Cheerful news from “Reza Kahlili” at PajamasMedia:

Contrary to the claim made by the Iranian Center for Non-Military Preemptive Defense, the Stuxnet virus has disabled Iran’s nuclear centers.

Contrary to the claims made by Gholam-Reza Jalali — director of the Iranian Center for Non-Military Preemptive Defense — regarding the nature of the virus and Iran’s capabilities in dealing with the fallout, Stuxnet has wreaked serious and perhaps fatal havoc on the foundations of energy structure and the operating systems of the Bushehr nuclear installation. According to the Green Liaison news group, over the past year and a half the Bushehr plant has incurred serious damage and has lost major capabilities.

An individual involved in Iran’s nuclear activities reports that this virus was placed in the system by one of the foreign experts contracted to Iran. The virus has automatic updating capabilities in order to track and pirate information, and can also destroy the system hardware step-by-step. The internal directives programmed into the structure of the virus can actually bring the generators and electrical power grids of the country to a sudden halt, or create a “heart attack” type of work stoppage. …

The Iranian Center for Non-Military Preemptive Defense has set up two computer task forces titled GOWHAR and MAAHER. The two organizations are said to have spent the last year and a half investigating the extent of the damage, however due to the complexity of the virus they have not been successful with a fix. …

The Iranian Center for Non-Military Preemptive Defense is attempting to produce software and an operating system which will provide immunity and security against cyber attacks, and which can withstand all damages incurred by viruses. However, all claims as to the actual production of these active national systems by the security authorities are said to be a bluff — nothing more than a pretense to mask the complexity of the virus and ultimately Tehran’s lack of engineering expertise in this area.

And Allah is not helping his faithful destroy the Stuxnet worm, for all the mullahs’ and Ahmadinejad’s and the Revolutionary Guards’ prayers?  Wow!

Will the continuing protests in Egypt bring about a democratic revolution?

Or will Mubarak survive as president?

Or will a worse regime take power?

It seems probable that the armed men who went round the prisons in Egypt and let prisoners out were  Mubarak’s agents. The freed villains set about obligingly looting and raping, while the police were withdrawn, and the populace, the householders, the shop-owners were left to defend themselves and their property with whatever makeshift weapons they could muster. The idea behind these moves was almost certainly to provide Mubarak with an excuse to crack down hard on the protesting crowds. But if it was for that purpose that he then sent in the army, his will was frustrated. The soldiers started at once to fraternize with the protestors.

(Events are moving so fast in Eqypt that by the time any state of affairs is reported, it has probably changed. There are now reports that some police are back on the streets.)

“Experts” are expecting that the outcome of the uprising will be a worse regime than Mubarak’s.

The Muslim Brotherhood, some predict, will seize power. But they have no leader to put in place. Some expect Mohamed Mustafa ElBaradei to take over the presidency. (He was the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency. It was a wonderfully counter-productive idea the UN had, to appoint a Muslim to head the watch-dog organization in the years when Islamic states, chiefly Iran, were hell-bent on becoming nuclear armed powers. Funny that he didn’t manage to deter them.)

ElBaradei, however, has no base in Egypt. He has been living in Vienna for many years.

So will an organization that has no leader match neatly with a would-be leader who has no organization? If so, some say, ElBaradei may become president of an Egypt ruled by the Muslim Brotherhood.

These items of news come from the Jerusalem Post:

Sunday, the Muslim Brotherhood threw its support behind ElBaradei to hold proposed negotiations with the government in order to form a new unity government. …

ElBaradei, in an interview aired on CNN Sunday, said that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak must leave the country immediately.

“It is loud and clear from everybody in Egypt that Mubarak has to leave today, and it is non-negotiable for every Egyptian.” he said. He added that it should “be followed by a smooth transition [to] a national unity government to be followed by all the measures set in place for a free and fair election.”

Addressing Mubarak’s Friday night move to sack his entire cabinet, ElBaradei said, “I think this is a hopeless, desperate attempt by Mubarak to stay in power.” …

The statements came as protests continued in central Cairo, where tens of thousands of protesters were reportedly gathered despite an announced curfew and strong military presence. …

Minutes before the start of a 4 p.m. curfew, at least two [fighter] jets appeared and made multiple passes over downtown, including a central square where thousands of protesters were calling for the departure of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Al-Jazeera (Qatar-based, pro-Muslim Brotherhood) was officially, but apparently not effectively, closed down by Mubarak on Sunday. It is still reporting.

