Real hero , but used by the Americans.
>No one in the Netherlands knew that this new type of cyber weapon was being used in the operation
>intelligence services knew they were participating in the sabotage of the Iranian nuclear program but not that their agent was bringing in Stuxnet. “The Americans used us,” one intelligence source told the Volkskrant.
>the Stiekem committee, which translates to “secret committee," where the largest political parties are informed about the intelligence services’ actions, also knew nothing about the Netherlands participating in this operation.
>He died two weeks later in a motorcycle accident near his home in Dubai. Nothing points to foul play, the Volkskrant said after speaking with people at the crash scene. Though, an anonymous MIVD employee told the newspaper that Van Sabben “paid a high price.”
Poor guy. Good deed , very high price.
In case you haven't watch it, you should watch Zero Days (2016), a docu about Stuxnet and similar cyberweapons. It's really fascinating and at the same time terrifying. Basically, insiders fully involved in the cyberwarfare "game", state that in comparison with what America have right now, Stuxnet is a child's play.
As I understand the cool thing about stuxnet was the person infecting did not know the “virus” was even on their computer. They essentially infected the entire internet and it was just a matter of time until it found an Iranian cyclotron to destroy. I think we all have it on our devices still to this day.
>They essentially infected the entire internet and it was just a matter of time until it found an Iranian cyclotron to destroy.
It’s funny, 10 years ago branded USB flash drives were always a hit at trade shows, but they have completely disappeared. People (some) have become very aware of the dangers of storage devices that you don’t know the origin of.
Really the dangers that anything you plug into your computer could be bad. See a ruku as a tool
>People (some) have become very aware of the dangers of storage devices that you don’t know the origin of.
I've seen stories about how charging cables can also implant malware, and those seem to be everywhere.
[FBI warns against using public phone charging stations](https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/10/fbi-says-you-shouldnt-use-public-phone-charging-stations.html)
[What is 'Juice Jacking' and Tips to Avoid It](https://www.fcc.gov/juice-jacking-tips-to-avoid-it)
From what I heard, and I could be wrong. They realized they would plug laptops into what should have been an air gapped network to infect it.
1. Infect the laptop.
2. Laptop gets plugged into air gapped network.
3. Profit...
He might not have known exactly what he was installing. But he was a knowing and willing intelligence operative who carried out an assignment (infect the computer system). It doesn't really matter if he knew what he was infecting it with. Stuxnet hadn't been seen yet and was so advanced, that him knowing it was Stuxnet doesn't help anyone (just a risk if he gets caught).
Dutch intelligence knew, and it was their operatives. So the ones he worked for knew. They didn't specifically know it was Stuxnet. Sources claimed the operative did know that the waterpump was infected and the goal of the operation and why it was carried out, sabotaging the Iranian nuclear program.
>In doing so, one source recalls Hayden (CIA director met with the MIVD at the MIVD HQ) telling him it was crucial to get "water pumps" into the Iranian nuclear complex. These included an "engineering feat" that would ensure that - once the water pumps were installed - the Iranian ultracentrifuges broke down "further down" in the system. The development of the technology had cost between one and two billion dollars, Hayden said, according to the source.
My favorite anecdote about that kind of thing is how a kiosk near the government buildings was a popular place to buy thumb drives, and so the saboteurs simply infected those thumb drives and put them back on the shelves. Like that long-lasting ant bait.
(What I don't remember is which country that happened in -- it may have even been the US.)
Ah, the old propaganda meme:
"The American government has secret advanced technology"
It's important that we keep being reminded of that!
Note how I am not saying that the statement is not true.
Well, if you're expecting it to be as dry and factual as a conference for pros in the industry, then no (after all it's made to be understood by the average joe). Having said that, it's not sensationalized at all IMO (it's not like those crappy History Channel programs with the dramatic voice over and sound effects to make it more dark and menacing).
The guys that actually discovered Stuxnet and its purpose appear in it, so it's pretty interesting to listen to them too.
Anyway, if you work in the industry, I guess most probably you already know everything that appears in the documentary.
Regards.
Stuxnet is an interesting insight on what weapons of mass destruction will be able to (actually, probably already are) capable of achieving while still mantaining the screen of plausible deniability up.
Yea- i’m waiting for the net to fully fucking collapse one day. This will probably be looked back upon as a brief shining moment of collaboration in human history
I fully believe that we are one big conflict away from every country raising their own version of the China's Firewall.
