board77

The Last Homely Site on the Web

Electricity Grid in U.S. Penetrated By Spies

Post Reply   Page 1 of 1  [ 11 posts ]
Author Message
MariaHobbit
Post subject: Electricity Grid in U.S. Penetrated By Spies
Posted: Wed 08 Apr , 2009 8:04 pm
User avatar
Offline
 
Posts: 8041
Joined: Thu 03 Feb , 2005 2:39 pm
Location: MO
 
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123914805204099085.html" target="_blank

China and Russia? :Q
Prepping to take out our electricity? :shock:
Who'd have thunk it?

_________________


.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

[ img ]


Top
Profile Quote
Ara-anna
Post subject: Re: Electricity Grid in U.S. Penetrated By Spies
Posted: Wed 08 Apr , 2009 8:17 pm
Daydream Believer
User avatar
Offline
 
Posts: 5780
Joined: Mon 28 Feb , 2005 11:15 pm
Location: Pac Northwest
 
I have long said that all an enemy needs to do to take over the US is down it's electric and telephone grids all at once.

However, I do believe that Las Alamos and Norad are on their own grids, so if all the telephones and electricity go down, they will still be functional. I imagine there are some Area 51 bases around that are also on their own grids.

_________________

Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in

Five seconds away from the Tetons and Yellowstone


Top
Profile Quote
Dave_LF
Post subject: Re: Electricity Grid in U.S. Penetrated By Spies
Posted: Wed 08 Apr , 2009 8:47 pm
You are hearing me talk
Offline
 
Posts: 2950
Joined: Mon 28 Feb , 2005 8:14 am
Location: Great Lakes
 
And the state of Texas.


Top
Profile Quote
Ara-anna
Post subject: Re: Electricity Grid in U.S. Penetrated By Spies
Posted: Wed 08 Apr , 2009 9:33 pm
Daydream Believer
User avatar
Offline
 
Posts: 5780
Joined: Mon 28 Feb , 2005 11:15 pm
Location: Pac Northwest
 
who?

_________________

Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in

Five seconds away from the Tetons and Yellowstone


Top
Profile Quote
TheEllipticalDisillusion
Post subject: Re: Electricity Grid in U.S. Penetrated By Spies
Posted: Thu 09 Apr , 2009 4:03 am
Insolent Pup
User avatar
Offline
 
Posts: 5381
Joined: Wed 09 Mar , 2005 8:31 pm
Location: Many Places
 
Were these sanctioned by those governments?

_________________

The 11/3 Project


Top
Profile Quote
Riverthalos
Post subject: Re: Electricity Grid in U.S. Penetrated By Spies
Posted: Thu 09 Apr , 2009 4:10 am
bioalchemist
Offline
 
Posts: 5205
Joined: Wed 16 Mar , 2005 2:10 am
Location: at a safe distance
 
Texas is also on its own power grid.

_________________

"He attacks. And here I can kill him. But I don't. That's the answer to world peace, people."
-Stickles Shihan


Top
Profile Quote
MariaHobbit
Post subject: Re: Electricity Grid in U.S. Penetrated By Spies
Posted: Thu 09 Apr , 2009 1:26 pm
User avatar
Offline
 
Posts: 8041
Joined: Thu 03 Feb , 2005 2:39 pm
Location: MO
 
TED wrote:
Were these sanctioned by those governments?
Who can tell? The governments in question deny it, of course.
Quote:
Russian and Chinese officials have denied any wrongdoing. "These are pure speculations," said Yevgeniy Khorishko, a spokesman at the Russian Embassy. "Russia has nothing to do with the cyberattacks on the U.S. infrastructure, or on any infrastructure in any other country in the world."

A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, Wang Baodong, said the Chinese government "resolutely oppose[s] any crime, including hacking, that destroys the Internet or computer network" and has laws barring the practice. China was ready to cooperate with other countries to counter such attacks, he said, and added that "some people overseas with Cold War mentality are indulged in fabricating the sheer lies of the so-called cyberspies in China."

