A cyberattack that sabotaged Iran's uranium enrichment program was an "act of force" and
was likely illegal, according to research commissioned by NATO's cyberwarfare center.
"Acts that kill or injure persons or destroy or damage objects are unambiguously uses of
force" and likely violate international law, according to the Tallinn Manual on the
International Law Applicable to Cyber Warfare, a study produced by international legal
experts at the request of NATO's Cooperative Cyber Defense Center of Excellence in
Estonia. . . .
[Yet the 2015 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. intelligence community submitted
recently to the Senate Armed Services Committee has explicitly conceded that the risk of
"cyber Armageddon" is at best "remote."--Bill Blunden, "Cyber
Armageddon is a Myth," counterpunch.org, March 23, 2015]
[the wider campaign involved close cooperation with the U.S., which famously
collaborated to develop the Stuxnet computer virus responsible for destroying hundreds
of Iranian centrifuges--Sebastien Roblin, "How Israel Tried to Destroy Iran's Nuclear Program:
Assassinate the Scientists," nationalinterest.org, June 2, 2018]
Documentary about Stuxnet: Zero Days, February 16, 2019
The Spy in Your Phone, Al Jazeera World, January 6, 2021
Zero-day: a software bug that allows a hacker to break into your devices . . . For
decades, the United States government became the world's dominant hoarder of zero-days .
. . Then the United States government lost control of the hoard and the market. (jacket inside) . . .
President George W. Bush needed something to get the Israelis off his back that didn't entail
starting World War III. (Chapter 9, p117) . . .
To be fair, we were doing the same in Iran. We had been for years, actually. Under a
highly classified program conceived under Bush but acceleratated under Obama -- code
named Nitro Zeus -- U.S. Cyber Command started planting time bombs in Iran's
communications systems, air defenses, and critical parts of its grid. By June 2019 it
was safe to assume that Iran's attacks on U.S. critical infrastructure was Tehran
responding in kind. What the security community witnessed that summer was, in effect,
mutually assured destruction in real time. (p355) -- Nicole Perlroth, "This Is How
They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race," Bloomsbury Publishing;
1st edition (February 9, 2021)
How the Internet was Stolen, Then & Now, December 20, 2022
[One of Team Jorge's key services is a sophisticated software package, Advanced Impact
Media Solutions, or Aims. It controls a vast army of thousands of fake social media
profiles on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Telegram, Gmail, Instagram and
YouTube."--Stephanie Kirchgaessner, Manisha Ganguly, David Pegg, Carole Cadwalladr and
Jason Burke, "Revealed: the hacking and disinformation team
meddling in elections," theintercept.com, April 22, 2022]
[NSO Group's software targeted activists, journalists, politicians and executives.--Stephen Shankland, "Pegasus Spyware and Citizen Surveillance," cnet.com, July 19, 2022]
The "most influential English language philosopher of the nineteenth
century" John Stuart Mill: "He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of
that," is often cited as a key principle of critical thinking and reasoned debate. The
idea is that in order to have a truly informed and well-reasoned opinion, it is
important to consider and understand multiple perspectives and arguments, even those
that one may ultimately disagree with.--Enver Masud, "9/11: ChatGPT Answers Not Always
Valid," The Wisdom Fund, March 6, 2023
How U.S. CIA conducts cyberattacks on other countries, CGTN, May 4, 2023
[FBI violated the constitutional rights of 278,000 Americans in 2020 and 2021
with warrantless searches of their email and other electronic data.--Jim Bovard,
"Biggest FBI Spy Scandal of the Year," libertarianinstitute.org,
May 25, 2023]
Ex-Google Officer Finally Speaks Out On The Dangers Of AI! Diary of a CEO (Mohammad "Mo" Gawdat), June 1, 2023
Rob Braxman, Why the iPhone 16 Should Scare You, September 25, 2024
Eric Schmidt, What Is Critical Thinking and How Can It Be Acquired? November 14, 2024
COMMENT: It appears that we're headed toward more restrictions on
free speech, eg. Facebook's criteria
are so broadly stated that they can exclude discussion of subjects such as,
"Terrorism is the war of the poor, and war is the
terrorism of the rich."-- Sir Peter Ustinov
