Iran's Cyberwarfare Head Shot Dead Under Mysterious Circumstances

 

Mojtaba Ahmadi, the head of Iran's cyberwarfare division was shot to death under mysterious circumstances in a wooded area near the town of Karaj, just north-west of Tehran.

According to Alborz,the Revolutionary Guard's website, local police said that he was shot dead Saturday by two men on a motorbike.

A motorbike...that rings a bell. Ah, yes that's reminiscent of how Iranian nuke scientist Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan was taken out, with a magnetic bomb attached to his car by two men on a motorbike.

No one in Iran has come up with the usual accusation against the all powerful, insidious Zionists. As a matter of fact, when the officers of the Cyber War Headquarters confirmed that Ahmadi had been their commander and posted condolence messages on their Facebook page, Alborz took them to task for revealing too much information.

“Stop giving more information about him. The counter-revolutionaries will take advantage of his murder,It sounds like a hit job for a security officer of this importance”.

My money is on the Iranian dissident group Mujahadeen-e-Khalq (MEK)as the actual hit men..perhaps with a little Mossad encouragement, perhaps not.

In any event, nice work.

Group Who Raised Funds To Buy George Zimmerman A Gun Hit With Massive DNS Attack

The Buckeye Firearms Association was an Ohio group raised funds to buy George Zimmerman a gun to protect himself with after Eric Holder and the Department of Justice placed a hold on Zimmerman receiving his gun back, which had been held as evidence during the trial.

Since Zimmerman, his attorneys and his family have been subject to numerous death threats and his personal information including his home address was broadcast 'accidentally' by CNN, denying him the protection of a firearm essentially turned him into a sitting duck.

Yesterday, the Buckeye Firearms Association's website was hit with a massive denial of service (DNS) attack that took out took out both Buckeye Firearms Association and Buckeye Firearms Foundation’s websites:

“Our IT guy says it’s a ‘denial of service’ or DoS attack. This is not the ordinary ‘hack’ attack that we’ve experienced many times in the past,” Rieck said. ”A DoS attack involves using significant resources to bombard a server to temporarily or permanently disrupt service.”

According to Rieck, the damage was so extensive, it cut off cell phone service and shut down the company hosting the association’s website.

“Our email communication services also went down. Leaders are located all over the state of Ohio, so we’ve had to set up a temporary alternate email list to stay in touch as we work through this issue,” Rieck said. “This attack was so overwhelming, it took down the entire company that hosts our website. Thousands of IP addresses have been caught up in the digital bloodshed. Shortly after all the company servers went down, their power went down. And our IT guy says his cell phone service vanished.”

In a Facebook post, the association also said the attack shut down power in the building.

A Denial of Service attack is usually an artificial call for content resulting in an overwhelming amount of server requests. It is designed to disable the targeted servers or cripple the servers so that content is delivered so slowly it makes the website unusable.


An attack that massive that could take down internet, power, AND cell service at the same time is is far beyond the resources of a hacker, because these are 3 separate networks.

A year ago, I would have said that anyone saying this was venturing into tin foil hat country, but after the IRS scandal, the NSA scandal and the AP scandal, I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that this was done by the Obama Administration to send a message. I wouldn't be surprised top see more of this happening.

Zimmerman, by the way has already received a check from the association to buy a new firearm.

Were Mitt Romney's Tax Returns Stolen?

There's a story circulating the outskirts of the internet that an anonymous group says that it stole copies of GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney's tax records and is threatening to release them publicly unless they're paid $1 million in a Bitcoin (Internet currency) account.

The local Democratic and Republican parties in Williamson County, Tennessee where the PricewaterhouseCoopers office is located both received packages from the hackers containing a thumb drive and a letter outlining a competitive-bidding ransom scheme to start a bidding war against each other over the release of Romney’s taxes.

"Using your office" in Franklin, Tennessee, the group tells PricewaterhouseCoopers in an online posting, "we were able to gain access to your network file servers and copy over the tax documents for one Willard M Romney and Ann D Romney."

It threatens to send encrypted copies to "all major news outlets" and warns, "If the parties interested do not want the encrypted key released to the public to unlock these documents on September 28 of this year then payment will be necessary."

If the money is not received, "the entire world will be allowed to view the documents with a publicly released key to unlock everything," the group warns.

The website Pastebin has a piece up that allegedly describes the supposed caper:

Romney’s 1040 tax returns were taken from the PWC office 8/25/2012 by gaining access to the third floor via a gentleman working on the 3rd floor of the building. Once on the 3rd floor, the team moved down the stairs to the 2nd floor and setup shop in an empty office room. During the night, suite 260 was entered, and all available 1040 tax forms for Romney were copied. A package was sent to the PWC on suite 260 with a flash drive containing a copy of the 1040 files, plus copies were sent to the Democratic office in the county and copies were sent to the GOP office in the county at the beginning of the week also containing flash drives with copies of Romney’s tax returns before 2010. A scanned signature image for Mitt Romney from the 1040 forms were scanned and included with the packages, taken from earlier 1040 tax forms gathered and stored on the flash drives.

