Showing posts with label Iran. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iran. Show all posts

Thursday, September 23, 2010

The Stuxnet Shock

Are we seeing the first real use of malware as a weapon in the physical world? And is it being used against Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant?


From the Christian Science Monitor:

So far, Stuxnet has infected at least 45,000 industrial control systems around the world, without blowing them up – although some victims in North America have experienced some serious computer problems, Eric Byres, a Canadian expert, told the Monitor. Most of the victim computers, however, are in Iran, Pakistan, India, and Indonesia. Some systems have been hit in Germany, Canada, and the US, too. Once a system is infected, Stuxnet simply sits and waits – checking every five seconds to see if its exact parameters are met on the system. When they are, Stuxnet is programmed to activate a sequence that will cause the industrial process to self-destruct, Langner says.

Langner's analysis also shows, step by step, what happens after Stuxnet finds its target. Once Stuxnet identifies the critical function running on a programmable logic controller, or PLC, made by Siemens, the giant industrial controls company, the malware takes control. One of the last codes Stuxnet sends is an enigmatic “DEADF007.” Then the fireworks begin, although the precise function being overridden is not known, Langner says. It may be that the maximum safety setting for RPMs on a turbine is overridden, or that lubrication is shut off, or some other vital function shut down. Whatever it is, Stuxnet overrides it, Langner’s analysis shows.

"After the original code [on the PLC] is no longer executed, we can expect that something will blow up soon," Langner writes in his analysis. "Something big."

Hat-Tip: Andrew Sullivan

Saturday, July 31, 2010

We Don't Need No Thought Control



Pink Floyd were one of my favourite groups when I was younger. I thought "Dark Side Of the Moon" and "Wish You Were Here" were wonderful. And the Tide is Turning" is sublime. But I never liked "Another Brick In the Wall", especially the title track. Not even for one second.

"We don't need no education!"? Of course you do, you pillocks. If that track discouraged even one person from getting a good education and career , well that's one person too many. And teachers and schools seemed such an easy target. Writing a song that encouraged kids to study would have been a bit trickier, eh?

But as explained on Harry's Place , this version - with Roger Waters blessing - is rather more appropriate. It's fronted by two brothers of Iranian origin living in Canada.....

Monday, June 15, 2009

Iran



It's not the voting that creates a democracy, it's the counting....

Monday, July 24, 2006

The Most Suitable Clothing for an Iranian Woman

A long time ago I had a brief chance of having an Iranian girlfriend. She lived in Britain, spoke fluent English, was strikingly intelligent, an electronics expert, attractive in a sort of Italian way , and had very good legs. All in all a very nice lady. The first date was pretty good, the second date was a bit awkward and well, that was it.

However I was reminded of her by the news that another Iranian-born woman, Anousheh Ansari, is going to become a space tourist. According to the Sunday Times:

AS a girl growing up in Tehran before the Islamic revolution, Anousheh Ansari watched repeats of Star Trek and dreamt of becoming an astronaut. She never tired of telling friends that one day she would “see the stars”.

Nearly three decades later, Ansari’s childhood fantasies are about to come true as she prepares to become the first female space tourist.

Now a multi-millionaire in the United States, Ansari, 39, who made her fortune from telecommunications software, has secured a flight in a Russian Soyuz rocket to the international space station 220 miles above Earth.

She is scheduled to fly next year but could make the trip — which will cost her about £10m — later this year if a Japanese businessman who is due to become the next space tourist drops out.With a fortune of several hundred million dollars, she can easily afford the fare, which works out at nearly £50,000 a mile.

No other tourist has done more to develop commercial space travel than Ansari, however. She recently signed a contract with Space Adventures and the Russians to develop a fleet of sub-orbital spaceships for commercial use.





Now I'd normally say spending 10 million pounds on a holiday is obscene. But I'm not going to complain about this - she's doing for love of space, love of adventure, love of the future. And if a Liberal Democrat isn't going to support someone doing something obscene out of sense of love, who is?

The flip side of this is another report in the Sunday Times:

AFGHANISTAN’S notorious Department for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, which was set up by the Taliban to enforce bans on women doing anything from working to wearing nail varnish or laughing out loud, is to be re-created by the government in Kabul.

The decision has provoked an outcry among women and human rights activists who fear a return to the days when religious police patrolled the streets, beating or arresting any woman who was not properly covered by a burqa or accompanied by a male relative.

President Hamid Karzai’s cabinet has approved the proposal to re-establish the department, and the measure will go to Afghanistan’s parliament when it reconvenes later this summer. The conservative complexion of the assembly makes it likely to be passed.

Afghan women recall with horror the department’s religious police who ruthlessly enforced restrictions on women and men through public beatings and imprisonment under Taliban rule from 1996 to 2001.

Women were publicly beaten for wearing white shoes or heels that clicked; using lipstick; or going outside unaccompanied by a close male relative.

“They haven’t even bothered to change the name,” said Malalai Joya, a courageous female MP whose outspokenness means she has to travel with bodyguards and move every day because of threats to her life. Joya, 28, was physically attacked in parliament in May after she criticised warlords.

“The situation for women in Afghanistan has not improved,” she said. “People in the outside world say Afghan women don’t have to wear burqas any more and yes, it’s true that in some provinces like Kabul, Jalalabad and Herat, women can go outside without a burqa.

“They can go and work in offices, and we have 68 women MPs. But more and more women are wearing burqas because of the lack of security. Look at the high rate of suicide among our women — Afghan women prefer to die than live because there is no security.





So there in a nutshell are two views of how women from that part of the world should behave.

My mind's clear on this. I can't wait for the day when Ms Ansari has to take off normal western clothes and put on a costume that covers her completely from head to foot.

It's called a spacesuit.
Chris expresses his own views on this weblog.


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