High School and National Security Breaches

I'm incredibly glad that I'm not in high school overseas right now (also, glad I'm not in high school at all).  I was living in (and attending an international school in) a different country during Clinton's impeachment for my 9th-11th grade years.  Many of my local national classmates were pretty xenophobic - to the point that it lead to at least one full contact fight.  Now, imagine the rough times you had in 9th-12th grade.  Now, imagine them amplified in the situation I just described; with a President very publicly dodging political shots about cigars in places they don't belong and zippers undone.  Not pleasant.  One or two of my British teachers got in on the action, too.  They seemed to take excessive delight in the fact that an American President was (seemingly) tail-spinning.  Why am I recounting this?  Easy.  That period was particularly difficult because I was assumed to be a quasi-Ambassador in school (kids from other countries were informally expected to represent their homelands, as well, so it wasn't unique to me).  And there was no way I could defend my President's actions other than saying "Well, a whole bunch of our Presidents did similar things.  They just didn't get caught."  That's not a terribly effective argument.

Politics aside, I can sympathize with American students in Poland and Israel.  It looks like someone in the White House couldn't be bothered to do even basic research before the President's speech in Poland ("Polish death camps").  Yes, Auschwitz was located in Poland.  No, it wasn't because the Poles loved killing Jews, Slavs, homosexuals, the disabled, etc.  They were mostly occupied, and the death camp was German.  Way to insult an entire nation, Mr. President - they've been fighting the idea that the camps were "Polish" since the Second World War, rightfully so.  So, that covers the former, what about the latter?

It looks like someone in the White House leaked (not sure if that's the right word; "gushed" might be more accurate) specific details about joint American-Israeli cyber-operations targeting Iran.  I'm thinking that Axelrod might be a player in this, but who knows?  Besides revealing incredibly classified information (a federal crime, by the way) and putting an ally at risk, this is tactically insane.  You don't expose these programs to The New York Times (link h/t Ace).  That's not "transparency".  A big part of warfare is not revealing your capabilities or actions to the enemy.  If Iran had suspicions about where Stuxnet and other cyber-attacks came from, fine.  No proof, not such a big deal.  Blowing the lid on this (and, umm, despite "declin[ing]" to say whether it's us or not, you're pretty much confirming it) - whole different matter; logistically, ethically, legalistic-ally etc.  Beyond that, (whoever) just admitted that we're essentially at war with Iran.  Now, I'm all for acknowledging that American-Iranian engagements, particularly since 1979, are primarily hostile.  We've known for a while that many EFPs (explosively formed penetrators - a form of IED that is/was killing and wounding untold numbers of U.S. servicemen in Iraq/Afghanistan) originated in Iran.  To anyone following the news, that's not a huge revelation.  But this?  Really?  Other than reducing the effectiveness of the cyber-weapons discussed (and Flame appears to be one of the most advanced out there) you've just opened up the entire U.S. to retaliation.  Wonderful.

I spent some time working on the defensive side of the cyber game.  It's not terribly glamorous - I always harbored a fantasy that I was skilled enough to work on the offensive side - but it's necessary.  Here's the issue: I was working in a field that is all over the Internet.  Your web browser uses a less complicated version of what I was working with.  The vulnerabilities are pretty limited and you can find information about them on Wikipedia.  That doesn't hold true on the offensive side.  The code these guys are engineering is groundbreaking, apparently effective, and not suitable for a damn Wikipedia page or news article!  That just seems...elementary.

I really debated posting this.  As far as sensitivity of information goes I haven't mentioned anything that's not on my resume, but I still don't like drawing attention to national security breaches.  In this case, it's been published in the Times.  That makes it, as far as I'm concerned, a cat/bag issue.  I imagine that Iranian intelligence pays far more attention to the NYT than my blog.

Exit question:  Does this give Iran (despite being sanctioned on several levels) grounds to pursue action against the U.S. at the UN?