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Hearing Shows How 'Military-Style' Raid On Calif. Power Station Spooks U.S.
Lasrick writes "Interesting piece about April's physical attack on a power station near San Jose, California, that now looks like a dress rehearsal for future attacks: Quote: 'When U.S. officials warn about "attacks" on electric power facilities these days, the first thing that comes to mind is probably a computer hacker trying to shut the lights off in a city with malware. But a more traditional attack on a power station in California has U.S. officials puzzled and worried about the physical security of the the electrical grid--from attackers who come in with guns blazing.'"
The second ammendment means that we have to sell terrorists high powered assault rifles.
Damn, now I gotta RTFA.
- In Soviet Korea, only old people loose all their bases to Natalie Portman's petrified hot grits overlords.
Seems pre-planned? Seems remarkably easy to do?
Seems like something that would require a massive new security apparatus to police.
First, unless I got the wrong link it's no surprise the video didn't help further the investigation. All you see on it are some flashes of light that are sparks and/or muzzle flashes, and maybe some shadowy figures. Oh wait, I just need to zoom in and keep hitting "enhance" and I'll get their faces.
Second, at the end of TFA they compare the cost of armoring transformers at one station with the entire cyber-security budget. How about an apples-to-apples comparison, like, you know... one involving the cost of armoring transformers at all the stations?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
[Puts candles on grocery list]
Congressional members, regulators and even the "terrorists", amateurs all.
Enron showed you can make a lot of money by manipulating commodities that are traded. The quiet 911 problem was money raised by shorting airline stock. Attacks on infrastructure might be terrorism, might be market plays or might be both.
What is it about the threat of "cyber attacks" that makes people so worried about them? Even in the face of evidence that physical attacks can be successful and easy?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
But if I were, I wouldn't run a test of my method using live fire to get my target all forewarned.
.30-06 and hole a few transformers just to watch the man overreact.
But if I were a bored teenager who thinks he is an anarchist, I could go out one night with my
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Good job guys
Around 1:00 AM on April 16, at least one individual (possibly two) entered two different manholes at the PG&E Metcalf power substation, southeast of San Jose, and cut fiber cables in the area around the substation. That knocked out some local 911 services, landline service to the substation, and cell phone service in the area, a senior U.S. intelligence official told Foreign Policy. The intruder(s) then fired more than 100 rounds from what two officials described as a high-powered rifle at several transformers in the facility. Ten transformers were damaged in one area of the facility, and three transformer banks -- or groups of transformers -- were hit in another, according to a PG&E spokesman.
Sounds a lot like some whacked out off-duty "Law Enforcement Officer" trying to scare us as more and more people get fed up with the current Police State and are trying to "dial back" the Fear Mongers.
"Initially, the attack was being treated as vandalism and handled by local law enforcement," the senior intelligence official said. "However, investigators have been quoted in the press expressing opinions that there are indications that the timing of the attacks and target selection indicate a higher level of planning and sophistication."
Of course! That these folks didn't try this at high noon on a week day proved they were TERRORISTS RUNNING A PLAN! Of course it does. And "target selection"? Seriously, if you're going to shoot up a power station in the middle of the night (or any time really) what would you aim at? Yup, power transformers. Big targets, easy to hit. NO FUCKING SHIT, SHERLOCK!
I know the solution to this: A multi-million dollar security system made by Raytheon... And more expensive toys for the local "LE" folks...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
You both are idiots.
Shooting up a transformer? Seriously? Haven't these guys heard of thermite? You can just go to a high voltage tower and melt the legs with thermite.
We've known the US has crappy infrastructure since, well, as close to forever as matters in America.
Attacks on a power station or substation would be immaterial if the grid was a grid, redundancy was built into the system, and getting things done was a higher priority than ego strokes and profit margins. (Yeah, heresy, I know.)
The moment you deliberately create single points of failure is the moment you hand out invites to nutcases, lunatics, wannabe cowboys and the rest of the US security infrastructure*. The moment you make such violence nothing more than a public nuisance, something not even worth a writeup in the local paper, is the moment it stops being interesting for the fringe groups to do.
