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The politics of nuclear technology, from Hiroshima to Iran
Gaze into a clear night sky for long enough and a nagging thought will worm its way into your brain: It's highly probable that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe, but if so, why haven't we found it yet? This is known as the Fermi Paradox and, among several explanations, it has one awfully pessimistic solution: We appear to be alone in the universe because all civilizations end up destroying themselves soon after developing space-capable technology. One way that could happen is through nuclear warfare, a topic hot on the minds of Earth's most powerful citizens. There are more than 15,000 nuclear warheads secreted around the world, and 90 percent of them are in the hands of the United States and Russia, two nations with a historically frosty relationship. But Iran, a country with no known nuclear warheads, dominates the international conversation. It's actively testing new weapons-delivery systems, even as world powers attempt to halt the creation of more apocalyptic weapons. As modern history demonstrates, that's not an easy task.
Malware used Foxconn digital certificate to spy on Iran nuclear talks
Russian security firm Kaspersky Lab has looked deeper into the malware that attacked its network and found that it used a digital certificate stolen from Foxconn. That's the same Taiwanese company frequently associated with big names in electronics, since its factories manufacture everything from iPhones and iPads to PS4s and Xbox Ones. The malware, known as Duqu 2.0 due to its shared programming with an older spyware called Duqu, also infected the networks of hotels where the UN Security Council held meetings about Iran's nuclear development. Duqu 1.0 and its predecessor, the Stuxnet worm, also redirected traffic through digital certificates stolen from Taiwanese companies, presumably to make it appear like the attacks came from China.
Iran bans some officials from using smartphones over spying jitters
As you might gather, Iran is more than a little nervous about people bringing the wrong devices into high-security locations -- the last time that happened, its nuclear program went down the tubes. It's no surprise, then, that the country just said it will ban officials from using smartphones for work if they have access to classified info. Brigadier General Gholamreza Jalali claims that these handsets are a perfect cocktail of security risks. They often back up their data to the cloud, he argues, and it's at once easy to access that data yet hard to remove it. The move is bound to be a big hassle for staffers who'll only have basic cellphones while at work, but the Iranian government will likely consider it a worthwhile sacrifice if it prevents other nations from spying on its political maneuvers. [Image credit: AP Photo/Vahid Salemi]
State-backed spyware targets antivirus maker, Iranian nuclear talks
The threat posed by state-sponsored malware might be even larger than first thought. Antivirus developer Kaspersky Lab says it discovered an attack on its network by allegedly government-made spyware that appears to be an upgraded version of Duqu, the Stuxnet-based worm used by Israel and the US to derail Iran's nuclear efforts. This "Duqu 2.0" not only tried to obtain details about Kaspersky's investigations and detection abilities, but remained remarkably stealthy. Pre-release software was necessary to catch it, and there were attempts to throw researchers off the scent by suggesting that China or Eastern Europe was to blame.
NSA leaks suggest Iran learned cyberwarfare from US attacks
The US government and security experts have connected Iran to many cyberattacks in the past, including one launched against the Navy. Based on a 2013 NSA document leaked by Edward Snowden, published by The Intercept, it's also been long suspected that Iran's state hackers learned their craft from the West. Ironically, from previous attacks against its own networks. The NSA is also worried the country's cyberweapons are becoming more and more potent, as it continues to improve, and not just replicate its enemies' tactics. As you might have guessed, Iran's crusade to give its enemies a taste of their own medicine started with the attacks against its nuclear facility.
How a former Rockstar developer is leading a revolution in gaming
When Navid Khonsari left Rockstar Games after working as the cinematic director on several Grand Theft Auto titles, he was sure he wouldn't make another video game. Instead, he returned to his first love, documentary filmmaking and, in the process, stumbled upon the creation of 1979 Revolution. "A culmination of doing games, falling in love with narrative storytelling and now this new fascination with documentary really became the seed for 1979," he says. "That combined with my personal experience of growing up in Iran and experiencing the revolution firsthand."
FBI wants to know if US banks launched revenge hacks against Iran
Your parents might have told you that revenge solves nothing, but it's not clear that American banks have learned the same lesson. Bloomberg sources understand that the FBI is investigating whether or not US financial institutions hired hackers to conduct retaliatory hacks against Iran, crippling the servers that had been used to attack the companies starting in 2012. There isn't any hard evidence banks acted on their anger, although they at least came close. JPMorgan Chase acknowledged that one of its officials proposed an offshore strike that would have knocked the Iranian servers out of commission. The staffer didn't offer a full-fledged plan, however, and nothing appears to have come out of the idea.
