3/31/2017 0 Comments March 31st, 2017Blog 10
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/06/01/world/middleeast/how-a-secret-cyberwar-program-worked.html?_r=0 Here is an article which comes with a useful infographic about yet another program designed and executed by our friends at the National Security Agency (NSA). The operation outlined in this article is known as STUXNET, the mission of which is ultimately unknown but is believed to be to hinder or destroy the equipment being used by the Iranian government to develop nuclear substances for weaponization. The of the release of the STUXNET code by the NSA resulted in many other systems other than the assumed target, damaging the systems belonging to many other countries. It is hard to imagine what threat was of such importance that the infection and damage inflicted to so many unintended systems warranted this level of action. This action seemingly shows that the NSA and the United States government has little regard for the result of their actions as long as there is little impact to the United States. How many other classified operations are currently underway that are similar to this one? What is the justification of this operation? The official statement of the United States government is that the operation delayed the attempts of the Iranian government in producing weaponized nuclear material. Was the delay worth the cost if the end result is the same, I would argue no. In addition to the operation not appearing to have any meaningful result in its intended mission, it also sets a precedent for the actions of the NSA and the U.S. government. If the NSA is willing to produce an uncontrollable malicious code with the goal of annoying the Iranian nuclear program, a code that causes extensive damage to unintended third parties, then we can expect that their “acceptable collateral damage” for a more lofty goal would be substantially higher. Another precedent set by this action is the use of cyber warfare and espionage in operations that are a preemptive attack against perceived enemies. There is no way to know the true threat, if any, the Iranian nuclear program posed to the United States, but this operation seems too far removed from the goal of protecting national security and closer to an antagonistic attack.
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May 2017
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