Al-Jazeera anchors on its English satellite channel directed viewers to follow the live Twitter feeds of its correspondents across the country who were updating on a consistent basis via satellite connection, while noting other prominent Twitterers and significant tweets, such as @Jan25Voices which was taking calls from Egyptian protesters and eyewitnesses and tweeting their messages in real time, thus circumventing the blackout in a creative way.

The network itself also found ways to bypass restrictions over the weekend, issuing a statement detailing its efforts: “While ordinary Egyptians have not had access to social networks like Twitter, Al-Jazeera have been using Skype to record messages by members of the public. It have made the recordings available on Audioboo, promoting them through Facebook.”

As the reported death toll rose drastically from 5 on Friday evening to over 95 by Saturday noon, Al-Jazeera broadcast graphic footage from inside hospitals and morgues of bloodied bodies, and of distraught family members. On Saturday, it showed scenes of laughter and amiable exchange between protesters and army officials. Some military personnel were filmed kissing young children and handing them back to their parents.

Also on Saturday night, Al-Jazeera’s live coverage provided viewers with real-time footage and reporting from Cairo as events descended into chaos when looting and vandalism became rampant, and thousands started escaping from prison. …

Al-Jazeera’s combination of mainstream coverage of the events on its satellite channel and website, including correspondents’ reports, expert commentary, interviews, and its staff’s savvy use of social media tools has maximized its influence and has turned it into a force to be reckoned with in the region.

As we have said before (see our post below, Tweet a changing world, January 26, 2011), American technology is transforming the world. The internet is an immense force for freedom – which is, of course, why governments want to control it. True, the forces of repression – Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood through Al-Jazeera – make use of the new technologies too. But in the long run they must surely be liberating?

The angry crowds in the streets of Egypt are demanding freedom. Will they overthrow a secular despotism only to replace it with an Islamic tyranny?

We wait, with an unfamiliar smidgen of optimism, to see if the glimpse of freedom young Egyptians have caught through their iPods will stop them from submitting ever again to the oppressive rule that characterizes the Arab states.

The world is changing as swiftly as a turn of a kaleidoscope. The upheaval in the Arab states is momentous. These events could be at least as transformative as the fall of the Soviet Union.

It’s good in itself that that the oppressed are rising against their tyrants, but outcomes are uncertain. Worse despots could take power – but against them too the people might rise.

A vital factor in the mass protests has been the equipment that puts individuals in touch with each other without permission of governments. The uprisings were co-ordinated in Egypt and Tunisia by means of Facebook, Twitter, and cell phones. If millions of Arabs want a bright future enabled by such things instead of lives slogged out in the ancient ways of Islam, then Islam may have had its day.

The conflict now, we hope, is between those who want  the sort of life Westerners have in this twenty-first century, and those who want to restore the old dark world of Islamic superstition, ignorance, and cruelty: a conflict between a movement for freedom and a religious tyranny. It may even spread through all the Islamic world.

If the movement for freedom wins, many good effects could flow from its victory. The Arab countries could be transformed into productive, prosperous  trading nations; their self-crippling opposition to the existence of Israel might stop, and Israel’s Arab neighbors could at last benefit from its presence as a pattern of the modernity they need.

Such a movement towards a bright tomorrow would be more certain of victory if it were helped by an awakened America: an America led by an intelligent administration (which now it lacks).

Whether the West wakes up to it or not, and whether Western politicians encumbered with the mental paraphernalia of outdated ideologies such as socialism like it or not, dramatic change is occurring in the Arab world. If America ignores it, Islamic forces (the militant Iranian Shia regime, the Muslim Brotherhood, Taliban-like al-Qaeda) stand a better chance of winning.

America should actively guide it towards freedom and real democracy – the bright and possible future.

Jillian Becker  January 28, 2011

America’s magnificent technology, not its dwindling political power, is helping to set oppressed nations free.

Western governments – in particular the Obama administration, obsessively and weirdly convinced that peace and joy would prevail on earth if it could only stop Israel building houses for its citizens in its capital city – have been so blinded by their own misguided assumptions that they are overtaken with surprise by what is happening in  North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, and at a loss to know what to do.

The Arab rulers themselves are astonished and shaken. They found it very useful to blame Israel and America for the miseries of those they oppressed, but now the people aren’t buying the excuse, and the rulers fear not just overthrow but the loss of their lives.

It was never true that what happened in and round Israel mattered to the ordinary Arab man and woman (beyond lip-service to the Palestinian cause when they were asked). What matters to them is the struggle to live. A steep rise in the price of food has brought them to furious revolt.

