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Veteran documentary maker Alex Gibney was speaking to
reporters in Berlin, where his film "Zero Days" is being shown
in competition for the Berlin International Film Festival's top
Golden Bear prize.
The documentary says how the U.S.'s National Security Agency (NSA)
developed a cyberwar program dubbed "Nitro Zeus" that it hoped
would bring Iran to its knees in the event of hostilities.
"I am angry about the incredible amount of secrecy in the United
States and how it has become a kind of obsession that is
damaging our democracy," Gibney said at a post-screening news
conference.
"I think, frankly, that the trend and the momentum towards
greater and greater secrecy in the U.S. administration is
appalling.
The documentary focuses on Stuxnet, a computer worm developed by
the United States and Israel - but never acknowledged by either
government - in order to attack Iran's nuclear program and
sabotage centrifuges that were enriching uranium.
Through accounts of whistleblowers, analysts, journalists and
secret service officials, the documentary shows how Stuxnet was
the first known attack in which computer malware left the realm
of cyberspace and caused physical destruction.
The film hints, based on accounts of several NSA insiders, that
Stuxnet was just the tip of the iceberg.
"I mean you've been focusing on Stuxnet but that was just part
of a much larger operation... Nitro Zeus, NZ," an actress says
in the film, speaking for several NSA employees who were
interviewed but whose identity was kept secret for source
protection.
According to these accounts, the NSA spent "hundreds of
millions, maybe billions" on Nitro Zeus to be prepared for the
eventuality that Israel decided to attack Iran and the United
States would be drawn into the conflict.
Details of the Nitro Zeus program were revealed in the New York
Times on Wednesday.
The composite NSA source says that despite the deal agreed in
July with Iran by the United States and its negotiating partners
to curtail Iran's nuclear program, the Nitro Zeus capabilities
remain "implanted" in Iran's servers and computers.
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"We were everywhere inside Iran, still are," the actress
speaking for the NSA sources says.
"I'm not going to tell you the operational capabilities of what
we can do moving forward, or where, but the science fiction
cyberwar scenario is here, that's Nitro Zeus."
The film suggests that Israel moved independently from its U.S.
partners and changed the code of the initial Stuxnet virus in
such a way that it spread all over the world with unforeseeable
consequence, including allowing other governments to copy it.
Before its discovery in 2010, Stuxnet took advantage of
previously unknown security holes in software from Microsoft
Corp and Siemens AG to penetrate Iran's facilities without
triggering security programs.
Gibney contends that Stuxnet opened forever the Pandora's Box of
digital warfare, and that it had been used as an instrument of
warfare against a country with which the United States was not at
war.
He also says the United States could well be more vulnerable than
other countries, taking into account that its economy and companies
are the most Internet-connected in the world.
"And as we can see from this film and this subject, it's preventing
a very important discussion about offensive cyber weapons which I
think threaten us in a profound and existential way."
The film derives its title from the term used for previously unknown
flaws in computer software that hackers and spy agencies can exploit
to attack networks in order to damage infrastructure such as
hospitals, transportation systems or power plants.
The U.S. distribution rights for "Zero Days" are owned by Magnolia
Pictures which is planning to release it in theaters in late summer.
Showtime owns the paid television rights.
(Reporting and writing by Michael Roddy and Michael Nienaber;
Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)
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