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$250K Reward Offered In California Power Grid Attack
An anonymous reader writes "The Associated Press reports that Pacific Gas & Electric Co. has put up a $250,000 reward for 'information leading to an arrest and conviction in a startling attack mounted nearly a year ago on telephone lines and the power grid in Silicon Valley.' Besides cutting power lines, the attackers also cut AT&T fiber-optic phone lines, thereby denying some people access to 911, and fired shots into a PB&E substation, knocking out 17 transformers in Silicon Valley and causing $15 million in damage. As of this post, the perpetrators are still unidentified and continue to elude the FBI. Meanwhile, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on Thursday was brought before the Senate Energy Committee to explain why the FERC disseminated via insecure media a sensitive document describing where all the nation's power grids are particularly sensitive to a physical attack. FERC responded with assurances that databases are currently being scrubbed and procedures being implemented to safeguard critical data."
Linky linky.
Have you read my journal today?
. Meanwhile, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on Thursday was brought before the Senate Energy Committee to explain why the FERC disseminated via insecure media a sensitive document describing where all the nation's power grids are particularly sensitive to a physical attack.
Because nobody will take security seriously until something bad happens? And once that something bad happens there will be plenty of people screaming, "False flag!"
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Download link to the "sensitive document"? 8)
That's it? Some people in California make that much in a week. This also should be considered terrorism, (the real kind, not the fake boogeyman kind), so it should the the Gov offering rewards - not private entities.
The insecure media are still out there. No redacting that (unless it's on the web, of course; that's even worse.
I could fund a trip to Mars with that kind of cash!
kinda wish the bad guy got shocked when he/she cut the power lines. don't those lines have 120 volts or higher?
Morpheus .. and trinity and the etc .. who have to occasionally take down power grids . they live somewhere in the maintenance line.
What on earth are you talking about? These criminals cut actual physical fiber lines and cables. Securing your server doesn't stop a guy with a baseball bat from smashing it.
Get rid of most of the useless garbage and institute a simpler system:
1. Declare certain sites strategic risk sites which means their security personnel have heightened authority to detain and shoot suspects similar to sensitive federal facilities.
2. Encourage said site operators to hire US Army and USMC veterans.
3. Arm said veterans with selective fire weapons and have them regularly patrol these sites.
Faster, cheaper and more accountable (private security guards have no qualified immunity).
you mean PG&E unless there is some subtle joke which I'm too dense to get. (or how about for those old enough to remember the fictious CG&E that managed the ill-fated Ventana power plant).
mfwright@batnet.com
These attacks have cost them 10s to 100s of millions. Yet, they are only willing to put up .25M. This shows how poorly ran American companies are today.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I think the poster was referring to the FERC trying to redact and re-release a document when it is already out there in its original form, thus the action is meaningless.
Since 9/11 I've been surprised that some terrorist group hasn't performed an attack on the electrical grid in the USA.
Think of a guy in a van at the Mexico border. He drives north, and every time he goes under some power lines, he finds the nearest pylon and plants a timed bomb on it. Once he gets to the Canadian border, he vanishes, and that night at midnight, all the bombs go off, thereby seperating the West and East coast power grids. Of course, smaller versions of this could be done as well (say, drive in a big circle around Las Vegas, or any big city, doing the same thing). Simple, effective, and requires little risk, and no complicated equipment- just explosives and timers.
What was the name of that IT PG&E employee that went berserk a few years ago? Maybe he got a gang together...
Thank you.
I just assumed this had to do with a heist that went un-reported. E.g. they had to take out the power sub-station before cracking another criminal's safe or something.
No reward money required. You're welcome.
Or right wing anti-government groups, or left wing radical environmentalists, or some random cult, or some kind of false flag that quietly got dropped instead of milked, or some really dedicated jerks with too much free time. Or maybe time travelers who realized that the particular security station in question was going to be the first network node to become sentient and send humanity down a the long dark path of extermination thus they took it out first. Heros I tell you, heros!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monkey_Wrench_Gang
...wouldn't we have seen it by now?
Despite the alphabet soup of government agencies, surveillance and Federal laws, America is a pretty easy place to move around and generally maintain a low profile. And many "critical infrastructure" sites really aren't well defended/guarded -- take your pick, a handful of people with nominal skill and training could cause all manner of chaos.
If the risk of attack was really that great, why haven't we seen it by now?
I always hesitate to ask this question and post too many specific examples for fear of attracting the wrong kind of attention, but let's just take oil refining as an example. The last time they closed a refinery down for maintenance two states away, the price of gas here shot up quite a bit -- we all hear the stories about inadequate refinery capacity. So what happens if 3 or 4 refineries go offline at the same time in close geographic proximity? Are we talking just a buck a gallon price hike, or are we talking shortages worse than the infamous 1970s gas lines along with all the attendant economic disruption?