_________________


.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

[ img ]


Top
Profile Quote
Ara-anna
Post subject: Re: Electricity Grid in U.S. Penetrated By Spies
Posted: Thu 09 Apr , 2009 4:57 pm
Daydream Believer
User avatar
Offline
 
Posts: 5780
Joined: Mon 28 Feb , 2005 11:15 pm
Location: Pac Northwest
 
Riverthalos wrote:
Texas is also on its own power grid.

who?

_________________

Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in

Five seconds away from the Tetons and Yellowstone


Top
Profile Quote
Lidless
Post subject: Re: Electricity Grid in U.S. Penetrated By Spies
Posted: Fri 10 Apr , 2009 7:38 am
Als u het leven te ernstig neemt, mist u de betekenis.
Offline
 
Posts: 8261
Joined: Wed 27 Oct , 2004 8:21 pm
Location: London
 
Shocking. Positively shocking.
Goldfinger

_________________

[ img ]


Top
Profile Quote
laureanna
Post subject: Re: Electricity Grid in U.S. Penetrated By Spies
Posted: Fri 10 Apr , 2009 3:27 pm
Triathlete
Offline
 
Posts: 2711
Joined: Wed 26 Jan , 2005 2:08 am
Location: beachcombing
 
And then there are the old fashioned hackers that can take out a metropolitan area by simple taking an axe or something similar down an unguarded manhole and cutting the fiber optic trunk lines.

http://www.mercurynews.com/topstories/c ... ck_check=1" target="_blank" target="_blank

Phone service restored after vandalism shuts it down in Gilroy, Morgan Hill, Santa Cruz County

By Julia Prodis Sulek

Mercury News
Posted: 04/09/2009 09:48:18 PM PDT

Some 17 hours after critical fiber-optic cables were cut by someone who climbed down a manhole early Thursday morning, phone service was finally restored to Morgan Hill and Gilroy and parts of Santa Cruz and San Benito counties.

But earlier in the day it was as if time turned back a generation. No landlines. No cell phone service. No Internet connection or working ATMs.

If people had emergencies, they were told to run outside and flag down passing patrol cars or drive to the nearest fire station. Firefighters perched on a hilltop to scout for fires. Banks locked their doors, issued handwritten receipts for deposits and allowed only one person inside at a time. Many restaurants, grocery stores and gas stations took cash only. Checks were made on the welfare of housebound residents and senior centers.

And here on the southern edges of Silicon Valley where the high-tech revolution was born, forget about texting.

When Cindy Gilchrist's 18-year-old son couldn't text his friends before school Thursday in Morgan Hill, he turned to her and said, "Mom, I'm so alone."

Late Thursday, Santa Clara County officials blamed sabotage and declared a state of local emergency.

AT&T, whose cable lines leased to Verizon were cut in the wee hours of Thursday morning, offered a $100,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible — which one spokesman said was the largest reward in his 17 years with the company. Crews in South San Jose spent Thursday fusing four separate cable lines back together, some working eight feet deep in a manhole at Monterey Highway and Blossom Hill Road and others working with the pulled slack above ground, a few feet from a sign that said in red letters, "Warning: Buried Fiber Optic Cable in This Vicinity. Call Before You Dig." Nearby, authorities later discovered more cut cable lines at Hayes Avenue and Cottle Road, which affected several hundred customers in the Hellyer, Silver Creek Valley and Tures neighborhoods. Service was expected to be restored early Friday. Cables were also severed at two locations in San Carlos, but no disruption of service was detected. Authorities believe all four incidents are related. Service in the South County area, which was random and sporadic most of the day, was fully restored by 7 p.m. Thursday, along with most of South San Jose.

AT&T spokesman John Britton didn't want to speculate about whether the sabotage may have been an inside job, but said one of the company's fundamental security measures was obviously breached.

"One of them is to have those big, heavy covers over the manholes and special ways to get them off," Britton said. "There's a tool you use. And in this case someone obviously had access to that."

