I don't see how it could be interpreted in any other way. He referred to what is probably the most successful hack in history as 'embarrassing' without any real argument to back up his claim.
If Stuxnet fizzled out quickly, didn't work and exposed who was behind it, then I imagine it being an 'embarrassment' (in the way that the Dubai assassination could be referred to as an embarrassment). That situation could have called for a post outlining 'they did this part wrong, they could have tried this' (in the same way Schneier wrote about Dubai)
But the fact that Stuxnet was a blazing success, took years (unheard of) to be captured, months to be analyzed and totally broke new ground that everybody (lest the author of the post) didn't understand five months ago, nullifies all of the 20-20 hindsight theoretical feature improvement arguments made in the post.
The part I'm calling embarrassing is the lack of sophistication. If I were in the NSA and we had implemented this, I would be embarrassed.
What would make me proud is year upon year of subtle equipment failure that could not be attributed to any particular cause. When it was discovered years later, it would appear to be an innocent software bug. That's an overwhelming success.
When confronted with facts, you editorialize based on unsourced or anonymously sourced narrative journalism accounts in the mainstream press. Meanwhile, the points you make aren't even incompatible with his analysis.
Did you actually read the article, or are you too upset by the suggestion that Stuxnet was inexpertly constructed?
Comments
I don't see how it could be interpreted in any other way. He referred to what is probably the most successful hack in history as 'embarrassing' without any real argument to back up his claim.
If Stuxnet fizzled out quickly, didn't work and exposed who was behind it, then I imagine it being an 'embarrassment' (in the way that the Dubai assassination could be referred to as an embarrassment). That situation could have called for a post outlining 'they did this part wrong, they could have tried this' (in the same way Schneier wrote about Dubai)
But the fact that Stuxnet was a blazing success, took years (unheard of) to be captured, months to be analyzed and totally broke new ground that everybody (lest the author of the post) didn't understand five months ago, nullifies all of the 20-20 hindsight theoretical feature improvement arguments made in the post.
The part I'm calling embarrassing is the lack of sophistication. If I were in the NSA and we had implemented this, I would be embarrassed.
What would make me proud is year upon year of subtle equipment failure that could not be attributed to any particular cause. When it was discovered years later, it would appear to be an innocent software bug. That's an overwhelming success.
When confronted with facts, you editorialize based on unsourced or anonymously sourced narrative journalism accounts in the mainstream press. Meanwhile, the points you make aren't even incompatible with his analysis.
Did you actually read the article, or are you too upset by the suggestion that Stuxnet was inexpertly constructed?