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New cyber attack on pipeline...how vulnerable is our infrastructure (1 Viewer)

sho nuff

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Hit home a bit after the bombing in Nashville as it initially looked like it could have been such (ends up so far being a very disturbed man who may have been motivated by some crazy 5g conspiracy theories among other things).

But that bombing showed how vulnerable this country is to certain attacks.  This guy took out communication and 911 services for several days.  Now reading about possible attacks to power grid and understand how bad that would be.

This presents a challenge now as we move forward...this is why infrastructure improvements are necessary and should be one of the few things Republicans and Democrats can agree is needed.

 
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A 17 year old plotted on the internet to fire rifle rounds at power stations?

I mean obviously that is never good but I hardly see how that serves as a call to make infrastructure improvements beyond what we already know. 

Bulletproof glass all around them? 

 
A 17 year old plotted on the internet to fire rifle rounds at power stations?

I mean obviously that is never good but I hardly see how that serves as a call to make infrastructure improvements beyond what we already know. 

Bulletproof glass all around them? 
Do you believe we are impervious to such attacks?  That story wasn't the only thing I was discussing...

In addition...no, the fear is not just the shooting rifle rounds...its talk like that spreading...recruiting people.  Then what happens when someone else with a bit more sophistication gets in their heads or helping?  Its good this type of thing was caught before something happens or something bigger happens.  Before a group like that meets or gets involved with a guy with more know-how like the Nashville bomber.

And yes...I think we need to make infrastructure improvements in many areas.  

 
A 17 year old plotted on the internet to fire rifle rounds at power stations?

I mean obviously that is never good but I hardly see how that serves as a call to make infrastructure improvements beyond what we already know

Bulletproof glass all around them? 
Our lack of redundancy is a HUGE problem....has been for 40-50 years.  Very few pay attention to this stuff and it's one of the top 5 reasons why this country isn't nearly as safe as people are lead to believe.  If incidents like this call attention to it, then I see incredible value.  Most of the country doesn't have a clue how terrible our infrastructure design is.  The bold makes it hard to reply to the statement as I'm not sure who "we" is, but I tried to give my view on why this would "serve as a call".  

 
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Our lack of redundancy is a HUGE problem....has been for 40-50 years.  Very few pay attention to this stuff and it's one of the top 5 reasons why this country isn't nearly as safe as people are lead to believe.  If incidents like this call attention to it, then I see incredible value.  Most of the country doesn't have a clue how terrible our infrastructure design is.  The bold makes it hard to reply to the statement as I'm not sure who "we" is, but I tried to give my view on why this would "serve as a call".  
I wonder what we will learn from some of these things...like Nashville.

Is there a way to have a backup more so than generators that were not able to be online quickly.  If that building had been damaged more...what was the plan to get services back up?

Because as quick as they got it back...you are still talking about 48 hours with limited communication and interruptions to 911 services not just in Nashville...but all the way to Knoxville, Chattanooga, into Kentucky...

 
A 17 year old plotted on the internet to fire rifle rounds at power stations?

I mean obviously that is never good but I hardly see how that serves as a call to make infrastructure improvements beyond what we already know. 

Bulletproof glass all around them? 
It actually is a proven method of attack that works: Metcalf sniper attack

In April 2013, a small team of people cut fiber optic lines in the area, then coordinated an attack with rifles on 17 electrical transformers over 20 minutes before disappearing without a trace. The shooters didn't leave fingerprints on shell casings, coordinated the start and stop of the attack with flashlight signals, and marked pre-scouted firing positions in the hills.

While power in the area was quickly re-routed through other stations, repairs cost $15 million and took weeks to complete. Get a few small teams dedicated to doing this kind of damage and it doesn't take long before we'd have a very real problem on our hands.