The greater part of the Arab world is in turmoil. The revolution in Tunisia has sent its autocratic ruler scuttling for asylum in Saudi Arabia.

In Egypt, tens (some reports say hundreds) of thousands are out in the streets of Cairo and Alexandria. Hundreds have been arrested, but the protests continue. The son of the president has fled to Britain, having sneaked out of Egypt from a military airfield in West Cairo, with his family and an immense quantity of baggage – which suggests that he has a long stay abroad in mind. President Mubarak, now 82 and ailing, has been in power for 30 years. If he was expecting his son Gamal to succeed him, as was generally supposed, that  hope has now been dashed. In any case there were strong forces opposed to Gamal’s succession, chiefly the military – which is probably why they helped him on his way. (In Tunisia, it was the military switching sides from the government to the people that ensured the success of the revolution.)

In Mauritania, Algeria, Morocco, Jordan crowds are marching, and the monsters of corruption that keep them hungry are afraid.

They had to wonder, how did it come about that so many appeared on the streets at the same time on the same days, with the same banners in their hands, the same slogans on their lips? How were the protests organized?

The answer is: Twitter, Facebook, and cell phones. When the Egyptian authorities realized this, they tried to block both Twitter and Facebook in a feeble gesture against the overwhelming tide of progress that is suddenly transforming the Arab world. They managed to do it for a short time only. Then they issued banning orders which were not obeyed. They used tear gas, water cannon and beatings to try and disperse the demonstrators. Official reports admitted that three people were killed, two demonstrators and a policeman. An unofficial figure is some 150 dead. But still thousands continue to protest.

The Muslim Brotherhood, however, hovers in the wings to seize power if it can. And if it does, Egypt will no longer be a secular state; diplomatic relations with Israel will almost certainly be broken off; and relations with the US will change for the worse.

In Lebanon, Hezbollah is in the process of putting its own choice of prime minister into power. It is a Shia organization and the prime minister of Lebanon must (by the terms of a 1943 unwritten agreement called the National Pact) be a Sunni. The man designated for the office, Najib Miqati, is a Sunni who is sympathetic to Hezbollah’s demand that the government refuse all co-operation with the International Court at the Hague in its efforts to bring the murderers of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri to trial. As a result, the Lebanese Christians rioted yesterday in many parts of the country. They know  that under Miqati’s leadership, Lebanon will become a proxy for Iran, which created, finances, and arms Hezbollah. The threat Iran already poses to Israel will be greatly enhanced.

What did the president of the United States say that touched on any of this in his State of the Union address last night? Just two sentences:

And we saw that same desire to be free [as in Southern Sudan, recently seceded from the North] in Tunisia, where the will of the people proved more powerful than the writ of a dictator. And tonight, let us be clear: The United States of America stands with the people of Tunisia, and supports the democratic aspirations of all people.

And Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State? She declared yesterday that the government of Egypt is “stable”.

Jillian Becker   January 26, 2011

“US military commanders are considering procuring flying cars to transport troops around the battlefield” according to the Telegraph.

Intended missions would include medical evacuation, avoiding improvised explosive devices, remote resupply and taking special forces into action.

The vehicle will be able to travel 280 miles by land and air, using vertical take-off and landing to increase access to difficult terrain.

It will also have automatic flight controls so it can be flown by non-pilots.

Read more about it here.

Many of our readers are as fascinated by the Stuxnet worm as we are, and as happy that it is sabotaging Iran’s nuclear program.

For those who would like to know more about what it does and how it does it, Ed Barnes at Fox News goes into some detail. Here are quotations from his report:

The target was seemingly impenetrable; for security reasons, it lay several stories underground and was not connected to the World Wide Web. And that meant Stuxnet had to act as sort of a computer cruise missile: As it made its passage through a set of unconnected computers, it had to grow and adapt to security measures and other changes until it reached one that could bring it into the nuclear facility.

When it ultimately found its target, it would have to secretly manipulate it until it was so compromised it ceased normal functions.

Barnes explains more about how it works, and comes to this:

Masking itself from the plant’s security and other systems, the worm then ordered the centrifuges to rotate extremely fast, and then to slow down precipitously. This damaged the converter, the centrifuges and the bearings, and it corrupted the uranium in the tubes. It also left Iranian nuclear engineers wondering what was wrong, as computer checks showed no malfunctions in the operating system.

Time passed, the Iranian nuclear engineers and computer experts continued to be baffled, and the worm grew stronger and stronger, proliferated, and became ever more effective.

