Way back when I was a punk teen and dabbled in "Hacking" I fantasized about doing what Oliver (from Bloom County) did; Break into some company or newspaper and change the headlines tomorrow, the packaging on a product, etc...
Well, the thing is, though I didn't really get around to trying, back then things were still in the "Real World".
Let's say I did something really, really horrid (in a "Funny" way) like changing "Play Clay farm" to "Play Clay Death Camp; a final solution for your kinder's entertainment needs" and long and short I just intercepted the plans before they went to be fabricated and replaced the images/instructions, etc...
Well, 20 years ago, if I'd done that it would have still been made in the USA and the first one that extruded a worker would have yanked the emergency stop and showed the company CEO who'd have given the man a free paid vacation and walked off to rip the heads off a dozen people who should have seen and stopped it before hand, "New computer system" not withstanding.
However, that loyal worker has been laid off. Also about everyone else in the plant, it's all the lowest possible bidder in China or the Phillipines, etc. There might be a high tech $200 shoe designed on a computer, that inner city kids shoot each other for, but they are still sewn by a barefoot 6 year old girl chained to a post in the floor in a falling apart shoddy factory that could collapse and burn any week. And this is subsidized by our tax dollars when any remaining US factories not only have to pay wages, taxes, with no bailout, they get visited by "Health Inspectors" who write fines like candy.
So, if I, or rather a modern hacker, tracked down "Play Clay Toys, inc." or whatever and before it got sent to the factory in China injected his own similar but warped design, like my sick idea, they'd only know when it had been on Toys4Kidz shelves for 6 months and the ADL had finally noticed and was screaming on the news for a boycott.
The problem, people, is NOT "Computers". It's "Cheapness". Big CEOs want to get that extra mansion or yacht, even if they already have 15 and 25 already, so they keep shipping things overseas and getting more automated and importing increasingly skilled illegals. Who cares if the country goes into a hyperinflation depression, the next "Three Months" means more than even the food in our mouths.
written by Jessica, 11th grade Her assignment was to write about the effects a CyberWar or power outage would have on her and her family.
Electricity runs my life. What would I do without it? The answer: I have absolutely no idea! Electricity runs my -I mean everyone's- lives every day. It would take a while to get used to, but after a while, I think it would be all right. But probably not. Electricity helps us so many, many things such as drying or hair, keeping our food cold, putting on lights, listening to music, watching t.v. and many more things. Without it, I wouldn't be able to o any of these things. We need electicity!
How would we get places? By bikes? Because electricity is in cars too. Horses might be ridden more also. How would we wash our clothes? We would probably have to wash them in a pond or river. I don't live near a pond or river. I would have to ride my bike to the nearest place with water, wash my clothes, and return with a much heavier pile of wet clothes. I could not live without electricity. How did they live like that back then? How would we talk to people? Cell phones wouldn't work either. We would have to write each other letters. I don't know how long that would take to write to the other person and have them write back.
If we didn't have electricity, we wouln't be able to keep perishable food cold. That wouldn't be good. We would be living off cereal and other prepared foods. To heat food,we would have to make a fire and put it over that, because we wouldn't have a microwave. Electricity is good! We should never go without electricity! How would we put on lights? Would we have to use oil lamps? I have never used an oil lamp! I feel that they are dangerous to use, so I wouldn't be using one. Oh no! My sewing machine wouldn't work. I don't even really know enough about sewing by hand to make things. I couldn't rely on making things with thread and a needle only! They'd break right away. I barely even passed my hand-sewing test in fashion!
Let's get serious now.... people are going to die! My mother works in a hospital. She needs to be able to use electricity all day, every day. She wouldn't be able to save as many lives without it. She would haveto take charts and give fluids by hand. That would be a pain. Fluid pumps help the patients in any hospital stay alive! The X-ray, CAT Scan machines and others wouldn't work either and they are the only way to tell what is wrong with a patient. Oh don't get me started on the life respirators! Without the use of those previously stated electronically engineered machines, lives would be lost. More lives than right now!MUCH MORE! What if someone was in a coma and couldn't breathe for themselves? What would happen to a patient if she or anyone else couldn't get to them? They would DIE!
