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Fears of Olympic Cyber Attack Detailed After Snooping Revealed
First time accepted submitter Dr_Ish writes "The BBC is reporting that the opening ceremonies of last the Olympics last year were potentially subject to a cyber attack that could have cut all the lights and power. Of course, it did not happen. However, the interesting question is whether this is real, or whether this is a FUD story promoted by GCHQ to help shore up some credibility issues."
Proof ? Any credible material, anywhere ? No ? Then walk on, people. Nothing to see here. News at eleven.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Last week I prevented the prevention of the prevention to take place preventing the mishaps that prevents you from using preventative steps.
You didn't know all that because I prevented you from hearing about it until now. Please thank me and bow to your preventive overlord.
Coulda, Shoulda, Woulda...
A government of liars cannot be trusted. Whether the story is actually FUD or not doesn't really matter. We must greet every bit of information with skepticism... assume every story is FUD. The only thing we know for sure is that we don't know the whole truth.
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
I smell more government/industry stirred bullshit along the lines of the rest of the "we must have absolute control of the internets0rs because hax0rs will kill everyone and destroy the world" garbage we've had shoved down our throats the last five years. In exactly what reality would you have your fucking lights and power connected to the internet, exactly...?
Just imagine the horror, the horror! The primary lights and AV systems could have gone out, forcing the audience to endure the inconvenience of use the emergency exit lighting systems that(as a new venue) would have been legally obligated to comply with the relevant portions of British Standard 5266, and possibly other similar regulations(unless some Olympic Comittee weasel bent that rule, or somebody hired G4S to handle it...)
Clearly, when a problem could either be reliably solved with some lead-acid batteries and a few LED light strips, or possibly, not guarantees solved by ubiquitous surveillance of all IP communications in, to/from, or through the United Kingdom, Our Choice Is Obvious!
I am pretty sure that the fear of "terrorists" turning off the lights at a stadium is a good reason to throw away my personal freedoms!
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/02/08/us/superdome-power-outage anyone? Did civilization end?
The Olympics maybe big, but is just a business like any other. They hack it as much they want, I don't give a damn. There are more important things. Actually they would be doing us a favour if they hacked it, the idols and big brother.
In most fields, when you say that something is going to happen, but then it doesn't, then that means you were wrong. In secret intelligence, if you say something is going to happen, but it doesn't, then that means that you prevented it.
You don't need pervasive spying to know that someone might try to hack into the electrical system during a highly publicized event, so the big takeway from this is that apparently they were not prepared for this kind of likely attack if they had to take any action to prevent the attack once they received the "credible threat" -- they should have already been prepared for a cyber attack... maybe some of the intelligence money would be better spent on preventative measures.
GCHQ found a 'credible' threat that someone might turn the lights off during the opening ceremony and warned officials to have a contingency plan.
Officials posted a team of techs prepared to manually turn the lights back on if necessary. That's all they had time to do.
The threat never materialized and a bunch of techs were bored for a while.
In other words, it was exactly like that Mayan calendar thing. However 'credible' they found the threat, there was simply nothing to it and nothing was averted.
Every night, probably millions of parents spray 'monster spray' under their small child's bed. They must be more powerful than Ultraman.
A few years ago the UK government leaked the story that there was a crack team of Islamic terrorists equipped with surface to air missiles ready to launch a "spectacular" attack. These extremists had based themselves in west London near Heathrow airport and were planning an imminent attack. In response the government sent 400 troops and tanks to the airport. Strangely no arrests were ever made and no missiles were ever recovered and the whole event was quickly forgotten. When did this happen ? about 5 weeks before the invasion of Iraq.
FYI - we are also 'potentially subject' to an asteroid strike.
According to research people are more afraid of things they don't understand well (like cyber attacks, terrorism, nuclear energy) than things they do understand well (like train or car accidents), even if the number or deaths is much higher for the second category.
