Discussion

Iran Warns US Tech Firms Could Become Targets As War Expands

weregiraffe: Iran is practically begging to be destroyed.

mothballed: An entire line of leaders were killed and the rest expect to be bombed straight to their 52 virgins shortly. Since they expect to die anyway they probably will just do whatever it takes to bait the US into a ground offensive and from there they can grind on for decades with no victory to anyone.

dmix: > and from there they can grind on for decades with no victory to anyone.I see that as unlikely, at most they might try to temporarily secure the edges of the strait of hormuz with ground troops. Which is far a different scenario than operating 500 FOBs, huge airbases, and a giant greenzones in major cities like Iraq/Afghanistan or even Vietnam.

SimianSci: Pointlessness of this war aside, I fail to see how the situation is materially different than it was prior to the war begining.Iran has generally been an active and persistant threat for many US firms long before this war began, and I have a hard time thinking they have had the restraint and the resources to collect together an arsenal of zero-day exploits they have yet to unleash. To me, this just reads as empty threats intended more for the potential economic fear it can produce.

joe_mamba: >Iran has generally been an active and persistant threat for many US firms long before this war beganI doubt this. Iran's leadership, like any dictatorship, just wants to be left alone to subjugate its people and enjoy the masses of wealth and power they have. When you're in such a privileged but fragile position, you don't go around poking the hornet's nest looking to start a fight with the biggest military in the world, because it would mean your end.

FpUser: >"Iran has generally been an active and persistant threat for many US firms"Well maybe it partially held back / restrained for the sake of self preservation. It is gloves off now.

jmyeet: This is an interesting issue: what constitutes a valid military target?Traditionally that meant armed forces, their bases, their supplies and so on. But the line has gotten awful blurry. Tech companies have become entwined with the state and are fundamnetal parts of both domestic and foreign policy. Targeting of military strikes is an obvious example [1][2].I believe that in the very least these companies have risen to the level of defense contractors so Palantir is at least as valid of a target as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman or Boeing. Is that sufficiently valid? I don't know.But I don't think you can plead ignorance about what your tech platform is being used for, particularly if you're Palantir. You are helping a military force kill people and are deciding which people. You can't wash your hands of that.[1]: https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/[2]: https://www.business-humanrights.org/es/%C3%BAltimas-noticia...

bawolff: Is a cyberattack a military action?Like if you take over a control system to open a dam, sure i'd buy that as counting. But say ddos'ing a website? Its hard for me to picture that as counting as an armed attack.> Traditionally that meant armed forces, their bases, their supplies and so on. But the line has gotten awful blurry. Tech companies have become entwined with the state and are fundamnetal parts of both domestic and foreign policy. Targeting of military strikes is an obvious exampleThe idea of having private companies form part of your defense industrial base isn't new. I would assume the same rules apply to tech companies contributing as a factory making dual use products for the war effort would.

lm28469: > This is an interesting issue: what constitutes a valid military target?Everything that hurts the only thing the orange retard cares about, the stock market, they've been pretty clear about it I think

jwilber: You really don’t see how the situation is materially different? The bombed oil fields, hotels, dead American soldiers - all business as usual?

beezlewax: > Because if/once they do get a nuke, it'll be impossible to stop them after that, and they'll hold the entire middle east hostageLike Israel?

TurdF3rguson: Holding hostages has never been part of Israel's playbook, it's always been very much part of Iran's.

beloch: If I were an opponent of the U.S., my short-list of companies to threaten (regardless of ability to carry through) would be the list of donors to Trump's ballroom. In Trump's febrile mind, only chumps pay taxes but there is some care for the people currently handing him money that's his to spend as he wishes.Not surprisingly, pretty much every company mentioned in this article is on that list.

eunos: Nah it's foolish to think only that it's just Trump war.

zetanor: Oh no, Iran, please don't destroy our giant public-private surveillance apparatus!

ritlo: I've seen another headline today suggesting the UK might drop to a 3-day workweek to conserve fuel.Like damn, between reduced work-weeks and the prospect of wrecking our government-entwined spyvertising parasites, maybe the war was a good idea...

Larrikin: I assumed this meant bombing or shooting up tech firm headquarters, outpost, and targeting higher level managers and execs.They were always hacking all the time.

pear01: It would be pretty dangerous to attribute such a thing (if it ever happened) to Iran without concrete evidence. Some stateside lone wolf nut might claim to be acting on behalf of Iran, but it doesn't make it true. It's pretty easy in America for anyone to get a gun and attempt a murder. It doesn't mean any government provided any meaningful capability, nor should we believe so until confronted with strong evidence.