According to Williamson County Democratic Party Chairman Peter Burr, who received one of the packages, the letter states the Democrats have the option of outbidding PricewaterhouseCoopers or the GOP in order to ensure publication.

For its part, PricewaterhouseCoopers has said that they are working with the U.S. Secret Service and that there is no evidence that any of their data was compromised or that there was any unauthorized access.In fact, it would be very difficult to do this electronically without leaving footprints.And a 'scanned copy' of Mitt Romney's signature can be found on the net in maybe 2 minutes, tops.

But of course, this all might be nothing more than an elaborate story cooked up by the Obama Administration to cover the real crime.

Remember that the IRS is a federal agency under President Obama's direct control, and if he and his campaign wants copies of Mitt and Ann Romney's tax returns, all he has to do is shoot a memo over to Tim Geithner to get their hands on them.I would almost guarantee they already have, and that the misleading attack ads are ready to roll.

And what better way to cover the sudden onslaught than to come up with the story of an anonymous hacker group?

But of course, the president would never be a part of such a dishonorable, illegal and dishonest scheme just to win an election, right?

Would he ever. Just ask former Illinois Republican Senate candidate Jack Ryan, who was beating a certain Democrat named Barack Obama back in 2004 until somebody went judge shopping and got a Democrat appointed judge in Los Angeles to issue a court order making Ryan's sealed records from an acrimonious divorce and custody battle public. Ryan subsequently left the race.

If I'm right (and obviously, I hope I'm not), I still don't think this is going to be a game changer,with everything else that's going on.If nothing else, Governor Romney, who's not stupid, has to have considered the possibility that his tax records would be illegally leaked and prepared certain counter measures.

We'll see...

Iranian Scientist Claims Nukes Program Attacked By New Worm

I haven't been able to verify this independently from any of my sources, but it's worth looking at. And the ending made me laugh!

The writer has this e-mail from an Iranian scientist:

I am writing you to inform you that our nuclear program has once again been compromised and attacked by a new worm with exploits which have shut down our automation network at Natanz and another facility Fordo near Qom.

According to the email our cyber experts sent to our teams, they believe a hacker tool Metasploit was used. The hackers had access to our VPN. The automation network and Siemens hardware were attacked and shut down. I only know very little about these cyber issues as I am scientist not a computer expert.

There was also some music playing randomly on several of the workstations during the middle of the night with the volume maxed out. I believe it was playing 'Thunderstruck' by AC/DC.

Ah hah hah! Get 'em, Angus..fair dinkum!!


I love the part where whomever the sender is claims he is 'just a scientist.' That's undoubtedly how the guys in the infamous Bureau D over at Degesh, an IG Farben subsidiary thought of themselves while they were doing experiments with Zyklon B to murder concentration camp victims more efficiently.

Nasty Computer Virus Alert

I received the information below from a trusted source, and after researching it I verified that there's a new, insidious and dangerous computer virus being spread. Tis is NOT a joke...please circulate this to your friends, family and contacts:


Subject: URGENT!!

PLEASE CIRCULATE THIS NOTICE TO YOUR
FRIENDS, FAMILY, CONTACTS!

In the coming days, you should be
aware.....Do not open any message with an
attachment call ed : Invitation FACEBOOK,
regardless of who sent it. It is a
virus that opens an OlympIc torch that burns
the whole hard disc C of your computer.
Virus name: KOOBFACE.

This virus will be received from someone you had in
your address book. That's why you should send this
message to all your contacts. It is better to
receive this email 25 times than to receive the
virus and open it.



If you receive an email call ed : Invitation FACEBOOK, though sent
by a friend, do not open it and delete it imm ed iately. It is the
worst virus announced by CNN. A new virus has been discovered
recently that has been classified by Microsoft as the most
destructive virus ever.
It is a Trojan Horse that asks you to watch a YOU TUBE video and
install an adobe flash plug-in. Once you install it, it's all over.
And there is no repair yet for this kind of virus. This virus simply
destroys the Zero Sector of the Hard Disc, where the vital
information of their function is saved.

The UK's New Law: Internet Bans For Criminals And "A Wider Group Of Offenders"

The UK has a brand new law that enables police and courts to make use of what are called “cyber sanctions” to restrict access to the social networks and instant messaging services in cases of hacking, fraud and online bullying. Sex offenders and those convicted of 'harassment or anti-social behaviour' also can have their internet access restricted or terminated under the new law.

