US general: Beware of Iran's Revolutionary Cyber-Guard Cyber-attacks on Iran have forced the country to beef up its defences, with the result that the country's cyberwar capabilities have become far more complex, a US general has said. General William Shelton, who heads up the US cyber ops, told reporters during a briefing that Iran had responded to repeated computer virus attacks …
You missed the true reason behind the announcement - this is the US Gov't preparing for the next phase of conflict with Iran. Talk up the enemy's capabilities, start the fear mongering so that when the right time comes, there is overwhelming support for the action they want to take against them.
I know this is tub-thumping and we've seen it before, but flip it back to comparisons with an immunity system - greater exposure to viruses et al gives rise to a greater ability to defend against them. It's only natural and anyone who expects otherwise needs to see the baker about that missing loaf and then the engineer about tightening that screw...
"Look - Iranians! Their computers are crap, let's hack them! Oh, sh*t! They are becoming a force to reckon with - run for the hills!"
When before it was like "Look - Mujahaddins! They really hate the Soviets, let's give them guns and rockets and train them to fight! Oh, sh*t! What's that plane doing there?!?!? Oh, cr*p, why has that car exploded?!?!? Run for the hills!"
Not so much, I think. It was common during the Cold War to give different estimates of opposing forces depending who the general in question was talking to. If there was a wish to raise money for a bigger navy, for example, then every vessel the other guys had would go into the count, from battleship to fishing scow. However, if asked by a concerned citizen how our forces compare, then only those vessels that were obviously for military use got counted. It would not surprise me if there were something similar going on here.
They've managed to run a nuclear program despite everyone's best efforts to avoid helping. They were, until 1979, one of the West's main allies in the region and have an indigenous civilisation stretching back at least as far as any European one.
So you'd have to be pretty thick to be surprised that they can also program computers.
Wars often begin when nation A thinks its people are intrinsically better than those of nation B. Therefore it will be easy to defeat them, whether in trade and business, or in war. And since they are a simple, backward people, they can hardly be expected to know what is best for them. Perhaps a more advanced, cultured, civilized people should take them by the hand and guide them towards a better future...
Notoriously the ancient Greeks despised everyone who did not speak Greek, calling them "barbaroi" because their speech sounded like a lot of "bar bar bar". Hence the word "barbarian". It was axiomatic to most Greeks that barbarians were intrinsically inferior, fit only to be slaves. Sometimes, when it came to battle, the barbarians surprised the Greeks by their intelligence and bravery. For a useful (and very entertaining) corrective, try Gore Vidal's novel "Creation".
The Germans were convinced that Russians - indeed, all Slavs - were inferior races, and hence would be easy to conquer. The war on the Eastern front (known to Russians as the Great Patriotic War) demonstrated otherwise to all Germans who experienced it and did not have entirely closed minds. They discovered that Russians could be at least as brave as any German, and also intelligent, cunning, and resourceful. In a sense, the war was a huge experiment to prove that Germans were not superior, and Russians were not inferior.
Those of us with the wit to read history and learn from it understand these lessons by now. Others, as Santayana noted, are condemned to repeat the past without ever learning anything.
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If they're bitching about Iran, they're probably unaware of the amount of deep penetration by Chinese, Russian, and sneaky Yurpeens. If a Matthew Broderick style basement hacker can stroll into their "secure" military systems, it's a fairly safe bet that the professional crypto builders and breakers all have genuine looking logins, or dupes of genuine security cleared access control rights. There's always a pea brained higher echelon type who wants full oversight on security systems for reasons of professional vanity, but has no idea about the basics of personal security.
There's a lot going on for real in the virtual worlds that command and control the nature of your existence. Be prepared to be shock and awed into IT and SMARTR InterNetworking Media and Live Operational Virtual Environments with the spread of Advanced Intelligence which you will not be able to deny is perfectly true, even though you may doggedly refuse or decline to accept and register that which you have been and are being told, and are cordially invited to try to disprove with the production of evidence to the contrary.
And now you cannot say that you didn't know about any of all of that whenever you have been so clearly transparently informed.
The Jinn Genies are out of the bottle and CHAOS is their Forte in AIMissions.
And whatcha gonna do about IT? What can you do about IT? Methinks precious little, amigos.
There the U.S. goes again, shooting itself in the foot.
Mr. OBL won so often/so long against the USA because he stuck to the basics. They should have withheld all their goodies until they went to war.
the US is also more vulnerable since they implemented so many systems and forgot to put a lock on the front door. Arrogant ignoramus.
I can think of another country in the early-mid 20th century who concentrated on increasingly expensive and sophisticated technology for warfare while neglecting the basics and making some fairly glaring tactical errors along the way. Noone should need reminding that they lost in the end
It seems that OBL and friends simply used the adage "Never interrupt your enemy while he's making a mistake", while the other side concentrated on putting laser beams on sharks. (Only Dr Evil could have dreamed up stuff like the TSA)
That attacking a country, assassinating its top experts, blockading it the way the North did to the South in the Civil War, and continually threatening invasion (or nuclear bombardment) would make it strengthen its defences? Furriners - who understands them?
"Cet animal est tres mechant:
Quand on l'attaque, il se defend".
"Iran had responded to repeated computer virus attacks"
Very unkind indeed, but let's not forget that nobody wants more nuclear weapons. There is this feeling that Iran is unable to refrain from trying to enter the nuclear weapons "club" of the USA, Russia, China, GB, France, India, Pakistan and North Korea. Iran would be the first Arabic nation then, and the "propaganda" value would be big among some inhabitants of this world. Iran has all the rights, in the world, to develop nuclear power, as anybody else, and to be open regarding it, unfortunally they have started to play a game, I hope many Iranians too, find disgusting and dangerous. I have been hoping for an Arabic spring in Iran too, seems to take some time, even if inevitable in the long run.
Even if there is an "arabic spring" in iran (persians are not arabs and they get offended by being called arabs), there's still enough resentment about being colonised by the ottomans and then used as a football by the west that they'd still work on this stuff - not among the least of reasons being that they know full well the oil will run out eventually and they need to sort out energy independence before that happens.
BTW: you missed "Israel" from the nuke club. There's a fair amount of self preservation (MAD strategy) in the push to develop nukes across the middle east. I'm pretty sure if Israel wasn't constantly sabre rattleing the Iranians would be pushing thorium research as hard as they can, given the reources onhand.
Iranian alliances tend towards the 'stans to the north, many of which have large persian majorities. Historically, arabs have been the enemy, not allies.
@Alan Brown
Sorry about the "Arabs", in my view Israel is an Arabic state too if you had a look at the genetics and how they react to problems facing them.
I left Israel intentionally out of the "club" because "Israel is also widely believed to have nuclear weapons, though it has refused to confirm or deny this, and is not known definitively to have conducted a nuclear test".
(Wikipedia).
The "has refused to confirm or deny" is exactly the logic one can expect from Iranians too.
Anyway, perhaps we could agree on not needing any more nuclear weapons.
Also, nuclear weapons have been sabre rattling since Nagasaki (1945) lets hope it will not get worse.
Agree with your comment. However, I just wanted to point out the Persians were conquered by the Arabs many centuries before the Ottomans rose to power. The Arabs effectively ended the Persian empire under the rule of Umar Ibn Al-Khatab around 640AD.
The Ottomans (who were also not Arabs) much later conquered both the Arab and the Persian territories.
Not taking anything away from the other stuff you mentioned which I agree with. It's also worth pointing out that Iran hasn't invaded anyone in at least a 100 years. The same cannot be said for others.
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