 
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Our lack of redundancy is a HUGE problem....has been for 40-50 years.  Very few pay attention to this stuff and it's one of the top 5 reasons why this country isn't nearly as safe as people are lead to believe.  If incidents like this call attention to it, then I see incredible value.  Most of the country doesn't have a clue how terrible our infrastructure design is.  The bold makes it hard to reply to the statement as I'm not sure who "we" is, but I tried to give my view on why this would "serve as a call".  
My area of transportation has a lot redundancy built in. Now if some catastrophic event took out a huge piece of technology, yes it would be an issue as redundant pieces are built into the system and things would need to be diverted

 
It actually is a proven method of attack that works: Metcalf sniper attack

In April 2013, a small team of people cut fiber optic lines in the area, then coordinated an attack with rifles on 17 electrical transformers over 20 minutes before disappearing without a trace. The shooters didn't leave fingerprints on shell casings, coordinated the start and stop of the attack with flashlight signals, and marked pre-scouted firing positions in the hills.

While power in the area was quickly re-routed through other stations, repairs cost $15 million and took weeks to complete. Get a few small teams dedicated to doing this kind of damage and it doesn't take long before we'd have a very real problem on our hands.
So what infrastructure improvements should be made based on this? 

 
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63 yo tinfoil hat guy blows up a RV. 
 

Shonuff - look a teen text group talked about white supremacy!   
 

lol
Umm, there is a thread about the Nashville Explosion...I have posted quite a bit in it as I live here. 
This story pops up today leading me to think it would ne a good overall topic of discussion about the plot  and overall threat to our infrastructure.

Rather than snark...how about trying to discuss the topic?

 
The way to dismantle our electrical grid is through EMP attacks.

Transformers are funny. They cost millions of dollars, take years to make, and they have waiting lists.  They also last like 60-100 years.  It’s not uncommon to have transformers older than 100 years. All that said, utilities has spent decades improving and perfecting their sparing strategy including mobile transformers.

If you want to worry, worry about high altitude EMP attacks. 

 
So what infrastructure improvements should be made based on this? 
"Based on this" seems to miss the point I was trying to make.  That is, if I am reading it correctly so please correct me if I am not.  This specific event highlights the problem(s).  I can give you a laundry list of problems that need to be resolved starting first and foremost with "redundant transmission paths" are not enough...entire sites need to be redundant throughout the country.  Does this event "drive" that?  No...but it does begin to shine a light because not only do stations need to be redundant, the supply lines do as well.  Clearly they weren't here.  

 
I wonder what we will learn from some of these things...like Nashville.

Is there a way to have a backup more so than generators that were not able to be online quickly.  If that building had been damaged more...what was the plan to get services back up?

Because as quick as they got it back...you are still talking about 48 hours with limited communication and interruptions to 911 services not just in Nashville...but all the way to Knoxville, Chattanooga, into Kentucky...
There's not much to "learn"...we KNOW what needs to be done (which may be para's point above??).  The challenge is getting companies to actually do it.  Doing the right thing here will cost billions and if done correctly, people won't even know it was done.  That means a lot of "maintenance" kinds of things that don't impact the income statement in a positive way which then negatively affects stock prices.  In other words, don't hold your breath on getting this stuff done any time soon.

 
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There's not much to "learn"...we KNOW what needs to be done (which may be para's point above??).  The challenge is getting companies to actually do it.  Doing the right thing here will cost billions and if done correctly, people won't even know it was done.  That means a lot of "maintenance" kinds of things that don't impact the income statement in a positive way which then negatively affects stock prices.  In other words, don't hold your breath on getting this stuff done any time soon.
Working in the infrastructure/civil engineering field, I can confidently say our utilities as well as our roads/bridges/drainage is woefully inadequate and in need of serious repair. We just keep putting band aids on the problems without addressing the real need of an overhaul. Most of our large cities are still using underground facilities that were built in the turn of the 20th century (water, sewer).