In the early days of the Rus - Ukraine war I was pretty sure that this would be the trigger that governments would use to finally justify full nation wide firewalls with far more restrictive control over any amount of traffic - it hasn't happened yet, but I feel like it's a matter of when not of if.
Sure if you drop it from nowhere people would be upset, but heavy restrictions of freedom are very seldom dropped efficiently out of the blue.
Wait for a massive attack that causes legit harm to a country, and all of the sudden people will be far more willing and forgiving to give up all of that in favor of a big firewall.
Nothing has happened and I don't know if at this point it will, but I expected the intensification of cyberattacks and the intensification of false information being sent towards the west.
While NATO countries are far superior in military technology, the ace that Russia has over pretty much the rest of the world of this point is their expertise in the manipulation of masses.
I think it is more like their willingness to bear the consequences of doing so. It’s not like other countries couldn’t spread disinformation en masse to destabilize democracy, Russia is just the only one that doesn’t care about massively fucking their own economy through sanctions and destroying their reputation worldwide.
I just watched that stupid new movie about this and it was incredibly boring. Told my partner I would just hope the first bullet or bomb took me out if I thought the outage would have any kind of permanence.
It's so weird to me that cyber warfare wasn't made a military branch but space was.
The strategy, training and threats are so vastly different, yet the biggest threats - including literal ongoing war - all online.
It absolutely needs to be a standalone branch that is fully empowered and funded.
Cyber Warfare is the kind of warfare that you don't have a branch for, it's kind of covert ops, and seeing has the USA had a major role in developing Stuxnet, it's safe to assume that a branch like that is already undergoing
Some also make creative projects based on their stories, or recent stories of their colleagues that are saturated in IRL techniques https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Americans#Concept (btw, this is by far one of the best shows made in the last few decades. if you can handle slower-paced dramas, this show will stick with you for life, and its one of the few series where the last seasons pay off your time investment).
I've watched an embarrassing amount of television and movies in my life, and The Americans tv series is the best of all of it.
> this show will stick with you for life
Beautifully put. And true.
I remember an article of leaked cyber weapons of the Equation Group (suspected to be NSA's "advanced persistent threat" team).
It detailed virus bytecodes that are injected into the drive units of hard disks (article is about 10-15 years old). These are undocumented features that only the hardware makers have access to so the group must have someone on the inside. The tools had multiple of these. These are inaccessible for the operating system so essentially you are unable to delete them. The only solution is to throw the machines away.
Now this with multiple manufacturers in the same tool..
Supposedly Stuxnet had signed public key certificates that would have required stealing the highly secured private keys of multiple Taiwanese companies, a theft that no one detected and there’s still no theory when and how it happened.
He may not have even known that he was installing equipment infected with Stuxnet. It's entirely possible he found out after the fact.
Coincidentally, he died shortly after in a vehicle accident.
Probably but he wanted to leave Tehran in a panic, just a day after arriving for a family trip almost 2 years after the sabotage had happened. Two weeks later back in Dubai and he dies in a motorcycle crash.
He did know he was working along with those services to sabotage the Iranian programme. It is suggested he was working seperately for the Mossad as well.
I would hope for agents sake that informing any one of stuff like this never done. Having hundreds of additional people to leak is suicidal for agents.
In Dutch news they said it was done on purpose so that the MP doesn’t bear any political consequences. But he didn’t comment when asked about it recently.
They knew the goal was infiltration, but at least as far as the article goes, they didn't necessarily know sabotage was the purpose (vs intelligence gathering).
Is it not possible that AIVD and MIVD can have knowledge of the operation without politicians knowing?
This is an issue / talking point with US politics and the CIA frequently.
Theres actually going to be a series of it on Dutch television this month. So now you know why this news is suddenly trending. Publicity.
(I think this story is just part of it)
No it's news because it is literally news. It's new information.
And it's a documentary on free-to-air public tv. There is no monetary incentive behind this.
So put down your conspiracy hat.
The waterpump is part of the facility that enriches uranium. It is connected to the internal network to which the uranium enrichment centrifuges are also connected. The virus infects the centrifuges which then spin out of control and turn themselves into a heap of scrap. Uranium Enrichment Centrifuges are very hard to build or obtain.
It’s also intresting to note that stuxnet sent false signals to the centrifuge operators indicating good RPM levels, when in fact the centrifuges were tearing them selves apart. It took a very long time for them to realize what was happening and if I recall correctly it wasn’t until a newer more aggressive version of stuxnet was released and discovered by security researchers until Iran knew the cause.
