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

Dangerous in the wrong hands?

[bc90021]

If a private citizen were to show the interconnections of the power grid on their website, what would happen? How long would it be before the government ordered him/her to remove that information in the interest of "National Security"? Why is it that CNN can show it freely? A similar map was being broadcast on TV all morning.

And as for how the software works, it would be interesting to know just what OS the power company computers were running. Not to sound like a conspiracy theorist (well, ok, that's exactly what I'm trying to sound like ;) ) as soon as there were variants on the Blaster worm, a large section of the power went out? Hhhmmm...

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:Dangerous in the wrong hands?

[weave]

Some people on bugtraq are already speculating that the blaster worm may have had something to do with it...

• a post
• another post
• Info on SCADA

Got me if it's true. I'm not up on that stuff. Made for some interesting reading though! :)

Re:Dangerous in the wrong hands?

[RobotRunAmok]

Some people on bugtraq are already speculating that the blaster worm may have had something to do with it...

Dude, people everywhere are speculating that their own personal boogeyman is responsible. Here in New York, Mets fans are blaming Yankee fans, Brooklyn is blaming Manhattan, and everyone is kinda suspicious of Jersey...

Too bad X-Files has been cancelled, eh?

Re:Dangerous in the wrong hands?

[Dr. Manhattan]

How many died in this, the biggest outage in the US for decades? A half-dozen.

You don't target the plants. You hit the high-voltage transformers. They step down the power from the high-voltage long-distance power lines to the local transmission lines. There's only ~3000 in the whole United States. They're not made domestically and there's an 18 month lead time on manufacture.

You pick a municipality, e.g. New York. You get ~20 men, armed with automatic weapons and explosives. They start ~1am, and go around taking out HVTs. You have four groups; the first two hits each group makes (maybe more) meet no resistance at all, there's no security on these things beyond a padlocked gate.

By the time people realize that a coordinated attack is going on, and get armed guards capable of fighting off automatic weapons placed around the remaining HVTs, at least 30 of them are down. Restoring power takes weeks, possibly a couple of months. Imagine what that'd do to, e.g., Wall Street.

Now, imagine one of those four groups, instead of targeting HVTs, targets water mains instead. You now have a very large region without power or water. That requires a massive support effort, possibly even refugee camps. Picture the economic impact.

Pick two widely separated regions (e.g. New York and, I dunno, Dallas, Texas (they're even more dependent on water and power for survival there than most)) and you halve the damage to each one but more than double the chaos.

The only weird thing is why something like this hasn't happened yet.

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

[Lemmy Caution]

Because there's nothing to do in Dayton after 6 pm?

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.

Well, at least some lights stayed on

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a good thing all the green lights marking the state borders stayed on, or there could have been real trouble.

Foolish Earthlings!

[FrostedWheat]

*viewing from space*

Kodos: Foolish Earthlings! Relying on such a primitive thing as electricity!
Kang & Kodos: HA HA HA HA ... !

*the ships lights go out*

Kodos: You forgot to feed the hamster again didn't you?

That's Right!

[XplosiveX]

New York's governer blamed Canada for the cause of the outage but our Mayor Mel Lastman answered back with, "How many time have you seen the American's take the blame for anything?"

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

power distribution

[abhisarda]

Read the reports in various newspapers, you will have come across many articles saying how antiquated the power transmission system has become.

Power companies have specifically stated that putting in new power grids is very problematic because people don't want this anywhere near their property.
This view is exactly like those bastards at Cape Cod. They scream themselves hoarse that they are enviornmentalists and then fscking say no to wind mills 6 miles off the shore.

Same thing with this power grid. Companies that want to lay new power grids cannot go foward and lay lines because the residents will not waste anytime taking them to court. "We don't want it in our backyard".
Well, somebody has to pickup the cost.

Also, Canada has an excess of power generation capacity. If the US had better lines, it could have taken up the excess power Canada generates.

[ "The strain on transmission capacity is particularly acute in New York State, which is known in the industry for having far too few high-voltage power lines",

"community resistance to new lines has been high and continues to prevent new lines from being built, particularly in high-density areas like the northeast. While the federal government can step in and insist on construction of natural gas pipelines, it has no such power related to electrical transmission lines. "People want more power, but they don't want those lines"".

"Most of New York City's and Long Island's power at peak times must be generated in the city and on the Island, because it is physically impossible to transmit that much power into the area along the existing lines." ]

Re:Not blacked out in New England

[kpansky]

It may have stopped short of Rhode Island, but apprently it may have actually started in my home town. Check this.