*Yes, the local crackhead with the M16 and armoured personnel carrier is the "militia" the Constitution speaketh of. They are part of the national defence system. Due to two major wars inflicting a massive drain on reserves and an exceptional loss of forces due to PTSD and injuries, said crackheads form an increasingly large part of the regular forces, police and intelligence services. Frankly, I'd be far more concerned about a coup from within than a bunch of moonshine-laden rednecks who have watched too many Dukes of Hazard episodes.
Of course, given the NSA can dictate terms to the President, Congress and Federal judges, the coup might have already happened. Would you notice if it had? Would you care?
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
What's the likelihood that something like this will happen? Are we to fear China sending a crack team of commandos to disable our power grid? Someone could knock down high-tension power lines, too. Do we fence off every last one of those?
Building cinder-block walls around transformers in the transmission power grid might not be a bad idea. Cheap, and if concrete-filled, will stop most ammo. After a decade of anti-terrorism hype, it's surprising this hasn't been done yet. Most anti-terrorism studies of electric power grids mention transformers in the transmission system as a vulnerable point. It's not necessary to heavily protect the whole switchyard. Switchgear is easier and cheaper to replace than transformers, and less vulnerable. The transformers occupy only a small fraction of substation area.
Transformer substations are something that people, even in the utility industry, don't think about much. They're very reliable, need little attention, and are usually unmanned. So they tend to be ignored unless there's a problem.
It's embarrassing that PG&E has such poor surveillance of a major substation. The video, grainy analog black and white with slow VHS-type artifacts, means they haven't upgraded since the 1980s or 1990s. It's not like color HD cameras are expensive any more.
a 1/1000 drop? Umm, that didn't happen.
Even the Venezuela government didn't claim that.
http://www.insightcrime.org/news-briefs/venezuela-govt-claims-homicides-down-30-percent-really
and they are paid good with the right to shoot on site.
The NSA will catch them before anything goes seriously wrong, and that's why we allow the gov't to spy on us. It's a service we're paying for. Remember guys, if the gov't spies on its own innocent people then they will be able to stop terror attacks and stuff against the people. So, there's nothing to worry about, the government has already got our backs and they won't let anything happen to us.
...that there are so many reactionary Right-Wingers on Slashdot now that the parent is modded "flamebait".
The current strategy of the U.S. in regards to infrastructure defense is simple - defense in depth.
By spending very little on road maintenance, it's highly likely terrorists will either get a flat tire on the way to attack a power station, or the guns will cook off a few rounds when a bump is hit likely harming the car or terrorists.
As a last ditch defense, the federally required signs not to pee on high-voltage transformers will be removed, thereby cooking the terrorists when they get there as they are sure to do such a stupid thing with no warnings posted.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
for nuclear power plants that are off line. I will not describe specifically what I am thinking about but this could be a problem to Diablo or other PWRs while they are in modes higher than 1 (operating).
You compromised national security with your acts and the NSA failed to stop this! I say we use this obvious example of the kinds of terrorist activities that happen ALL THE TIME to justify more data gathering!
Who's with me!?
Anyone?
Hello?
The intruder(s) then fired more than 100 rounds from what two officials described as a high-powered rifle at several transformers in the facility.
That's not possible. Someone must be lying. I know this because California banned all those evil high powered rifles.
I once saw an offer to tour a nuclear power plant. I thought that would be fun, I never saw the inside of a nuclear power plant before. I imagined it would be much like the coal fired plants I toured, I doubted I'd get near anything even remotely radioactive, but I still thought it would be quite interesting and educational. I then read the fine print on the tour invite. To go on the tour I'd have to submit to a background check, I believe that included getting fingerprinted. I lost all interest.
I didn't think I'd have any problems passing a background check, I've done them before for things like getting in the military and getting government work. I just didn't like the idea of having to take my time going through that again for something as mundane as a tour of a power plant.
While on vacation one summer I happened across a sign for a hydroelectric power plant. I recall it was called Raccoon Lake but a quick Google search tells me that is in the middle of Indiana and I'm pretty sure the dam I was at was in Tennessee. Anyway, I had time so I took a detour to see if I could take a tour or something. I got there and found the visitors center. I had a look around, they had a video playing on continuous loop showing the history of the area and how the dam worked. The video ended with a message to ask for a tour. I then asked to get a tour. I was told tours were no longer offered "for security reasons".
