Politics & Popcorn: Zero Days
On February 13th, Humanities House members attended the first showing in our “Politics & Popcorn” series. The series focuses on the intersections of politics, the humanities, and culture. The first installment, chosen by Professor Dyson, was Zero Days, a documentary chronicling the use of the Stuxnet computer virus (codename Operation Olympic Games) as a weapon of cyber warfare. Directed by acclaimed filmmaker Alex Gibney, the documentary explored the ongoing diplomatic relations of the United States, Israel, and Iran in the context of the digital age.
The Stuxnet virus was first discovered in Belarus in 2010, stumping the U.S. intelligence community as to its origin and complexity. The U.S. denies involvement in its development officially, but numerous U.S. officials corroborate Gibney’s claims of U.S. involvement throughout the documentary as more information is gathered. New York Times reporter David Sanger serves as the most important whistleblower, implicating the project as a joint effort between the U.S. and Israel to prevent Iran from creating nuclear weapons. The virus infected Iranian centrifuges and sent them into uncontrollable and inexplicable malfunctions. Top U.S. intelligence officials, including the former cyber security chief of Homeland Security, did not know about the operation. Former NSA and CIA head Gen. Michael Hayden compared the operation to dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, declaring that the U.S. has set a new standard that other countries will look to follow in the future.
The virus itself can be contained in something as small as a flash drive, sparking concern over the increasingly inconspicuous nature of cyber warfare. The lack of diplomatic regulation and public awareness of cyber programs like Stuxnet leaves much concern over their usage and development. Many of the officials that spoke out in the documentary did so on the condition of anonymity, suggesting that the intelligence and cyber communities want to keep these programs mostly under wraps and out of the public eye. As the U.S. moves forward diplomatically, especially in the wake of the Iranian nuclear agreement, it must consider the perception of using tools like Stuxnet to exert its influence. The Iranian nuclear agreement’s fate is yet to be determined in the Trump Administration, which presents an interesting issue of continuity in the U.S. approach to Iran. The Stuxnet virus was employed during the Obama Administration, perhaps or perhaps not setting a precedent for the Trump Administration to follow.
Future movies in the Politics & Popcorn series will determined by the members of Humanities House. We have several members with political science backgrounds in Humanities House, as well as our faculty director and associate directors each being involved in the political science and foreign policy field. Aside from politics, many other elements of the humanities come into play in diplomatic situations like the one depicted in Zero Days. Ultimately, these diplomatic arrangements are largely about human relationships and leaders must consider the human experience when making decisions that affect large numbers of people. In Humanities House, we work to think critically and engage in our world. Viewing documentaries like Zero Days allows us to apply the skills we have learned to analyze complex situations that occur in the world every day.
