Ethical Programming

I'm not sure how familiar you all are with the malicious computer worm, Stuxnet, that became widely publicized back in 2010. Many experts believe that it was a jointly built American-Israeli cyber weapon. It was supposedly built during the Bush administration and designed to discreetly sabotage Iran's nuclear program. I say discreetly because the way it was set up was meant to leave the intended victim completely clueless as to what happened. The code was supposed to put out fake normal operation values through the use of programmable logic controllers (PLC's) so the process would continue to run as intended, while still being infected by the worm and giving unexpected commands. The discovery of this malware was due to the virus accidentally spreading beyond its intended target because of a programming error introduced in an update. This led the worm to spread to an engineer's computer. It was spread even further when the engineer returned home and connected his computer to the internet.

I understand the desire to use such technology for good, and I must say, I'm all for it. The issue here is the fact that due to a seemingly careless mistake, our cover was blown and the world found out that this type of warfare is very possible. Stuxnet succeeded in infecting almost 60% of Iran's computers, but at what cost? Now there is the danger that more malicious and infectious software is being developed, perhaps not even with the intent for war against a legitimate enemy, but for the simple pleasure of sabotaging certain processes here in the US.


I believe that certain measures should be taken to minimize the threat of attacks such as nuclear weapons pose, but if this route is to be taken, it should be taken with extreme care and flawless precision. Due to an individual's, or a group of individuals, simple overlooking of a program update, it's readily available knowledge that automated processes can be attacked without the user knowing it. This should call for stricter security on our end as well.