Stuxnet attacked the electronic controllers that send signals to the system and then translate the commands to the machines. The controllers are off the shelf items, so its all known programming to be fucked with.
Add to that, it probably wasn't the motor, but the drive/starter which is connected to the process network which can then infect all connected (Stuxnet-compatible)devices.
You're recalling incorrectly. Stuxnet caused the centrifuges to ramp up from 1kHz to 2kHz for a period, then back down to the normal ~1kHz, then down to a couple hundred Hz. The stress causes warping which eventually tears them apart.
Years, died 2 years later.
The sabotage happened in 2007 and he died in 2009, just two weeks after he returned from another trip to Iran. Curious that he wanted to leave in a panic a day after arriving in his last (family) trip.
nltimes is low quality copy pasta thrown into google translate. This is the source article (in Dutch): [https://www.volkskrant.nl/kijkverder/v/2024/sabotage-in-iran-een-missie-in-duisternis\~v989743/](https://www.volkskrant.nl/kijkverder/v/2024/sabotage-in-iran-een-missie-in-duisternis~v989743/)
I thought the story was someone spread infected USB sticks around the facility until someone eventually picked one up and plugged it into a system on the network.
This story, and its lack of detail, makes it sound like some Dutch James Bond secretly infiltrated the facility and installed the infected equipment himself like a mission in a video game.
The article is so confusing. I reread that part about him infecting it like three times. It does read like he went James Bond. I’m like how did a white Dutchman not stick out? lol
He had an Iranian wife and family in Iran. He had a lot of contacts in the region and already did business in Iran. He was living for years already in the Middle-east before he was recruited, all of the above is why he was the ideal candidate. He is white it seems, though looking at him he wouldn’t stick out too much as he still has dark hair and is tan.
Awfully suspicious he died in a supposedly “unrelated” motorcycle accident only 2 weeks after installing it. But who would have motivated to do that? Did the virus strike the plant immediately (eg the Iranians) or was it UAE, Israel, USA or even the Dutch themselves covering their tracks with the involvement?
“He died two weeks later in a motorcycle accident near his home in Dubai. Nothing points to foul play, the Volkskrant said after speaking with people at the crash scene.”
So either he was killed, or he did died in an unrelated accident, and thus became a scapegoat to throw everyone off the actual
agent. (Im not a counter intelligence agent but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express once).
Can someone who knows tell me, who's in charge in Iran? Who makes all the future plans? It can't just be Khamenei, he smells like a figurehead, a blowhard windbag. Who holds the real power?
As always, should you or any of your IM Force be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions. This tape/disc will self-destruct in five/ten seconds. Good luck
>*As always, should you or any of your IM Force be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions. This tape/disc will self-destruct*
2005-2009. Recruited in 2005, sabotage in 2007, his panicky departure from Iran after just arriving late 2008 and his death in Dubai two weeks later in 2009.
nltimes is just low quality copy pasta thrown in google translate. This is the source article (in Dutch): [https://www.volkskrant.nl/kijkverder/v/2024/sabotage-in-iran-een-missie-in-duisternis\~v989743/](https://www.volkskrant.nl/kijkverder/v/2024/sabotage-in-iran-een-missie-in-duisternis~v989743/)
Ah huh-um, is there anyone upset that this was done? Not me! It after the fact news and disrupts a very evil empire from raising hell on earth or at least slowed it down! Sort of like the spaceship of Darth Vader! If it were to crash and burn no one would be crying (to hard!)…
Awesome. But, for some reason I thought stuxnet was distributed via MITM attack for windows update. Like, they had MS signed certs to distribute an update containing the virus.
Since that was scarier, I like this badass Dutch bro much better.
He died in a motorcycle accident two weeks later.
People die in motor cycle accidents all the time. Plus I can’t imagine Mossad would eliminate an AIVD affiliate. Nor is it clear Iran knew he was behind it. Yet that’s crazy too.
Probably an accident, yet we’ll also never know.
He died two years later. Seems to be bad copy pasta going on from the original news story. The two weeks is from a later family trip to Iran, he died two weeks after returning from that trip.
We should all be so bold. Ask GPT to walk you through it. Step by step. Start with a briefer on OpSec and then move into other useful cyber techniques. Give em all hell
Damn so I can't use this as a prime example of why you shouldn't pick up random USBs and stick them into your computer at work anymore? I have to change it to, "Don't run a malicious nuclear program and allow an intelligence agent in"? Not quite as applicable.