Officials are now looking into whether "cyber tag" technology could be used to monitor offenders and report to authorities if break their bail or sentence conditions by using the internet.

"The Ministry of Justice and the Home Office will consider and scope the development of a new way of enforcing these orders, using ‘cyber-tags’ which are triggered by the offender breaching the conditions that have been put on their internet use, and which will automatically inform the police or probation service," cyber security strategy said.

It added that if the regime is a success restrictions on internet use could be imposed on "a wider group of offenders".

Police forces across the country will also follow the example of the Met’s Police Central e-Crime Unit by recruiting “cyber specials”; internet experts will be encouraged to volunteer as special constables to help investigate online crime.

And exactly who will that 'wider group of offenders' consist of? People who don't don't hold the proper politically correct view of Islam, perhaps? People who have a differing view on Britons being disarmed, or who dislike the government's economic, immigration or foreign policies? People who have a dissenting view on Britain's participation in the EU? The possibilities are endless once this gets started.

And depend of some or all of these definitions of 'a wider group of offenders' to be instituted. Britain is fast approaching the status of a non-free country.

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Israel's Secret Electronic Warfare Weapons

Much of this has been known to anyone who's been paying attention, ( in fact, there are other things I've heard tell of that are equally devastating) but this article by defense expert Eli Lake does a pretty good job of giving you an idea of some of the tools the IDF has available to take out Iran's nukes:

For much of the last decade, as Iran methodically built its nuclear program, Israel has been assembling a multibillion-dollar array of high-tech weapons that would allow it to jam, blind, and deafen Tehran's defenses in the case of a pre-emptive aerial strike.

A U.S. intelligence assessment this summer, described to The Daily Beast by current and former U.S. intelligence officials, concluded that any Israeli attack on hardened nuclear sites in Iran would go far beyond airstrikes from F-15 and F-16 fighter planes and likely include electronic warfare against Iran’s electric grid, Internet, cellphone network, and emergency frequencies for firemen and police officers.

For example, Israel has developed a weapon capable of mimicking a maintenance cellphone signal that commands a cell network to “sleep,” effectively stopping transmissions, officials confirmed. The Israelis also have jammers capable of creating interference within Iran’s emergency frequencies for first responders.

In a 2007 attack on a suspected nuclear site at al-Kibar, the Syrian military got a taste of this warfare when Israeli planes “spoofed” the country’s air-defense radars, at first making it appear that no jets were in the sky and then in an instant making the radar believe the sky was filled with hundreds of planes.

Israel also likely would exploit a vulnerability that U.S. officials detected two years ago in Iran's big-city electric grids, which are not “air-gapped”—meaning they are connected to the Internet and therefore vulnerable to a Stuxnet-style cyberattack—officials say.

A highly secretive research lab attached to the U.S. joint staff and combatant commands, known as the Joint Warfare Analysis Center (JWAC), discovered the weakness in Iran’s electrical grid in 2009, according to one retired senior military intelligence officer. This source also said the Israelis have the capability to bring a denial-of-service attack to nodes of Iran’s command and control system that rely on the Internet.

Tony Decarbo, the executive officer for JWAC, declined comment for this story. The likely delivery method for the electronic elements of this attack would be an unmanned aerial vehicle the size of a jumbo jet. An earlier version of the bird was called the Heron, the latest version is known as the Eitan. According to the Israeli press, the Eitan can fly for 20 straight hours and carry a payload of one ton. Another version of the drone, however, can fly up to 45 straight hours, according to U.S. and Israeli officials.

Unmanned drones have been an integral part of U.S. wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, gathering intelligence and firing missiles at suspected insurgents. But Israel's fleet has been specially fitted for electronic warfare, according to officials.

The Eitans and Herons would also likely be working with a special Israeli air force unit known as the Sky Crows, which focuses only on electronic warfare. A 2010 piece in The Jerusalem Post quoted the commander of the electronic warfare unit as saying, “Our objective is to activate our systems and to disrupt and neutralize the enemy’s systems.”

Read the rest here.

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A Mysterious Explosion In Iran...

There was a mystery explosion this weekend at an Iranian missile base in Bidganeh, near the city of Karaj about 25 miles to the west of Teheran, the Iranian capital.

Apparently there was an initial explosion - known in tradecraft as a 'trigger'- followed by a much larger one, so the Iranian reports of an 'accident in transferring ammunition' are about as truthful as almost everything else that comes from the regime.

The base housed a number of Iran's Shahab-3 missiles which reputedly have th erange to hit Israel. According to the recent IAEA report, Iran has experimented with removing the conventional warhead on the Shahab-3 and replacing it with one that would hold a nuclear device.

