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Bank E-Communications Aid During London Bombings
davidwr writes "Reuters and eWeek report on how the British Banks' emergency chatroom and web site helped them cope with Thursday's terrorist bombing." From the article: "The Bank of England, the Treasury and the Financial Services Authority switched on a secure section of their Financial Sector Continuity Web site to talk to major banks in the City of London's financial hub about how they were coping. A Bank of England spokeswoman said this was the first time the secure site had been used in an actual crisis situation since its creation in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York."
Did you not hear all about phone systems and long-distance phone networks getting clogged with calls? If it's anything like here in Canada, when phone systems are backed up, priority can only be obtained for connections by emergency services. On a dedicated network, using a web-based chatline is a simple (and simple is beautiful) way for the banks to conference call with the treasury and whatnot without worrying about phone problems. The whole point is that the banks are legitimately worried about becoming targets, this makes sense.
New slang when you notice the stripes, the dirt in your fries.
I was pretty impressed that my net connection was running perfectly the whole time and various news sites seemed to be coping. I was talking on Skype no problem, but the land and mobile phones were taking a few tries to get through. Even so there were plenty of pictures from camera phones getting on the net.
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from http://eweek.com/
header: Infrastructure
Internet Chatroom Helps Keep City of London Open By Jane Merriman, Reuters and Alistair MacDonald, Reuters
July 8, 2005
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LONDON, July 8 (Reuters)--A secret Internet chatroom run by Britain's financial regulators helped keep London's financial markets open after Thursday's bomb blasts, while financial firms activated security measures in case of further attacks. ADVERTISEMENT
The Bank of England, the Treasury and the Financial Services Authority switched on a secure section of their Financial Sector Continuity Web site to talk to major banks in the City of London's financial hub about how they were coping.
A Bank of England spokeswoman said this was the first time the secure site had been used in an actual crisis situation since its creation in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York.
"In the light of yesterday's events, the tripartite authorities (Treasury, Bank of England and FSA) have activated the contingency part of the Web site," they said on Friday.
The Web site has a secure section in which the authorities can communicate directly with big banks that are key to the stability of the international financial system.
The City of London's financial markets, where currencies, stocks, bonds and commodities worth trillions of dollars are traded daily, kept going despite disruption from Thursday's bombings on a London bus and underground trains, which killed more than 50 people and injured hundreds.
"Contingency planning by banks has increased considerably in last three years, post Sept. 11, and what yesterday shows is that the planning has worked," said David Key, crises management practice leader at Control Risks Group, which advises many banks on crisis and security management.
PLANS IN PLACE
Swiss financial services group UBS, for example, briefly evacuated its building on Liverpool Street, which houses bond and currency desks, but contingency plans ensured trading was not affected.
Japanese bank Nomura did not have to evacuate staff to any of its three disaster recovery sites in London, but a well-rehearsed plan was put into effect, coordinated by an emergency response team, which held meetings every hour.
Nomura security staff were alerted to the bombs by text, pager and e-mail messages sent by London's police service. A complete roll call of staff was taken, and a helpline for family and friends set up. On Friday, the bank was operating with about half its usual staff, with people being told they need not come in if they did not feel comfortable doing so.
The Corporation of London, the body that runs the City, and City of London police also have an Internet communication system that was used on Thursday to pass on advice to banks and other firms in the "Square Mile", the European hub for some of the world's biggest financial services firms.
Banks have long had plans for such attacks and routinely monitor code levels put out by intelligence services and the police. Chairmen of several big banks, for example, plus their security chiefs, had a briefing with intelligence services about four months ago, one bank source familiar with the matter said.
"Banks' internal security teams have got better and more sophisticated as they have invested in best practise," Key said.
"There has also been a move away from the traditional focus on security towards risk management, or understanding the threat and developing resilience," he said.
CONTINGENCY
The City of London is no stranger to bomb attacks.
In 1992 many firms suffered devastation from a huge car bomb planted by the Irish Republican Army outside the Baltic Exchange in the heart of the area. A year later, an
The police shut down all phones and cell phones. The early news reports were questioning if cell phones were used to detonate the bombs.
Plus, if you have a group of terrorists, and they all have pre-paid cell phones, it is a good way to coordinate.
On the other side, it must suck if you are hurt and need help, and your cell phone does not work. No, not at the site of the bombing because the police will be there, but if you are somewhere else, and have a heart attack or get hit by a car.
Maybe they should have kept it a secret a while longer.
