The two kinds of 'Arab spring' revolutions

The Breakdown from Xymphora:   


There are two kinds of 'Arab spring' revolutions:



those that start somewhere, perhaps for purely local reasons, but quickly spread throughout the entire country due to a wide-spread desire for radical change (e.g., Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen); and


those that are based in some areas of the country and, despite the fact there are perfectly good reasons for the whole country to revolt, are based solely on local problems, are ethnically or religiously grounded, and refuse to spread (Syria, Libya).


"While the regime of President Bashar Assad has cracked down on smaller cities in Syria, residents of the nation's large cities, including Aleppo and the capital Damascus, seem ambivalent about staging mass protests." 'Ambivalent' is a funny way of putting it. They have been given every encouragement to revolt, and yet have weighed the possible outcomes, and clearly prefer the current regime to the possible replacements.
 
Let's talk about Yemen, man..
 
The Arab Spring Six Months Later  Gallery at link.
 
But where does the so-called Arab Spring stand? Full-on revolutions are remaking such regional heavyweights as Egypt and smaller states like Tunisia. But even as it grows harder and harder with every passing week to keep track of the proliferating unrest and revolt, it's clear that we are still only witnessing the earliest stages of what will undoubtedly mark a watershed episode in the history of the Arab world. And as such political moments go, much of the scene today is vicious, bloody, and uncertain.
 
The bombs keep falling in Libya.
 
Just in case you've forgotten about Palestine, Israel, and Syria..
 

All Hail The Peoples' Peaceful Revolution!

Amazing. I went to bed at 4a.m. last night with a terrible, ominous feeling, fully expecting to wake up to a full scale Mubarak blow-back in the form of some globally broadcast massacre. It's a testament to the collective will and temperament of the Egyptian people that they weren't, throughout the course of this uprising, baited into any kind of violent response. The demonstrators were resolute, the crowds got bigger, the class distinctions blurred, the working infrastructure ground to a halt, and finally, Mubarak had no alternative but to step down. The way in which Egyptian society handled this crisis was note perfect, and will be studied for years to come, both by advocates of non-violent resistance, and those wanting to crush those future movements.

In the coming weeks, the Egyptians(along with Israel, the rest of the Middle East, and the World) will have a host of issues to contend with, including fixing the damage done to the economy, how the Military will transition power , what form of government will emerge, and what the dynamics of the region will finally become.

But for the next few days, let the Egyptians celebrate what they have given themselves and the entire world: Hope upon hope for a happy ending under the most impossible of circumstances. The rest of us are indebted to your courage and strength. Thank you.

Egypt: Pipelines Are Poppin'

Egypt Pipeline Explosion Cuts Gas Supply To Israel Excerpts:

An explosion today on the Arab Gas Pipeline forced Egypt to shut off natural gas supplies to Israel and Jordan. There were conflicting reports out of Egypt as to the cause of the explosion, with the state-run Middle East News Agency saying the work was done by “subversive elements.” Oil Minister Samah Fahmy reportedly said it could take up to two weeks to repair the damage.

The pipeline is the third most strategically important piece of energy infrastructure in Egypt after the Suez Canal and the Sumed Pipeline. But it is the most important one to Israel, delivering 40% of Israeli natural gas supplies. The Israeli government said this afternoon that it did not expect any interruption of electricity supplies as the country has gas in storage and can also switch to other fuels like oil and diesel. Israel started receiving gas from the pipeline in 2008.

Assuming for a moment that this was not an accident, it represents a serious escalation of the crisis in Egypt.

As to the nature of the explosion, MSNBC plays up the terrorism angle, while Investors Business Daily plays it down. For clarity's sake, the fire/explosion happened at a facility that ultimately connects with pipelines heading both to Jordan and Israel. Reports are still conflicted as to whether the physical pipeline to Jordan was damaged, but Israel's pipeline was not.

This situation, while inconvenient for the Israelis(due to their rather large energy reserves), is devastating to the Jordanians, as they have no reserves, and import most of their energy solely from Egypt. Cause? To be determined, although my suspicious mind questions the perfect timing of this "accidental explosion." Which brings us to the focal question in this event's aftermath: Was this terrorism or something else?

Hi: Remember Me? I'm Stuxnet. We Met Back In July..

Flaws in Stuxnet Worm Deflect Suspicion From US, Israel. From The Epoch Times. Poorly thought out interpretation of events. Excerpts in italics:

The New York Times published an article on Jan. 16 shining more light onto the issue. It stated that Israel built nuclear centrifuges identical to those in the Bushehr plant to test a computer worm, and had cooperation from the United States. Although there is still no direct proof that the United States or Israel were behind Stuxnet, the two countries were the main suspects to begin with.

