So were the Israelis behind the Stuxnet worm?

According to the NYTimes, it’s beginning to look that way.

Experts dissecting the computer worm suspected of being aimed at Iran’s nuclear program have determined that it was precisely calibrated in a way that could send nuclear centrifuges wildly out of control.

Their conclusion, while not definitive, begins to clear some of the fog around the Stuxnet worm, a malicious program detected earlier this year on computers, primarily in Iran but also India, Indonesia and other countries.

The paternity of the worm is still in dispute, but in recent weeks officials from Israel have broken into wide smiles when asked whether Israel was behind the attack, or knew who was. American officials have suggested it originated abroad.

The new forensic work narrows the range of targets and deciphers the worm’s plan of attack. Computer analysts say Stuxnet does its damage by making quick changes in the rotational speed of motors, shifting them rapidly up and down.

Changing the speed “sabotages the normal operation of the industrial control process,” Eric Chien, a researcher at the computer security company Symantec, wrote in a blog post.

Those fluctuations, nuclear analysts said in response to the report, are a recipe for disaster among the thousands of centrifuges spinning in Iran to enrich uranium, which can fuel reactors or bombs. Rapid changes can cause them to blow apart. Reports issued by international inspectors reveal that Iran has experienced many problems keeping its centrifuges running, with hundreds removed from active service since summer 2009…

More detail here.

“Balliol College, Cambridge”



Balliol College, Cambridge: take 2, originally uploaded by jjn1.

This is the old Spillers flour mill next to Cambridge station. The buildings around it have been razed for housing ‘development’ — ie hideous apartment blocks. But the mill itself is a listed building & so the developers have to keep it. The caption comes from a speech Ronald Knox made at the Cambridge Union, when he referred to the building as “Balliol College, Cambridge” — a jibe at Oxford’s most intellectually distinguished – but architecturally jumbled – college.