30-Sep-10 News -- Iran denies Stuxnet delayed nuclear plant opening - 30-Sep-2010 - Generational Dynamics

Generational Dynamics Web Log for 30-Sep-2010

30-Sep-10 News -- Iran denies Stuxnet delayed nuclear plant opening

Britons are being trained by al-Qaeda for terrorist attacks

Iran delays nuclear plant opening, but denies Stuxnet cause

If you read Thursday's Tehran Times, then you'll read that the U.S. has launched a cyber war against Iran in response to president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent speech at the U.N. where he blamed 9/11 on Americans. And you'll read that Iran's computer systems have such remarkably high security, they are impenetrable.

That may be nothing but spin. On Wednesday, Iran announced a three-month delay, from October until January, of the startup of the Bushehr nuclear power plant, according to VOA.

No reason was given for the delay. Although Iran denies it, some people suspect that the Stuxnet virus is the cause of the delay.

As we reported recently in "27-Sep-10 News -- Iran's nuclear plant attacked by Stuxnet computer virus," Iran has already admitted that the virus has spread to some of the Windows computers at the Bushehr plant, but that the major systems at the plant had not been damaged.

According to Debka, which has contacts within Israeli intelligence, Iran is hiding a far more desperate situation:

"Tehran this week secretly appealed to a number of computer security experts in West and East Europe with offers of handsome fees for consultations on ways to exorcize the Stuxnet worm spreading havoc through the computer networks and administrative software of its most important industrial complexes and military command centers. debkafile's intelligence and Iranian sources report Iran turned for outside help after local computer experts failed to remove the destructive virus. ...

Looking beyond Iran's predicament, [one expert] wondered whether the people responsible for planting Stuxnet in Iran - and apparently continuing to offload information from its sensitive systems - have the technology for stopping its rampage. "My impression," he said, "is that somebody outside Iran has partial control at least on its spread. Can this body stop malworm in its tracks or kill it? We don't have that information at present, he said. ...

While Tehran has given out several conflicting figures on the systems and networks struck by the malworm - 30,000 to 45,000 industrial units - debkafile's sources cite security experts as putting the figure much higher, in the region of millions. If this is true, then this cyber weapon attack on Iran would be the greatest ever."

In other words, some foreign government, who launched the Stuxnet attack, may be either downloading sensitive information or actually controlling parts of the reactor.

The Debka report appears to be based on fact, augmented by some speculation. But if the figures stated turn out to be true, then this will be a world-changing event, not only because of its success, but because of the thousands of imitators it will spawn.

Additional links

American drone strikes in Pakistan's tribal regions have killed a number of Britons -- Muslims with British passports -- who have been in al-Qaeda training camps, preparing for "Mumbai style" terrorist attacks back in Britain. Telegraph

The acrimony between France and the EU government in Brussels got worse on Wednesday after the European Commission in Brussels sent an ultimatim to France to permit Roma Gypsies to have unfettered freedom of movement around the EU. France was given an October 15 deadline to remedy the problem. Guardian

The suicide rate for the Boomer generation has been increasing significantly. Rutgers University

Women's rights activists in Iran have delivered a petition with 5,000 signatures to the Iranian parliament demanding that the practice of polygamy be banned. This is interesting because Iran is in a generational Awakening era, and women's issues always become more important during such eras. (For example, consider the 'women's lib' movement in America in the 1960s.) Polygamy has an important social purpose when war kills off much of the male population, leaving behind a surplus of unattached women. During Awakening eras, the new generation of young men and women reject their parents' views of sexuality and women. Eurasia Review

(Comments: For reader comments, questions and discussion, see the 30-Sep-10 News -- Iran denies Stuxnet delayed nuclear plant opening thread of the Generational Dynamics forum. Comments may be posted anonymously.) (30-Sep-2010) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 30-Sep-2010 30-Sep-10 News -- Iran denies Stuxnet delayed nuclear plant opening

Iran delays nuclear plant opening, but denies Stuxnet cause

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 30-Sep-2010
30-Sep-10 News -- Iran denies Stuxnet delayed nuclear plant opening