Given the unofficial confirmation Friday that the United States was behind Stuxnet—the malware designed to sabotage the Iranian nuclear program—political and technical experts suggest that this may effectively put the United States in a more dangerous foreign policy position.

"This is the end of plausible deniability on Stuxnet," said Chris Bronk, a former State Department official, who is now a research fellow at Rice University. "Cyber is a dangerous place to play. This makes me very nervous that we don’t understand the entire set of consequences of releasing malware into the wild."

In other words, he told Ars, it sets a potentially dangerous precedent for other countries looking to develop or expand their own clandestine operations.

"Countries realize that cyber espionage is a heck of a lot easier than anything else," he said. "Now the question is: to what degree [will we have] malware that is designed to impact the physical world? When is that going to become a more widely utilized capability?"

US has "most to lose"

Mikko Hypponen, the chief researcher at F-Secure, a Helsinki-based security research group, added that the United States "has the most to lose out of attacks like these," because countries with advanced capabilities, including Russia, China, and possibly even Iran itself, will certainly be interested in developing similar cyber weapons.

"[The United States has] shown that they work, that they’re cheap, and they are deniable," he told Ars on Friday, pointing out that one of Stuxnet’s main advantages was that even years after its deployment, it still had plausible deniability by American officials.

At least one world leader said Friday he was not willing to use similar tactics. President Toomas Hendrik Ilves of Estonia—whose country was hit by a significant cyber attack in 2007 and consequently now hosts the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence—responded on Twitter with a curt "no" that Estonia does not condone this type of behavior, nor would it consider using tactics like this against other nations.

Hypponen and others speculated that this week’s leak was a calculated political move by Obama Administration officials to give information to the press regarding the Stuxnet program as a way to shore up political support and to project the president as taking on one of the US’s main adversaries.

"Obama has the benefit of showing how strong he is against Iran by using clever, creative new methods," Hypponen noted.

But, he cautioned, "They’re apparently willing to take the damage on foreign policy."

Undercutting "Internet Freedom"

Indeed, things could not be more contentious with Iran right now than they already are—both countries, along with other major world powers are set to meet in Moscow later this month for the third round of the "P5+1" negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program.

"[This revelation won’t] help the atmosphere," said Nader Entessar, a professor of political science and Iran expert at the University of South Alabama. "These are contentious negotiations to begin with. What is missing in this whole process is confidence-building measures. These things do not add to the positive side of the ledger."

Another problem with admitting to being behind Stuxnet is that experts say it may damage the oft-touted "21st Century Statecraft" and "Internet Freedom" agenda that the United States Department of State has been promoting in recent years.

"I think this undercuts the Internet Freedom agenda in a big way," Bronk, the former State Department official, added. "[It shows that the US] is willing to use the digital agora as a weapon whenever we need to. I think that’s playing both sides of the fence."

Finally, some even wondered if the Stuxnet situation will be used as an excuse to keep a closer eye on Iran’s domestic Internet use.

"[Iran is] going to use this as a justification for further clampdowns, that ‘we’re not trying to deny average citizens access, but all we’re trying to do is [ensure that the] Internet is not used as a means of warfare against Iran,’" Entessar told Ars. "It [becomes] a national security issue, as opposed to freedom of information issue."

Listing image by White House