Estimates are that this went on for more than a year, leaving the Iranian program in chaos. And as it did, the worm grew and adapted throughout the system. As new worms entered the system, they would meet and adapt and become increasingly sophisticated.

Servers were traced to two unexpected places:

During this time the worms reported back to two servers that had to be run by intelligence agencies, one in Denmark and one in Malaysia. The servers monitored the worms and were shut down once the worm had infiltrated Natanz. Efforts to find those servers since then have yielded no results.

This went on until June of last year, when a Belarusan company working on the Iranian power plant in Beshehr discovered it in one of its machines. It quickly put out a notice on a Web network monitored by computer security experts around the world. Ordinarily these experts would immediately begin tracing the worm and dissecting it, looking for clues about its origin and other details.

But that didn’t happen, because within minutes all the alert sites came under attack and were inoperative for 24 hours.

The Iranian technicians labor on in an atmosphere of dread, fearing for their very lives which have become “a living hell“.

As Iranians struggled with the setbacks, they began searching for signs of sabotage. From inside Iran there have been unconfirmed reports that the head of the plant was fired shortly after the worm wended its way into the system and began creating technical problems, and that some scientists who were suspected of espionage disappeared or were executed. And counter intelligence agents began monitoring all communications between scientists at the site, creating a climate of fear and paranoia.

Even harder to find, and perfectly invulnerable, is the nameless Mind that made the Worm and sent it to do its work.

All praise to it!

Iran now admits that its nuclear program is in trouble, but insists that the Stuxnet worm has nothing to do with it.

Thousands of centrifuges (5,084 according to “a former top IAEA official”) have been shut down, but nobody can say why. The Iranians and the IAEA are totally flummoxed.

Only thing they’re certain of is it’s definitely, definitely, not Stuxnet that’s doing it, and so keeping Iran from becoming a nuclear power.

The Washington Post reports:

Iran’s nuclear program has experienced serious problems, including unexplained fluctuations in the performance of the thousands of centrifuges enriching uranium, leading to a rare but temporary shutdown, international inspectors are expected to reveal Tuesday.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. unit that monitors nuclear programs, will provide no explanation of the problems. But speculation immediately centered on the Stuxnet worm, a computer virus that some researchers say appears to have been designed specifically to target Iran’s centrifuge machines so that they spin out of control.

Iran denies the worm caused any problems.

No country has claimed responsibility for developing the virus, although suspicion has focused primarily on Israel and the United States.

But what does it matter who’s responsible for it, since it’s causing no problems? No problems at all. Not to Iran, anyway. Absolutely not.

Ralph Langner, a German computer security expert, has fathomed what Stuxnet was designed to do (by whom, nobody knows), and declares it  a stunningly advanced technological achievement.

(See our posts A virus that might save us all, Sept 25, 2010, and Sound the trumpet!, September 29, 2010.)

Praising the sophistication of the attack code, Langner … compared it to “the arrival of an F-35 fighter jet on a World War I battlefield.” He called the technology, “much superior to anything ever seen before, and to what was assumed possible.”

It was designed, he says, specifically to attack Iran’s nuclear program by means of two distinct “digital warheads” aimed respectively at two military targets: uranium enrichment plants and the Bushehr nuclear power plant.

He explained how the worm works to destroy these targets:

The portion of the worm that targeted uranium enrichment plants manipulated the speeds of mechanical parts in the enrichment process, which would ultimately “result in cracking the rotor, thereby destroying the centrifuge.”  …

The second “warhead” [that] targeted the Bushehr nuclear plant … had no relation to the first “warhead” … [It]  was intended to attack the external turbine controller of the Bushehr plant, a 150 foot “chunk of metal,” that could “destroy the turbine as effectively as an air strike.”

He did not say that he or anyone else could “cure” the infected Iranian computer systems.

However, Iran does not apparently need any outside help. Having superior technological know-how, it can deal effectively with Stuxnet all by itself,  according to its intelligence minister Heldar Moslehi:

“Iran’s intelligence department has found a solution for confronting (the worm) and it will be applied,” he was quoted as saying. “Our domination of virtual networks has thwarted the activities of enemies in this regard.”

Somehow he doesn’t sound either convinced or convincing. We cheerfully guess – and affably hope – that the Iranian dominators of virtual networks will struggle on unsuccessfully with the Stuxnet depredations for a good long time to come.

Which high-tech country might Iran turn to for help in ridding itself of the Stuxnet computer worm that is incapacitating its industrial-military complex? (See our posts A virus that might save us all, September 25, 2010, and Sound the trumpet, September 29, 2010.)