Iran backs away from censoring whole websites
Iran's current approach to internet censorship typically isn't subtle -- either you get unfettered access, or (more often) you don't see a site at all. However, the country's government is about to take a more measured approach to blocking online content it doesn't like. It's deploying "intelligent filtering" that tries to restrict only the material deemed "criminal or unethical," rather than cutting off an entire service. The smarter filter is only active on one social network (most likely Instagram) as part of a test phase, but it's expanding to more sites within the next six months. Ultimately, the nation wants to use this technology on "all networks."
Cyberattacks used security software to cover their trail
State-sponsored hacking attempts frequently rely on specially written software, but that's a risky move. Unless it's well-made, custom code can be a giveaway as to who's responsible. Attackers are switching things up, however. Security researchers at CrowdStrike and Cymmetria have discovered that a likely cyberwarfare campaign against military-related targets in Europe and Israel used commercial security software to both cover its tracks and improve its features. Typically, the attacks would try to fool people into installing rogue Excel scripts through bogus email. If anyone fell for the ploy, the script installed malware that also grabbed parts of Core Security's defense assessment tool in its attempt to throw investigators off the scent. That's no mean feat -- Core has copy protection and digital watermarks to prevent the software from winding up in the wrong hands, so the perpetrators clearly went out of their way to use it.
FBI warns businesses about large-scale Iranian hacking threats
There's still some debate over the scale of Iran's reported Operation Cleaver hacking campaign, but the FBI is clearly taking it seriously. According to Reuters' copy of a confidential report, the federal law enforcement agency is warning businesses of advanced Iranian hacks targeting American defense, education and energy firms. The alert stops short of accusing Iran of a cyberwarfare campaign, but notes that the attacks usually come from two connections within the country. There isn't exactly a huge list of suspects here.
Operation Cleaver report ties Iranian hackers to attacks on major companies
Back in 2013, US officials accused Iranian hackers of breaking into the Navy's computers. Now, US cyber security firm Cylance says it has evidence to prove that the same team has infiltrated not just the Navy, but also various top companies across the globe within the past two years. An 86-page report published by the firm says the state-sponsored group has hacked more than 50 aerospace companies, airlines, petrol and energy firms, universities and hospitals, among other entities. Among them, ten are reportedly based in the US, while others are based in China, England, France, Germany, India, Israel, Mexico and South Korea. The report didn't name any of them, but a Reuters source listed these corporations in particular: California power company Calpine Corp, Saudi Arabia's petroleum and gas company Aramco, Mexican-state-owned Petroleos Mexicanos or Pemex, Qatar Airlines and Korean Air.
Stuxnet worm entered Iran's nuclear facilities through hacked suppliers
You may have heard the common story of how Stuxnet spread: the United States and Israel reportedly developed the worm in the mid-2000s to mess with Iran's nuclear program by damaging equipment, and first unleashed it on Iran's Natanz nuclear facility through infected USB drives. It got out of control, however, and escaped into the wild (that is, the internet) sometime later. Relatively straightforward, right? Well, you'll have to toss that version of events aside -- a new book, Countdown to Zero Day, explains that this digital assault played out very differently.
Not every house has rooms that turn 90 degrees, but this one does
It would seem that when Iran isn't busy putting the kibosh down on social media, its architects are designing some pretty crazy ways to beat the weather. Case in point: a seven-floor house in Tehran with three rectangular rooms that can rotate up to 90 degrees in accordance with the season. As Slate tells it, the design was inspired by Iranian mansions of yore that had separate living rooms for both summer and winter. When extended outward, the spaces offer each floor its own terrace. Besides being one hell of a bragging right for its homeowner, the rooms serve a functional purpose as well: the lowest is a breakfast area, the middle a home office and the top was planned as a guest room. How's it all work? Custom CNC-machined mechanisms that function a lot like the turntables used at auto shows do the heavy lifting... err, turning. This isn't the firm's first project to push architectural boundaries, either -- it's also done some bananas design on a house with curved concrete façades and interiors. [Image credit: NextOffice]
Iranian President says internet access is crucial for his country
Iran may be quick to clamp down on internet freedoms, but President Hassan Rouhani doesn't believe that the country should cut itself off from the rest of the planet -- just the opposite. In a speech this weekend, he argued that it was crucial for young Iranians to have internet access. It isn't right to "close the gates of the world" to youth and deny them access to science, he says. He even went so far as to argue that supporting mobile internet service (which recently opened up in Iran) was inevitable; if the nation didn't embrace the technology now, it would have to before long.