SimianSci: Iran has always lacked an ability to project power at a distance. Outside of sympathetic lone operators, there really isnt much to suggest they can do anything more than ramp up rhetoric and calls for violence.The reason why I call it empty threats is because it accomplishes its goal no matter the outcome. If a sympathetic lone operator uses this as an excuse to start shooting, they can claim the credit. But if all it does is stoke fear that "Something somewhere might happen" then it's still a win for them.

lukan: "I doubt this. Iran's leadership, like any dictatorship, just wants to be left alone to subjugate its people and enjoy the masses of wealth and power they have."So ... that is why they only cared about themself and did not involve with Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, ..

jzb: "Iran has always lacked an ability to project power at a distance"I'm curious what you're basing this on, since Iran has been supplying Russia with drones, etc. for much of the war in Ukraine and so far has launched attacks into Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Cyprus since the US began its attacks.Iran may not be able to strike at sites in the US, but it could certainly target data centers in the Middle East with some hope of success. I'm not at all confident the current administration has accurately assessed Iran's capabilities or has the ability to protect the assets of US-based companies (or US citizens) in that region.

nozzlegear: > It's only pointless as long as you ignore their legitimate attempts of building nukes. If you don't want them to have nukes, then military action is the only way to stop them unfortunately. Because if/once they do get a nuke, it'll be impossible to stop them after that, and they'll hold the entire middle east hostage so might as well do everything you can to prevent that before it happens.Obama had a perfectly good deal in place with Iran before Trump fucked it all up. Military action was not the only way to stop them.

joe_mamba: >Obama had a perfectly good deal in place with Iran before Trump fucked it all up.What makes you think the Iranian regime is trustworthy to actually respect that deal and not just continue building nukes on the side while stringing everyone along that they aren't?You know who else had a deal? Ukraine. Did that deal stop them from being attacked by Russia? Can you stop a military attack by waving the piece of paper with the deal in the enemy's face? Because that's why nukes are the best insurance policy over deals.How can people be so gullible to trust Iran's word?

the_gastropod: > What makes you think the Iranian regime is trustworthyI don't think anyone believes the Iranian regime has ever been trustworthy. Probably why part of Obama's deal included inspections, surveillance, and monitoring.

reliabilityguy: Obama’s deal specifically excluded surprise inspections. So, if you are trying to hide something, you will succeed.

SimianSci: The two deals you mention are not at all comparable.Ukraine's deal was vague promises with vague consequences, which of course materialized into zero ability to stop a land invasion.The Iranian deal before its destruction was very much concerned with safeguarding against any attempt to "potentially circumvent" and gave auditors alot of freedom to investigate without obstruction.Your partisan posting in regards to the notion of the war being pointless indicate that you're coming more from a place of emotion than logic. I can empathize, but strongly caution that its important we discuss the facts of arguments rather than gesturing that all but you fail to see the light.

Forgeties79: The nukes they’ve been “days away” from making since like 1992?The nuclear capacity we bombed “very successfully” months ago?

reliabilityguy: Having 60% enriched Uranium is about 2 weeks from having a nuke.

bawolff: Pretty sure if they were capable of that then they would just do it instead of threatening to do it. Nobody in the middle of an existential war threatens to attack more - they just attack with everything they've got.After all, they already bombed an AWS data center in 2 countries who were not participating in the war.

jzb: "Nobody in the middle of an existential war threatens to attack more - they just attack with everything they've got."That sounds like a poor strategy. Expend all of your resources in one grand gesture rather than trying to push your enemy's internal factions to curtail or end the fighting?Unlike the current US administration, Iran is playing a long game - one in which it has been isolated in many ways. Indiscriminate attacks on civilian targets is not going to win it many friends; putting pressure on the tech companies that have been buddying up to the administration and may have some sway, on the other hand, is a cheap strategy that could pay off. Iran understands that the only language that seems to matter with Trump's backers is profit; threaten that and you may have some success.The fact that Iran has already done some damage to AWS data centers makes it seem likely they could do so again if they tried. I don't know for certain, I'm not a military intelligence expert, but the strategy of "throw the kitchen sink at it" seems like a sure loser.