 
There's not much to "learn"...we KNOW what needs to be done (which may be para's point above??).  The challenge is getting companies to actually do it.  Doing the right thing here will cost billions and if done correctly, people won't even know it was done.  That means a lot of "maintenance" kinds of things that don't impact the income statement in a positive way which then negatively affects stock prices.  In other words, don't hold your breath on getting this stuff done any time soon.
Yes. This is my point. Using an issue like this from 2019 that was thwarted isnt representative of needs for broad infrastructure improvement. In fact I would argue that doing so is overreaction that would likely take away from other more important changes. 

It is no secret in our country that people with guns can cause all sorts of damage. You cant prepare every location for these things. The best way to stop these events is what happened in this case. Through law enforcement. 

I mean when the dc sniper was out there did we talk about building walls around all the highways? 

What if there had been a plan for a group of teens to shoot at planes taking off at the airport? Or at the people coming into the subway?

It doesnt mean take zero action, I just dont get the connection to how this shows we need to spend money on infrastructure. Like at all. 

 
Yes. This is my point. Using an issue like this from 2019 that was thwarted isnt representative of needs for broad infrastructure improvement. In fact I would argue that doing so is overreaction that would likely take away from other more important changes. 

It is no secret in our country that people with guns can cause all sorts of damage. You cant prepare every location for these things. The best way to stop these events is what happened in this case. Through law enforcement. 

I mean when the dc sniper was out there did we talk about building walls around all the highways? 

What if there had been a plan for a group of teens to shoot at planes taking off at the airport? Or at the people coming into the subway?

It doesnt mean take zero action, I just dont get the connection to how this shows we need to spend money on infrastructure. Like at all. 
As I said in my initial post...seems to me this is an event to shine a light on the problems.  I'm willing to bet few understand the issues we really face with our power grids and telecommunications in general.  So while it doesn't give new perspective to some of us who have been in the middle of it and understand it, it does give some awareness to those who haven't a clue.  You can argue over the value of that until the cows come home.  In my view the more people who understand there's a problem the better.  This helps illustrate that to some extent.

 
Link

Hit home a bit after the bombing in Nashville as it initially looked like it could have been such (ends up so far being a very disturbed man who may have been motivated by some crazy 5g conspiracy theories among other things).

But that bombing showed how vulnerable this country is to certain attacks.  This guy took out communication and 911 services for several days.  Now reading about possible attacks to power grid and understand how bad that would be.

This presents a challenge now as we move forward...this is why infrastructure improvements are necessary and should be one of the few things Republicans and Democrats can agree is needed.
It's a huge issue.  I was talking to an IT nerd/guru over the weekend talking about how this shows how fragile the whole thing is.  He had some illuminating thoughts on just how fragile the internet is, and how 10-12 well-placed explosions could cause catastrophe. 

The power grid is orders of magnitude worse, as I imagine the infrastructure is older, loss of power equals loss of internet/phones, and it would actually cause the potential for mass chaos if it went on for a week.

I lost phones and internet for 48 hours due to the explosion.  I imagine ATT is going to be spending a LOT of money to build redundancy into their networks and have a better plan than they had over the weekend as it was a chaotic time for me to figure out what was even happening.  But it's one thing for AT&T to spend the money "post-disaster".  It's another for the power grid companies to spend the money they likely need to spend now, before anything has happened. 

 
It's a huge issue.  I was talking to an IT nerd/guru over the weekend talking about how this shows how fragile the whole thing is.  He had some illuminating thoughts on just how fragile the internet is, and how 10-12 well-placed explosions could cause catastrophe. 

The power grid is orders of magnitude worse, as I imagine the infrastructure is older, loss of power equals loss of internet/phones, and it would actually cause the potential for mass chaos if it went on for a week.

I lost phones and internet for 48 hours due to the explosion.  I imagine ATT is going to be spending a LOT of money to build redundancy into their networks and have a better plan than they had over the weekend as it was a chaotic time for me to figure out what was even happening.  But it's one thing for AT&T to spend the money "post-disaster".  It's another for the power grid companies to spend the money they likely need to spend now, before anything has happened. 
very doubtful....this kind of stuff happens every hurricane season here in Florida and it's happened for years....they aren't doing it unless forced...that's money down the tubes on the income statement / balance sheet.

 
very doubtful....this kind of stuff happens every hurricane season here in Florida and it's happened for years....they aren't doing it unless forced...that's money down the tubes on the income statement / balance sheet.
Our local Walmart went cash only.  The targets in the area were closed down for an entire day.  Those companies (along with many others all around Nashville) were directly affected by a bomb and a network that couldn't sustain damage to one data center and quickly re-route traffic.

