U.S. NetworX

I’ve been following two large-scale events over the last month that look straight out of the movies or some Tom Clancy-type techno-thriller. Let’s look at both today.

Call a plumber, you have a WikiLeak

Most likely you’ve heard/read about WikiLeaks and all things associated with it. From the hosting of U.S. State Department cables between countries, to Julian Assange’s arrest for alleged sex crimes, all the way up to a community-based distributed denial of service attacks … it’s been a wild ride.

Here are some recent recaps of what’s been going on:

New York Times’ series on the cables and diplomatic reactions to the content

Der Spiegel’s coverage

El Pais’ extended reporting

NYT’s primer on the WikiLeaks site and related developments

Swedish documentary film about the WikiLeaks organization

An anti-nuclear worm unleashed by a spy agency?!

Less known than all of the WikiLeaks drama is the Stuxnet mystery. This “worm” is being investigated as a possible weapon designed for subtle damage to specialized industrial equipment: centrifuges used to purify materials for possible nuclear weapons. It appears to have been spread via a USB memory stick and looks to be targeting high-level industrial locations and factories. Taking that a step farther, there are some hints in the worm’s code that might connect it to Israel as being the developer.

Now for the big disclaimer: none of this has been proved yet, but how are those JFK conspiracies going?

Here are some reports on the Stuxnet worm:

F-Secure security group runs through a (sometimes funny) Q/A review

CBS reports that Iran says Stuxnet stopped their centrifuges

Fox News does a good job wrapping the details together