Monthly Archives: November 2013

“Stuxnet’s Secret Twin” By RALPH LANGNER

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Interesting article on Iran’s nuclear program and Stuxnet virus.

“Three years after it was discovered, Stuxnet, the first publicly disclosed cyberweapon, continues to baffle military strategists, computer security experts, political decision-makers, and the general public. A comfortable narrative has formed around the weapon: how it attacked the Iranian nuclear facility at Natanz, how it was designed to be undiscoverable, how it escaped from Natanz against its creators’ wishes. Major elements of that story are either incorrect or incomplete.”

“That’s because Stuxnet is not really one weapon, but two. The vast majority of the attention has been paid to Stuxnet’s smaller and simpler attack routine — the one that changes the speeds of the rotors in a centrifuge, which is used to enrich uranium. But the second and “forgotten” routine is about an order of magnitude more complex and stealthy. It qualifies as a nightmare for those who understand industrial control system security. And strangely, this more sophisticated attack came first. The simpler, more familiar routine followed only years later — and was discovered in comparatively short order. ”

“The IR-1 centrifuge is the backbone of Iran’s uranium-enrichment effort. It goes back to a European design from the late 1960s and early 1970s that was stolen and slightly improved by Pakistani nuclear trafficker A.Q. Khan. The IR-1 is an all-metal design that can work reliably. That is, if parts are manufactured with precision and critical components such as high-quality frequency converters and constant torque drives are available. But the Iranians never managed to get a high degree of reliability from the obsolete design. So they had  to lower the operating pressure of the centrifuges at Natanz. Lower operating pressure means less mechanical stress on the delicate centrifuge rotors, thereby reducing the numbers of centrifuges that have to be put offline because of rotor damage. But less pressure means less throughput — and thus less efficiency. At best, the IR-1 was half as efficient as its ultimate predecessor”

“The low-yield approach also offered added value. It drove Iranian engineers crazy, up to the point where they might have ultimately ended up in total frustration about their capabilities to get a stolen plant design from the 1970s running and to get value from their overkill digital protection system. When comparing the Pakistani and Iranian uranium-enrichment programs, one cannot fail to notice a major performance difference. Pakistan basically managed to go from zero to successful low-enriched uranium production within just two years during shaky economic times, without the latest in digital control technology. The same effort took Iran over 10 years, despite the jump-start from Pakistan’s A.Q. Khan network and abundant money from sales of crude oil. If Iran’s engineers didn’t look incompetent before, they certainly did during the time when Stuxnet was infiltrating their systems.”

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/11/19/stuxnets_secret_twin_iran_nukes_cyber_attack

 

Why Pakistan Lionizes Its Tormenters

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(The article describes the contradictions in Pakistani national and political attitudes towards their terrorist tormentors.
Nasik)

Four years ago, in the main street of Mingora, the largest town in Pakistan’s Swat Valley, I saw a man trying to make and sell kebabs. The coals weren’t catching fire, he was fanning them with a rolled-up newspaper, and the skewers were all over the place; it was quite obvious that the man was new to this type of work.

Swat had just been handed over to a man called Mullah Fazlullah, who had terrorized the valley in a bid to usher in his one and only version of Sharia law. He was trying to achieve this by running a very lively and illegal FM radio station and commanding a bunch of fighters from tribal areas, along with young sectarian zealots from the Punjab who specialized in blowing up girls’ schools and slitting the throats of Pakistani soldiers. They didn’t like dancers, so they pulled one out of her home and executed her in the bazaar. They also didn’t care much for barbershops, video stores, or women. Under Fazlullah’s regime, the main square in Mingora was known as Khooni Chowk—“Bloody Square”—because his fighters dumped their victims’ bodies there.

The struggling kebab-maker told me that he had owned a video shop, until a few days earlier, at least. Now he was trying out a new career, but it seemed like he didn’t have much of a future in Pakistan’s booming barbecue business, either; his eyes were teary from the smoke billowing off his improvised pit. He tried to make a handful of minced meat stick to a skewer, and said, sardonically, “See here, true Sharia has finally arrived in Swat.”

In 2009, the Pakistani Army launched an offensive to drive the Taliban out of Swat—and forced Fazlullah across the border, into Afghanistan. These days, the valley is relatively peaceful, and Pakistani tourists have returned in droves.

Fazlullah kept himself busy in exile: among other things, he issued the order to shoot Malala Yousafzai, the young education activist from Mingora. But he got a promotion earlier this week, when the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (usually known simply as the Pakistani Taliban, or T.T.P.) elected him as their new leader. In his very first statement, he declared that he would refuse any peace talks with the country’s government, which had finally managed to get a mandate from all political parties to hold such talks. Instead, Fazlullah’s first priority will be to take revenge for the death of his predecessor, Hakimullah Mehsud.

Mehsud, who had been “killed” by American drone strikes on at least two previous occasions, was actually killed by another drone strike at the start of November—transforming him overnight, in the eyes of Pakistani politicians and commentators, from a mass murderer into a martyr.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/11/taliban-mullah-fazlullah-why-pakistan-lionizes-its-tormenters.html?utm_source=tny&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailyemail&mbid=nl_Daily%20&mobify=0

 

Muslims, Homosexuality & Homophobia By Mehdi Hassan

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As a Muslim, I struggle with the idea of homosexuality – but I oppose homophobia.

