need to tell the political science, history and foreign policy communities they've been using the term "cold war" wrong for decades!

It's easy to hit the downvote button. It'd show more courage and intelligence to counter with an actual argument.

Incidentally, Wikipedia backs my definition of "cold":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_war_(general_term)

"A cold war or cold warfare is a state of conflict between nations that does not involve direct military action but is pursued primarily through economic and political actions, propaganda, acts of espionage or proxy wars waged by surrogates. The surrogates are typically states that are "satellites" of the conflicting nations, i.e., nations allied to them or under their political influence. Opponents in a cold war will often provide economic or military aid, such as weapons, tactical support or military advisors, to lesser nations involved in conflicts with the opposing country."

I.e., this definition does not include direct planned and executed attacks by the nations involved. Continuing:

"The definition which has now become fixed is of a war waged through indirect conflict."

Indirect means indirect, not directly planting viruses that can destroy your factory.

  > acts of espionage

Are you claiming that stuxnet is not an act of espionage?

  > Indirect means indirect

By your definition, embargoes are 'direct' because they are not levied against proxy nations.

Stuxnet was very clearly sabotage. I can't believe the herd here. Downvote away.

> Rather, I think most people think that "cold war" means heightened political/military tension without overt attacks.

You underestimate 'the populace'. I think most people suspect the 'Cold War' included everything up to outright war. What do you think all the CIA's Memorial Wall [1] signifies anyway? I imagine the Kremlin has something similar.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_Memorial_Wall

Reply on news.ycombinator.com