All in all, electricity is needed. If there is ever a cyber war, I hope it doesn't hit our area. Electricity i everywhere, and makes almost everything work. I don't know what I would do if I ever lost the use of it. Electonics are everywhere in my life. My phone, the lights in my room, I would be lost without it. My family wouldn't be able to talk to each other quickly if there was an emergency. If someone was dying? Although electricity is good, I would probably be able to live without it.
theres not much to say. i guess every computer sold is basicaly a trojen horse waiting to be hooked up to a nuclear bomb launching system. its like i salways said.
unless a computer is sold with a scheematic, it's not possible to get it to do what you want it to anyway.
no surprize that anyone with a scheematic or the facillities to reverse engeneer a computer can easily make a program that when execuited on the target computer network, internet or not. any network can be tapped into by simply contacting a wire to the network bus, or wirelessly if it has wireless capabillity wheather the wireless network is enabled or not. once they get the info out of the network onto any internet isp account, they can send it to an ftp mirror and access it anonymously from anywhere in the world like its being braodcast on tv but with the abillity to interactivly take controlle. with the scheematic of the spiciffic system wheather its a pc or an s100 or some unknown vax chip set main frame or mini. they can see everything in the display(everything on the screen) and everything thats typed on the keyboard as its typed, all without knoledge of the opperating system or encryption system. so its nwessessarry to make your own computer and never use hardware like display cards or memory chips or hard drives that contain chips or data from any unsecured source.. so build your ion. yes that will work. thanks for putting my mind at ease. now i know were safe.. if onl;y i didn't see you as a big assed lier. lol.. don't lie.. and don't ******** me.. please do it by the book
Good piece but you did not do your homework. I am a former manager of a computer group that managed the real time process control system that monitored and controlled the electric power system of a large southwest utility.
For years the North American Reliability Council (NERC) has established cyber security guidelines for electric utility critical infrastructure and test their compliance to those guidelines.
http://www.nerc.com/news_pr.php?npr=101
Not a word was mentioned about NERC or utility compliance to their guidelines. You left the impression that electric utilities were ignoring the issue and that is far from the truth.
?The increased use of IP networks for Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) and other operational control systems, in particular, creates potential vulnerabilities. Executives with SCADA/ICS responsibilities reported high levels of connections of those systems to IP networks including the Internet?even as they acknowledged that such connections create security issues.? --(pg31, NERC HILF, Cyber Vulnerability)"
Every time that I am driving thought this country, I observe this lot and lot of cables hanging everywhere. I cannot understand this cheaper art to create welfare. Cables everywhere. And we have a lot people with badbrains and bad instint, example we are living them everyday.
Thank you for repeating the recipe for the most effective cyber attacks... just in case wanna be terrorists missed it the first time. I REALLY HAVE NO NEED TO KNOW WHAT ONE OF YOUR INTERVIEWEES WOULD DO IF HE WERE A CYBER TERRORIST IN ORDER TO CREATE THE MOST HAVOC. There has to be a line for the need to know,versus the need to cause fear and apprehension, versus recipes for terrorists to follow our experts' step by step guidelines. I still remember that I learned through ABC News that a bomb vehicle placed between two concrete walls would be most effective (the Times Square bomber). I really do not need or want to know how to mak a more effective bomb attack.
Please, let's see some responsible journalism.
By the way, 60 Minutes used to be my favorite news program.
I Agree! Sometimes the News Programs don't seem to get it. There are plenty of people out there who don't need any more ideas. Oh Yeah, I still like 60 Minutes.
I am a Water Plant Operator in a large city in the midwest. All of our water plant's computers are NOT connected to the internet in any way. It was my understanding that this was a law.
Ask yourselves why do any critical utility/infrastructure systems need to be connected to the internet in the first place?? That's just stupid.
I think what we are really seeing here is yet another use of fear mongering to put limitations on the real prize, free speech.
Years ago electric systems were monitored and controlled by stand alone computer systems like your water system. Departments in electric utilities want to see real time power system information for a variety of reasons.
So now these real time control systems are connected to the electric utility internal computer network and that internal utility computer network is connected to the internet. Just go to any utility website.
Hackers can try and break through the corporate firewall and gain access to the real time computer systems. There are internal firewalls for the real time computer systems but given enough time and resources any computer system can eventually be hacked.
Hackers would have to know the internal working of a supervisory control system to open breakers and cause severe operating problems. So I think the chances of that happening are remote.
The best way to bring down the system is use a couple of RPGs on the unit transformers at generating stations. There is at least a year lead time to replace them if no spares are available. I think that is the real threat.
Ok, posted this on ANOTHER CBS 60 Minutes Comments Page, but here now ...
.
.
Why was THIS question never asked ?
What's the influence of Microsoft and Windows ?
Notorious for getting hacked, yes ?
.
Know this for fact ...
