A rather fascinating story in today’s New York Times:
Deep inside the computer worm that some specialists suspect is aimed at slowing Iran’s race for a nuclear weapon lies what could be a fleeting reference to the Book of Esther, the Old Testament tale in which the Jews pre-empt a Persian plot to destroy them.
That use of the word “Myrtus” — which can be read as an allusion to Esther — to name a file inside the code is one of several murky clues that have emerged as computer experts try to trace the origin and purpose of the rogue Stuxnet program, which seeks out a specific kind of command module for industrial equipment.
The U.S. and Israeli government have been curiously silent about the worm thus far. The Times also reports that Obama administration has “rapidly ramped up a broad covert program, inherited from the Bush administration, to undermine Iran’s nuclear program.”
