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Water Pump Destruction Not Due To SCADA Hack
knifeyspooney writes "According to the Springfield State Journal-Register, the city's recent public water system failure was not caused by malicious activity. One water district trustee spoke this gem: 'First, they tell us that it's the first instance of cyber hacking in the entire world, and everyone goes nuts. Now, all of a sudden, they tell us it's not.'"
say what? first instance of cyber hacking? are you suuuuuuuure about that?
simple. you tell that it is due to cyberhack. everyone goes nuts, endless number of articles spread throughout internet. then you admit that it wasnt. at this point it is now impossible to change misinformation. the misinformation spreads, public opinion is shaped. you can pass your $OPA act.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2011/07/11/3265013.htm
http://idle.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=10/07/14/1235220
Read radical news here
Good morning Mr. Mayor,
this is special agent Smith.
Yes, we'd like you to say the water pump malfunctioned and wasn't hacked.
No, no, I know about the truth, Mr. Mayor, but we don't want the public to be aware of the dangers they are in from exploding water towers and militarised telephone cables... or to encourage copycat hackers.
Yes, yes... just say it was normal wear and tear.
Oh, you're not going to comply?.. are you aware that we have an unauthorised GPS under your car and know what you do Tuesday nights? ... ahh I'm glad you see things our way.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
No. It was a revised statement based on new information. That's still allowed, right?
"How can two government agencies be so at odds at what’s going on here? Did the fusion center screw up, or is the fusion center being thrown under the bus?” commented Joe Weiss, the security expert who discovered the initial Fusion Center report and reported on it. “There’s a lot of black and white stuff in that report. Either there is or there isn’t a Russian IP address in there. It’s hard to miss that."
While I don't think that threats like these are nonexistent, they are still extremely overblown, and the media jumps on them at a moment's notice. My biggest concern is that this could be the beginning of the military industrial complex evolving to exist on the internet.
Yes, but we would prefer if government agencies didn't jump to outrageous conclusions before all the information is gathered.
The three-letter passwords can withstand regular hackers, but noone could expect that the mighty cyberhackers were coming!
Subject says all.
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
I am not familiar with this term.
As an actual control systems engineer who uses the Siemens Simatic range of PLC/HMI/Servo drives, it doesnt take a two year old who knows how torrents works to download the WinCC flex HMI programming software, throw together a few screens with some built in clipart of pumps and generators and claim he has hacked a city's water supply... or uranium plant, or Area 51 air con system..
"You don't need to see his identification... These aren't the droids you're looking for."
No! That's called "flip-flopping" now and is grounds for ridicule. You're supposed to be born with perfect information just like Jesus was.
This reminds of a story I read in a newspaper at least 18 years ago that maybe was an excerpt from a book. Hoping someone could get me a name, or some other details.
Here's what I remember:
It was focused on a hacker. One of his crimes, he was able to remotely take over the operation of a dam, controlling its spillways, although I don't think he ever did any damage. When the authorities found the guy, his fingers were described as curled backwards from endless hours at a keyboard, and he was living in filth. I also remembered that in one of the authority's monitoring sessions, there was 45 minutes of uninterupted y's coming from the guy's terminal. Turns out he had fallen asleep on his keyboard.
I know, not much to go on. I read it as a child, and even though I wasn't really into computers at that time, I was still fascinated by it.
Karma: Can only be portioned out by the Cosmos.
Plenty more where that came from. See http://isc.sans.edu today
I cant help but think to myself ----- "these are not the droids you are looking for" -- Honestly too weird for me hackers, no hackers, makes no nevermind to me.
"i lost my dignity on a slippery wiener"
...fryin ur pump!
I posted this before, but the fight against this conspiracy is not over yet!
Any nerd claiming to wear a tinfoil head is either a wannabe or part of the tinfoil conspiracy!!11! It is so obvious that tinfoil hats might cover you from alleged hostile brain control waves from sattelites thousands of kilometeres awas, but otoh forms a nearly parabolic antenna to the whole communication wires and infrastructure below pedestrian lanes just a couple of meters away. And coincidentally only relevant people will be affected, since only they are likely to wear - wait a minute, there is someone knocking at my door, I will write more. later.
Trolling is a art!
A cyber what?
http://www.acetonestudio.com
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Marsh gas. We're sorry the lieutenant told you the truth at first. He's new.
Never attribute to malice that which can be attributed to stupidity. Stupidity is much more common.