Around 2005 - after Bush Admin. gave Microsoft a "free pass" on the Monopoly Conviction - Microsoft, in quest to keep the World from adopting UNIX/Linux as their OS of choice, GAVE AWAY FOR FREE the API's (the 'keys to inner sanctum' of an OS) and other "secret code" needed to protect the OS from hackers, to China and Russia.
Why has THAT never been widely reported ?
And why was it not even mentioned in this 60 Minutes Report tonight ?
Was this "give away" done with "blessing" of US Gov. at the time ?
Isn't that a "treasonable act" - giving National Security Technology to Foreign Nations ? .
Some fundamental, and obvious, questions are not getting asked.
Okay, here is yet another example of the forces that are defiantly spreading their sickness. Yes the hackers that would steal money out of bank and shut down critical electricity, etc. But I'm talking about the EDUCATION needed to development the systems that would make this much, much harder. Nevada tea-party primary winner suggests doing away with the dept. of education and just trust the corporations and the markets. We trusted the markets and it led to Sep. 2008. Education not more right wing political bantering. We are vulnerable because of the tactics that failed to focus on math and science (including computer science/security). The focus was on stopping "those" people and interferring with "those" people's attempts at making their contributions including in the area of cyber security. We know the politics. We know what the tea-party really stands for. More attacks on our educational systems opening the door for cyber terrorism. The cyber terrorists can't win unless they get help from the inside. That help would come from tea-party crap. Get rid of the dept. of education? Are you insane!?
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Well, the thing is, though I didn't really get around to trying, back then things were still in the "Real World".
Let's say I did something really, really horrid (in a "Funny" way) like changing "Play Clay farm" to "Play Clay Death Camp; a final solution for your kinder's entertainment needs" and long and short I just intercepted the plans before they went to be fabricated and replaced the images/instructions, etc...
Well, 20 years ago, if I'd done that it would have still been made in the USA and the first one that extruded a worker would have yanked the emergency stop and showed the company CEO who'd have given the man a free paid vacation and walked off to rip the heads off a dozen people who should have seen and stopped it before hand, "New computer system" not withstanding.
However, that loyal worker has been laid off. Also about everyone else in the plant, it's all the lowest possible bidder in China or the Phillipines, etc. There might be a high tech $200 shoe designed on a computer, that inner city kids shoot each other for, but they are still sewn by a barefoot 6 year old girl chained to a post in the floor in a falling apart shoddy factory that could collapse and burn any week. And this is subsidized by our tax dollars when any remaining US factories not only have to pay wages, taxes, with no bailout, they get visited by "Health Inspectors" who write fines like candy.
So, if I, or rather a modern hacker, tracked down "Play Clay Toys, inc." or whatever and before it got sent to the factory in China injected his own similar but warped design, like my sick idea, they'd only know when it had been on Toys4Kidz shelves for 6 months and the ADL had finally noticed and was screaming on the news for a boycott.
The problem, people, is NOT "Computers". It's "Cheapness". Big CEOs want to get that extra mansion or yacht, even if they already have 15 and 25 already, so they keep shipping things overseas and getting more automated and importing increasingly skilled illegals. Who cares if the country goes into a hyperinflation depression, the next "Three Months" means more than even the food in our mouths.
Electricity runs my life. What would I do without it? The answer: I have absolutely no idea! Electricity runs my -I mean everyone's- lives every day. It would take a while to get used to, but after a while, I think it would be all right. But probably not. Electricity helps us so many, many things such as drying or hair, keeping our food cold, putting on lights, listening to music, watching t.v. and many more things. Without it, I wouldn't be able to o any of these things. We need electicity!
How would we get places? By bikes? Because electricity is in cars too. Horses might be ridden more also. How would we wash our clothes? We would probably have to wash them in a pond or river. I don't live near a pond or river. I would have to ride my bike to the nearest place with water, wash my clothes, and return with a much heavier pile of wet clothes. I could not live without electricity. How did they live like that back then? How would we talk to people? Cell phones wouldn't work either. We would have to write each other letters. I don't know how long that would take to write to the other person and have them write back.
If we didn't have electricity, we wouln't be able to keep perishable food cold. That wouldn't be good. We would be living off cereal and other prepared foods. To heat food,we would have to make a fire and put it over that, because we wouldn't have a microwave. Electricity is good! We should never go without electricity! How would we put on lights? Would we have to use oil lamps? I have never used an oil lamp! I feel that they are dangerous to use, so I wouldn't be using one. Oh no! My sewing machine wouldn't work. I don't even really know enough about sewing by hand to make things. I couldn't rely on making things with thread and a needle only! They'd break right away. I barely even passed my hand-sewing test in fashion!