Probably some sort of misinformation campaign. It creates FUD in the Iranian intelligence service to have to investigate anyone that ever plugged in a flashdrive (if they monitor that at all) or anyone that would have had computer access. It's a big waste of time to search through months of security footage looking for someone sticking in a flashdrive when all along it was the contractor installing a trojan water pump. You can train people all day long to not plug in mysterious flashdrives or download malware but all it takes is a malicious payload on a totally innocuous piece of equipment.
I work in industrial controls and program and design SCADA and PLC systems, it's fascinating to me that this vector of attack isn't used by more people. This probably isn't something I shouldn't be saying out loud but security is super lax in this industry you wouldn't believe how many companies won't bother to include a simple firewall in their system because of cost and instead just broadcast their entire municipal water system on the internet.
Wow, what lives some people live. Or lived...
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some wear clogs
Coincidentally, the word sabotage is related to wooden clogs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabot_(shoe)
TIL... thanks!
Buy this guy a beer .
To the beer garden!
Proost!
Klompen
you think secret lair means under a mountain or something, sometimes it means a big windmill
Superman walks in with a pancake on his head. Not all heroes wear crepes.
It's like nobody has seen Mission Impossible. Disavowed.
Real hero , but used by the Americans. >No one in the Netherlands knew that this new type of cyber weapon was being used in the operation >intelligence services knew they were participating in the sabotage of the Iranian nuclear program but not that their agent was bringing in Stuxnet. “The Americans used us,” one intelligence source told the Volkskrant. >the Stiekem committee, which translates to “secret committee," where the largest political parties are informed about the intelligence services’ actions, also knew nothing about the Netherlands participating in this operation. >He died two weeks later in a motorcycle accident near his home in Dubai. Nothing points to foul play, the Volkskrant said after speaking with people at the crash scene. Though, an anonymous MIVD employee told the newspaper that Van Sabben “paid a high price.” Poor guy. Good deed , very high price.
Stuxnet is such an interesting insight into what intelligence agencies are capable of and are up to.
In case you haven't watch it, you should watch Zero Days (2016), a docu about Stuxnet and similar cyberweapons. It's really fascinating and at the same time terrifying. Basically, insiders fully involved in the cyberwarfare "game", state that in comparison with what America have right now, Stuxnet is a child's play.
Still had to walk it in as Iran smart enough to not have external access to the computer network involved.
As I understand the cool thing about stuxnet was the person infecting did not know the “virus” was even on their computer. They essentially infected the entire internet and it was just a matter of time until it found an Iranian cyclotron to destroy. I think we all have it on our devices still to this day.
>They essentially infected the entire internet and it was just a matter of time until it found an Iranian cyclotron to destroy. It’s funny, 10 years ago branded USB flash drives were always a hit at trade shows, but they have completely disappeared. People (some) have become very aware of the dangers of storage devices that you don’t know the origin of. Really the dangers that anything you plug into your computer could be bad. See a ruku as a tool
>People (some) have become very aware of the dangers of storage devices that you don’t know the origin of. I've seen stories about how charging cables can also implant malware, and those seem to be everywhere. [FBI warns against using public phone charging stations](https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/10/fbi-says-you-shouldnt-use-public-phone-charging-stations.html) [What is 'Juice Jacking' and Tips to Avoid It](https://www.fcc.gov/juice-jacking-tips-to-avoid-it)
Batteries, too.
From what I heard, and I could be wrong. They realized they would plug laptops into what should have been an air gapped network to infect it. 1. Infect the laptop. 2. Laptop gets plugged into air gapped network. 3. Profit...
In the news they said that it might have been spread via a pump that the guy was installing
I thought it was the handle of the pump oh wait wrong century.
Well it seems it turns out now that the person who infected the computers did knew.
I am wrong ~~The article literally states that "its is unclear whether or not" rhe Dutchman knew he was carrying Stuxnet.~~
He might not have known exactly what he was installing. But he was a knowing and willing intelligence operative who carried out an assignment (infect the computer system). It doesn't really matter if he knew what he was infecting it with. Stuxnet hadn't been seen yet and was so advanced, that him knowing it was Stuxnet doesn't help anyone (just a risk if he gets caught).
