I'm always amused when campaigns use the phrase, "that is a distraction. The American voters really want to discuss the issues..."
Actually, no one discusses the issues during an election campaign. What you do is appeal to people's prejudices, emotional frailties and ignorance. Issues are discussed between campaigns, and increasingly that is looking to be about a half-a-day in January before the mid-term elections.
Let's first understand that Iraq was a battle. Afghanistan is a battle. We are actually now in a permanent state of cold war, and frankly its nothing new--we've been in a continuous cold war since the dawn of human civilization. The European wars of the twentieth century were simply outbursts in a simmering conflict that had its roots in the 19th century, whose own conflicts had their roots in the 18th century and so on.
War isn't optional--its a permanent feature of humanity. Its also the driving force behind human civilization. Our technology, our culture--even our philosophies are born from war.
In terms of foreign policy, its never been a choice between war and no war, but really, really big war, or small, manageable wars.
For reasons I find nearly unfathomable, the current hot wars we are engaged in are never discussed in terms of their geopolitical significance. Has anyone looked at a map? Afghanistan and Iraq bracket Iran--coincidence? Not bloody likely.
During the war actually named "cold war", the U.S. and Soviets actively engaged in this kind of proxy war, by supporting friendly governments in strategic locations to thwart the strategic interests of the other. Ironically, Iran, which used to be a strong ally before Obama's godfather of naivete (Jimmy Carter) ignored the strategic interests of the West for touchy-feely notions about human rights, was a major bulwark against the Soviet dreams of expansion into a warm water port. Afghanistan was also part of that dream.
Things have changed, and Iran is now the target to strategic isolation--geographical, economic and military. Candidates who view Iran as a "tiny country" are too stupid to bear. Iran has been the key to dominating the region for millenia, which is why of course it has been the seat of so many empires over the ages.
Iran can literally step on the neck of the world with sufficient military might.
Tiny country my ass.
Everything Barack Obama has said about foreign policy has scared the bejesus out of me--the man has no clue, and not having a clue in the geopolitical game costs lives--millions of them.
Jimmy Carter's colossal blunders in Southeast Asian, Afghanistan, and Iran literally cost millions of lives and the credibility of the U.S. as a world power (are you old enough to remember the humiliation of the hostage crisis?). It has been thirty years, and we are still suffering the effects, still paying a cost in lives.
You can in fact screw up the economy and recover in pretty short order. There are dozens of countries that have demonstrated that fact. The effect is immediate, the voters get mad, and sanity is restored. Geopolitics is a far less forgiving arena. You screw up, people die, maybe a lot of people, maybe you. If McCain couldn't balance a checkbook, I'd still vote for him because he's a serious student of foreign policy and he has no illusions about people's motives or the productivity of having nice chats with dictators.
As it stands, Obama has no clue on the economy either. Frankly, I don't blame Obama, I blame the Americans who are too woefully ignorant to nominate a candidate with brains, experience and the constitution to actually lead this country in the twenty-first century (yeah--I mean Hillary). I weep for a nation with this many idiots in it.
I note that the topics being suggested for broader critique are all those routinely demagogued by the liberal-left.
The global warming hoax is a case in point--no one who is really familiar with the underlying science would characterize global warming as only slightly less certain than gravity--that's an a priori characterization and similar "religious certainty" surrounds evolution.
What we all really need is to learn to live with ambiguity.
I'm afraid that a rather superficial perspective. The human breaches reflect the relatively low security risk that the SCADA represents to the system. I've called technicians and gave them plausible identification over the phone and asked them to do various things, and they did them--within limits. If you ask a technician to do something clearly foolish, they will call the supervisor for confirmation.
For a power generation DCS, the human security is much, much, much tighter. Every action in the plant has to be coordinated with the control room operator, including all access, mechanical work and DCS control software access--even by the plant's own software guy! In many places there are two control room operators checking each other.
The bottom line is that the vault was in this case, more like Geraldo Rivera's Al Capone vault than Citibanks.
I just read the full article and realized that they aren't actually talking about power generation. Its certainly possible to compromise the SCADA, but one should understand that the level of control available through the SCADA is extremely limited. it is generally there to acquire custody transfer data. No doubt some mischief is possible, but it would require someone with a detailed knowledge of the RTUs connected to the SCADA, and that's pretty esoteric knowledge. There are also backup metering systems, so that if someone managed to breach the RTU and screw up the set points, the compromised data should be quickly discovered and the problem rectified.