Let's get serious now.... people are going to die! My mother works in a hospital. She needs to be able to use electricity all day, every day. She wouldn't be able to save as many lives without it. She would haveto take charts and give fluids by hand. That would be a pain. Fluid pumps help the patients in any hospital stay alive! The X-ray, CAT Scan machines and others wouldn't work either and they are the only way to tell what is wrong with a patient. Oh don't get me started on the life respirators! Without the use of those previously stated electronically engineered machines, lives would be lost. More lives than right now!MUCH MORE! What if someone was in a coma and couldn't breathe for themselves? What would happen to a patient if she or anyone else couldn't get to them? They would DIE!
All in all, electricity is needed. If there is ever a cyber war, I hope it doesn't hit our area. Electricity i everywhere, and makes almost everything work. I don't know what I would do if I ever lost the use of it. Electonics are everywhere in my life. My phone, the lights in my room, I would be lost without it. My family wouldn't be able to talk to each other quickly if there was an emergency. If someone was dying? Although electricity is good, I would probably be able to live without it.
its like i salways said.
unless a computer is sold with a scheematic, it's not possible to get it to do what you want it to anyway.
no surprize that anyone with a scheematic or the facillities to reverse engeneer a computer can easily make a program that when execuited on the target computer network, internet or not. any network can be tapped into by simply contacting a wire to the network bus, or wirelessly if it has wireless capabillity wheather the wireless network is enabled or not. once they get the info out of the network onto any internet isp account, they can send it to an ftp mirror and access it anonymously from anywhere in the world like its being braodcast on tv but with the abillity to interactivly take controlle. with the scheematic of the spiciffic system wheather its a pc or an s100 or some unknown vax chip set main frame or mini. they can see everything in the display(everything on the screen) and everything thats typed on the keyboard as its typed, all without knoledge of the opperating system or encryption system. so its nwessessarry to make your own computer and never use hardware like display cards or memory chips or hard drives that contain chips or data from any unsecured source.. so build your ion. yes that will work. thanks for putting my mind at ease. now i know were safe.. if onl;y i didn't see you as a big assed lier. lol.. don't lie.. and don't ******** me.. please do it by the book
For years the North American Reliability Council (NERC) has established cyber security guidelines for electric utility critical infrastructure and test their compliance to those guidelines.
http://www.nerc.com/news_pr.php?npr=101
Not a word was mentioned about NERC or utility compliance to their guidelines. You left the impression that electric utilities were ignoring the issue and that is far from the truth.
?The increased use of IP networks for Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) and other operational control systems, in particular, creates potential vulnerabilities. Executives with SCADA/ICS responsibilities reported high levels of connections of those systems to IP networks including the Internet?even as they acknowledged that such connections create security issues.? --(pg31, NERC HILF, Cyber Vulnerability)"
Please, let's see some responsible journalism.
By the way, 60 Minutes used to be my favorite news program.
Ask yourselves why do any critical utility/infrastructure systems need to be connected to the internet in the first place?? That's just stupid.
I think what we are really seeing here is yet another use of fear mongering to put limitations on the real prize, free speech.
So now these real time control systems are connected to the electric utility internal computer network and that internal utility computer network is connected to the internet. Just go to any utility website.
Hackers can try and break through the corporate firewall and gain access to the real time computer systems. There are internal firewalls for the real time computer systems but given enough time and resources any computer system can eventually be hacked.
Hackers would have to know the internal working of a supervisory control system to open breakers and cause severe operating problems. So I think the chances of that happening are remote.
The best way to bring down the system is use a couple of RPGs on the unit transformers at generating stations. There is at least a year lead time to replace them if no spares are available. I think that is the real threat.
Ok, posted this on ANOTHER CBS 60 Minutes Comments Page, but here now ...
.
.
Why was THIS question never asked ?
What's the influence of Microsoft and Windows ?
Notorious for getting hacked, yes ?
.
Know this for fact ...
Around 2005 - after Bush Admin. gave Microsoft a "free pass" on the Monopoly Conviction - Microsoft, in quest to keep the World from adopting UNIX/Linux as their OS of choice, GAVE AWAY FOR FREE the API's (the 'keys to inner sanctum' of an OS) and other "secret code" needed to protect the OS from hackers, to China and Russia.
Why has THAT never been widely reported ?
And why was it not even mentioned in this 60 Minutes Report tonight ?
Was this "give away" done with "blessing" of US Gov. at the time ?
Isn't that a "treasonable act" - giving National Security Technology to Foreign Nations ?
.
Some fundamental, and obvious, questions are not getting asked.
.