One of the smaller cables cut was a half-inch thick and consisted of 48 color-coded strands, each capable of handling 300 to 400 calls. A larger cable cut held 360 strands.

Typically, Britton said, cut cable lines tend to be accidentally caused by workers. Not this time.

"Today, we didn't have an accident, we had a deliberate act," he said. The FBI joined the investigation, but authorities ruled out terrorism as a motive, and instead called it pure criminal vandalism.

Asked if the sabotage had anything to do with the strike threats over contract negotiations between the Communications Workers of America and AT&T, national union spokeswoman Candice Johnson replied: "Absolutely not. Our members are not involved in this. That would be counterproductive."

The CWA contract with AT&T expired at 11:59 p.m. Saturday.

More than 52,000 household landlines operated by Verizon, the sole provider of landlines in the South County area, were disrupted. Because 80 to 85 percent of cell phone traffic is delivered over wired networks, Britton said, cell phones weren't working. Along with Verizon, other cell service disrupted included Nextel, Sprint and AT&T, but officials didn't estimate how many customers lost service.

People were unable to call 911 throughout the day, but access was restored by Thursday evening. Four emergency stations were set up in Gilroy. At the main fire station in Gilroy, a caregiver rushed in to report that a girl was suffering a seizure at a medical facility. An ambulance took her to the hospital.

"This is unprecedented," said Liz Kniss, Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors president, who lauded the coordination by agencies throughout the county. Kniss pointed out that although the county is ready for earthquakes and other disasters, this took officials by surprise. "We weren't ready to have cable clippings."

While no serious emergencies went untended, the outage was treated by emergency responders with all the seriousness of a natural disaster or toxic spill. Patrols doubled. Extra ambulances were deployed. Saint Louise Regional Hospital in Gilroy canceled all elective surgeries and established ham radio communication with county officials and handed out walkie-talkies to staff.

"Actually, I'm quite happy that something like this happened, because we get to test it in real life," said Dr. Amit Mathur, an anesthesiologist at Saint Louise. "Nobody's running around panicking."

Added hospital spokeswoman Jasmine Nguyen: "It kind of brings us back to the Stone Age." The hospital used "runners" Thursday to run from room to room transferring messages from patients to staff or loved ones in the waiting room.

In downtown Morgan Hill, Margaret Bianucci, 71, said a day without the latest in technology was just fine with her.

"We're from a different time, and this was the way it was before, so it doesn't bother me," she said. "Now my grandchildren, they'll have something to say about it."

In Santa Cruz County, Mike Pizzano, who runs 49er Rooter and Drain Service in Felton, was already counting his losses just hours after he stopped receiving phone calls and Internet service Thursday morning.

"What am I going to do if a customer calls? I may be missing a call for a clogged drain or a $5,000 job," he said.

For others, the effect was more than an inconvenience.

Lori Shields went to the Chase Bank branch in Morgan Hill to deposit money into her account to cover automatic payments scheduled to deduct that evening. Bank staff, who were only permitting one customer at a time into the bank, could not tell Shields if her money would be credited to her account in time.

"You don't realize how used to this technology you are," she said.

But at Baha Burgers on Monterey Street in Gilroy, owned by the Tamayo family for 41 years, the outage passed with little effect. The restaurant has never taken credit cards, let alone debit cards. A sign at the counter says "cash only."

"Everything we do here is by manual labor," said Marina Barrientez, daughter of the owner. "We like to keep things simple."

_________________

Well, I'm back.


Top
Profile Quote
Legolas the elf
Post subject: Re: Electricity Grid in U.S. Penetrated By Spies
Posted: Sat 11 Apr , 2009 3:56 am
Trudging the road of happy destiny...
Offline
 
Posts: 1712
Joined: Wed 06 Jul , 2005 5:04 pm
Location: Helsinki, Finland
 
It pays to live off the grid. ;)


Top
Profile Quote
Display: Sort by: Direction:
Post Reply   Page 1 of 1  [ 11 posts ]
Return to “The Symposium”
Jump to: