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Hackers Could Open Convicts' Cells In Prisons
Hugh Pickens writes "Some of the same vulnerabilities that the Stuxnet superworm used to sabotage centrifuges at a nuclear plant in Iran exist in the country's top high-security prisons where programmable logic controllers (PLCs) control locks on cells and other facility doors. Researchers have already written three exploits for PLC vulnerabilities they found. 'Most people don't know how a prison or jail is designed; that's why no one has ever paid attention to it,' says John Strauchs, who plans to discuss the issue and demonstrate an exploit against the systems at the DefCon hacker conference next week. 'How many people know they're built with the same kind of PLC used in centrifuges?' A hacker would need to get his malware onto the control computer either by getting a corrupt insider to install it via an infected USB stick or send it via a phishing attack aimed at a prison staffer, since some control systems are also connected to the internet, Strauchs claims. 'Bear in mind, a prison security electronic system has many parts beyond door control such as intercoms, lighting control, video surveillance, water and shower control, and so forth,' adds Strauchs. 'Once we take control of the PLC we can do anything (PDF). Not just open and close doors. We can absolutely destroy the system. We could blow out all the electronics.'"
Why are the prison control systems connected to the Internet? Who thought that was a good idea?
Palm trees and 8
The free market is a vague metaphor. Corporations and other financial interests are more concrete, and their influence on lawmaking is very real. Although I am not sure that their influence is to blame for a high incarceration rate.
It's hardly outrageous, though: Obviously the private prison system has a direct interest in it. Pharma doesn't directly profit from incarceration, but it does have an interest in harsh penalties on trading drugs that they don't control. Etc.
But clearly, there is a multitude of forces at work here. A culture of fear that encourages harsh sentences and incarceration over rehabilitation. A crazy divide between rich and poor and a bleak economic outlook. Poor education. Obviously some people will blame the free market (whatever they think that is) for many of these things, while others will do the opposite and demand an even free-er free market (whatever they think that is).
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
This IS scaremongering.
'Once we take control of the PLC we can do anything (PDF). Not just open and close doors. We can absolutely destroy the system. We could blow out all the electronics.'
Right there.
Your average reader now doesn't visualize a circuit-board somewhere fizzing out and releasing some of that mythical white smoke.
He sees **BUM!***BUM!***EXPLOSIONS!!!***BADA-BUM!!*** instead.
Followed by rapists and serial killers and cannibals being armed with rocket launchers and AIDS and set loose onto a kindergarten city somewhere.
You know... a city made entirely out of kindergartens. And diaper factories.
Too bad Numb3rs was canceled...
Or there would now surely be an episode in the making about just such an escape attempt.
Fortunately, CSI: Miami is still on the air.
We may yet see 2 million convicts across USA blowing up prisons with internet viruses and then rampaging across the land... no... wait...
QUICK! Someone get me Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer - I've got their next blockbuster right here!
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
The free market has these things called lobbyists. Lobbyists control government because Congress either toes the line, or people will be elected who will.
Want to know who is deciding why we need more felonies every day, and why people need to get locked up, even though crime rates are not impacted? Definitely not government -- in reality, politicians want crime because it can be used as a hot button issue during election time.
The people who want the prisons stuffed with inmates is the private prison system.
This is the free market at work. Pure "capitalism" without any regulations of bribery, or controls on campaign contributions is what you see here. Pure capitalism means that the most ruthless, psychopathic people get to the top and stay there.
Regulations and laws are important. Capitalism doesn't build roads unless the market is there. Capitalism doesn't feed homeless unless there is PR to be gained. It doesn't care about national defense or crime unless people pay private security companies. It cares about the almighty bitcoin (or currency of choice) and that's it.
I guess history isn't taught anymore, or people would remember Frick, Standard Oil, Carnegie, and many other companies which thrived under a government that little to no regulation. It took a depression where the whole economy that was based on bad borrowing and a president with some balls to actually fix things.
Capitalism isn't all bad, but it needs regulation or else we end up with bank crisis after bank crisis, stock scams, and many other issues.