What's skimmed over in this story is that the hackers were contracted by management, which suggest that there is an active risk management assessment underway.
That's a good thing.
I'm not sure I believe the claims being made here.
I've worked as a subcontractor in power plants all over North America and I've never seen a single plant where this would even be possible. Power plants have LANs with internet access like every other business, but plant operations, as controlled by the DCS, are completely isolated from the internet. It might indeed be trivial to compromise the LAN, but that is a far cry from actually gaining control of the power block.
The DCS does have connections to the outside world in the form of frame relays (sometimes) to power marketing cooperatives (such as ERCOT in Texas...), or telephone access by analog router, but these are highly secure, isolated connections. The analog routers are usually disconnected when not explicitly required for remote support.
This appears to me more media-inspired scaremongering.
I moved to Utah about 10 years ago for business reasons, when SLOC was in a complete shambles. People were going to jail, politicians were scrambling for cover, sponsors were heading for the exits. Salt Lake was on track to follow Denver (which bailed out on an Olympic they had won) into Olympic infamy. I'd never heard of Mitt Romney before he was announced as the new boss, but I doubt I've ever been impressed by anyone as much before or since. What he accomplished was literally miraculous. The 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics were a smash hit and he presented a 100,000,000.00 check when it was all said and done to finance in perpetuity all the Olympic venues that were built.
The guy is wicked smart, intelligently conservative, honorable, civilized, kind, generous--I'd want my kids to be raised by this man if something happened to me. If he doesn't become president of the U.S., its A CRIME. When I contemplate the possibility that he could get beat by a bald, 72 year old man who can't control his temper, graduated at the bottom of his class, abandoned his crippled wife, married into money, makes snap decisions about everything and is indistinguishable from Hillary Clinton on nearly every issue, I can't help but join Europeans and Canadians in wondering how a place so full of idiots managed to become the leader of the free world.
The country faces enormously complex challenges on every front and if there was every a time when we needed a genius as president, its right now. McCain is a narcissist. Hillary only does what's good for the Clintons, Obama is Bambi. Only Romney has the spirit of Cincinnatus, embodied by George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Only Romney has the intellectual horsepower to deal with everything this country has to face. Even then, it might not be enough, but if Romney can't do it, it simply can't be done.
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I'm always amused when campaigns use the phrase, "that is a distraction. The American voters really want to discuss the issues..." Actually, no one discusses the issues during an election campaign. What you do is appeal to people's prejudices, emotional frailties and ignorance. Issues are discussed between campaigns, and increasingly that is looking to be about a half-a-day in January before the mid-term elections. Let's first understand that Iraq was a battle. Afghanistan is a battle. We are actually now in a permanent state of cold war, and frankly its nothing new--we've been in a continuous cold war since the dawn of human civilization. The European wars of the twentieth century were simply outbursts in a simmering conflict that had its roots in the 19th century, whose own conflicts had their roots in the 18th century and so on. War isn't optional--its a permanent feature of humanity. Its also the driving force behind human civilization. Our technology, our culture--even our philosophies are born from war. In terms of foreign policy, its never been a choice between war and no war, but really, really big war, or small, manageable wars. For reasons I find nearly unfathomable, the current hot wars we are engaged in are never discussed in terms of their geopolitical significance. Has anyone looked at a map? Afghanistan and Iraq bracket Iran--coincidence? Not bloody likely. During the war actually named "cold war", the U.S. and Soviets actively engaged in this kind of proxy war, by supporting friendly governments in strategic locations to thwart the strategic interests of the other. Ironically, Iran, which used to be a strong ally before Obama's godfather of naivete (Jimmy Carter) ignored the strategic interests of the West for touchy-feely notions about human rights, was a major bulwark against the Soviet dreams of expansion into a warm water port. Afghanistan was also part of that dream. Things have changed, and Iran is now the target to strategic isolation--geographical, economic and military. Candidates who view Iran as a "tiny country" are too stupid to bear. Iran has been the key to dominating the region for millenia, which is why of course it has been the seat of so many empires over the ages. Iran can literally step on the neck of the world with sufficient military might. Tiny country my ass. Everything Barack Obama has said about foreign policy has scared the bejesus out of me--the man has no clue, and not having a clue in the geopolitical game costs lives--millions of them. Jimmy Carter's colossal blunders in Southeast Asian, Afghanistan, and Iran literally cost millions of lives and the credibility of the U.S. as a world power (are you old enough to remember the humiliation of the hostage crisis?). It has been thirty years, and we are still suffering the effects, still paying a cost in lives. You can in fact screw up the economy and recover in pretty short order. There are dozens of countries that have demonstrated that fact. The effect is immediate, the voters get mad, and sanity is restored. Geopolitics is a far less forgiving arena. You screw up, people die, maybe a lot of people, maybe you. If McCain couldn't balance a checkbook, I'd still vote for him because he's a serious student of foreign policy and he has no illusions about people's motives or the productivity of having nice chats with dictators. As it stands, Obama has no clue on the economy either. Frankly, I don't blame Obama, I blame the Americans who are too woefully ignorant to nominate a candidate with brains, experience and the constitution to actually lead this country in the twenty-first century (yeah--I mean Hillary). I weep for a nation with this many idiots in it.
