"Cablegate" is one of the reasons we have not posted so much this month. Personally I have posted over a thousand links/dents about it in the past week alone. The threat to Wikileaks is a threat to all of us who leak documents that serve as evidence of misconduct. Techrights did this many times before, so it's important to defend the practice.
"Iran's nuclear program is still in chaos despite its leaders' adamant claim that they have contained the computer worm that attacked their facilities, cybersecurity experts in the US and Europe say. Last week President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, after months of denials, admitted that the worm had penetrated Iran's nuclear sites, but he said it was detected and controlled. The second part of that claim, experts say, doesn't ring true. Owners of several security sites have discovered huge bumps in traffic from Iran, as the country tries to deal with Stuxnet. 'Our traffic from Iran has really spiked,' said a corporate officer who asked that neither he nor his company be named. 'Iran now represents 14.9 percent of total traffic, surpassing the United States with a total of 12.1 percent.'"
Malicious software apparently designed to disrupt the Iranian nuclear program was able to do just that, Iran's president acknowledged today. Security researchers found that the Stuxnet worm could insinuate itself into industrial control systems -- and if it found a particular brand and arrangement of motor controllers would begin a long-term sabotage program. Now, in the wake of the apparent assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad acknowledged that Stuxnet did hit his country's centrifuge facility, though he downplayed its impact.
WHAT'S DRIVING CHINA -------------------- ۦ8. (C) According to another well-respected tech sector analyst here, a number of historical, cultural, and technological factors have coalesced to put China in a technologically-aggressive state-of-mind. One contributing factor was Microsoft's flubbed 2004 strategy to deter intellectual property theft by darkening computer monitors running unlicensed Windows operating software. This consultant believes that example of U.S. technology effectively wielding power over China's personal computers helped spur China's aggressive campaign for source codes and its own technology. This, combined with growing Chinese pride, economic clout and influence, and the "weakened" position of the U.S. and its allies after the global economic downturn, are emboldening the Chinese to take ever more aggressive positions in advancing its innovative industries at the expense of foreign ones.
ۦ9. (C) A local Microsoft executive applauds the Secretary's speech and the Administration's commitment "to organize sustained, targeted, persistent engagement on the full range of Internet-related issues" with China. This executive said the Secretary's remarks were "right on point," particularly for companies who "desperately need the help of the USG" in the face of "harassment, threats and actual shutdowns of service, threats of licenses being revoked, resistance to provide legal authority, mandates to place servers in China, etc." Our local APCO contact described the Google issue as a "stirring of the beehive," but says the kind of harassment Microsoft describes is a fact of worsening life here which
ۦ12. (U) Assisting Brazil in creating legislation to counter cybercrimes, including online child pornography and tracking of sex offenders, represents another potential area of cooperation on law enforcement matters. Brazil lacks cybercrime laws and the Congress has opened a Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry (CPI) to look at the issue and come up with draft legislation. As part of the CPI's work, the CPI was able to obtain over 3,000 Google records of identified child pornography that had been distributed on the Internet from Brazil. The chairman of the CPI has voiced his concern about, in his view, inadequate cooperation from Google and its subsidiary Orkut, a relationship site. Google, Orkut, Microsoft, and all other Internet service providers are required to report the discovery of child pornography on the Internet and DHS/ICE has established a mechanism to have access to this information which has been reported. DHS/ICE has already initiated the practice of sharing this information with Brazilian Federal Police. Related to the CPI, its Chairman has made inquiries to the Mission on the case of DHS/ICE Deportation officer accused of child exploitation at a hotel in Brazil. The U.S. is seeking the toughest penalty possible, whether in Brazil or the U.S., and is fully cooperating with Brazilian authorities.
Apple has disabled, without explanation, a jailbreak detection API in iOS less than six months after introducing it. Device management vendors say the reasons for the decision are a mystery, but insist they can use alternatives to discover if an iPhone, iPod touch or iPad has been modified so they can load and modify applications outside of Apple's iTunes-based App Store.