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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."
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"
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!
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.
The Olympics is a business markedly worse than most, in terms of nakedly abusive regulatory capture and overt plunder of the public who are unlucky enough to reside in its chosen location.
Thirty seconds at the opening ceremony with the lights going down would have been catastrophic in terms of reputational hit
Ahh, so it's your reputation you care so much about, not, you know, actual threats.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
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.