Computers the control the power grid have been hacked

[dar512]

I find this worrisome.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/indust...-hackers_N.htm

[xoxoxoBruce]

What pisses me off is the electric companies, having be given the monopoly that has made them rich, won't do this on there own. It's going to take an act of congress, literally, to protect us. WTF?

[classicman]

Extremely, I saw this days ago, but didn't post it as I have been labeled and extremist.

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

It's going to take an act of congress, literally, to protect us.

That doesn't offer me any comfort either.

[dar512]

Can you imagine the trouble and panic if power went out for entire regions and if it lasted more than a day or two? I bet it would do more damage to our country than dropping a bomb.

I don't think it's extremist to be concerned about this.

[classicman]

Neither do I. The things that are controlled by the grid and the "collateral damage" a shutdown or major disruption would cause is very, very serious.

[Pie]

Worry about space storms.

IT IS midnight on 22 September 2012 and the skies above Manhattan are filled with a flickering curtain of colourful light. Few New Yorkers have seen the aurora this far south but their fascination is short-lived. Within a few seconds, electric bulbs dim and flicker, then become unusually bright for a fleeting moment. Then all the lights in the state go out. Within 90 seconds, the entire eastern half of the US is without power.

A year later and millions of Americans are dead and the nation's infrastructure lies in tatters. The World Bank declares America a developing nation. Europe, Scandinavia, China and Japan are also struggling to recover from the same fateful event - a violent storm, 150 million kilometres away on the surface of the sun.

[tw]

Originally Posted by classicman

Extremely, I saw this days ago, but didn't post it as I have been labeled and extremist.

Nice grammar you idiot (stated in a tone only you understand).Not that I care. A wacko like you are so critical of other's grammar when you cannot even write to meet your own wacko standards. Meanwhile, does not matter if you posted. You admit to thinking extremist fears anyway.

Now for issues that extremists cannot understand. This is for the intelligent among us: Put the whole thing into perspective. How many computers that actually operate the grid are compromised

If an LMP system has been compromised, that would do nothing to crash the grid. Only interfere with the marketing of electricity. Require them to switch to a backup system that they periodically use anyway: phones. And yet that would also be reported as a potential destruction of the entire grid. Then get promoted by the foolish as some major attack on America.

Having said that, we also know where the grid is most likely at risk. NE blackout occurred because (among the many reasons) First Energy would not upgrade their computers for years - to cut costs. A defect fixed by software many years previously would disconnect the computer from all data sources; then keep reporting the last read number for days as it everything was OK.

This is the same company also did not properly clean out their nuclear reactor which resulted in a hole in the containment building for Davis Besse. A reactor with a Three Mile Island problem that also had a compromised containment building just outside Toledo. These are not accidents. Theses are directly traceable to that management - the real threat.

Where the grid is probably at most ; top management does not even have basic engineering knowledge. Where the top man is a business school graduate. Who will not implement simple security upgrades only because it will increase costs.

If software has been placed in critical computers, it would be located with the first audit. But audits also cost money. Therefore some companies with bean counter mentalities will not perform what can easily identify security breaches. Another fact that the news report forgot to mention.

The entire grid is not at risk. But even a hole in Davis Besse and the NE blackout created by the same company were greater threats. The entire report takes on a completely different (and more relevant) meaning once we include the details.

Conficker crashed all computers in America on 1 April. More hype and fear. Notice how the Millennium Bug destroyed society. Worry like extremists want. Or put reality into perspective. Only then can we 1) appreciate where the real problems exist, 2) understand what is needed to avert problems, and 3) not have more "Saddam has WMD" lies promoted by extremists.

Enemies are not lurking under every table trying to kill us all. Only extremists make those claims. We simply have some companies run by people who don't come from where the work gets done. Who subvert workers that would otherwise eliminate such threats with simple solutions.

[Pie]

(I shouldn't have clicked on tw's post. There's a reason he's the only person I have on ignore.)

[classicman]

tommy boy . . . you still haven't responded to this or this

Before you continue your rants, attacks and lies, perhaps you could take care of those. tommy boy - you constantly have been called out and NEVER back your bullshit up. You are now on report!

[Flint]

WHO FILED THIS DAMN REPORT THAT MADE MY 1980s STYLE BEEPER GO OFF? Oh, The Cellar. You people are on your own. You lost your accreditation when lumberjim made those comments about the bicyclists that got run over by the drunk driver.

[dar512]

Ya lost me, Flint.

[tw]

Originally Posted by wackoboy

tommy boy . . . you still haven't responded to this or this

wackoboy is a teenager so extremist as to subvert another topic. The topic is the grid. Some only fear enemies hiding everywhere to kill us all. So extremists as to hype hate, fear, and myths. So trivial is the threat. So different is its source. Where does wackoboy post any facts on the topics? Instead wackoboy must again attack one who exposes his myths justified by extremism.

wackoboy has little grasp of reality. George Jr is no longer in office. Therefore we are all doomed. So wackoboy does what Limbaugh calls normal behavior - attack non-extremist so that foolish fears based only in a political agenda are not exposed.

Wackoboy - what happened to the paragraph where you also blame Obama and Geithner for all this?

Soon you will post about terrorists conspiring to kill us all with Cessnas. OMG. We must be all doomed. Blame it all on Obama. Or first reject fear and wacko politics - then realize it was a trivial event similar to car theft. But that means wackoboy cannot post more daily personal attacks.

[classicman]

Nice diversion attempt tommy, but that game has already been played out. Its time to face the reality that you have been called out and are too small a man to admit when you are wrong. You are a transparent as they come.

No emotion in that last post?
No attacks of other posters?
I'm done with you and your petty shit. Back on ignore you go. What little, if any, credibility you had is gone.
All that is left is your blatant dishonesty and hypocrisy.

[classicman]

Former CIA operative Robert Baer:

"Their foreign intelligence service has been probing our computers, our defense computers, our defense contractors, our power grids, our telephone system. ... I just came from a speech at the national defense university and they were hit by the Chinese trying to get into their systems," Baer said.

"They are testing and have gotten in portals. It's a serious threat."

President Obama has started a 60-day review of all the nation's efforts at cybersecurity...

The Defense Department said last year that military installations are "highly vulnerable" to threats to the grid.

I think I'll take the opinions of those who actually know something about this than some blowhard on the internet.

This is a serious concern.

[tw]

Originally Posted by classicman

I think I'll take the opinions of those who actually know something about this than some blowhard on the internet.

How do you do that? How do you routinely disbelieve yourself? What page of the wacko extremist handbook tells you how to do that?