"...detailed analysis by DHS and the FBI has found no evidence of a cyber intrusion or any other malicious activity."
All this means is professional spin doctors were called in as damage control.
First off, there is a cracker out there with screen dumps from another cracked SCADA system. Coincidence? Yeah, right.
Secondly, the compromise was originally believed to have been the result of the SCADA vendor being cracked. Also, an IP address from a Russian source was found. If there was no compromise, I would still really be interested as to why a Russian IP address was found connecting to US infrastructure.
Thirdly, the cracker's pastebin post* sounds quite accurate of the DHS in general:
"...the DHS tend to downplay how absolutely FUCKED the state of national infrastructure is."
* - http://pastebin.com/Wx90LLum
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
It probably wasn't an attack in the first place. (WE TOLD YOU SO!!!)
This has NOTHING to do with the "national infrastructure".
We have been telling people that have SCADA systems, "UNPLUG your SCADA network from the Internet, except for when your SI needs access. The minute he is done, unplug it again."
Simple. Problem solved.
"She turned me into a newt!" ... "I got better."
Obi-Wan: These aren't the droids you're looking for.
Stormtrooper: These aren't the droids we're looking for.
Obi-Wan: He can go about his business.
Stormtrooper: You can go about your business.
Obi-Wan: Move along.
Stormtrooper: Move along... move along.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Am I missing something, or when the US hacked Iran's system with Stuxnet - wasn't that the FIRST cyber hack? The US military smiled when asked if they commited the Stuxnet attack.
AC
http://pastebin.com/Wx90LLum
Microsoft aggravates my tourettes syndrome.
Yes, but we would prefer if government agencies didn't jump to outrageous conclusions before all the information is gathered.
They didn't. I remember the original article. It was being investigated as a possible cyberattack. Possible was right in the title of the article. It was folks on Slashdot who repeatedly acted like it was a proven attack. Check out the discussion yourself. Here's the start of the summary.
Federal officials confirmed they are investigating whether a cyber attack may have been responsible for the failure of a water pump at a public water district in Illinois last week. But they cautioned that no conclusions had been reached, and they disputed one cyber security expert's statements that other utilities are vulnerable to a similar attack.
Sounds like they not only didn't jump to conclusions, but they ask everyone else not to as well. Yet do they get any credit for that? No. There are a bunch of modded up comments saying they lied to create more enforcement laws.
DHS clearly had the upper had to issue a "Propagande" claiming otherwise and much worse.
DHS Sec could have advised Obam to "go-code" country kill oder -- essentially condeming a countries population to nuclear death at the whim of a dictator ... dictator Obama.
But DHS did not follow or do this.
Why?
Why, when it is in there deepest and heartfelt interst to kill every, except themselves, USA citicen, when they espouse through there propaganda organs that ALL USA citizens, except themselves, are ENEMY COMBATINTS
But the astonishing Earth shattering fact is that THEY did not go this insane route ... WHY?
WHY? when they have enough evidence to BLACKMAIL every CEO, CFO and Boards of every Corporation residing in the USA!
WHY" when they have the USA Supreme Court in their hip pocket thanks to Obama!
WHY" when they espouse the killing and at least the debouchery of citizens in open contempt of local, state and Federal and International Laws! ... AH HA ... UC Davis!
Wonders of Wonders!
Ien Vunder!
It's a Miricle!
We should have a "Occupy the Chancellor's House" moment. A gallon of kerocen and a bick will do nicely.
AAAAA
+
Now we just need to make sure the new information isn't that they might have to cut back on fondling children in the airport and start doing actual hard work if the public gets concerned about the SCADA thing.
Whether or not this is was a hack it points to incompetence (in both the original incident and the followup investigation). This is not the first case of incompetence in Springfield's "City Water, Light and Power" division. I recall two weeks in the early 80s where the entire town was ordered to boil tap water before drinking (and avoid getting water in your eyes and mouth while bathing) because of high levels of ecoli contamination. CWLP workers ran around sampling water from all over the system for several weeks before they discovered their own lab was contaminating the samples. Springfield has a commissioner government where elected officials run various departments (Streets, CWLP, others I can't recall) with an elected mayor acting as a figure head. Commissioners are re-elected year after year as long as they *seem* competent and are generally well liked. I always thought it was strange system and I've never seen another local government run this way. I wonder if it is inherently more likely to have catastrophic failures than say, an aldermann/city council/city manager.
I'm not sure about faith moving mountains, but I've seen what it can do to skyscrapers.