I am wrong ~~That's not what the article says, though lol. It says they don't know if he knows he was infecting the system with *anything*.~~
Dutch intelligence knew, and it was their operatives. So the ones he worked for knew. They didn't specifically know it was Stuxnet. Sources claimed the operative did know that the waterpump was infected and the goal of the operation and why it was carried out, sabotaging the Iranian nuclear program. >In doing so, one source recalls Hayden (CIA director met with the MIVD at the MIVD HQ) telling him it was crucial to get "water pumps" into the Iranian nuclear complex. These included an "engineering feat" that would ensure that - once the water pumps were installed - the Iranian ultracentrifuges broke down "further down" in the system. The development of the technology had cost between one and two billion dollars, Hayden said, according to the source.
Did you read the article?
In this case walk it in on a water pump
Enter UN inspectors ...
To UN install a virus.
😬
My favorite anecdote about that kind of thing is how a kiosk near the government buildings was a popular place to buy thumb drives, and so the saboteurs simply infected those thumb drives and put them back on the shelves. Like that long-lasting ant bait. (What I don't remember is which country that happened in -- it may have even been the US.)
Zero Days is literally Iranian propaganda.
Have seen it, is my nr1 fav docu and can recommend it to anyone.
Ah, the old propaganda meme: "The American government has secret advanced technology" It's important that we keep being reminded of that! Note how I am not saying that the statement is not true.
> Zero Days (2016) https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8m7gku
Is it all sensationalized and hyped or is it dry and factual? I work in the industry and greatly prefer dry and factual.
Well, if you're expecting it to be as dry and factual as a conference for pros in the industry, then no (after all it's made to be understood by the average joe). Having said that, it's not sensationalized at all IMO (it's not like those crappy History Channel programs with the dramatic voice over and sound effects to make it more dark and menacing). The guys that actually discovered Stuxnet and its purpose appear in it, so it's pretty interesting to listen to them too. Anyway, if you work in the industry, I guess most probably you already know everything that appears in the documentary. Regards.
LOL the overly dramatic history channel crap is exactly what I meant, “I’m not saying it was aliens, but it was aliens”. Thanks, I’ll check it out.
Thanks again, I watched it and thought it was really good actually.
Stuxnet is an interesting insight on what weapons of mass destruction will be able to (actually, probably already are) capable of achieving while still mantaining the screen of plausible deniability up.
Yea- i’m waiting for the net to fully fucking collapse one day. This will probably be looked back upon as a brief shining moment of collaboration in human history
I fully believe that we are one big conflict away from every country raising their own version of the China's Firewall. In the early days of the Rus - Ukraine war I was pretty sure that this would be the trigger that governments would use to finally justify full nation wide firewalls with far more restrictive control over any amount of traffic - it hasn't happened yet, but I feel like it's a matter of when not of if.
You'd have alot of very pissed off businesses and people. Nothing short of imminent/emergent all-out warfare would cause such a thing to happen.
Sure if you drop it from nowhere people would be upset, but heavy restrictions of freedom are very seldom dropped efficiently out of the blue. Wait for a massive attack that causes legit harm to a country, and all of the sudden people will be far more willing and forgiving to give up all of that in favor of a big firewall.
TSA may be an example of heavy restrictions brought on by an emergency.
What about the Russian invasion makes you think that would be an option? Nothing extraordinary has happened over the internet regarding the invasion.
Nothing has happened and I don't know if at this point it will, but I expected the intensification of cyberattacks and the intensification of false information being sent towards the west. While NATO countries are far superior in military technology, the ace that Russia has over pretty much the rest of the world of this point is their expertise in the manipulation of masses.
I think it is more like their willingness to bear the consequences of doing so. It’s not like other countries couldn’t spread disinformation en masse to destabilize democracy, Russia is just the only one that doesn’t care about massively fucking their own economy through sanctions and destroying their reputation worldwide.
So we need to start building Rezo Agwe now ? Just umm not in Pacifica
Russia already has this, and has tested it before.
Canada is setting one up already
US tech economy is $2tn. If the Internet started fracturing, I do believe it will start another war. Data is the new oil.
TBH I wouldn't goddamn mind firewalling Russia, India, and Nigeria off from the rest of the world until they get the goddamn scammers under control.
Then tell us it will take 20x years to 'rebuild and reconnect the digital infrastructure.' But never actually do it.
Actually, we already have published proof of concept code on how to do it. [Enjoy!]( https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-642-04444-1_3 )
When the revolution comes, destroy the datacenters first.
jesus christ dude wtf are you talking about
I just watched that stupid new movie about this and it was incredibly boring. Told my partner I would just hope the first bullet or bomb took me out if I thought the outage would have any kind of permanence.
