I have been partially paralyzed from my psyche downwards this week and thus thinking has become a peculiar pastime. Two things, however, grabbed my attention.
Our favourite computer worm Stuxnet seems to have gone rogue and is currently wreaking havoc on its own. I quote the goof people of Dangerous Minds:
“Last week, IT security expert, Eugene Kaspersky, revealed at a press conferece in Canberra, Australia, that he had been “tipped-off” about the Stuxnet infection by a friend who works at the Russian nuclear plant.
Stuxnet is “an incredibly powerful computer worm” that was allegedly created by the United States and Israel to infiltrate and attack Iran’s computer systems, as i09 explains:
It initially spreads through Microsoft Windows and targets Siemens industrial control systems. It’s considered the first malware that both spies and subverts industrial systems. It’s even got a programmable logic controller rootkit for the automation of electromechanical processes.
Let that last point sink in for just a second. This thing, with a little bit of coaxing, can actually control the operation of machines and computers it infects.
Though Kaspersky did not say when the attacks occurred, it was “implied” that they took place in 2010, around the same time as the Iranian infection was reported.
Kaspersky did not reveal the extent of the damage, but he did say the Russian facility had been attacked several times, which is surprising, as “the public web cannot be accessed at either the nuclear plant or on the ISS [International Space Station] — [which] is a guarantee that systems will remain safe.”
The identity of the entity that released Stuxnet into the “wild” is still unknown (although media speculation insists it was developed by Israel and the United States), but those who think they can control a released virus are mistaken, Kaspersky warned. “What goes around comes around,” Kaspersky said. “Everything you do will boomerang.”
Stuxnet was first identified by researchers at anti-virus company Symantec in 2005, according to the Times of Israel:
Stuxnet, said Symantec, was the first virus known to attack national infrastructure projects, and according to the company, the groups behind Stuxnet were already seeking to compromise Iran’s nuclear program in 2007 — the year Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility, where much of the country’s uranium enrichment is taking place, went online.
Though it is unknown when Stuxnet began its “rogue” activities, it is believed the virus was introduced to the Russian nuclear plant and the ISS via a USB drive.
Now that the plague has been unleashed, said Kaspersky, no one is immune — and that includes its originators, who are no longer in control of it. “There are no borders” in cyberspace, and no one should be surprised at any reports of a virus attack, no matter how ostensibly secure the facility, he said.
Let’s just read that last bit again:
“Now that the plague has been unleashed, said Kaspersky, no one is immune — and that includes its originators, who are no longer in control of it..”
And if all this wasn’t bad enough Stuxnet has been implicated as a “contributing factor to the Fukushima nuclear disaster.”
Also, there has been such a thing like The Comma Strike (thanks to Futility Closet):
In September 1905, printers in Ivan Sytin’s Moscow publishing house went on strike, demanding pay for punctuation marks. Discontented workers in other trades and other cities soon joined them in sympathy: bakers, railroad workers, lawyers, bankers, even the Imperial Ballet. Without the railroad, steel and textile mills were forced to shut down; soon nearly the entire adult population of Petrograd had ceased work. The general strike led Tsar Nicholas II to issue the October Manifesto, granting a constitution to Russia for the first time in its history. Thus, wrote Trotsky, “a strike which started over punctuation marks ended by felling absolutism.”
A somewhat related story, from David Kahn’s The Codebreakers: In June 1887 Philadelphia wool dealer Frank J. Primrose sent his agent William B. Toland west, ordering him to buy 50,000 pounds of wool in Kansas and Colorado and await further instructions. The two corresponded by telegram using phrase codes like these to shorten the messages.
On June 16 Primrose planned to send the message Yours of the 15th received; am exceedingly busy; I have bought all kinds, 500,000 pounds; perhaps we have sold half of it; wire when you do anything; send samples immediately, promptly of purchases. Shortened with phrase codes this read DESPOT AM EXCEEDINGLY BUSY BAY ALL KINDS QUO PERHAPS BRACKEN HALF OF IT MINCE MOMENT PROMPTLY OF PURCHASES.
Unfortunately, somewhere between Brookville and Ellis, Kansas, someone added a dot, converting BAY into BUY. Consequently Toland bought 300,000 pounds of wool. Primrose lost more than $20,000 in settling with the sellers and sued Western Union, but the Supreme Court ruled against him on a technicality (he had declined to have his message read back to him). He collected only the cost of the telegram, $1.15.