Talk:Stuxnet/Archive 2

Israeli Involvement
'Specifically written by the government of israel' - any references to back this claim up?

71.190.202.148 (talk) 03:56, 27 September 2010 (UTC)


 * This claim was added by an editor who has never made any other edits. And there certainly are no references to back this up. At this moment, there are a handful of folks across the globe who have speculated that Israel could be involved. If this speculation becomes widespread, it might be appropriate to add a section entitled "Speculation about Stuxnet Origins" in which this is discussed. But it clearly can't be stated as a fact, given the complete lack of evidence.&mdash; Lawrence King ( talk ) 04:17, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not SPA, you had no reason to assume I'm, and even if I was still my points are valid. Do some googling, of a bit more than milion results for stuxnet, more than 406,000 (>40%) are for Israel+Stuxnet, including articles like these: . So you may don't know much about Israel or about how much Israeli technology you use on daily basis, but your statement that "there certainly are no references to back this up" in reference to an alleged connection between stuxnet and Israel is baseless.


 * Well, The Guardian has speculated in it and Israel has the resources for it. // Liftarn (talk)

New article on Israeli involvement http://www.net-security.org/secworld.php?id=10596 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.99.145.136 (talk) 04:20, 16 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Sorry if you thought I was referring to you, but I wasn't. I was referring to this edit made by Vesuviuz, who is clearly SPA (take a look at his/her contribution history). If you look at the beginning of this section of the Talk page, 71.190.202.148 asked, "'Specifically written by the government of israel' - any references to back this claim up?" 71 is quoting from Vesuviuz' edits, not from yours. So I responded to 71 by discussing Vesuviuz. When I said "there are no references to back this up," I meant "there are no references to back up the statement that the government of Israel wrote it." Which is true. Even if Israel was involved, we could speculate that the government of Israel paid two dozen computer experts in South Korea to write Stuxnet. Or that the government of the United Kingdom wrote it, and sold it to Israel. I wasn't commenting on, in your words, "an alleged connection between stuxnet and Israel" -- as long as the words "alleged" and "connection" are present, there are plenty of references. But there are no references to back up a simple statement, as a fact, that the government of Israel (which is not the same as "Israelis") wrote this virus. And that is what Vesuviuz has twice edited this article to say.


 * I should have mentioned Vesuviuz by name, to avoid confusion. Sorry that I didn't.


 * There is a huge difference between your edits  and the two by Vesuviuz  . Vesuviuz is stating as a fact that virus was "written by the government of Israel". Your contributions do not state this as a fact, but discuss it in the section on "specuation".&mdash; Lawrence King ( talk ) 16:30, 27 September 2010 (UTC)


 * when an atack on the nuclear plant tagets the centrifuge, there is no chance of explosion because all that happens when the spin off the centrifuge is altered it simply causes the isotopes to recombine. When this happens, the process to seperate the isotopes in the centrifuge simply must be restarted from the beggining150.131.163.182 (talk) 19:12, 14 February 2013 (UTC)


 * According to the sources in the article mentioning experts of the field, only five countries of Israel, United States, Russia, China and United Kingdom have the capability to create such a sophisticated weapon.--Pymansorl (talk) 18:36, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Irish firm connection
According to research posted at http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread615788/pg1 there is a connection between the servers that Stuxnet calls home to and a defense company in Ireland. Is this true? Should it be added? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Skylang (talk • contribs) 15:18, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Damage issues for centrifuges
This is an amazingly detailed article on Stuxnet. In scanning the material, I see that there are potential issues where a comment might be helpful.

First, raising the speed on centrifuges more likely would be intended to get the machine to a "critical" speed as it is likely that even sub-critical machines would be run just below a critical speed. Same thing for decreasing speed, as a machine operating above a critical speed might be brought down to it. In either case the machine would likely self destruct or at least wear out a lot faster. Self destruction is most likely the outcome. Passing slowly through a critical speed would cause the most damage, at least more than going quickly through the resonant speed. For non-engineers, rotating machines can generate their own reinforcing, self destructive vibrations at "resonant" speeds around the speed of sound in the material or at its various harmonics (multiples of that speed).

Second, as to the number of machines damaged in the Iranian plant, most likely that was limited to one set of machines operated together, probably a cascade of machines controlled centrally by the same computer. The infection was thus limited to the controls for some set of machines that operate together, separate from other cascades or groups. This could not reasonably be a plant wide simultaneous event unless there was some way to assure that all the cascades or machines in the plant were controlled by multiple contaminated controllers for simultaneous attack. Getting the virus to one cascade seems to be about the best you can do if relying on people to accidentally infect the plant with thumb drives or whatever. Whoever designed Stuxnet probably tried to do the entire plant, but there are likely physical limits and time constraints associated with the bigger picture that limited success.