Despite accusations that Stuxnet was a U.S.-Israel project, there are flaws in the worm that suggest it was created elsewhere. Black Hat DC conference on digital exploits and cyberattacks on Jan. 18, security consultant Tom Parker analyzed Stuxnet’s code.

Parker “presented a compelling case that Stuxnet may be the product of a collaboration between two disparate groups, perhaps a talented group of programmers that produced most of the code and exploits and a less sophisticated group that may have adapted the tool for its eventual use,” states a report from Threat Post, the security news service of anti-virus company Kaspersky Lab.

"This was probably not a Western state. There were too many mistakes made. There's a lot that went wrong," Parker said, according to Threat Post. “There's too much technical inconsistency. But, the bugs were unlikely to fail. They were all logic flaws with high reliability." In simple terms, there were technical shortcomings, but the virus was still highly reliable.

Nate Lawson, a cybersecurity expert with Root Labs, analyzed Stuxnet in a Jan. 17 blog post, stating, “I really hope it wasn’t written by the USA because I’d like to think our elite cyberweapon developers at least know what Bulgarian teenagers did back in the early ’90s.”

Funny, but probably not. Here's a differing opinion:

The “Stuxnet” computer worm made international headlines in July, when security experts discovered that it was designed to exploit a previously unknown security hole in Microsoft Windows computers to steal industrial secrets and potentially disrupt operations of critical information networks. But new information about the worm shows that it leverages at least three other previously unknown security holes in Windows PCs, including a vulnerability that Redmond fixed in a software patch released today. (The article was last updated September 22, 2010)

..Experts say the worm was designed from the bottom up to attack so-called Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems, or those used to manage complex industrial networks, such as systems at power plants and chemical manufacturing facilities.

The worm was originally thought to spread mainly through the use of removable drives, such as USB sticks. But roughly two weeks after news of Stuxnet first surfaced, researchers at Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab discovered that the Stuxnet worm also could spread using an unknown security flaw in the way Windows shares printer resources. Microsoft fixed this vulnerability today(possibly September 22), with the release of MS10-061, which is rated critical for Windows XP systems and assigned a lesser “important” threat rating for Windows Vista and Windows 7 computers.

In a blog post today, Microsoft group manager Jerry Bryant said Stuxnet targeted two other previously unknown security vulnerabilities in Windows, including another one reported by Kaspersky. Microsoft has yet to address either of these two vulnerabilities – known as “privilege escalation” flaws because they let attackers elevate their user rights on computers where regular user accounts are blocked from making important system modifications.

Anti-virus researchers also discovered that Stuxnet leverages a Windows vulnerability that Microsoft patched back in 2008. Roel Schouwenberg, a senior anti-virus researcher at Kaspersky, said initially it wasn’t clear why the worm’s designers included such an antiquated vulnerability, which would almost certainly set off alarm bells inside of any organization using common intrusion detection and prevention tools.

But Schouwenberg said the inclusion of that 2008 vulnerability made more sense when he learned that most industrial control system networks do not employ these defensive tools or even basic network logging, as is common in most corporate networks. Consequently, he said, Stuxnet behaves differently depending on what type of network it thinks it is running on. Stuxnet performs some rudimentary checking to see whether it is on a corporate network or a control systems network: If it detects that it is running on a corporate network, it won’t invoke the older 2008 vulnerability, Schouwenberg said.

What can't Bulgarian teens from the 90's do? They must be amazing in person!

Returning to the first link for more.. Tenuous-ness..

Like Parker, Lawson states that the Stuxnet worm is full of holes. Among the shortcomings are “the Stuxnet developers seem to be unaware of more advanced techniques for hiding their target,” and “It does not use virtual machine-based obfuscation, novel techniques for anti-debugging, or anything else to make it different from the hundreds of malware samples found every day.” (Go back and re-read the previous link)

Giving it credit, Stuxnet was highly effective and accomplished at what it was likely set loose to do—destroy Iran’s nuclear centrifuges. It was also incredibly clean and was free of any digital fingerprints that could trace it back to its creator.

The worm has no potential for monetary gain, which made the United States and Israel prime suspects.

And:

The larger issue currently at hand is that the code behind Stuxnet is now freely available. A virus, which likely took millions of dollars to create, that can physically control moving parts of infrastructure, and can access systems even if they are not connected to the Internet, is on the loose. (With more variants TBA, ASAP..)

A quick Google search reveals that Stuxnet is readily available for anyone to download via file sharing websites and links on message boards. Stuxnet has the potential to cause massive damage, and the main risk is possible alterations that hackers, terrorists, or foreign governments could make to the virus.

Think of Stuxnet as the cyberweapon equivalent of an improvised explosive device (IED). It is easily attainable and can cause huge damage, but the world now knows how to spot it. (Except that targeted networks sometimes don't even use the software to identify the particular(and specific) entry, which could change locations with each new version..)Like an IED, the real potential is in the alterations that can be made to make it more damaging and harder to spot.