Expect government agencies to go all out on cyber attacks. It sounds dangerous and nobody asks for details or proof.
"Who are you going to trust - your lying eyes, or scumbag spooks already caught in a manifold of lies?"
Weak sauce, GCHQ.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3948321&cid=44215203
you can expect a few more of these "see its freedom surveillance!" stories in the next few days. After all, we dont want anyone else questioning the American Dream(c) now do we?
Good people go to bed earlier.
What a BS. Do you know how easy it is to prevent a "cyber attack" on the light infrastructure? JUST DON"T PLUG THE LIGHTS TO THE INTERNET. You know, either create a local LAN or use a VPN. It's called a "virtual private network" and you can not hack it from the internet. To get the idea please look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Virtual_Private_Network_overview.svg
See the grey cloud? That's the Internet and it have no access what-so-ever to the VPN.
The only risk is an insider with access to the local LAN or VPN. But if you have an insider then he or she can do much more harm then switch off the lights.
http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
be released into Picadilly Circle by terrorist mahouts.
We caught wind of this by collecting phone metadata and prevented it from ever happening.
Prove we didn't.
When are the people in charge going to stop using 1984 as a resource manual?
The head of the government's surveillance centre GCHQ, Sir Iain Lobban, says reconnaissance has taken place in cyberspace
Ok, after reading that I'm firmly convinced that this guy doesn't actually own a computer, use the internet and his concept of what networking is entirely based on watching the movie Tron a few too many times. He's probably paying his security experts six figures and at the end of each day they turn in reports full of details about light-cycles and occasionally they "capture" a glow in the dark frisbee at the local wallgreens and claim that they are some hackers identity disc.
It would be FUD anyway since it's pure speculation. +1 for more FUD since there was already a lot of arm-waving about it the first time. Another +1 since there is a possibility of a Snowden factor thrown in to make it look like he's harmed the US somehow.
Don't get distracted by the real issue here. Snowden is not accountable for the laws broken by large government agencies.
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I think you mean kill them. Killing everyone would stop all crime. *Tons* of crime happens inside jails.
The possibilities are limitless!
Yes we DEMAND echelon, prism, anal retention, whatever.
Proof ? Any credible material, anywhere ?
No proof, but it wouldn't have been the first time in history. The opening night of Eurodisney Paris was marred by a terrorist attack against one of the power lines to the parc. Fortunately, this bomblet didn't have any impact on the opening ceremony, thanks to a redundant power supply.
While I would not rule out incredible stupidity by the system designers, this is very likely just another piece of FUD created by the amoral scum that presumes to "protect" us nowadays.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
You an any other person with a shred of intact personal ethics and honor. These people have neither.
Surveillance societies and police states are among the most despicable and repulsive constructs the human race has come up with. No surprise those in favor of creating them try every imaginable angle to justify what they are doing. Make no mistake, these people are on the same moral level as Hitler's and Stalin's helpers and if another Hitler or Stalin comes along, they will be the first to fall in line. That is what makes all this so dangerous.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
"the interesting question is whether this is real"
NO!
"or whether this is a FUD story promoted by GCHQ to help shore up some credibility issues"
YES!
AccountKiller
facebook sees itself in a mirror, and goes into infinite loop. all those affected turn to twitter, which promptly fowls itself. WaPo, while listening to Alanis Morissette, realizes that the internet itself is under attack...and that's when NSA claims credit (IRL) for edge detection.
In NSA America social networks join you!
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When you can't even get an olympic countdown clock to run past the first 24hrs.....what faith in "Cyber Security" is left....
When the power cut out for half of the stadium during Super Bowl XlVII, that was not a grid failure or shitty wiring. That was Terrorists!!!
/tinfoil moonbattery
Why did they have to go and mention the Olympics!? I had just about managed to subdue the vile memories of Group4 security blunders, air defence missiles mounted on residential apartment blocks, the insane noise levels of fighter jets overhead, and people being arrested for not looking happy enough.