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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."
"In a preview of what the U.S. may one day face with cyberattacks on the U.S. power grid"
What the hell does physical sabotage have to do with cyberattacks? Who's behind the spin on this story and what is their agenda?
You are remembering it wrong. California had almost twice the power generation capacity as it needed. It was Enron and others that took plants offline and manipulated the market to increase the price of energy 800%.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
It was not immediately clear who destroyed the main electric pylons on Friday and Sunday...
Maybe they were using networking over power lines, and somebody (evil hacker!) arranged a DDOS such that all of the packets arrived at that pylon at the same time, causing that pylon to explode?
Did anyone else have the image of the phrase "You Must Construct Additional Pylons!" (or the local equivalent) being repeated over and over all over Crimea after this happened?
Crimea river.
>> probably is within reach of some guys with truck bombs and suicide drivers
Like I said, then it's probably not something to worry about (i.e. fund excessively) in the US today. People with the ability to deploy truck bombs and suicide drivers are much more likely to target people instead. The kinds of conversations that would need take place to do the things you're talking about would only happen in an Austin Powers movie or Monty Python script.
Terrorist Leader: "OK, Ali. Your mission is to drive this truck full of explosives into the Great Satan's (duh duh duh) electrical transformer! Muh-huh-huh."
Ali: "Well...OK, and my sacrifice will kill off dozens of Satanic patients hooked up in the hospital in the next town over?"
Leader: "Well, no, because the Great Satan's critical infrastructure is already protected with its own batteries and generators. But you will (duh duh duh) inconvenience thousands of people trying to watch TV and open their garage doors remotely. Muh-huh-huh."
Ali: "Alright...so my sacrifice will inconvenience thousands of people for weeks, at least right? "
Leader: "Well, maybe for a couple of days anyway, since the Great Satan will probably reroute power and bring in replacement equipment under an armed guard that we probably can't disrupt. But it will (duh duh duh) make the evening news. Muh-huh-huh."
Ali: "Look, I don't think this group is for me. Can you recommend any other evil terrorist organizations that ARE a little more focused on my career goals?"