jmyeet: In a just world many people would go the gallows for the decades of harm the US has inflicted on Iran for basically no reason whatsoever other than to benefit oil companies.We overthrew their democratically elected government to install the Shah as a puppet dictator because the British goaded us into it by hand-waving about "communism" after Iran nationalized their own oil reserves from the Anglo-Iranian Company (which became BP). What followed was a brutal era of repression where American companies took a slice of oil revenue.Once this became untenable, another of our puppets, Saddam Hussein, ejected the future Ayatollah Khomenei from Iraq in 1978. Why? Because we wanted the religious fundamentalists to win instead of the communists, which might bring Iran into the Soviet sphere of influence.we then propped up a decade of war with Iraq by supplying Iraq with weapons. More than a million people died.Iran has weathered decades of sanctions, which is a fancy way of saying "we're going to starve you and deny your citizens basic medical care". The death toll for this is also likely in the millions.We've let our rabid attack dog in the region, Israel, bomb Iranian consulates (eg Damascus), assassinate scientists, diplomators and negotiators, bomb them with impunity and otherwise commit regular war crimes.We've gone to war for no other reason than Israel wants Iran to be a fail-state because it threatens the Greater Israel project [1]. It's clear that there was no military planning in any of this or, more likely, military planners probably said "this is a bad idea, we can't win" and they were ignored.Iran continued complying with the JCPOA for at least a year after Trump cancelled it at the behest of Sheldon Adelson [2].All of this while Saudi Arabia, our "ally", provided material suport to the 9/11 hijackers [3]. Our attack dog spies on us. A lot eg Jonathon Pollard [4]. And Jeffrey Epstein was almost certainly a Mossad access asset that compromised every level of our government, our companies and our educational institutions.We are the bad guys here and I hope one day Iran gets some justice for the harm we've inflicted upon it.[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Israel[2]: https://fpif.org/these-three-billionaires-paved-way-for-trum...[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alleged_Saudi_role_in_the_Sept...[4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Pollard

throw310822: All right except for calling Israel the US' rabid attack dog. It's the other way around, quite clearly.

the_gastropod: The "legitimate attempts of building nukes" as claimed by the same folks who, ~9 months ago said "Iran's nuclear facilities have been obliterated, and suggestions otherwise are fake news" (https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/2025/06/irans-nuclear-fa...).

reliabilityguy: Why does IR need 60% enriched uranium?The moment IR gets nukes, Saudis and all the other countries around them will get nukes as well.I don’t understand why everyone is so hell bent on not preventing the spread of nuclear weapons. We have enough of this crap already, and the last thing we need is more nukes.

the_gastropod: I think you're missing the crux of the point: why is anything the Trump administration says taken at face value? They have no commitment to the truth, whatsoever.If Iran was on the path to developing nukes, the correct path here was to:1. Show the evidence to congress, and declare war legally based on the facts.2. Get international buy-in, and work with our allies (all of whom would very much like to prevent Iran from procuring a nuclear weapon).This was a hastily started war with flimsy goals and seemingly no real urgency. And one of the first things we did as part of our attack was to bomb an elementary school, killing hundreds of children.Critics of this war aren't "hell bent on not preventing the spread of nuclear weapons". We're mostly looking at the situation, and thinking "this is not great".

reliabilityguy: > I think you're missing the crux of the point: why is anything the Trump administration says taken at face value? They have no commitment to the truth, whatsoever.No, I am not. It has nothing to do with Trump his abilities to speak only truth or always lie.IAEA itself reported the 60% figure [1].[1] https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/25/06/gov2025-24.pd...

mothballed: They held most of gaza hostage, blocking their access to international waters off gaza's own coast, based on the actions of a much smaller subset of those people. That seems about the most classical example of holding hostage as it gets.

reliabilityguy: > based on the actions of a much smaller subset of those people.Interesting way to describe the government the people of Gaza.If Palestinians launch the rockets from Gaza to Israel, why should Israel to continue their trade with them? This is counterintuitive.

mothballed: Who says Israel should trade to them? I completely agree with Israel's right of shutting off Israeli borders and trade with GazaI'm talking about motion from Gazan waters to directly adjacent international waters, none of which involves touching anything sovereign to Israel.

ignoramous: > I have a hard time thinking they have had the restraint and the resources to collect together an arsenal of zero-day exploits they have yet to unleashThe semi-official IRGC account warns of attacks on offices and infrastructure of US & Israeli firms in the ME with drones and missiles, not zero-days.

bawolff: In which case why is this a news story? They have already been doing that since the war began (rip AWS data centers in UAE and Bahrain)

bawolff: One of the reasons not to start wars with other countries is it gives them the right to blockade your ports.

