Satellite Views Of The Blackout

An anonymous reader writes "These Before and After satellite views of the blackout, from the NOAA, show the geographic extent and intensity of the outage. Toronto, Ottawa, and Detroit seem the worst hit. Currently, a cnn article mentions that a reverse of power flow around Lake Erie may have caused an overload that triggered the programmed shutdown of the power grid. Would be interesting to know how the system and software works, but then again, that information could be dangerous in the wrong hands."

Comments

Ridiculous

[Mattcelt]

that information could be dangerous in the wrong hands

Nearly any information, used incorrectly, maliciously, or by evil people can be devestating. Making information secret in the interest of "security" is a bad move. This is why many people advocate full disclosure, and why most security experts think that "security through obscurity" is a bad idea. Security should come because systems are strong, not because those systems are "secret".

Re:Ridiculous

[thrillseeker]

Security should come because systems are strong, not because those systems are "secret".

That's a nice trite statement often made by those who don't try to understand a given problem or that a generality doesn't apply to every situation.

A large power distribution system by its nature has mulitple physical, immovable and fragile weak points. Multiple physical things are hard to hide and multiple fragile things are expensive to protect - one can easily encrypt information and if a good encryption system is used then obtaining the encrypted data provides little value to the wicked. It's quite a different matter to secure physical objects - especially nodes that provide interconnection to multiple further vulnerable systems that pass electrical power and can be destroyed with devices as simple as homemade fertilizer bombs. It's also quite a different matter to secure multiple nodes when it requires multiple individualized security efforts - one can write a good encryption algorithm and apply it everywhere at little additional cost - if it takes x-million dollars to secure a switching node then it will take y times x-million dollars to secure y nodes. The nodes in a power distribution system are not the only weak points - the system can be damaged just as effectively by attacking the interconnections - such attacks can be routed around to a degree in a network but sufficient concurrent (and intentional) attacks will cause tremendous overloads to a power distribution system that requires significant time to recover from - how would you propose securing a million of miles of power lines and a million switching stations affordably?

The power network in North America was built with certain threats in mind - weather, overloaded systems, etc. It works quite well the majority of the time. It is an entirely different matter to build a power distribution system that can survive and recover from intentional and planned manmade attacks. Would you want to start paying ten-times your current power bill for such a system - especially one that can be defeated if one tries hard enough?

Obscurity as a security technique is effective when other techniques are very hard and very expensive - but certainly not bulletproof. Security is a cost-benefits analysis and if hiding some critical information about the sensitive spots in a difficult to secure physical system can provide an immediate benefit, then it's stupid to publish such information so that those who wish you harm can more easily commit it.

Re:Dangerous in the wrong hands?

[Anonymous Coward]

If a map with so little detail can be used to bring down the power grid, we've got bigger problems. There isn't even a scale on that map.

Re:Dangerous in the wrong hands?

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on. 'Sensitive' information can be found in any street map you buy from the corner store. Did you know, for example, that JFK airport is in New York City? Keeping power plants secure, and airports for that matter, doesn't rely on keeping them hidden. It means using more than a chain link fence and a rent-a-cop to keep people out. If you think you'll be able to keep terrorist from finding power plants you're crazy. You can see them from the highway!

Re:Not blacked out in New England

[johnstein]

I don't think the 'after' picture is accurate at all. I live in columbus where we were *not* affected by the outage. however, the after picture clearly shows that columbus was 'dark'. We were just fine. Most of our power comes from the Ohio River IIRC. Sure, the picture is 'neat' to see parts of NY state and other areas under darkness via satellite, but I am treating it more as an 'artist's rendering', not a legitimate photo. I would expect more from NOAA.

Anyone else notice the same thing?

-John