I recall seeing a Youtube video recently about nuclear power where some nuclear power plant operator hated the security policies that banned tours. He wanted to show people how safe these power plants are. I understand where he's coming from, if nuclear power is so safe and secure then why can't we see that for ourselves? I can just imagine what people are thinking, do they have something to hide that they can't let me in?
While they have these security policies in place for the power plants the wires leaving them are totally insecure. I remember driving down the interstate and seeing these HUGE power lines going overhead. It was not long after getting denied a tour of the hydro plant "for security reasons" that I saw those power lines so the first thought through my head was just how easy it would be to take out that power line. The foundations for the towers that ran overhead were just out in the middle of someone's corn field. There was a fence around the field but it was just something to keep cattle from wandering in or out, not anything that any able bodied adult couldn't climb over or through.
The people that secure the power in this country have some seriously skewed priorities. We can't have people tour a hydroelectric plant "for security reasons" but some one can cut the communications to a power plant, shoot up some transformers, and no one knows who did it.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
It's always been the case that a more advanced foe can be defeated by a much simpler foe through indirect attacks on infrastructure, acruing nothing more than a huge expense for the advanced foe. This is no different.
You can't possibly defend something like the power grids we have today. It's just not possible. They are large, they are disparate, they are expensive, they are sensitive. What's more, they are each vital and completely non-redundant. And they are also literally everywhere. You can take out a curb-side box in seconds with a pickup truck, and kill power to a neighbourhood for a day.
No one's going to build the redundancy to withstand any destruction -- it's simply far too expensive.
But that's true of all centralized systems based on distribution -- which includes gasolene, by the way. That's actually the advantage of a centralized system. No kidding it doesn't stand up to warfare.
So, start supporting neighbourhood nuclear mini-reactors -- like your neighbourhood water towers -- or a bus-load of solar panels per house. Anything less won't be redundant, and hence will be easily attacked.
I'm in (near) a giant city -- 8 million people -- with a very well-known international airport, as you would imagine. Also as you would imagine, airport security is what it is: completely housed inside the building.
My friend used to say that from the roof of the parking garage -- outside of airport security -- you're only about 200 yards from the runway. Any number of weapons can take out a plane from that distance. But it got worse a couple of years ago, twice.
On the way to a business client meeting, at their offices, we drove past the airport. A chain-link fence, with many cameras, separates the end of the runway from the public road -- and by public, I mean a desolate side-road used to drive around the airport by six people per hour, mainly employees of the airport to get to their back-hanger parking lots. Airplanes taxi right by this fence -- so you're within about 50 yards of a full passenger plane waiting to take off.
We figured that maybe the cameras are heavily monitored, and that someone would noticed if we parked for even thirty seconds. Ok, fine.
Five minutes later, we got to the client's office. Their parking lot is within a typical commercial/industrial complex of offices and warehouses of ordinary businesses. As we readied for the meeting, we discovered that this parking lot is directly beneath the landing slope for the runway. By that I mean that every 97 seconds (during rush hour) another giant jet is landing directly overhead -- and it's landing, wheels-down, about 100 yards overhead.
Forget bottle-rockets, how about a helium baloon with some red paint? It'd be hard to miss, considering the steady stream of air traffic. And it'd be hard to be seen, surrounded by a two-storey office complex. And it'd be easy to leave, considering the three major freeways within a 30-second drive.
But I still need to show up two hours early to take off my shoes.
That's not possible. Someone must be lying. I know this because California banned all those evil high powered rifles.
Murder still happens. We still ban murder.
In fact, virtually every kind of crime happens. We don't just go "oh well" and remove the laws because a bunch of people did it anyway.
Stop being so goddamn butthurt that you can't play with the lethal toys you want to. Please, by all means, move to a country with fewer gun restrictions, and enjoy actually having to use them to protect yourself from all the people who have 'em, too.
Please help metamoderate.
The term anarchist is usually reserved for people who use violent means to protest or overthrow governments and who aren't organized enough to be called "insurrectionists" or "rebels."
