East Coast Blackouts and SCADA

Nukes have thier own sperate power sources, not linked to the Grid. Nuke attack unlikely, the national security systems all have backups, so they all have power. So dont worry about acutal missiles and crap, aint no one gonna invade and stuff.

So......now, that we got that out of the way.......the airports have kicked in thier backup generators. So, the important places and people have power, at least backup power.

The question of the hour is how long will the power be off?

50 million people without power for 12 hours is an inconvenience.

50 million people without power for 72 hours is difficult but manageable.

But what about 50 million people without power for a week?

I dont think it will last a week. It will probably be back on by tommorow. our power grid is a little more updated from the past, tech has increased, and stuff gets done a little quicker.

In theory there should be 1/5 the number of U.S. users though...Europe is just waking up. And if Microsoft was just getting a lot of requests, it should only affect the update portion of the website and not the whole domain.

Perhaps we are under a cyber attack?

[Edited on 15-8-2003 by kukla]

This blackout is fishy..


A lightning strike knocking out the largest city in the U.S.?

Bush's performance this evening was awful. Even the Freepers are suscpicious of the official line.

freerepublic.com...

23 plants in 3 minutes. This is not Homer falling asleep at the switch. We have known that the grid is susceptible to cascading failures for 20 years.

www.cmpco.com...

We know that most of our infrastructure employs SCADA systems and usually run on Windows 2000/XP.

www.pbs.org...

We know that Microsoft is under attack and it will get worst at midnight Friday.

news.com.com...

We know that the patch Microsoft was distributing has a flaw.

www.chron.com...

This cannot be coincidental.

www.idg.com.hk...

It looks like the DoS attack that brough Microsoft Thursday was unrelated to Blaster.

zdnet.com.com...

Doesn't it seem like a strange time to launch a DoS attack?

Maryland Nuclear and Coal Generators are at Full Capacity and sending power to New Yorks Power grid. Parts of new york are without power. Parts of Detroit are without water.

You guys taking notes. Know what you need in the house to survive?

They also turned on the cross sound cable running from Connecticut to Long Island (New York) for the first time at noon today. Granted, it's only a 330 Megawatt cable but hey it should help some .

P.S. The CT attorney General must be PISSED!!!
He's been fighting the thing since they first layed it down.

Originally posted by kukla
The widespread blackout on the East Coast could possibly be the result of a cascading SCADA failure. In short, SCADA technology allows administrators of utilities to adjust any parameter off-sight by way of web-enabled switches. Nobody switches flips at the power plants any longer, its done remotely. If you watch the PBS Special, you see most of the systems are on Windows 2000/XP systems and vulnerable to outside intrusion. It is feared that if hackers were to launch an offensive on the grid, that the effect could cascade and disrupt distribution in a large area. And if the attacks continued, power could stay out for a very long time. There could be a very good explanation for all of this but I think our SCADA-enabled infrastructure has been sabotaged.

www.pbs.org...


[Edited on 14-8-2003 by kukla]

Whats really scary is that this happened right after everyone was told to install the security patch for windows xp/2000 on their systems. Sounds a bit fishy to me.

I just read the Australians have been given permission to view Windows source code after they expressed concerns about backdoors for U.S. intelligence agencies. Very fishy indeed.

www.theage.com.au...

"it doesn't look like a hacker to me. It could someone doing the "perfect terrorist simulation"


Speaking of perfect, wouldn't it be perfect if one quiet evening the power went down in a populated area and dirty bomb exploded above the crowds covering everyone in radioactive fall out, forever removing the last remaining liberties?



"
The serious danger of SCADA is how much has been planned and tampered with already. Hackers could�ve been tampering with the systems for months, setting up the cascade. For example, lets say a switch should have a tolerance threshold of 20 amps. That is if the circuit goes below 20 amps, it switches off. So if the amperage upstream suddenly switches off, the threshold is met and the switch opens the circuit denying power downstream. A hacker could reset the thresholds on thousands of switches and could literally design an attack that looked like a domino effect. Put all your dominoes in the right position and then knock one over and watch what happens. "


Ohhhhhhh ohhhhhh, ohhhhhhhhhhhhh ... oooohhhhhhh *grunts in orgasmic exitment*

Check this out, bin laden made a team with north korean hackers, had them infiltrate this SCADA thing, bring down the power and attack the helpless nation! It sounds like a charming terrorist attack doesn't it? Not only we loose our last liberties but the internet as well as our ability to communicate and conspire against them!

I guess this time illuminati really want to put all their eggs in one basket


[Edited on 16-8-2003 by Freeman]

This fits another theory

You know ho bush admin always calims that nothing remotely like 911 will ever happen again because this time "we are ready better than ever".

Well once it happens he can blame "outdated" national grid, lack of national identity control and "holes" in cyber security.

Since I live in the area I can tell you that Niagara Mohawk has come right out and said that somebody somewhere could have breeched security. They even said that government officals are rushing to judgement and that THEY our checking everything out.

They did locate an unusual power surge in a Grid in Ohio that went from 300 megawatts eastward to 500 west.

If the system did not shut done anybody walking into there homes or buildings would have FRIED.

I personally am furious with the a lot of people's behavior during this "episode". Firstly, the blame games were pathetically immature. Canada immediately jumped on the Niagara plant insisting that lightning struck 'on the american side of the falls' and then further looking for some way to further blame it on america somehow. Now whether or not the fault lies in america, it was way too early to start grumbling about it. Secondly, I was told that in NYC the plant admins themselves flipped the switch to prevent damage to their systems, causing me to wonder why after the "300 megawatt" surge ended they couldn't flip it back on. My area (downtown manhattan) was out until Friday Night 9PM. Third, watching bastards gloating on FoxNews from Times Square with restuarants' neon flashing lights burning bright at 3PM while I had no power to to get running water yet (yes large buildings use electric pump systems, and no power = no water) really infuriated me. Fourth, for god's sake this is 2003. We can clone animals (people?), see planets a trillion miles away, and grow organs in a lab, but we can't keep the power on the right way? This is bizarre. An antiquated power grid is something that needs to be focused on NOW before any foreign conflict, before any foreign aid, or before anyone's billion dollar election campaign. Believe it or not (and too bad for all you greens) we all need power to live. I for one feel that a modern, working, powerful, safe electric power grid is the single most important issue in existence. As we saw this past week: without it not a damn thing will work anyways.