Germany? Siemens provided the systems that are under attack, but apparently will not or cannot come to the rescue.

Russia? Russians were employed to install the Siemens systems. But not only have they been unable to destroy the worm, they are now being accused of planting it, and are fleeing Iran as fast as they can.

Some of them say they hope to return when the trouble has blown over – which rather strongly indicates they were not responsible for causing it.

Here’s the latest Stuxnet-chaos news:

Dozens of Russian nuclear engineers, technicians and contractors are hurriedly departing Iran for home since local intelligence authorities began rounding up their compatriots as suspects of planting the Stuxnet malworm into their nuclear program.

Among them are the Russian personnel who built Iran’s first nuclear reactor at Bushehr which Tehran admits has been damaged by the virus.

One of the Russian nuclear staffers, questioned in Moscow Sunday, Oct. 3 by Western sources, confirmed that many of his Russian colleagues had decided to leave with their families after team members were detained for questioning at the beginning of last week. He refused to give his name because he and his colleagues intend to return to Iran if the trouble blows over and the detainees are quickly released after questioning.

Last Saturday, October 2, the Iranian Intelligence Minister, Heidar Moslehi, “announced that nuclear spies had been captured”, accused of sending “electronic worms through the internet”.  [Which is not how the attack was initiated according to more credible sources – JB.]

This was the first high-level Iranian admission that the Stuxnet virus had been planted by foreign elements to sabotage their entire nuclear program – and not just the Bushehr reactor. The comprehensive scale of the damage is attested to by the detention of Russian nuclear experts also at Natanz, Isfahan and Tehran. …

“Hundreds of Russian scientists, engineers and technicians were responsible for installing the Siemens control systems in Iran’s nuclear complex and other facilities which proved most vulnerable to the cyber attack”, and as they were “the only foreigners with access to these heavily guarded plants”, they are prime suspects.

If it was not the Russians who worked this most inventive and effective form of sabotage ever contrived (and we don’t believe it was), those who did can now enjoy, as an extra cause for celebration, the discomfiture of the Russians. The real saboteurs, we guess, are laughing out of sheer Schadenfreude. And while we’re well aware that Stuxnet could ultimately be a threat to ourselves – to friend as well as foe just as nuclear weapons are – for the present we’re reasonably happy that this humiliating blow has been struck at the insufferable Iranian regime.

In fact, we confess, we are laughing too, and hope our readers feel like joining in.

Sound the trumpet! Beat the drum! The dread and powerful Malworm Stuxnet is getting nastier!

The secret weapon deployed against Iran, an entirely new type of computer virus named Stuxnet (see our post A virus that might save us all, September 25, 2010), has done even more damage to the Iranian nuclear program and industries than they were at first willing to admit. It incapacitates vital programs, steals and transmits information to its (as yet unidentified, but almost certainly Israeli and US) creators and controllers, and it may be indestructible.

Debkafile now reports how the Iranians’ own computer experts are discovering that the harder they try to extirpate the insidious and elusive enemy, the deeper it establishes itself, and the more havoc it wreaks.

Not only have their own attempts to defeat the invading worm failed, but they made matters worse: The malworm became more aggressive and returned to the attack on parts of the systems damaged in the initial attack.

They’re frantically searching Europe (and probably Germany most persistently because Siemens is Iran’s main systems supplier) for someone who can and will save them from the devouring monster, the invisible worm that is destroying the life of their military-industrial complex. They’re offering astronomical fees to computer mercenaries, but haven’t found anyone to come to their aid. Even if some are willing to try, the Iranians put insuperable obstacles in the way. However badly they need the infidels to save them, they will not let them know what they’re doing and where they’re doing it.

Yet all the while the worm goes on revealing what and where and how.

One [European] expert said: “The Iranians have been forced to realize that they would be better off not ‘irritating’ the invader because it hits back with a bigger punch.”

Perhaps, this expert suggested, even its makers cannot stop it:

Looking beyond Iran’s predicament, he wondered whether the people responsible for planting Stuxnet in Iran – and apparently continuing to offload information from its sensitive systems – have the technology for stopping its rampage.

Some observers (presumably in the US and/or Israel) believe that the number of systems and networks struck by the worm is far greater that the Iranian figure of 30,000 or 45,000, and is more likely to be in the millions.

If that is the case, and if nobody in the world can stop it, Iran is well and truly …. let’s say, wrecked.

For the present at least, Iran is defeated. Western triumphalism is decidedly called for. So another blast of the trumpet, please, another roll on the drum!