Was Conficker Stuxnet's Trojan?

Rambo Tribble writes "Reuters has published a provocative article describing the findings of cyberwarfare expert John Bumgarner, a former Army intelligence officer. His contention is that Conficker identified targets, then opened the door for Stuxnet. 'His analysis challenges a common belief that Conficker was built by an Eastern European criminal gang to engage in financial fraud. The worm's latent state had been a mystery for some time. It appears never to have been activated in the computers it infected, and security experts have speculated that the program was abandoned by those who created it because they feared getting caught after Conficker was subjected to intense media scrutiny. If confirmed, Bumgarner's work could deepen understanding of how Stuxnet's commanders ran the cyber operation that last year sabotaged an underground facility at Natanz, where Iranian scientists are enriching uranium using thousands of gas centrifuges.'"

Re:Macbook

[forkfail]

Don't give him too hard a time. He was probably hacked and some script kiddie is posting on his account from his iDevice...

Conficker was written by Aliens.

[PolygamousRanchKid]

They sent it down to us via the SETI radio astronomy antennas. From there it spread using the SETI@home grid. The aliens became alarmed when Werner von Braun started playing with rockets, and started on a long term program to thwart what they saw as an effort from us to plaster them with rockets. The Voyager and Galileo probes were actually built to scout out potential targets of alien weapons of mass cosmic destruction. When briefed about our program, the alien Supreme Leader cursed at the German scientist, and his plans, and his meddling kids, and called him a "fucker." The label with the aliens stuck, so they named their worm "Con-Ficker", "ficker" being German for "fucker" and "con" meaning "against." "Con-ficker", "Against-fucker" . . . Aliens pissed off at German Earthlings rocketry tom-foolery . . . write a virus to control us . . . send it down to the SETI folks, who are foolish enough to be looking for aliens anyway . . . or maybe clever enough to spot alien targets.

It all falls into place if you really think about it.

Probably.

At least my wacky speculation is as plausible as that from anyone else. And mine is definitely wackier. Lasts longer. Tastes better.