People who want only a minimal or no government and who use peaceful means to express their opinion or achieve that end are almost never called "anarchists" b the average person, at least not in my country.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
If I attack something to test how emergency responders will respond so I can make sure my 2nd attack succeeds, I may find my efforts wasted as the emergency responders may do a post-mortem analysis (no pun intended) and change how they will respond the next time. This change-of-response may or may not be communicated to the public.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Here's a sobering tabletop exercise:
Pretend you are a terrorist with limited resources and your only goal is to make people afraid of a repeat attack, with bonus points of your attack is a highly emotional one like the Twin Towers on 9/11, an elementary school, or nursing home, or if you cause widespread or long-term changes in behavior like 9/11 did.
Now, you are the terrorist. What do you attack and how do you do it?
Don't spend too long with this exercise, or it might warp your mind.
Here's hoping that experts working with emergency responders do this kind of thing on a regular basis as part of their jobs. Also, here's hoping they don't have any one person spending too much time with this chore, or it might make them go nuts.
By the way, unless you want the NSA to give your address to the FBI or your country's police forces I suggest not posting your ideas here. That's what TOR+PASTEBIN and the like are for.
The real danger is the Squirrel Liberation Army. Their suicide operatives have caused a lot more blackouts than terrorists with rifles. Of course, rednecks celebrating with rifles is in the running as well.
I don't know what is scarier, selling guns to terrorists or the lunatic white people that already own them
As a naturalized American Citizen who is not a Christian nor a Muslim, and one who has been in the USA since the early 1970's, and one who has mixed with a lot of very different groups of folks, I can tell you one thing ---
The *MOST DANGEROUS GROUP OF PEOPLE* inside the United States of America are former Christians who have converted into Islam.
I have friends from the Middle Eastern countries (most of them have American citizenship). While most of them are Muslims, only a few amongst them are zealots.
Because I do mix well with the Muslims (I speak Arabic, btw) many of them introduced me to their "newly converts" (they want to convert me too, so they introduce the newly converts trying to convince me that converting into Islam is a *good thing*) and upon talking to those "newly converts" I can sense their zeals oozing out of very pore of their skin.
Some of the "newly converts" are so zealous that they actually praise those 19 terrorists who carried out the 9/11 WTC bombing as "martyrs"!!
You guys in America, especially those who never know Islam, do not know the danger in your own community.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
From the incident story, it appears to be two persons who chose a property damage target for the purpose of minimizing the risk of prosecution for any construction or prosecutorial exaggeration regarding the potential or accidental killing of a guard or workman.
The recent tactic being developed after school shootings is for the responding authority to promptly engage the apparent assailant by the use of gunfire directed at the assailant. For those assailants who are arrested live, the district attorney spares no effort to describe the crime in such a manner as to prevent any sympathy for the alleged assailant by the public nor the jury.
It is my feeling that we have a growing 10 or 20 year pattern where young people in the 18 to 30 year old age group are to a moderate extent misbehaving and to a very tiny extent engaging in extreme misbehavior like school shootings or power station property damage. There has been a reciprocal escalation of the police response as what was once streaking or knocking over mailboxes is now .01% zero tolerance alcohol while driving punishments and now imprisonment for insanity to be followe by 15 years in jail when the insanity is resolved.
I don't believe listening to the district attorney nor the police department is going to give us the understanding to move away from the imprisonment culture we are now living in. The approach I am pursuing is this: Young adults are problem solving animals. The young adult years have a number of difficult emotional griefs and transitions.
What we are seeing is young adults who are settling on problem solutions that are "fast and final". Unlike most young adults, the persons who do school or power station shootings are prisoners of the material physical execution of a violent act. Stories from surviving assailants indicate grievances that are not too unusual. It appears to me that most people dissipate their similar grief or grievance by abstraction or play or ignoring the event.
My thinking has reached this point: What can we teach in school that will help each individual to have knowledge or understanding of their own mental processes? The words "self knowledge" is too general. A very specific part of the mental problem solving action planning mechanism is becoming latched onto a bad action. These young people are able to do the problem solving process, and they need the specific ability to recognize when their brain has latched onto a bad action.