Iran throws tech bloggers in prison for working with 'enemy media'
Most countries with internet access see the web as a tool for communication. But in Iran? It's a threat. The country has made a habit of censoring social platforms like Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram -- lifting its ban only for odd "technical failures." Now the country seems to be arresting local tech bloggers. The state is accusing eight bloggers from the Iranian site Narenji (now offline) of having ties to "enemy media" and plotting a "'soft overthrow' of the Iranian regime." Specifically, the group is accused of receiving funding from British intelligence and conducting espionage for BBC Persian. According to Mashable, the team is facing sentences between 18 months and 11 years in prison, or 36 years between them all.
US officials reportedly duped into friending Iranian spies on social networks
A fair few government officials will be poring over their personal LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter accounts today, following a warning about an elaborate hacking campaign that appears to stem from Iran. According to iSIGHT Partners, Iranian hackers have spent the last three years creating a fake news outlet -- Newsonair.org -- and then posing as journalists to give the website an air of credibility (even though all its content was simply plagiarized from elsewhere on the web). Over time, these impostors are alleged to have linked, friended and followed US military, diplomatic and congressional personnel who were attracted to Newsonair's stories. Once a basic connection had been established via a social network, the cyber-spy would then share another interesting-looking story with their target, but this time the shared link would be a so-called spear-phishing site designed to steal login credentials.
Iranian court summons Mark Zuckerberg to answer privacy concerns
We've got a feeling that Mark Zuckerberg will, regretfully, be unable to accept this particular foreign invitation -- especially after all the recent name-calling that's been coming out of Iran. Nevertheless, a court in the south of that country has reportedly ordered the Facebook CEO to attend a hearing to answer complaints over privacy, specifically regarding Instagram and WhatsApp. There have been calls for both services to be blocked in Tehran, but they're still operational for now, perhaps partly due to a degree of protection from more moderate forces within the country. The precise details of the court summons are hard to be sure of, because news of it comes not from the court itself, but from an official within the Basij militia -- a voluntary paramilitary force that is regularly called upon to protect Iran's theocracy from dissent. And frankly, that's exactly the sort of geo-political context that might further dissuade Zuckerberg's PA from scheduling an appointment.
Instagram is the latest social network to hit Iran's blacklist
Iran's top officials may use social media, but the country's general populace isn't allowed to join them. The nation has already banned Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp, and yesterday it reportedly added Instagram to the naughty list. According to the AP, a private lawsuit was brought against Iran's Ministry of Communications, forcing the bureau to restrict access to the Zuckerberg-owned photo-sharing service. There's no evidence that such filtering is in place right now, and users in Tehran were still able to take some selfies on Friday lunchtime. Still, given that social media is a threat to the country's conservative establishment, we imagine that someone will keep bringing lawsuits until no-one can utter the phrase "lemme take a selfie."
Iran censors move to block WhatsApp because it's run by 'zionist' Zuckerberg
There's a tug of war going on between political factions in Iran, and once again it's internet users who are likely to bear the brunt of it. According to Fox News, Iranian censors have suddenly decided to ban citizens from using WhatsApp, in direct defiance of more progressive government ministers who say they're against such a move. There's no concrete evidence that any block or filtering is in place yet, and even President Hassan Rouhani has tweeted his objection to it, but Iran's "Committee for Determining Criminal Web Content" has reportedly called for the popular messaging service to be prohibited on the basis that it's now "owned" [sic] by the "American zionist" Mark Zuckerberg (whose background is Jewish).
1979 Revolution shakes down to PC, Mac and Android
1979 Revolution, Ink Stories' 3D adventure game that places players in the midst of the tense Iranian protests of that year, will come to PC, Mac and Android. This is in addition to the game's initial platform of choice, iOS, which is being developed in Unity, making the transition to the other platforms easier for the developer. The episodic indie game is currently seeking $395,000 by December 16 on Kickstarter to launch its first episode, Black Friday. Those looking to back the project and obtain a PC or Mac version of 1979 Revolution will need to invest at least $20, whereas the iOS and Android reward tiers are listed at $15. Ink Stories' campaign is currently sitting at $56,163 in funding.