I imagine businesses will be demanding to know what AT&T plans to do as a result of this? 

 
very doubtful....this kind of stuff happens every hurricane season here in Florida and it's happened for years....they aren't doing it unless forced...that's money down the tubes on the income statement / balance sheet.
How do you build local redundancy for a hurricane?

 
It's a huge issue.  I was talking to an IT nerd/guru over the weekend talking about how this shows how fragile the whole thing is.  He had some illuminating thoughts on just how fragile the internet is, and how 10-12 well-placed explosions could cause catastrophe. 

The power grid is orders of magnitude worse, as I imagine the infrastructure is older, loss of power equals loss of internet/phones, and it would actually cause the potential for mass chaos if it went on for a week.

I lost phones and internet for 48 hours due to the explosion.  I imagine ATT is going to be spending a LOT of money to build redundancy into their networks and have a better plan than they had over the weekend as it was a chaotic time for me to figure out what was even happening.  But it's one thing for AT&T to spend the money "post-disaster".  It's another for the power grid companies to spend the money they likely need to spend now, before anything has happened. 
Respectfully disagree on the bolded

Telco is completely different IMHO

 
Our local Walmart went cash only.  The targets in the area were closed down for an entire day.  Those companies (along with many others all around Nashville) were directly affected by a bomb and a network that couldn't sustain damage to one data center and quickly re-route traffic.

I imagine businesses will be demanding to know what AT&T plans to do as a result of this? 
Perhaps.  And AT&T will do their dog/pony show about doing something and then they'll do nothing.  I'd love to be wrong about it, but the next time they do something will be the first.

 
How do you build local redundancy for a hurricane?
Depends on the state I guess, but it's rather easy for most.  For those on the east coast you start by making mirrors on the west side of the state for what's on the east.  Florida could present problems for a storm that is so massive the entire NE quadrant of the storm comes straight south to north and consumes east/west coasts.  If that were to ever happen, there's not much you could do.

 
Depends on the state I guess, but it's rather easy for most.  For those on the east coast you start by making mirrors on the west side of the state for what's on the east.  Florida could present problems for a storm that is so massive the entire NE quadrant of the storm comes straight south to north and consumes east/west coasts.  If that were to ever happen, there's not much you could do.
So to build the redundancy for hurricanes, you have to build a mirrored setup and then whenever one side gets hit you literally have to rebuild double. Since obviously if one data center got hit, the redundancy for the other side of the state would also get hit. Heaven forbid one come through and rip both sides. 

I imagine that is the reason hurricanes don't spark this kind of building. 

 
Yeah, the original post appears to be a massive overreaction. 
It was to bring on discussion.  And several are having a good discussion.  You all are welcome to discuss rather than just offer snarky criticism of a poster.

 
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Just think how much money would be lost. That alone should bring enough attention to this problem. 
After working on several multi-million dollar projects myself I can almost GUARANTEE you that clients/companies aren't thinking about how much money they are going to lose in the future.  They're worried about how much money they are spending NOW. 

No one - and I mean no one - EVER thinks of how much money they'll lose on the back-end (when the problem arises - instead of anticipating and preparing for it).  They're always worried about the money they're spending currently and why the budget can be cut even more.

 
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So to build the redundancy for hurricanes, you have to build a mirrored setup and then whenever one side gets hit you literally have to rebuild double. Since obviously if one data center got hit, the redundancy for the other side of the state would also get hit. Heaven forbid one come through and rip both sides. 