SimianSci: You're right, but neglect to mention that infrastructure necessary to enrich uranium is not something so easily squirrled away and hidden while also dealing with radioactive isotopes.It was a treaty, many concessions existed to ensure both parties were comfortable with the arrangement. But that does not at all suggest that the agreement didnt account for foul play on either side.It was an incredibly solid diplomatic option employed for several years, during which the perpetual "months away from nuclear weapons" rhetoric never proved well-founded. Iran's existance is perpetually an existential threat when the only alternative to diplomacy is its total destruction at the expense of American and Iranian lives.

reliabilityguy: > You're right, but neglect to mention that infrastructure necessary to enrich uranium is not something so easily squirrled away and hidden while also dealing with radioactive isotopes.But Iran did violate the agreement. The agreement was not just between the US and Iran, it had other parties as well. Yet, when US withdrew, Iran immediately violated it. Why? If they had no goal to pursue military-grade enrichment, why violate the agreement?Biden's admin did not resume the agreement as well due to those violations by Iran.I see this agreement as failure for the reason that it did not prevent in a structural way Iran from acquiring enriched material, with or without violations.> Iran's existance is perpetually an existential threat when the only alternative to diplomacy is its total destruction at the expense of American and Iranian lives.I do not believe that Iran is interested in diplomacy at all. They were never interested in diplomacy. Why did they fund all these groups around the Middle East if IR is so peaceful?

orwin: No, Iran kept following the accord during almost a year. I think they broke it after a french company got sanctioned in the US (or menaced with sanctions) for dealing with Iran, and french government, as usual, did nothing. Basically acknowledging US laws power over Europe.

reliabilityguy: > Iran has always lacked an ability to project power at a distance.Sure. Now they maybe able to reach Greece. Give them five years and they will develop missiles that can reach France, or even UK. I am sure europeans would love the idea of fanatical regime having arms that can reach them, especially, if we consider that EU today does not have very robust air defense. Even Israel that planned for this war for a while has rockets that penetrate their defenses.I would prefer the politicians not to take those gambles.

pear01: Great logic. China and America might find themselves at war in the coming years. Should we just get it over with and attack them now? Where did you pull Greece from? They can barely hit anything next door. Maybe in five years the regime would have collapsed during a succession or economic crisis. Perhaps this perhaps that.Initiating a war is a gamble in of itself. Now Americans all over the world are potentially at risk from lone wolves. A failed Iranian state might be the site of horrible atrocities to come.For a post that seems to contemplate the future you seem to exhibit a strange lack of reflection.

BLKNSLVR: Prior to the war beginning there was a higher percentage of discussion of the Epstein Files.

ASalazarMX: And the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Isn't war useful?

reliabilityguy: China has both the nukes and ballistic missiles. Obviously, the calculus for the war with China completely different: you create a situation where China prefers not to attack Taiwan.> Maybe in five years the regime would have collapsed during a succession crisis. Perhaps this perhaps that.Maybe, but the war in Iran is not about Iran itself, at least from the US standpoint. It's about cutting China off from cheap oil that they buy from Iran with a huge discount. For Trump, to get a win is enough to get a new supreme leader who is more aligned with the west, like in Venezuela.> A failed Iranian state might be the site of horrible atrocities to come.Why would it fail? Iran is not Iraq or Syria or Libya. Like, nothing in common at all. If you analyze Iraq, Syria, and Libya pre-war and Iran pre-war you would see that none of the conditions that lead these countries to become failed states exist in Iran. IF you are interested, I can elaborate.> For a post that seems to contemplate the future you seem to exhibit a strange lack of reflection.I am not.

pear01: > China has both the nukes and ballistic missiles. Obviously, the calculus for the war with China completely different: you create a situation where China prefers not to attack Taiwan.The same can be said of Iran re creating off-ramps from conflict or bad outcomes. That's what the "nuclear deal" was meant to be about. The one the current President tore up because his predecessor was responsible for it.> Maybe, but the war in Iran is not about Iran itself, at least from the US standpoint. It's about cutting China off from cheap oil that they buy from Iran with a huge discount. For Trump, to get a win is enough to get a new supreme leader who is more aligned with the west, like in Venezuela.Afaik the administration has not articulated that view. It's not appropriate to take a scenario that might be plausible and put it into the President's mouth. You don't get to say what the war is about. That's the President's job.> Why would it fail? Iran is not Iraq or Syria or Libya. Like, nothing in common at all. If you analyze Iraq, Syria, and Libya pre-war and Iran pre-war you would see that none of the conditions that lead these countries to become failed states exist in Iran. IF you are interested, I can elaborate.This is simply incorrect on so many levels I don't know where to start. But since you invited elaboration, please by all means.