It does help block the spread of a myriad of things internal to the network though. Personally I have seen the damage done to the office network at work due to a worm that came in through usb-sticks...
While antivirus didnt detect the bugger the thing couldnt spread to other machines due to the firewalls on individual machines blocking the vulnerable service.
Having worked with many types of high voltage insulators I'd say that there are way too many angles on it to take the full brunt of any bullet. Most of them are designed to take a lot of stress too due to the nature of their job.
I think part of the problem with your argument is that most people who favour the so called 'gun culture' get riled up whenever someone's ability to get a weapon is limited at all... for any reason.
I find it hard to defend anyone who thinks it is bad to prevent someone shooting at power-lines from having a weapon. Especially if it is something like having to give up weapons for say 2 years akin to having their driving license revoked for asshattery on the road:)
There are shades of gray and the people claiming either side is black/white hurt both sides... Meh...
I work with a constrol system made by one of the largest competetors to Siemens... The root level passwords are almost always left as the default... Same with the software access passwords:(
All of the systems I work with are physically disconnected from the outside world though, so it is less of an issue.
Most oil companies for instance spend quite a lot of money to do it right. And they rarely if ever do it themselves. They come up with requirements and work with a company that does control room design. Having spent some time in a brand new control room for an offshore installation in Norway I can say that all the little details matter. Do not try to do it yourself. Get someone with experience. It is worth the money.
Pretty much everything ends up in single-function packages eventually. This type of memory especially as it would be nonvolatile. Nonvolatile memory that wont wear out is a dream come true for any developer of embedded systems.
No, but not all countries are equal when it comes to enforcing strict safety standards both in terms of people and environment.
I've heard the pain Statoil went through due to some leaks at Statfjord... A couple of hundred gallons of oil, and it was a major investigation on how such an accident could take place!
Then again, Gullfaks had a problem recently with unstable reservoirs when drilling and had a bit of a scare due to gas mixing with the drilling mud, causing a full shutdown of drilling to investigate. Last I heard they switched to a much more expensive way of drilling to avoid more chances of accidents.
Sensational media does have a big part in it, but looking at the statistics it is quite scary how little regulation or proper enforcing of regulation there is...
I've worked on the safety system of some major rigs in the Norwegian sections of the North Sea and I cannot see how this could happen if proper procedures and sane safety systems were in place...
Hell, there are so many sensors and so strict procedures in place that alarms go off like mad if there is even a tiny leak somewhere...
Requiring it has been required in Norway for a while.
This is the direct result of people abusing the system by getting pre-paid phones and being cockbags with them. Now you cant get anonymous phones.
Personally I do not have an issue with this. While I love privacy I also think that at some point you need to have a certain amount of accountability. Being called up at 4 in the morning by some assbag pretending to be a customer at work.... not amusing.... not at all....
Then again, almost nobody opt out of the cellular phone registry here, so if I have a phone number or a name I can find the other. Their street address is also in this system. Anyone can query it at sites like Gulesider.no ("yellowpages").
If you dont want people to know who you are, then dont call them:p
Yup, but then you get management at central locations -demanding- to have access to realtime data from various plants.
The budget does not allow for dedicated links so a compromise is chosen... Heavily firewalled tunnels, but over the public internet.
Then a few years later, someone in management demands more functionality... Like being able to remotely do troubleshooting at the plant to save money on travel... This is implemented, throwing away the "Read Only" nature of the old system... again the internet is chosen as a transport as it is the only viable solution within the budget...
Suddenly, you have a theoretical way in from the internet to a gas plant responsible for moving 143 million Sm3 natural gas to Europe.... If you know the layout of the software you can easily shut down the whole plant..
It is all about money.... Technical solutions are all fine and good, but in the end the management that picks the solution is responsible, and they more often than not look at money:(
We test the new blockware logic on test racks before installing it in the plant but the devs have full access to the running control system of the refinery plant.
We can at any time 'monitor' the values of all function blocks in the whole plant, and change configurations on the live system.
While this sounds iffy at best, it is the only way to do it. You can only test things so much before they have to be put into the live system. Replicating the live system is nearly impossible without spending silly amounts of money. So far no major accidents have happened but there is no guarantee.
Slashdot Mirror
It does help block the spread of a myriad of things internal to the network though.
Personally I have seen the damage done to the office network at work due to a worm that came in through usb-sticks...
While antivirus didnt detect the bugger the thing couldnt spread to other machines due to the firewalls on individual machines blocking the vulnerable service.
Wouldnt this mean that any sharing of a link to your content would also give an implied license to copy?
How exactly is this going to work? Does this mean that all newspaper stories are freely usable by anyone?... That will sure break a lot of things... :p
Games.
Having worked with many types of high voltage insulators I'd say that there are way too many angles on it to take the full brunt of any bullet. Most of them are designed to take a lot of stress too due to the nature of their job.
I see what you did there.... And I approve!
I think part of the problem with your argument is that most people who favour the so called 'gun culture' get riled up whenever someone's ability to get a weapon is limited at all... for any reason.
