A year ago, Iran's sans culottes saw their Prague Spring dissolve under the clouds of authoritarian might as sanctioned enforcers bulldozed disaffected voters into political silence. For a brief moment, technology seemed to offer a secret weapon to counter state silencers. Twitter enabled angry commoners to assemble en masse before government crowd busters could deploy storm troopers to stop them. Eventually, though, the protests faded. Protest leaders died, disappeared, or were hunted down for imprisonment, beatings, or worse.
Somewhere, as this story unfolded, the Wall Street Journal and other news organs reported that Siemens had supplied Iran with the means of tracking and monitoring telecommunications, like those annoying text and Twitter messages so important for protesting citizens involved in organizing marches and demonstrations.
Isn't it interesting that this year now finds the Iranian government frustrated by the Stuxnet worm targeting another Siemens product? The product, in this case, is Siemens' supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system for Iran's nuclear power facility. While this cyber malware is sophisticated to the point of speculation of state sponsorship, could there be another facet to this attack? Could it be that some disaffected citizen who lost a loved one in last year's protest crackdowns had the sophistication and motivation to strike back not only at the Iranian government but also at a contractor who provided that government with tools to undermine popular resistance? Is there an element of revenge in play, one wonders?
-- Nick Catrantzos
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Nick Catrantzos + Tom Goff
- All Secure
- NICK CATRANTZOS is the lead author of the All Secure website and is the emeritus security director for a large public organization. He has also managed security aspects of corporate takeovers, response to international hostage situations, and finding and keeping secrets. He has been board certified in security management, licensed as a private investigator, and certified as an incident commander. He worked as a case officer for a discreet branch of public service. He protected stealth technology at Lockheed and, later, as a consulting security director for both Kroll and Control Risks, he assisted executives with workplace violence cases and with protecting VIPs and critical assets globally in volatile areas. Nick's partner, TOM GOFF, was a captain in the Military Police Corps, U.S. Army Reserve and has a law degree from the University of California at Davis. He is a former reporter for Fortune Magazine, was senior editor at New York Magazine and Esquire, and has provided crisis and communications counsel to senior executives at Fortune 500 companies, including Lockheed, ARCO, Microsoft, Nissan, and Sony Pictures.