The base was devastated and at least 17 people, 8 of them members of the Pasdaran (Iranian Revolutionary Guards) were reported killed,with a number of others in critical condition.

Among the dead was Major General Hassan Moqqadam, who was in charge of Iran's missile program and a key figure in dispersing and strengthening Iran's nuclear facilities. His removal will almost certainly have a major slowing effect in those areas.

Needless to say,Israel's Mossad quickly became the prime suspect. The Israeli paper Yedioth Ahronoth ran an article yesterday called "Iran's Mysterious Mishaps" that showed a number of interesting occurrences including several explosions at missile bases and related facilities, as well as the assassinations of three key Iranian scientists working in the nuclear program.

In the US, TIME Magazine's anti-Israel writer Karl Vick claimed that a US official had told him the Mossad was behind the blast.(via memeorandum):

"Don't believe the Iranians that it was an accident," the official tells TIME, adding that other sabotage is being planned to impede the Iranian ability to develop and deliver a nuclear weapon. "There are more bullets in the magazine," the official says.

The Mossad regularly keeps mum on the operations it performs, and has had no comment about the allegations.

However, speaking of bullets, a new computer worm has surfaced in Iran's nuclear facilities, a variant of Stuxnet called 'Duqu'. Duqu reportedly is designed to gain remote access capabilities to allow future cyber attacks and make them harder to combat.

Someone doesn't like the idea of Iran having nuclear weapons.

As to the latest explosion - and actually, several other incidents - I'm fully prepared to say that this was merely a fortuitous work accident. However,based on some knowledge I happen to have, I'd like to draw my readers attention to a couple of seemingly unrelated items.

The first is the existence of an Iranian dissident group known as the Mujahadeen-e-Khalq (MEK). They're an interesting mix of leftists/liberals who embrace certain Islamist principles and originally supported the democratic, reformist Islamic Freedom Movement of Iran, headed by Mehdi Bazargan. When the Ayatollah Khomeini co-opted the Iranian revolution, pushed Bazargan out and turned Iran into a theocratic fascist state run on the principles of the villayat e-fiqh (rule of Islamic judges), they turned against the regime. Their leaders were subsequently executed and the group went underground where it became one of the chief opposition groups to the Iranian regime. Both the EU and US have designated MEK a terrorist group, since they've had no problem in the past using violence as part of their resistance activities.

The second is an old Middle East proverb you may have heard: 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend.'

Selah.

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The Latest On Stuxnet

The Mullahs are stil trying to cope with the depredations of the evil Stuxnet computer worm on their illegal nuclear program,and some experts are saying it might have set them back as much as two years.

A German computer expert was quoted by the Jerusalem Post as saying, “This was nearly as effective as a military strike, but even better since there are no fatalities and no full-blown war. From a military perspective, this was a huge success.”

“It is extremely difficult to clean up installations from Stuxnet, and we know that Iran is no good in IT [information technology] security, and they are just beginning to learn what this all means,” he said. “Just to get their systems running again they have to get rid of the virus, and this will take time, and then they need to replace the equipment, and they have to rebuild the centrifuges at Natanz and possibly buy a new turbine for Bushehr.”

While I think two years is optimistic, there's no doubt this was a major setback.So who was responsible?

The Israelis are widely suspected, and as a matter of fact they do have a secret unit that's proven itself to be very effective at cyberwarfare.

The US is also a prime suspect, and as the expert the Post spoke to speculated, it might even have been a joint effort,although I doubt it.

“We can say that it must have taken several years to develop, and we arrived at this conclusion through code analysis, since the code on the control systems is 15,000 lines of code, and this is a huge amount.”

“This piece of evidence led us to conclude that this is not by a hacker,” he continued. “It had to be a country, and we can also conclude that even one nation-state would not have been able to do this on its own.”

One fact against the supposition of a joint effort is the fact that no details have leaked out yet.The Israelis are notoriously good at keeping these sort of things quiet, the Americans not so much. And as the old Sicilian saying goes, a secret is something only two people keep only when one of them is dead.

One interesting bit of speculation was forwarded tome via Joshua's Army member Dan Friedman. According to another expert, Jeffrey Carr writing at Forbes, the real culprit was the Chinese.. and he presents some pretty compelling evidence, based on several Chinese companies involved, China having access to a full Windows Source code, China having little or no evidence of Stuxnet problems even though they should have had vulnerability and the fact that the Iranian centrifuges may actually be a Chinese design.

According to Carr, the benefit for the Chinese is to keep a major oil supplier to China pumping out crude while sabotaging Iran's nuclear program to keep Israel or the US from a military attack that might interdict the oil flow to China not only from Iran but the entire Persian Gulf.

(an additonal hat tip to Joahua's Army member Louie Louie on this one)

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