The actions and teaching needed are probably simpler and more mundane than what one might think. It appears to me that teaching social dance in the early middle school years might help head off certain social anxiety processes. Supervised working with disabled peers can be a gateway to understanding the undisguised bases of human behavior. The US high school football culture with it's awful color scheme was OK for preparing young people for WWII military service, and perhaps that institution needs to be replaced with a new game and instructional culture.
Oh, but that's recently been banned, hasn't it? I'm fairly certain that all terrorists, just like all good liberals, have duly registered their CA-legal firearms/weapons and turned in their illegal ones to the appropriate authorities. We need not worry about jihadis in California - they're all good law-abiding citizens. Just heard a story on the radio today: soon after Pearl Harbor, analysts feared the Japanese would attack the West coast. Estimates were that the Japanese could not be stopped before reaching the Mississippi River. After the war the Japanese generals were questioned on this. The reason they chose not to invade was that they knew that most Americans a) had firearms and b)knew how to use them.
There hasn't been enough in the news lately to be scarred so the helpful congressfuck decided to try and create some more.
On January 1st, a whole bunch of new gun laws take effect in California which will effectively neutralize any danger from gun toting terrorists. Governor Moonbeam's got our backs!
That is all that is needed. Would you steal a hand bag? Would you steal a car? Would you shoot a power transformer? Boasted, roasted, toasted!
Those guys are cuddle bunnies compared to the folks I'm talking about. Yeah they're real, and yeah, it sounds like you haven't met them. Think neo-nazis.
Sounds like you are one of those Nazis as well - albeit one on the opposite side.
Just because you do not agree with someone doesn't give you the right to label them "nazis" or whatever.
It was a real rehearsal, and our military did exactly the same thing in Iraq and Bosnia.
I'm not being specific so as not to put thoughts into idle heads
It's called infrastructure: Those services outside the home used to make the city work. Broken infrastructure means no city.
Back in the 1970s, terrorists on TV cop dramas attacked a city-wide weakness in the infrastructure. We don't have those sort of stories now but if one watched those shows, one understands how to destroy a whole city . Earlier, Fermion posted a good point about such terrorism.
I think that's been true for the last 100 years. How has this changed over the decades?
Do today's teens have a lower tolerance because of something, like Disney-fied children's TV, or a shortage of heroes like Harry Potter? Is it a lack of identity because they're anonymous online and cities provide fewer social activities? Is modern-day bullying more severe because of hands-off teaching and parenting, or the always-on internet, or because the "might is right" philosophy is openly encouraged?
Bad for whom? For those problem-solving teenagers, the first answer available is adequate. An outcast and ignored loner doesn't have many resources for creating a answer. Besides, why should he spend time protecting a power structure that doesn't protect him? It's very much a case of "you won't be a part of the solution but you are a part of the problem".
Depends on your definition of what a Gang, Cartel, and Mobs are! Unknown Organized Crime I believe could be responsible for this!
So one (possibly two) nuts do some minor damage to a electric substation and its a 'Military-Style" raid? I could be terrorism related or it could be some nut who thinks the government is using the power network to control his mind through his fillings. It could even have been idiotic robbery attempt, knock out the power and then hit a bank (even though I think many have backup power). Whatever the motivation it should be noted that it failed miserably, there was no power outage despite damaging multiple transformers.
From the linked article:
"Say hello to the new foreignpolicy.com! Here's a big fuckin' yellow overlay that's fucking jamming itself in your fucking face on your phone, fucking auto-shifting the fucking close box offscreen so you can't press it because our programmers are worthless, worthless sacks of shit who need to die like pigs porkfrying in Hell."
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Use drones. Lots and lots of drones.
EMP? Who is that guy and what do I owe him?
No need to worry about that, the government is already poisoning the water supply on your behalf with fluoride, chlorine, arsenic and who knows what tasty cocktail of petrochemicals from hydraulic fracturing which happens to be exempt from the clean water act. All for your benefit, of course.
Terrorists should just pray for snow, that seems to take out the power to enough people every season. It's completely ridiculous for so many thousands of people to be losing power in 2013 due to weather that's predicted to happen several times each year.