I’ve made homophobic remarks in the past, writes Mehdi Hasan, but now I’ve grown up — and reconciled my Islamic beliefs with my attitude to gay rights.

And, in his 2011 book Reading the Quran, the British Muslim intellectual and writer Ziauddin Sardar argues that “there is abso­lutely no evidence that the Prophet punished anyone for homosexuality”. Sardar says “the demonisation of homosexuality in Muslim history is based largely on fabricated traditions and the unreconstituted prejudice harboured by most Muslim societies”. He highlights verse 31 of chapter 24 of the Quran, in which “we come across ‘men who have no sexual desire’ who can witness the ‘charms’ of women”. I must add here that Abdullah, Kugle and Sardar are in a tiny minority, as are the members of gay Muslim groups such as Imaan. Most mainstream Muslim scholars – even self-identified progressives and moderates such as Imam Hamza Yusuf in the United States and Professor Tariq Ramadan in the UK – consider homosexuality to be a grave sin. The Quran, after all, explicitly condemns the people of Lot for “approach[ing] males” (26:165) and for “lust[ing] on men in preference to women” (7:81), and describes marriage as an institution that is gender-based and procreative.

What about me? Where do I stand on this? For years I’ve been reluctant to answer questions on the subject. I was afraid of the “homophobe” tag. I didn’t want my gay friends and colleagues to look at me with horror, suspicion or disdain.

So let me be clear: yes, I’m a progressive who supports a secular society in which you don’t impose your faith on others – and in which the government, no matter how big or small, must always stay out of the bedroom. But I am also (to Richard Dawkins’s continuing disappointment) a believing Muslim. And, as a result, I really do struggle with this issue of homosexuality. As a supporter of secularism, I am willing to accept same-sex weddings in a state-sanctioned register office, on grounds of equity. As a believer in Islam, however, I insist that no mosque be forced to hold one against its wishes.

If you’re gay, that doesn’t mean I want to discriminate against you, belittle or bully you, abuse or offend you. Not at all. I don’t want to go back to the dark days of criminalisation and the imprisonment of gay men and women; of Section 28 and legalised discrimination. I’m disgusted by the violent repression and persecution of gay people across the Muslim-majority world.

I am writing this because I want to live in a society in which all minorities – Jews, Muslims, gay people and others – are protected from violence and abuse, from demonisation and discrimination. And because I want to apologise for any hurt or offence that I may have caused to my gay brothers and lesbian sisters.

And yes, whatever our differences – straight or gay, religious or atheist, male or female – we are all brothers and sisters. As the great Muslim leader of the 7th century and son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad, Ali ibn Abi Talib, once declared: “Remember that people are of two kinds; they are either your brothers in religion or your brothers in mankind.”

http://www.newstatesman.com/mehdi-hasan/2013/05/muslim-i-struggle-idea-homosexuality-i-oppose-homophobia

Mehdi Hasan is a contributing writer for the New Statesman and the political director of the Huffington Post UK,

 

 

 

Largest U.S. Muslim Organization Supports LGBT Anti-Discrimination Bill

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(Shared By Tahir Mahmood)

  • Post submitted by Michael Toumayan, HRC Religion and Faith Program Manager

    Last week, one of the clearest shifts in the decades-long debate over Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) came into light from the largest U.S.-based Muslim organization, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), joined a broad interfaith coalition, calling ENDA a “measured, common sense solution that will ensure workers are judged on their merits, not on their personal characteristics like sexual orientation or gender identity.”

    In a historic advancement for the LGBT rights movement, the Senate on Thursday approved ENDA, a bill that protects against workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. Despite advances in anti-discrimination in the workplace, Muslims continue to face unfair job discrimination. Our shared experiences of discrimination can provide a common basis to work with one another to mold a more inclusive America.

    Commenting on the shift of tone, Dr. Sharon Groves, Director of HRC’s Religion and Faith Program, regarded ISNA’s support of ENDA as a major step in right direction.

    “LGBT Muslims both in the U.S. and abroad need to hear from organizations like ISNA that their experiences as Muslims are recognized in the spirit of Islam’s emphasis on compassion and respect for all humanity,” said Groves.

    The movement for greater acceptance of LGBT people in Islam is growing. LGBT Muslims continue to be at the forefront of cutting edge scholarship at the intersection of Islam and issues affecting the lives of LGBT Muslims. Around the nation and the world, LGBT Muslims and their allies are working to build an inclusive faith — and having some notable success.

    A Pew Research survey released in August 2011 found that 39 percent of Muslim Americans belief homosexuality should be accepted by society. Still, there is greater support for societal acceptance of LGBT people among U.S. Muslims today than there was a few years ago when only 27 percent accepted.

 Today, LGBT Muslims are a cornerstone of the LGBT community. Muslim Americans have enriched our country with Islam’s core teachings of human dignity, egalitarianism, compassion and social justice.