I think if there were people intent on doing real damage, we would have seen it by now. It's a trivial armchair exercise to think of things that make you go "whoa!" And if you think of actual, organized sabotage involving direct state sponsorship and not just theocratic nutjobs the scenarios get even worse because you're now talking training that goes beyond emptying AK-47s in the desert.
considering what it cost in terms of training, logistics, coordination, surveillance, and equipment to do this, the reward is not very much.
The op itself cost more than that, all those things considered.
Oh, by the way, no, you're not safe.
Ever.
There is no such thing as safety, only living in fear because you want to believe in magic rainbow unicorns.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Then give them a medal for exposing, yet again, the criminally shoddy work of a corporation that managed to explode an entire neighborhood.
Now where do I collect my $250K
A little late to be scrubbing them now that the information is out there... Better begin addressing the enumerated problems ASAP instead.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
[citation needed]
or how about the SF anti-gentrification movement that seems to be targeting tech workers?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I read a discussion online that taking out key substations in the LA asre3a would collapse the grid, it's amazing just how vulnerable we really are.
Imagine LA with no power for 2 weeks.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
There is a $250k reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction in this property damage case. Meanwhile, there is a $10k reward for information leading to the arrest of the person or people responsible for firing at least 13 shots (and counting) at people along a highway (http://www.kctv5.com/story/25225197/detectives-tracking-75-tips-about-highway-shootings). It's a weird society we live in.
$15 million in damage, but who lost power and for how long?
Well designed systems have redundancies. Go ahead. Shoot out a couple of transformers. We'll just switch sources. The interesting thing will be if this reward gets someone caught. That might be the best economic solution. There's only so much security you can build in to a system. But if it becomes known that you will be caught, and possibly based on evidence provided by your co-conspirators, people will think twice before pulling this crap.
As to the loss of 911 service, Century Link just did that to us in Western Washington. Who gets the reward for turning them in?
Have gnu, will travel.
...when Enron attacked California's power grid.
Since 9/11 I've been surprised that some terrorist group hasn't performed an attack on the electrical grid in the USA.
You don't consider Enron a terrorist group?
You really should get evaluated for Stockholm syndrome.
I think he's saying a lazy, greedy, corporation is more dangerous than 1000 imaginary terrerists.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Why not call the Feds and ask them what SEAL team they sent for a "dry run" wouldn't that be faster?
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
It was the means. That's obviously a cover for something else that happened during the same time frame. What that might possibly be, I couldn't say.
By Marine Major General Smedley Butler: http://www.ratical.org/ratvill... ..."
"WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.
Of course, "heart disease" is a racket too these days:
https://www.drfuhrman.com/libr...
"The sad thing is surgical interventions and medications are the foundation of modern cardiology and both are relatively ineffective compared to nutritional excellence. My patients routinely reverse their heart disease, and no longer have vulnerable plaque or high blood pressure, so they do not need medical care, hospitals or cardiologists anymore. The problem is that in the real world cardiac patients are not even informed that heart disease is predictably reversed with nutritional excellence. They are not given the opportunity to choose and just corralled into these surgical interventions. Trying to figure out how to pay for ineffective and expensive medicine by politicians will never be a real solution. People need to know they do not have to have heart disease to begin with, and if they get it, aggressive nutrition is the most life-saving intervention. And it is free."
Possibly could draw an expanded parallel between "terrorism" and "heart disease" as far as causes and cures? As in invading Afghanistan and Iraq was like giving a world with morally-clogged arteries an angioplasty and then a triple bypass? At great costs? And without really solving the underlying problem (from past short-sighted behavior by the USA and others)? While people who sell arms and people who own domestic oil sources and drilling equipment (Bush friends?) profit greatly from all the uncertainty?
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
drunk teenager is not the answer with the fewest assumptions if you take into account the facts.
"involved snipping AT&T fiber-optic lines to knock out phone and 911 service in the area and firing shots into a PG&E substation."
how do you get drunk teenager from that? from your years as a wild youth coordinating safe ingress and egress from locations allowing deliberate phone line sabotage and long range high powered rifle targeting intermediate power supply stations on a whim after too many beers?
the only razor applied here was the one to any hint of sanity.
Access to the fiber-optic lines that were damaged included lifting a 200 or 300 lb metal manhole cover. I doubt one person could have done this.
"send humanity down a the long dark path of extermination" We are doing this very well on our own initiative and need no help from other planets or dimensions, thenk yew veddy much.
I think this has been done before:
http://www.lookandlearn.com/history-images/M062661-88/Stuarts-Cavalry-cutting-telegraph-wires
http://railga.com/oddend/locochase.html
Decentralization is the superior model.
It's why they could shut down Napster but not Bittorrent.
It's why Al Qaeda is still around but the KGB is relegated to bad 80's movies.
For an electrical engineer, More generators = less distance between generators = less resistance over power lines = less heat and fewer equipment failures.
If we really wanted to make the power grid more resilient, then we would have distributed power generation Every neighborhood in the United States could generate its own power *permanently* for less than the cost of running a nuclear power plant.
The only problem is it's harder to milk the poor for a utility bill. I guess that's a deal-breaker.