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Sabotage Blacks Out Millions In Crimea
HughPickens.com writes: In a preview of what the U.S. may one day face with cyberattacks on the U.S. power grid, Ivan Nechepurenko reports at the NY Times that power lines in southern Ukraine that supply Crimea have been knocked down by saboteurs, leaving millions without electricity. Four local power plants, including two nuclear ones, scaled back production because they had no means to distribute electricity. More than 1.6 million people still lacked power on Monday morning, Russia's Energy Ministry said in a statement. Local power plants in Crimea, as well as backup generators, were being used to provide power to hospitals, schools and other vital facilities. The Crimean authorities declared Monday a day off for non-government workers and declared a state of emergency, which can last as long as one month.
It was not immediately clear who destroyed the main electric pylons on Friday and Sunday, but the blasted-away stump of at least one tower near the demonstrators was wrapped in the distinctive blue Crimean Tatar flag with a yellow trident in the upper left-hand corner. Tatar activists blockaded the site, saying they would prevent repairs until Russia released political prisoners and allowed international organizations to monitor human rights in Crimea. The activists claim that the 300,000-member minority has faced systematic repression since Russia annexed the peninsula in March 2014. In the meantime Russia is building an "energy bridge" to Crimea that officials hope will supply most of the peninsula's need and its first phase will begin operating by the end of this year.
Defending the power grid in the United States is challenging from an organizational point of view. There are about 3,200 utilities, all of which operate a portion of the electricity grid, but most of these individual networks are interconnected. The latest version of The Department of Defense's Cyber Strategy has as its third strategic goal, "Be prepared to defend the U.S. homeland and U.S. vital interests from disruptive or destructive cyberattacks of significant consequence."
It was not immediately clear who destroyed the main electric pylons on Friday and Sunday, but the blasted-away stump of at least one tower near the demonstrators was wrapped in the distinctive blue Crimean Tatar flag with a yellow trident in the upper left-hand corner. Tatar activists blockaded the site, saying they would prevent repairs until Russia released political prisoners and allowed international organizations to monitor human rights in Crimea. The activists claim that the 300,000-member minority has faced systematic repression since Russia annexed the peninsula in March 2014. In the meantime Russia is building an "energy bridge" to Crimea that officials hope will supply most of the peninsula's need and its first phase will begin operating by the end of this year.
Defending the power grid in the United States is challenging from an organizational point of view. There are about 3,200 utilities, all of which operate a portion of the electricity grid, but most of these individual networks are interconnected. The latest version of The Department of Defense's Cyber Strategy has as its third strategic goal, "Be prepared to defend the U.S. homeland and U.S. vital interests from disruptive or destructive cyberattacks of significant consequence."
Absolutely! This is exactly the kind of cyberattack they would have used in the 1930's.
"The financial crisis was possible because of partial deregulation legislation instituted in 1996 by the California Legislature (AB 1890) and Governor Pete Wilson. Enron took advantage of this deregulation and was involved in economic withholding and inflated price bidding in California's spot markets."
One trader is heard on tapes obtained by CBS News saying, "Just cut 'em off. They're so f----d. They should just bring back f-----g horses and carriages, f-----g lamps, f-----g kerosene lamps."
"People were talking about market manipulation. People were talking about schemes, people were making jokes," said U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.
The tapes also show that Enron, whose bankruptcy three years ago [article was written in 2005] was the biggest corporate scandal of recent times, manipulated energy markets in Canada and was planning to rig the Californian market even before deregulation in 1998, for which the Texan corporation actively campaigned.
On one tape, an Enron official named Bill tells an employee called Rich at a Las Vegas power plant to take the plant offline on a confected excuse. The conversation took place on January 17 2001, in the last days of the Clinton administration, as blackouts were rolling across California, cutting off electricity to more than one million people, and after the energy secretary, Bill Richardson, had ordered generators across the west to direct their output to the troubled state.
"Ah, we want you guys to get a little creative, and come up with a reason to go down," Bill says on the tape. "Anything you want to do over there? Any cleaning, anything like that?"
"OK, so we're just comin' down for some maintenance, like a forced outage type thing?" Rich replies, according to transcripts published yesterday. "I think that's a good plan, Rich," Bill says. "... I knew I could count on you."
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2005/feb/05/enron.usnews
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/09/business/09ENRO.html?pagewanted=all
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/blackout/california/
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/enron-tapes-anger-lawmakers/
Is that enough citation?
The population voted overwhelming to leave. You can claim the elections were fabricated but not the followup independent polls that showed better than 92% in favor of joining Russia.
They should have the right of self determination. On the other hand Ukraine should be under no obligation to supply Crimea with water, power sewer or any other service for which the people of Ukraine pay for. If I was the Ukrainian leader I would have cut the utilities ages ago without a significant and expensive payment from Russia to maintain them.
You don't want to know what utilities spend every year deterring and repairing after squirrels.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'