NERC Releases Interim Report on Aug 14th Blackout

will writes "The North American Electric Reliability Council has released four documents concerning the August 14th power outage power outage in the North East. The blackout investigation homepage lists all NERC's documents relating to this event. Press coverage is at The Washington Post, CNN, and CBS News. The take home message: FirstEnergy did it. The are, of course, denying it." The report is also available at reports.energy.gov. Reader stinkydog writes "According to Yahoo News part of the blame for the big fizzle of 2003 lies with a failing SCADA system, GE's XA/21 power management system. 'Not only did the software that controls audible and visual alarms stop working at 2:14 p.m. EDT, but about a half hour later, two servers supporting the emergency system failed, too.' According to the product specs, it is a Unix system with X Windows."

Comments

Yeah...that's right...

[hookedup]

Funny how all the americans were blaming canada, well guess what? the song doesnt count for _EVERYTHING_!

I can see it now...

[Spleener12]

At least one person is going to say something along the lines of the following:

"Yeah, since it was a *nix box that failed, it's all right, but if it was a MS box that was at fault you'd all be, like, 'OMG MICROSOFT SUXXORS,' you goddamed zealot hypocrits!"

Re:X?

[Interfacer]

Typical.
If they had been Microsoft servers, everyone would have been "Oh well yeah, that's supposed to crash. they should use -INSERT FAVORITE OS- instead."

now that they ARE unix servers running X (like, how else would you visualise a power plant? cat /proc/powerplant maybe?) the reaction is 'what has X to do with it'.

IMO X (especially the versions dated several years ago) is crap, so it is no wonder it crashes when the load is increased. in my experience that is when things tend to go wrong.

i am not saying it WAS X's fault, but it is just as plausible as anything else.

kind regards,
Bruno.

Not totally UNIX

[flamefront]

Not totally UNIX -
See Sep 1 2003:Blaster worm linked to US blackout:

• some of those companies were running Windows-based control systems with Port 135 open - the port through which the worm attacked systems.

Mayor of NYC needs to apologize to Canada

[MadCow42]

He was VERY vocal when the outage occurred that it was the fault of the Canadian power grid, although he had NO basis for that assumption.

His pissy attitude was inexcusable and Canada should request a formal apology.

MadCow.

Re:Now we know...

[Shakrai]

Today people from all over the world are saying that the second biggest threat to world's peace, after Israel, is the USA.

Of course everybody is wrong and you are right because god is telling you that you are right.

Umm. Fuck you. Sorry, it needs to be said. Let me say it again. Fuck you and your preconceptions about my country.

Just so you know, I consider myself a spiritual person but I don't attend church. I'd hardly call myself a Christian. Organized religion usually offends me.

BTW, I read that link in your sig. It makes some interesting points, most of which I disagree with. I'd be interested in refuting them for you, but I already started another thread about the anti-American attitudes that have started to grate on me. I think I'll limit myself to one of those per month. Besides, I doubt you'd listen to me anyway. Should you be interested in an intelligent, non "America sucks" debate, consider sending me a message on one of the numerous IM services that I have linked off my /. account.

You'd have done so much better if you hadn't tossed in the "God" comment and lumped me (and all other Americans) into the category of the religious right (which is the minority in this country).

Again, I'll say it. Fuck you. Fuck those who agree with you that will doubtless mod me down -- I needed to drop some karma anyway. You'd all be speaking German or Russian if it wasn't for us.