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Domestic Terrorists Could Use OSINT To Pinpoint US Substations For a Blackout (darkreading.com)
An anonymous reader writes: A project called 'Gridstrike' found that free and publicly available information can be used to determine the most critical electric substations in the US, which if attacked, could result in a nationwide blackout. Researchers from iSIGHT Partners used a combination of publicly available transmission substation information, maps, Google Earth, and grid congestion documentation, and drew correlations among the substations that serve the top ten cities in the US. They ID'ed 15 substations that if attacked and knocked offline would result in a nationwide blackout, they say. Their research took the spin of whether a homegrown terror group with little funding could get this crucial information. The study was inspired by the 2013 Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) study in 2013 that found that attacks on just nine electric substations in the U.S. could cause a blackout across the entire grid.
the solution to this is to completely decentralize our power, virtually destroying "the grid" by putting solar+battery at every home. it wont work for absolutely everyone but it will work for the vast majority of people. it comes with nice side effects too: it will cause people to buy more efficient electronics, lower the price of solar panels, devastate the coal/gas industry which in turn will cause a massive reduction in CO2 emissions and result in fewer mountain tops being blown up.
so you get security, energy independence, massive pollution reduction and preserving the environment. what's not to like? oh yeah, it doesn't pay congress critters to stay in office, so it wont happen. #BanCongress ;-P
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Everyone involved in publishing this article is stupid. From TFA, to submitter, to the editor who submitted this.
"Terrorists" want "terror". They want to kill people, they want smoking buildings and bombed, shot cars and a whole lot injured and dead people. That causes terror. YOU have to fear you will get shot/bombed when you leave the house, go shopping, go on a vacation. That is achieved by maximum terror.
They do not want to "effectively damage the infrastructure". That is what a solider would do to achieve a military goal. Yes, it would be smart and effective. Some people might die (e.g. in hostiptals), the economic damage would be massive - but it surely would not be terror, for most of us it would be "annoying".
They are called "Terroists" for a reason and not "Annoyoists".
Furthermore: there might be smart planners behind terror attacks, but mostly it is the ideologists and strategists who are actually pretty smart. Most terrorists are actually not smart.
The usual terrorist gets a gun or a bomb by his supervisor and is shoved out of the door to do his terror. The smartest ones so far we had were those who were able to fly planes. And even that scores relatively low on the "Hollywood List of Creative Terror-Plots".
1. Terrorists want terror. Attacks on the infrastructure per se are not "terror".
2. Most terror groups are too stupid to pull a coordinated attack on "infrastructure" off.
IF infrastrcuture (traffic, airports, trains etc) is hit it is NOT about the infrastructure but about the "terror" on the population.
Go away with your fearmongering!