All that being said, it is amazing how patient the World is with countries dedicated to getting and using nuclear weapons. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.254.147.8 (talk) 21:29, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Large body of words
There is a large body of words above the table of contents. Should this be removed? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Miraklemax (talk • contribs)
 * Read what the lead section should contain, then be bold! Socrates2008 ( Talk ) 09:54, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Snowden Revelations
This artcle should probably be updated to reflect Edward Snowden's recent revelations. The article already mentions US/Israel involvement, this info seems to add more substance to that theory.

http://rt.com/usa/nsa-cyber-operations-classified-247/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.164.166.180 (talk) 04:27, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/07/edward-snowden-u-s-israel-co-wrote-cyber-super-weapon-stuxnet/

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-205_162-57592862/nsa-leaker-snowden-claimed-u.s-and-israel-co-wrote-stuxnet-virus/

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.534728

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/07/08/snowden_us_israel_stuxnet/

These seem to be noteworthy sources, there are likely to be more (noteworthy sources) as info emerges.

24.188.190.56 (talk) 16:17, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Where did the name Stuxnet come from?
Stuxnet (stukhnet) means "will spoil" or "will be extinguished" in Russian. Was it named by the Belorussian security company VirusBlokAda (virus blockade, or bloc of hell)? IHTFP (talk) 14:19, 25 September 2010 (UTC)


 * According to one of Symantec's blog entries (which I can't seem to track down right now) they called it "Temphid" originally but then changed it to "Stuxnet" to match up with other unpecified sources. "Stuxnet" apparently references the names of some of the files in the package.


 * The internal name of the project (or at least one of its components) appears to be "Guava" or "Myrtus" from the reference to debugging information "b:\myrtus\src\objfre_w2k_x86\i386\guava.pdb" in one of the files. Guava are members of the Myrtle family. --76.169.39.234 (talk) 18:03, 25 September 2010 (UTC)


 * The name was given to it by the Belorussians who first detected it (not an easy task as it compare its own parameters every 5 seconds) but the male-ware itself didn't come with the name. Most speculations, including one British based on a sourced report from 2007 on a drill which taken place in this year, where elite technological unit from Israel attacked an Israeli well secured energy facility with what seems today as fitting into the description of Stuxnet. In fact, it's assumed Israel have built it 10 years ago. Israel is hi-tec super power, those who are into the industry know that very well, and it someone came with something look so imaginary then it can be only the Israeli, not to mention that Russia have no interest to attack Iranian facilities nor does it has the same technological abilities as Israel. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.64.171.209 (talk) 22:15, 25 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Absurd. Russia has one of the two or three world's best mathematical traditions with many achievements and great mathematicians and computer scientists. Thus of course Russia has much better abilities than Israel to create such program. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.70.154.142 (talk) 15:34, 31 May 2011 (UTC)


 * The name actually comes from some of the decrypted files inside the Stuxnet code.--Pymansorl (talk) 18:33, 28 September 2010 (UTC)


 * "The first part, 'stu', comes from the (.stub) file; and the second part, 'xnet', comes from the (MrxNet.sys) file." (from ) 109.176.221.15 (talk) 21:32, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Siemens Step7 software
When Siemens Step7 software is mentioned, the word "Siemens" is linked to the Wiki article about Siemens, where Step7 is not mentioned. The article on SIMATIC https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIMATIC mentions it briefly: "Every automation system needs a program to control a machine. To create a program you need a software. Siemens created its own software for their products. The Simatic S5 product line is programmed by the software Step5. The Simatic S7 product line is programmed by the software Step7 or in TIA Portal (totally intergrated automatisation)."

My question is this: is Siemens Step7 something that should have its own article? It seems from what I have read here that it should, but I am a layman. --Richardson mcphillips (talk) 04:21, 18 November 2014 (UTC)


 * It seems to me Siemens Step7 does not meet the General notability guideline. Kendall-K1 (talk) 14:14, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Removed Content
I removed the reference to the death of Jonathan P. Wheeler III. It seemed wholly irrelevant to the article since his murder has not been tied to his comments or statements regarding cyber warfare. The original author had also used a source heavy on conspiracy theories.

I even want to call for the whole paragraph on him to be removed. I can't seem to find any valid sources that link him to these statements, nor is this section cited in any manner. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.84.124.213 (talk) 16:01, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

I went ahead and actually removed the paragraph, I could not find any credible sources outside of conspiracy websites that actually tied him to any of the statements that were being made. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.84.124.213 (talk) 16:08, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Underlinking
I'd like to see more links for PLC. For British people, PLC means Public limited company. Will I be accused of overlinking if I add one link per section? Roberttherambler (talk) 20:03, 6 January 2017 (UTC)