There are no secrets. If you want to know what a country has or might do, just get together 10 of your super bright friends and spend 2 years thinking about what systems a country might have. I bet you would figure most of it out. Before you label that idea stupid, ask yourself 2 questions. What does the CIA do? Hire 1000 smart people who read newspapers, listen to gossip, look at satellite images, and they think and try and figure things out. #2, I bet Al Queda has been spending many years thinking these exact same questions.
All you need to know is that everything created by the other side was done by human minds. Chances are they are using logic. So if you think about it long enough, you can figure it out.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
"You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war."
- Napoleon Bonaparte
I was working at a online gaming company that was acquired by Cantor Fitzgerald the Summer before the 9/11 attacks. It was a big learning experience to witness (from afar) the very personal devastation as well as the tireless recovery in the aftermath.
Although CF's ability to recover from the attack was made possible by the sheer willpower of the surviving team members in NYC and other offices around the world, equally crucial was a backup computing facility that was completed during the Summer of 2001. A factor which also helped was the greater community of financial institutions that were helping our parent company in so many different ways.
From this article, and other articles I've read, it is clear that there is a lot more resilience in the systems that keep our society going. We all learned the hard way, and we keep on learning. Even something as simple as a secure bulletin board can make a huge difference, saving lives, and speeding up the recovery.
Unless attacks reach new levels of devastation, our organizational preparedness, "process routing" capability, and improved security measures will continue to reduce the ability for terrorism to disrupt the ongoing process of globalization.
- JP
Someone on-air (as in local official) in London said (real-time) they were considering flipping the switch and killing all civilian cell activity.
;)
Don't shoot the messenger - I can't attest to the veracity of that.
What I've found interesting is all of the information they've discussed which has been captured on all of the public cameras. From what they said today during the various press conferences, any repairs they make will include "that many more" cameras to watch for anyone trying to do this again.
No guns, invasion of privacy with cameras, what's wrong with these Britons?
oh. I almost forgot:
I've got some serious English heritage (can you say "Let's behead the King?") so I can't be too mean.
Well, the video I originally linked to. Then there's Physics911.net, gnn.tv, 911inplanesite.com, and alot more links at reopen911.org/links.htm
There are also numerous videos studying it like 911-InPlaneSite, The Truth and Lies of 9/11, and so on...
"A truly wise man realizes he knows nothing."
The London Stock Exchange called a Fast market, in reaction to the initial high volatility and volume caused by the situation (possibly over this secure channel).
As a result of the Fast Market call, banks are requested to turn off programmed trading systems. This removes the danger that computer trading triggers will be tripped and cause catastrophic selling - leading to a crash.
Seems like everything was handled pretty well. The London equity market stabilised quickly, and actually returned to peaks of 2 weeks before within the same day. I'm sure that the reason behind this was a feeling that the attack - although bad - could have been a whole lot worse.
Not only GSM but all cellphones I know will work on the emergency numbers. Both the phones and the infrastructure are set up to throw out all rules when the user keys in 911 (or 119 depending on where you are).
For instance a phone that shows no service because, the provider in the area rejects the phone for whatever reason, will throw away its perferred roaming list and latch onto the first compatible signal it finds and makes the call.
By law (in most places) the provider must route the call through even though they might not get the customer to pay for it.
Usually when a call is made the network sends requests to the billing center to make sure the call is allowed, during an emergency call this process is bypassed. And often if the base station doesn't have the capacity for the new call, and can't kick it off to another channel, will drop a current call to allow the emergency call through. Of course in an emergency like the bombing, ALL calls are probably emergency calls, and you'll have capacity problems.
When the police shut down the networks in the UK, they probably just got the providers to move the network into an emergency calls only state. That's not really a problem because if cell phones were used to trigger off the bombs they wouldn't be able to receive a call in this mode.
Software Engineer & Writer of Military Science Fiction and Fantasy Blog: petermwright.com Twitter: WrightPeterM
This makes me quite happy, actually. Shortly after 9/11, I did a web project for a healthcare system in a nearby city. The site was designed to provide emergency information for 1) doctors 2) staff and 3) press, as well as send email and SMS alerts. While it's unlikely that they would be the target of a terrorist attack, there have been situations where domestic crisis arose and with the chaos of the emergency, getting ahold of staff, and the flood of cameras, newsvans, and reporters it can be awfully difficult to communicate.
They ran a simulated emergency shortly after the site was built and their protocols were put in place. Fifty 'victims' showed up with fake injuries and had to be processed.
All of this boils down to one easy proverb: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.