[btilly]

And so it does. I stand corrected. The USSR was indeed called the lesser Satan 35 years ago.

However the link that I provided to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Russia_relations says that Iran and the USSR had poor relations (due to the whole atheism thing), but Iran and Russia have had good relations since the USSR fell. Do you have a reference to Iran calling Russia any version of Satan in, say, the last 15 years?

[avodonosov]

Lets better return to the subject.

I agree with your overall conclusion that it's possible the attack was carried out by some special agencies, and that it might be reasonable from their standpoint.

But the chain of causality you draw looks to me as an arbitrary fantasy; or to say better, only one of many possible explanations. It puts together several unverified assumptions - statements which are not 100% true, but only probable to some degree.

The probability of all that happen together is a multiplication of all the probabilities, and therefore a small number.

There is no evidence that Kaspersky Labs work for Russian intelligence. Yes, there were articles where journalists say "oh, he worked in KGB, so we can imagine they still cooperate". The fact we can imagine something doesn't mean it's true. All we can say for sure, Kaspersky Labs maybe work for KGB, or maybe not (including they work for somebody else, why not imagine this).

Does Russia want to support Iranian nuclear program, up to providing cyber security? IMHO unlikely, but again - maybe yes, maybe no.

Even if Russia decided to support Iran, there is no proof Russia employed Kaspersky and not a proper department of intelligence service - maybe Kaspersky detected stuxnet fairly, during their anti-virus research (their primary business, isn't it possible)?

Even that stuxnet is an US intelligence creature is not a 100% fact; there were strong evidence to support that, but we don't know 100%.

0.1 * 0.2 * 0.4 * 0.9 = 0.0072

Put your own number if you find your assumptions more realistic:

    P(Kaspersky Labs work for KGB)                                        = 0.8
    P(Russia wants so provide cyber security for Iranian nuclear program) = 0.5
    P(Kasperky Labs detected stuxnet specifically because
      of intelligence order, as russian intelligence
      has no other cybersecurity departments)                             = 0.5
    P(stuxned is developed by US intelligence to attack Iran)             = 0.95

Anyway, the combined probability of 0.8 * 0.5 * 0.5 * 0.95 = 0.19

[btilly]

You are missing the fact that there are other logical routes to the scenario, and some of those assumptions are correlated.

For example instead of Russia wanting to provide cyber security, Russia saw the opportunity to embarrass the US and score brownie points with Iran.

Instead of Kaspersky detected because of intelligence order, Kaspersky detected because they happened to be the ones in a position to do so.

And if Russia wanted to provide cyber security for Iran, then the odds are high that Kaspersky would be a component of that. Not because Russia has no other options, but because it is an obvious component that can be made available.

[avodonosov]

> You are missing the fact that there are other logical routes to the scenario.

No, you are missing the fact that there are lot of possible explanations outside of the scenario.

Even if the current attack was by US and/or Israel intelligence, penetrating Kaspersky may be useful for them just as it is, to keep eye on Kaspersky anti-virus technologies and find a way to to avoid them. Without any "revenge" for Iran.

Moreover, I've just checked https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet#History , stuxnet wasn't detected by Kaspersky, it was another company. Also, "The reason for the discovery at this time is attributed to the virus accidentally spreading beyond its intended target (the Natanz plant) due to a programming error introduced in an update". So this whole episode doesn't present Kaspersky as an active enemy of US intelligence.

I doubt very very much Russia wants to help Iran to get nuclear weapons - no country will help another country to get nuclear weapons, even if they can win "brownie points".