I find it hard to defend anyone who thinks it is bad to prevent someone shooting at power-lines from having a weapon. Especially if it is something like having to give up weapons for say 2 years akin to having their driving license revoked for asshattery on the road :)
There are shades of gray and the people claiming either side is black/white hurt both sides... Meh...
They aim at the insulators, and end up taking down the cables as collateral.
Pure "luck" hitting them, but with enough shots at the insulators the wires will by chance get hit eventually..
They tried saying it was a pest-control issue of controlling the fox population...
When you have a rat problem you dont send in a bunch of cats riding on the back of pigs do you... :p
(Paraphrased from Bill Bailey)
If you had been staring right at the thing you might have lost your vision permanently... Only temporary damage if lucky.
Electric arcs are not 'fun' unless you know exactly what you are doing an take quite a lot of care not to take permanent damage from it.
What I'm getting at is: "If they think this is a good idea... what else do they think is a good idea?"
I love DRM-free content, but there is still that little lingering doubt in my mind... Do I really want to give these people my CC info?
Wonderful of them to throw away any shred of credibility by pulling such an asshat stunt....
I suspect a lot of people will be somewhat reluctant to do business with them if they think this is good marketing.... meh
I work with a constrol system made by one of the largest competetors to Siemens... The root level passwords are almost always left as the default... :(
Same with the software access passwords
All of the systems I work with are physically disconnected from the outside world though, so it is less of an issue.
He/she knew -of- the quote, and googled to get the exact one to post with a reference ;)
Knowing -of- things is important, much more so than remembering every single detail.
Those sound more like seriously bad alarm handling than control room design.
Almost everyone group it together, but they are distinct if you think about it.
Indeed.
Most oil companies for instance spend quite a lot of money to do it right. And they rarely if ever do it themselves. They come up with requirements and work with a company that does control room design. Having spent some time in a brand new control room for an offshore installation in Norway I can say that all the little details matter. Do not try to do it yourself. Get someone with experience. It is worth the money.
Pretty much everything ends up in single-function packages eventually. This type of memory especially as it would be nonvolatile. Nonvolatile memory that wont wear out is a dream come true for any developer of embedded systems.
I'd love to see them release a new iPhone just for the hell of it :p
No, but not all countries are equal when it comes to enforcing strict safety standards both in terms of people and environment.
I've heard the pain Statoil went through due to some leaks at Statfjord... A couple of hundred gallons of oil, and it was a major investigation on how such an accident could take place!
Then again, Gullfaks had a problem recently with unstable reservoirs when drilling and had a bit of a scare due to gas mixing with the drilling mud, causing a full shutdown of drilling to investigate. Last I heard they switched to a much more expensive way of drilling to avoid more chances of accidents.
Sensational media does have a big part in it, but looking at the statistics it is quite scary how little regulation or proper enforcing of regulation there is...
I've worked on the safety system of some major rigs in the Norwegian sections of the North Sea and I cannot see how this could happen if proper procedures and sane safety systems were in place...
Hell, there are so many sensors and so strict procedures in place that alarms go off like mad if there is even a tiny leak somewhere...
Requiring it has been required in Norway for a while.
This is the direct result of people abusing the system by getting pre-paid phones and being cockbags with them. Now you cant get anonymous phones.
Personally I do not have an issue with this. While I love privacy I also think that at some point you need to have a certain amount of accountability. Being called up at 4 in the morning by some assbag pretending to be a customer at work.... not amusing.... not at all....
Then again, almost nobody opt out of the cellular phone registry here, so if I have a phone number or a name I can find the other. Their street address is also in this system.
Anyone can query it at sites like Gulesider.no ("yellowpages").
If you dont want people to know who you are, then dont call them :p
Yup, but then you get management at central locations -demanding- to have access to realtime data from various plants.
The budget does not allow for dedicated links so a compromise is chosen... Heavily firewalled tunnels, but over the public internet.
Then a few years later, someone in management demands more functionality... Like being able to remotely do troubleshooting at the plant to save money on travel... This is implemented, throwing away the "Read Only" nature of the old system... again the internet is chosen as a transport as it is the only viable solution within the budget...
Suddenly, you have a theoretical way in from the internet to a gas plant responsible for moving 143 million Sm3 natural gas to Europe....
If you know the layout of the software you can easily shut down the whole plant..
It is all about money.... Technical solutions are all fine and good, but in the end the management that picks the solution is responsible, and they more often than not look at money :(
Yup, that is why you want your own layer of encryption where you have control over the keys.
Only a matter of time before such a thing is illegal again I fear.
Because they are required by most schools.
The 'demand' is 'forced' so why should the price drop? The same group of people buy them every year regardless of the cost ;)
We test the new blockware logic on test racks before installing it in the plant but the devs have full access to the running control system of the refinery plant.
We can at any time 'monitor' the values of all function blocks in the whole plant, and change configurations on the live system.
While this sounds iffy at best, it is the only way to do it. You can only test things so much before they have to be put into the live system. Replicating the live system is nearly impossible without spending silly amounts of money. So far no major accidents have happened but there is no guarantee.
In a perfect wooooorld and so on .
Glad I'm not the only one thinking in such a way...
To quote "Ivanova" in Babylon 5...
"How russian of you sir, I approve"