Stuxnet is Low-Tech sophisticated, effective in its mission, has/had two points of entry not immediately addressed by Microsoft, cost millions to produce, and is essentially "public domain," now available for upgrades and remixes by.. Just about anybody! This event, and all related consequential behavior sounds a lot more advanced and strategic than it portrays itself. Which is a reflection of Stuxnet's creators.

The first Sons of Stuxnet should be arriving anytime now..

So.. How about that Super Bowl?

Stuxnet: Imagine My Surprise

Israeli Test on Worm Called Crucial in Iran Nuclear Delay Excerpts:

The Dimona complex in the Negev desert is famous as the heavily guarded heart of Israel’s never-acknowledged nuclear arms program, where neat rows of factories make atomic fuel for the arsenal.

Over the past two years, according to intelligence and military experts familiar with its operations, Dimona has taken on a new, equally secret role — as a critical testing ground in a joint American and Israeli effort to undermine Iran’s efforts to make a bomb of its own.

Behind Dimona’s barbed wire, the experts say, Israel has spun nuclear centrifuges virtually identical to Iran’s at Natanz, where Iranian scientists are struggling to enrich uranium. They say Dimona tested the effectiveness of the Stuxnet computer worm, a destructive program that appears to have wiped out roughly a fifth of Iran’s nuclear centrifuges and helped delay, though not destroy, Tehran’s ability to make its first nuclear arms.

“To check out the worm, you have to know the machines,” said an American expert on nuclear intelligence. “The reason the worm has been effective is that the Israelis tried it out.”
Though American and Israeli officials refuse to talk publicly about what goes on at Dimona, the operations there, as well as related efforts in the United States, are among the newest and strongest clues suggesting that the virus was designed as an American-Israeli project to sabotage the Iranian program.

This comes as a total shock. Really. I won't admit otherwise until such time when everyone already knows and the point is irrelevant.

Julian Assange: Secret, SECRET Agent

Who is Julian Assange, and who does he work for?  That's easy.  He's obviously an asset of Israel.
And he's also, obviously, a Nazi. 

The mythology of Julian Assange continues to grow in opposite directions. Assange is a fascinating character, but I find the reactions and behavior of the opposing forces he has created equally as fascinating.  Palin as Lightning Rod?  Fat fuckin' chance.  Assange is the one who incites or inspires, and it is what he's created and creating that is the informational/technological/global political zeitgeist of our time, the time directly before our arrival at The Crossroads   of   Modern   History..

WikiLeaks: Vatican dropped Holocaust deal

MSNBC's take is a bit ambiguous, but this could be a really big deal..  Excerpts:


The Vatican abandoned plans to join an international Holocaust remembrance body amid tensions over the role of the war-time pope, a newspaper reported citing a U.S. diplomatic cable obtained by WikiLeaks.
..
It says there are 16 million documents from the papacy of Pope Pius XII, who the Guardian described as a "a controversial figure for his failure publicly to denounce the Holocaust in 1941 or 1942, when the Vatican was first informed of what was going on."
And:
Elan Steinberg, vice president of American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants, said in an emailed statement last month that Benedict's comments (In defense of the war time Pope's actions)"fill us with pain and sadness and cast a menacing shadow on Vatican-Jewish relations."


If Pius became a saint, that would create an "unfathomable breach" in Catholic-Jewish relations, Steinberg added. "Pius' silence during the Holocaust was a profound moral failure," he said.




Let's see:  Elements of WikiLeaks, The Vatican, The Pope, The Jews, and The Holocaust, all in one story.  Boring..  Stop boring me with your boring, beginning to be validated conspiracy theories..

Hey! X Did Equal X!

Israeli cyber unit responsible for Iran computer worm – claim Excerpts in italics:
Computer experts have discovered a biblical reference embedded in the code of the computer worm that has pointed to Israel as the origin of the cyber attack.

The code contains the word "myrtus", which is the Latin biological term for the myrtle tree. The Hebrew word for myrtle, Hadassah, was the birth name of Esther, the Jewish queen of Persia.
In the Bible, The Book of Esther tells how the queen pre-empted an attack on the country's Jewish population and then persuaded her husband to launch an attack before being attacked themselves.

Israel has threatened to launch a pre-emptive attack on Iran's facilities to ensure that the Islamic state does not gain the ability to threaten its existence.
Ralf Langner, a German researcher, claims that Unit 8200, the signals intelligence arm of the Israeli defence forces, perpetrated the computer virus attack by infiltrating the software into the Bushehr nuclear power station
Mr Langer said: "If you read the Bible you can make a guess."

Israel threatened an attack, and an attack happened. Wouldn't it be more surprising if Israel didn't do it?