I imagine that is the reason hurricanes don't spark this kind of building. 
Its not just hurricanes. :oldunsure:

This isnt a novel idea....most companies that give a crap about stability and their customers do this sort of thing. My former employer had 5 different centers across the country to handle these sort of things for example.  They obssess over availability and plan for the worst.    They arent the exception either

eta:  and for any company, if all their centers got hit, theyd all have to be rebuilt...not sure where youre going there

 
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Its not just hurricanes. :oldunsure:

This isnt a novel idea....most companies that give a crap about stability and their customers do this sort of thing. My former employer had 5 different centers across the country to handle these sort of things for example.  They obssess over availability and plan for the worst.    They arent the exception either
You arent comparing apples to apples. You dont think ATT has facilities all over the country? 

 
You arent comparing apples to apples. You dont think ATT has facilities all over the country? 
I thought we were talking about companies or states building redundancies in their systems, no?

I dont know what att has, but its pretty clear theres a gap in redundency or they wouldnt have had a service problem with just one site going down. They could have 50 different sites and none of them redundant...quantity doesnt mean much here...the set up and resources do though. 

 
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After working on several multi-million dollar projects myself I can almost GUARANTEE you that clients/companies aren't thinking about how much money they are going to lose in the future.  They're worried about how much money they are spending NOW. 

No one - and I mean no one - EVER thinks of how much money they'll lose on the back-end (when the problem arises - instead of anticipating and preparing for it).  They're always worried about the money they're spending currently and why the budget can be cut even more.
This may be true for some companies, but a lot of large companies (I would hope most of them) are going to do proper risk assessment and analysis. There is an equation that measures this exact thing called annualized loss expectancy. That being said the whole point is that if the mitigation costs more than the ALE then the company is probably not going to pay for the redundancy.

 
This may be true for some companies, but a lot of large companies (I would hope most of them) are going to do proper risk assessment and analysis. There is an equation that measures this exact thing called annualized loss expectancy. That being said the whole point is that if the mitigation costs more than the ALE then the company is probably not going to pay for the redundancy.
God I certainly hope so.  My experience has been the opposite but I'm always willing to concede if I'm wrong.  Call me jaded.  :)

 
This may be true for some companies, but a lot of large companies (I would hope most of them) are going to do proper risk assessment and analysis. There is an equation that measures this exact thing called annualized loss expectancy. That being said the whole point is that if the mitigation costs more than the ALE then the company is probably not going to pay for the redundancy.
As well as contingency plans to continue working after a disaster.

 
I thought we were talking about companies or states building redundancies in their systems, no?

I dont know what att has, but its pretty clear theres a gap in redundency or they wouldnt have had a service problem with just one site going down. They could have 50 different sites and none of them redundant...quantity doesnt mean much here...the set up and resources do though. 
We were talking about building local redundancies for hurricanes. Your company having locations all over the country isnt the same thing, so does att. They would need local redundancies to prevent what happened. And for a hurricane, surely you can see how having two locations in the same city doesnt really help. It could, but more than likely if one goes down, so does the other. 

You proposed an actual blueprint for it, which I agree would be the way you would do it, but look at the costs. You can quickly see why they dont. 

Now lets move that to things like shootings or bombings. Who thinks you should have two facilities in each location to be prepared for a bombing? 

It is kind of absurd if you start thinking about doubling up on everything because of incidents like this. 

And imagine if, and I am just spitballing here, there were two bombs! 

 
God I certainly hope so.  My experience has been the opposite but I'm always willing to concede if I'm wrong.  Call me jaded.  :)
That's fair. I have a similar experience so I am not saying you are wrong, just that hopefully a company the size of AT&T would do a better job than the companies I've worked with.

It is also becoming more important. Many of our customers now require us to put our DR objectives into our contracts. That is going to force a lot of companies to quickly improve their DR planning.

