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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."
Really now... a 'secure' network for banks to talk to each other in? WTF are they using during normal, non-emergancy times? No wonder all these damned credit card/identity thefts take place... these idiots are broadcasting their info on unsecured networks?
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
[Wanker] Whot's happening over there.
[Boss] OMG we are teh fux0r3d!!
[Wanker] Yea but, whot's happening.
[Boss] The effing bus just blew up in front of me!
[Wanker] I see. Wh0t about bank business? Wh0t's happening?
[Boss] Fuck the bank! The bus blew up right in fron of me.
[Boss] OM Gawd!!! We are totally boned!!!
{Wanker] What ever. TTFN
[Boss] OMG! OMG!
[customer] Morning, I'd like to make a withdrawal, please.
[Wanker] Sorry, it's my tea break. Ask him.
[customer] Scuse me old chap, I'd like to make a withdrawal.
[Boss] OMG! The bus blew up. You can't make a withdrawal. Can't you see the bus blew up?
[customer] Yes but, the bank seems fine.
[Boss] Sod off you twat!!! The bus blew up. We're fux0r3d! OMG! OMG!
...well, it ain't that "secret" anymore now is it ?
In all honesty, I think the real power of such a channel only comes to light in a contingency that directly hits regular communication lines like telephone etc. In that case, an extra "hidden" link could actually have value.
Now, it was primarily a human tragedy where communication was not directly at risk.
Maybe they should have kept it a secret a while longer.
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
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.
bankofE89: wtf? something blew up
treasury49: yep i know treasury49: r u ok?
bankofE89: ya
bankofE89: it wasnt nearby
treasury49: ok
bankofE89: a/s/l?
"In the wake of 9/11..." is all too often used to start a paragraph which boils down to "...government spent a ton of money doing absolutely nothing for security while simultaneously doing far more harm to a free and democratic way of life than the terrorists ever could."
I'm pleased to see that at least in one case, someone actually gets it. You can't stop the terrorists. Random bad stuff happens in life, and the best thing for it is to be as prepared as you can. Communications is the single best way to spend money in preparation for insert-bad-stuff-here. Be it terrorism, natural disaster, industrial accident, or what have you, better communications saves lives. As has been said many times by everyone whose job doesn't involve spending billions of dollars, more money should not be spent on trying to prevent disasters, it should be spent on ways to clean up after them. Billions in airport screening is a complete waste of money because it just forces someone to bomb a mall or movie theater instead - billions in police training, EMT and EMS training, hospitals and clinics, etc. is money that will reap rewards no matter what happens next.
High-speed Road Trip (18.000KPH)
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.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
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
Be the first to comment on this article
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
What...you've not seen the hidden servers.ini entry in mIRC for irc.gov.uk?
It's great fun. You should see the op wars in #commons.
MikeyHoward: "L" is for Labour. "L" is for Lice.
* MikeyHoward makes TonyB -o
TonyB: Get over it, Tory boys!
* ChanServ makes TonyB +o
-ChanServ- TonyB used Op in #commons
* BettyBoothroid (services@irc.gov.uk) has joined #commons
* BettyBoothroid sets mode +b *!*@*
* BettyBoothroid kicks MikeyHoward from #commons (MKICK from QueenLiz)
* BettyBoothroid kicks TonyB from #commons (MKICK from QueenLiz)
sorry. I'll get my hat.
"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
can we drop the funny comments (and, for that matter, anything about people worrying about money). people died. it was only yesterday.
thanks.
andy
london
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.
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.