Put 5 random people from this thread on /. into a room for 8h. Give them enough pizza and their favorite drinks and they will come up during that time with minimum 100 simple ways to wreck the grid. (Thats true for every grid, not only particular weak ones like the one in US)
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
hire more government employees with machine guns. Do we really need carabinieri on every corner?
the US Government conducts practice unannounced public raids and gun-blazing responses to simulate gun-blazing terrorist attacks. The enemy is within your country and that enemy is the government.
Hey Obama have you been to the plantation lately? I heard your slave master wants to talk to you about increasing his wealth.
was flying out the of United States of Amerika at the very moment the terrorists were flying commercial passenger aircraft into buildings in Washington and New York City, and when another commercial aircraft plunged into farmland in Pennsylvania. Osama and the Bush family probably broke bread together many times while gravy and wine dripped down their flapping jowls. I'd like to see George W. Bush sent to Club Gitmo for some enhanced interrogation and have it broadcast live to the world. He is already a documented Arab sheik boot-licking "death to America" tiddler.
The intruder(s) then fired more than 100 rounds from what two officials described as a high-powered rifle at several transformers in the facility. ... there was no long-term damage reported at the facility and there were no major power outages.
Jon Wellinghoff, the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, said last month that an attack by intruders with guns and rifles could be just as devastating as a cyber attack.
A shooter "could get 200 yards away with a .22 rifle and take the whole thing out,"
Clearly this man is an idiot who should not be listened to. If 100+ rounds from a high power rifle didn't cause an outage, someone 200 yards away with a .22 sure as hell isn't going to.
is already under attack by the evil terrorist known as Mother Nature. Mother Nature is on the no-fly list but remains elusive as attacks spread around the planet. During the Bush II Administration, Mother Nature was declared the leading public enemy and threat to the "America way of life."
In addition to what others said about risk, humans have lived with the threat of physical attack our entire existence. "Cyber" attacks are new, hard to understand for the general population, and sound scary. They've seen movies where people hack into the pentagon and launch missiles. Etc.
As far as physical attacks, we've been lucky that, up to this point, terrorists have been dead stupid. There are a lot of soft targets that would be just as damaging as airplanes that are lower risk and require less planning. Luckily when irrational people choose to attack they don't suddenly become rational in choosing their targets.
Terrorism really is the bogeyman these days, isn't it. My first though when reading about someone taking down power and communications in Silicon Valley isn't terrorism, it's espionage.
And I was especially amused by the chairman's assertion that someone with a .22 could take out transformers at 200 yards.
Someone at the Navy Postgraduate School did a plan to shut down the US economy back in the '90s. The idea was to spend $10M and make $Bs in trading on the result.
Among other things, shooting holes in the 400KV transfomers handling long-distance transmission lines was key to disabling entire sections of the economy, because there are very few of these in inventory and the lead-time is 1 year for new units. Those were expected to explode because of the short-circuit.
Metcalf substation was a good choice -- isolated with easy access. We now know to use AP ammo and larger calibers than 30-06.
Similarly, "andrchism" gets applied ...
Should be "Similarly, "anarchy" gets applied ..."
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
If you didn't think J-SOC would start these raids on American soil, you must be retarded. It'll start as a a part of the drug war, and escalate quickly afterwords. Like their operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen, there will be no accountability for bad intel or innocents murdered (especially those merely defending themselves or property). Next will be more murders of Americans by drones. Just wait and see.
The sheer number of muslims living in Silicon Valley guarantees that it is a significant source of donations to terrorism-related causes. Terrorists love Western money. They will never attack a significant source of income. QED.
'When U.S. officials warn about "attacks" on electric power facilities these days, the first thing that comes to mind is probably a computer hacker trying to shut the lights off in a city with malware'
.. oh wait ....
Just who in their right mind would connect the power facilities directly to the Internet
now, at the present, that it was ever before. The USA is continuously under attack from all sides by evildoers world wide and continuously, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, fighting on ALL fronts to mitigate each and every one of the thousands of attacks each month alone - mostly thanks to the NSA, who is listening in on almost all of the terrorists' communications at all times.
This sounds like a good testing ground for new military robots. Since it affects the digital world, I would suspect that many large companies would have an interest in protecting infrastructure such as this.