I note that the topics being suggested for broader critique are all those routinely demagogued by the liberal-left. The global warming hoax is a case in point--no one who is really familiar with the underlying science would characterize global warming as only slightly less certain than gravity--that's an a priori characterization and similar "religious certainty" surrounds evolution. What we all really need is to learn to live with ambiguity.
I'm afraid that a rather superficial perspective. The human breaches reflect the relatively low security risk that the SCADA represents to the system. I've called technicians and gave them plausible identification over the phone and asked them to do various things, and they did them--within limits. If you ask a technician to do something clearly foolish, they will call the supervisor for confirmation. For a power generation DCS, the human security is much, much, much tighter. Every action in the plant has to be coordinated with the control room operator, including all access, mechanical work and DCS control software access--even by the plant's own software guy! In many places there are two control room operators checking each other. The bottom line is that the vault was in this case, more like Geraldo Rivera's Al Capone vault than Citibanks.
I just read the full article and realized that they aren't actually talking about power generation. Its certainly possible to compromise the SCADA, but one should understand that the level of control available through the SCADA is extremely limited. it is generally there to acquire custody transfer data. No doubt some mischief is possible, but it would require someone with a detailed knowledge of the RTUs connected to the SCADA, and that's pretty esoteric knowledge. There are also backup metering systems, so that if someone managed to breach the RTU and screw up the set points, the compromised data should be quickly discovered and the problem rectified. What's skimmed over in this story is that the hackers were contracted by management, which suggest that there is an active risk management assessment underway. That's a good thing.
I'm not sure I believe the claims being made here. I've worked as a subcontractor in power plants all over North America and I've never seen a single plant where this would even be possible. Power plants have LANs with internet access like every other business, but plant operations, as controlled by the DCS, are completely isolated from the internet. It might indeed be trivial to compromise the LAN, but that is a far cry from actually gaining control of the power block. The DCS does have connections to the outside world in the form of frame relays (sometimes) to power marketing cooperatives (such as ERCOT in Texas...), or telephone access by analog router, but these are highly secure, isolated connections. The analog routers are usually disconnected when not explicitly required for remote support. This appears to me more media-inspired scaremongering.
I moved to Utah about 10 years ago for business reasons, when SLOC was in a complete shambles. People were going to jail, politicians were scrambling for cover, sponsors were heading for the exits. Salt Lake was on track to follow Denver (which bailed out on an Olympic they had won) into Olympic infamy. I'd never heard of Mitt Romney before he was announced as the new boss, but I doubt I've ever been impressed by anyone as much before or since. What he accomplished was literally miraculous. The 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics were a smash hit and he presented a 100,000,000.00 check when it was all said and done to finance in perpetuity all the Olympic venues that were built. The guy is wicked smart, intelligently conservative, honorable, civilized, kind, generous--I'd want my kids to be raised by this man if something happened to me. If he doesn't become president of the U.S., its A CRIME. When I contemplate the possibility that he could get beat by a bald, 72 year old man who can't control his temper, graduated at the bottom of his class, abandoned his crippled wife, married into money, makes snap decisions about everything and is indistinguishable from Hillary Clinton on nearly every issue, I can't help but join Europeans and Canadians in wondering how a place so full of idiots managed to become the leader of the free world. The country faces enormously complex challenges on every front and if there was every a time when we needed a genius as president, its right now. McCain is a narcissist. Hillary only does what's good for the Clintons, Obama is Bambi. Only Romney has the spirit of Cincinnatus, embodied by George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Only Romney has the intellectual horsepower to deal with everything this country has to face. Even then, it might not be enough, but if Romney can't do it, it simply can't be done.