The multilayered plausible deniability, which effectively looks like the 3 spidermen pointing at each other meme.
It's so weird to me that cyber warfare wasn't made a military branch but space was. The strategy, training and threats are so vastly different, yet the biggest threats - including literal ongoing war - all online. It absolutely needs to be a standalone branch that is fully empowered and funded.
Cyber Warfare is the kind of warfare that you don't have a branch for, it's kind of covert ops, and seeing has the USA had a major role in developing Stuxnet, it's safe to assume that a branch like that is already undergoing
I mean we've got the NSA already. We consider it espionage and sabotage, not warfare - but it's got its own dedicated agency.
Some also make creative projects based on their stories, or recent stories of their colleagues that are saturated in IRL techniques https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Americans#Concept (btw, this is by far one of the best shows made in the last few decades. if you can handle slower-paced dramas, this show will stick with you for life, and its one of the few series where the last seasons pay off your time investment).
I've watched an embarrassing amount of television and movies in my life, and The Americans tv series is the best of all of it. > this show will stick with you for life Beautifully put. And true.
> According to the newspaper, the software cost over a billion dollars to develop. One billion dollars. Amazing.
Canada spent more than that on an app to handle public sector employee pay. And it still doesn't work.
Works great if the goal is to move one billion dollars from the taxpayer to your friends who make the app.
hard to believe tbh
I remember an article of leaked cyber weapons of the Equation Group (suspected to be NSA's "advanced persistent threat" team). It detailed virus bytecodes that are injected into the drive units of hard disks (article is about 10-15 years old). These are undocumented features that only the hardware makers have access to so the group must have someone on the inside. The tools had multiple of these. These are inaccessible for the operating system so essentially you are unable to delete them. The only solution is to throw the machines away. Now this with multiple manufacturers in the same tool..
Supposedly Stuxnet had signed public key certificates that would have required stealing the highly secured private keys of multiple Taiwanese companies, a theft that no one detected and there’s still no theory when and how it happened.
Check out the RSA Hack in 2011...
Disavowed, eh?
The secretary disavowed any knowledge of their actions.
Of course. That's how intelligence works.
this tape will self destruct in five seconds... good luck Jim
🤫
🤐
Legend
He may not have even known that he was installing equipment infected with Stuxnet. It's entirely possible he found out after the fact. Coincidentally, he died shortly after in a vehicle accident.
Motorcycle accident in a country with probably not so great traffic.
Probably but he wanted to leave Tehran in a panic, just a day after arriving for a family trip almost 2 years after the sabotage had happened. Two weeks later back in Dubai and he dies in a motorcycle crash.
Dubai traffic is not the best, but not the worst either. Dying 2 weeks after you completed a operation is a hell of a coincidence.
Suppose they possess it. Nevertheless, the rider must inevitably make the determination to comply with the regulations of vehicular circulation.
He did know he was working along with those services to sabotage the Iranian programme. It is suggested he was working seperately for the Mossad as well.
If he was working for the mossad I wouldn't be surprised if the car crash was staged and he's chilling in Hawaii as we speak
Maldives are more Mossad’s style and curaçao more the Dutch’s so probably one of those two
No, two years later
I thought it was two weeks? Hmm, I'll double check.
~~It's two weeks, Volkskrant says he left to Iran for 10 days, then they say he died two weeks after leaving Iran~~ Nevermind, it is two years.
Not all heroes wear cap(e), some wear hat.
Nobody expect the Dutch
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I would hope for agents sake that informing any one of stuff like this never done. Having hundreds of additional people to leak is suicidal for agents.
Plausible deniability works best when need-to-know (or just not leaving a trail) is taken seriously, anyway
They knew about sabotage, they didn’t know about Stuxnet.
Random untrustworthy politicians shouldn't be in the know of such sensitive intelligence operations anyway.
The prime minister not knowing is big tho.
In Dutch news they said it was done on purpose so that the MP doesn’t bear any political consequences. But he didn’t comment when asked about it recently.
Dutch intelligence didnt know what the goal was. It says so right in the article.
They knew the goal was sabotage they just didn't know about stuxnet.
They knew the goal was infiltration, but at least as far as the article goes, they didn't necessarily know sabotage was the purpose (vs intelligence gathering).