 
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What were you implying here?
Some posters like to throw around white supremacy threats when it’s a handful of clowns that probably couldn’t load a potato gun   Anyone could knock out a power grid   I’m glad the discussion shifted away from what the OP apparently had intended 

“Federal prosecutors in Ohio are taking the lead on the case. Jennifer Thornton, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of Ohio, said she couldn’t provide additional information because the investigation is ongoing, but “we want to emphasize that there is no imminent public safety threat related to this matter.”

 
Some posters like to throw around white supremacy threats when it’s a handful of clowns that probably couldn’t load a potato gun   Anyone could knock out a power grid   I’m glad the discussion shifted away from what the OP apparently had intended 

“Federal prosecutors in Ohio are taking the lead on the case. Jennifer Thornton, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of Ohio, said she couldn’t provide additional information because the investigation is ongoing, but “we want to emphasize that there is no imminent public safety threat related to this matter.”
Ok. I wasn’t tracking that and def didn’t get this vibe from Sho’s original post.

Does seem like fixing infrastructure is a bipartisan thing, Obama talked about it, Trump talked about it, Biden talked about it. 

This is another issue I can never figure out how it doesn’t get done.

 
Some posters like to throw around white supremacy threats when it’s a handful of clowns that probably couldn’t load a potato gun   Anyone could knock out a power grid   I’m glad the discussion shifted away from what the OP apparently had intended 

“Federal prosecutors in Ohio are taking the lead on the case. Jennifer Thornton, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of Ohio, said she couldn’t provide additional information because the investigation is ongoing, but “we want to emphasize that there is no imminent public safety threat related to this matter.”
The discussion happening is what was intended...I discussed it in the original post.

 
Some posters like to throw around white supremacy threats when it’s a handful of clowns that probably couldn’t load a potato gun   Anyone could knock out a power grid   I’m glad the discussion shifted away from what the OP apparently had intended 

“Federal prosecutors in Ohio are taking the lead on the case. Jennifer Thornton, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of Ohio, said she couldn’t provide additional information because the investigation is ongoing, but “we want to emphasize that there is no imminent public safety threat related to this matter.”
And yet they completely ignored the BLM and antifa rallies where they actually burned down buildings, assaulted people and looted businesses.  They took out entire city blocks and actually took over a couple blocks for their own autonomous country within the United States. 

Apparently this type of stuff isn't the problem, though.

But hey, one ignorant clown on the internet tweets something and suddenly the right-wing white supremacist fascist Boogeyman conspiracy is what we have to worry about.

Give me a break.

 
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And yet they completely ignored the BLM and antifa rallies where they actually burned down buildings, assaulted people and looted businesses.  They took out entire city blocks and actually took over a couple blocks for their own autonomous country within the United States. 

Apparently this type of stuff isn't the problem, though.

But hey, one ignorant clown on the internet tweets something and suddenly the right-wing white supremacist fascist Boogeyman conspiracy is what we have to worry about.

Give me a break.
I specifically asked the OP to condemn Antifa a couple of months ago to no avail.  That’s why threads like this are so troubling.  

 
I specifically asked the OP to condemn Antifa a couple of months ago to no avail.  That’s why threads like this are so troubling.  
Please post a link to you ever doing this.  I have condemned the actions of Antifa...please try talking about the topic...there is good discussion here outside the few trying to complete derail the thing.

 
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And yet the headline is unchanged 
The headline states infrastructure talk...correct?  And correctly identifies the plot in the story that, along with the bombing, got me thinking about it.

Now do you or the others have something about the topic to add...or just more complaints about me?  Please stop this...it does not help discourse.

 
White supremacy pushes clicks. 

Thats why a plot from a year ago by a 17 year old that went nowhere gets play and we rarely talk about the shootings that happen all over the country. 

Thats why 15 people can get shot at a funeral and it is a blip. Wrong demo. 
It wasn't just a plot of one 17 year old...as the article stated.  And it, along with other events, showed and overall vulnerability we have...and has led to quality discussion once you get past the smoke screen of those being so critical about a poster and try actually discussing what is going on.

Shootings do get talked about...and if anyone wants to talk more about shootings and guns there are multiple threads for those.

 

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