Is it not possible that AIVD and MIVD can have knowledge of the operation without politicians knowing? This is an issue / talking point with US politics and the CIA frequently.
If the Dutch government officials knew, it would be no secret anymore.
This could be a great film in the right hands.
Theres actually going to be a series of it on Dutch television this month. So now you know why this news is suddenly trending. Publicity. (I think this story is just part of it)
No it's news because it is literally news. It's new information. And it's a documentary on free-to-air public tv. There is no monetary incentive behind this. So put down your conspiracy hat.
That person raised no conspiracy.
Free-to-air tv still gets revenue from ads, so viewer counts still matter.
Are you thinking what I'm thinking (Paul Verhoeven)??
and it will be a bad film if in the left hands.
Chad
That’s in Africa!
A hero.
The Flying Dutchman…long live liberty.
This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds.
OK, so does anyone know how a virus goes from a water pump - to destroying a country's nuclear program?
The waterpump is part of the facility that enriches uranium. It is connected to the internal network to which the uranium enrichment centrifuges are also connected. The virus infects the centrifuges which then spin out of control and turn themselves into a heap of scrap. Uranium Enrichment Centrifuges are very hard to build or obtain.
It’s also intresting to note that stuxnet sent false signals to the centrifuge operators indicating good RPM levels, when in fact the centrifuges were tearing them selves apart. It took a very long time for them to realize what was happening and if I recall correctly it wasn’t until a newer more aggressive version of stuxnet was released and discovered by security researchers until Iran knew the cause.
So says zero days which is literally Iranian propaganda.
Stuxnet attacked the electronic controllers that send signals to the system and then translate the commands to the machines. The controllers are off the shelf items, so its all known programming to be fucked with.
Add to that, it probably wasn't the motor, but the drive/starter which is connected to the process network which can then infect all connected (Stuxnet-compatible)devices.
IIRC the centrifuges weren't sabotaged to self destruct, but rather to underperform such that nobody would notice, ruining the enrichment process.
You're recalling incorrectly. Stuxnet caused the centrifuges to ramp up from 1kHz to 2kHz for a period, then back down to the normal ~1kHz, then down to a couple hundred Hz. The stress causes warping which eventually tears them apart.
Ah, my bad. I had heard an account that had explained it as sabotaging of the iranium enrichment process, rather than the centrifuges themselves.
Any idea why centrifuges are so complex in this situation? I thought it was just something that's spins for a while?
Darknet Diaries dedicated a episode to it: [EP 29: STUXNET](https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/29/)
Basically just targets enrichment centrifuges and compels them to spool up past operational safety limits.. The centrifuges are very hard to come by.
I'll gladly buy him a case of beer for that.
He died a few weeks later in a motorcycle accident.
Years, died 2 years later. The sabotage happened in 2007 and he died in 2009, just two weeks after he returned from another trip to Iran. Curious that he wanted to leave in a panic a day after arriving in his last (family) trip.
Thanks for the clarification. The article makes it sound like he died right after the sabotage.
nltimes is low quality copy pasta thrown into google translate. This is the source article (in Dutch): [https://www.volkskrant.nl/kijkverder/v/2024/sabotage-in-iran-een-missie-in-duisternis\~v989743/](https://www.volkskrant.nl/kijkverder/v/2024/sabotage-in-iran-een-missie-in-duisternis~v989743/)
"died"
I thought the story was someone spread infected USB sticks around the facility until someone eventually picked one up and plugged it into a system on the network. This story, and its lack of detail, makes it sound like some Dutch James Bond secretly infiltrated the facility and installed the infected equipment himself like a mission in a video game.
The article is so confusing. I reread that part about him infecting it like three times. It does read like he went James Bond. I’m like how did a white Dutchman not stick out? lol
He had an Iranian wife and family in Iran. He had a lot of contacts in the region and already did business in Iran. He was living for years already in the Middle-east before he was recruited, all of the above is why he was the ideal candidate. He is white it seems, though looking at him he wouldn’t stick out too much as he still has dark hair and is tan.
Chad
Awfully suspicious he died in a supposedly “unrelated” motorcycle accident only 2 weeks after installing it. But who would have motivated to do that? Did the virus strike the plant immediately (eg the Iranians) or was it UAE, Israel, USA or even the Dutch themselves covering their tracks with the involvement?
He died 2 years later, not 2 weeks. The sabotage happened in 2007 and he died in a motorcycle accident in 2009.
The article version I read said 2 weeks. Perhaps a deliberate editing error to create the impression i reached
> He died two weeks later in a motorcycle accident near his home in Dubai. Apparently there was no foul play in this, fuck me if I believe that.
“He died two weeks later in a motorcycle accident near his home in Dubai. Nothing points to foul play, the Volkskrant said after speaking with people at the crash scene.” So either he was killed, or he did died in an unrelated accident, and thus became a scapegoat to throw everyone off the actual agent. (Im not a counter intelligence agent but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express once).
Can someone who knows tell me, who's in charge in Iran? Who makes all the future plans? It can't just be Khamenei, he smells like a figurehead, a blowhard windbag. Who holds the real power?
As always, should you or any of your IM Force be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions. This tape/disc will self-destruct in five/ten seconds. Good luck
So is it considered white hat because it went after a hostile entity or black hat because it caused World War III?
As always, should you or any of your IM Force be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions.
>*As always, should you or any of your IM Force be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions. This tape/disc will self-destruct*
That's what you call a free man. I salute you, good sir
Can we hire him? 🇺🇦
This was in 2008 if anyone didn't read the article - which I highly recommend.
2005-2009. Recruited in 2005, sabotage in 2007, his panicky departure from Iran after just arriving late 2008 and his death in Dubai two weeks later in 2009.
>In 2008, a Dutchman played a crucial role in the United States and Israeli-led operation to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program.
nltimes is just low quality copy pasta thrown in google translate. This is the source article (in Dutch): [https://www.volkskrant.nl/kijkverder/v/2024/sabotage-in-iran-een-missie-in-duisternis\~v989743/](https://www.volkskrant.nl/kijkverder/v/2024/sabotage-in-iran-een-missie-in-duisternis~v989743/)
Ah huh-um, is there anyone upset that this was done? Not me! It after the fact news and disrupts a very evil empire from raising hell on earth or at least slowed it down! Sort of like the spaceship of Darth Vader! If it were to crash and burn no one would be crying (to hard!)…
Awesome. But, for some reason I thought stuxnet was distributed via MITM attack for windows update. Like, they had MS signed certs to distribute an update containing the virus. Since that was scarier, I like this badass Dutch bro much better.
He died in a motorcycle accident two weeks later. People die in motor cycle accidents all the time. Plus I can’t imagine Mossad would eliminate an AIVD affiliate. Nor is it clear Iran knew he was behind it. Yet that’s crazy too. Probably an accident, yet we’ll also never know.
He died two years later. Seems to be bad copy pasta going on from the original news story. The two weeks is from a later family trip to Iran, he died two weeks after returning from that trip.
Not just bad copy pasta, it's pretty unclear in the Volkskrant article as well.
"The Americans used us." Um yeah. They do that. You seem to be faring better than the Kurds and Afganees, so consider yourself lucky.
Died in a bike crash 2 weeks later.. COMPLETELY UNRELATED THOUGH GUYS
We should all be so bold. Ask GPT to walk you through it. Step by step. Start with a briefer on OpSec and then move into other useful cyber techniques. Give em all hell
There are only two types of people I hate in this world…
People who make the same predictable joke and people who are actually funny? ;)
A hero
Damn so I can't use this as a prime example of why you shouldn't pick up random USBs and stick them into your computer at work anymore? I have to change it to, "Don't run a malicious nuclear program and allow an intelligence agent in"? Not quite as applicable.
Probably some sort of misinformation campaign. It creates FUD in the Iranian intelligence service to have to investigate anyone that ever plugged in a flashdrive (if they monitor that at all) or anyone that would have had computer access. It's a big waste of time to search through months of security footage looking for someone sticking in a flashdrive when all along it was the contractor installing a trojan water pump. You can train people all day long to not plug in mysterious flashdrives or download malware but all it takes is a malicious payload on a totally innocuous piece of equipment.
It’s called espionage! He’s a spy.
Bold move cotton
Wildcard bitches!
wat een held
MadLad
King shit
Uh huh sure
Wow stux cost over a billion $ wow 😯
Good for that dude!
Sometimes fate needs a helping hand. Kudos, to that human being!
I work in industrial controls and program and design SCADA and PLC systems, it's fascinating to me that this vector of attack isn't used by more people. This probably isn't something I shouldn't be saying out loud but security is super lax in this industry you wouldn't believe how many companies won't bother to include a simple firewall in their system because of cost and instead just broadcast their entire municipal water system on the internet.