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The Colonial Pipeline Was Fine, Shutdown to Make Sure Its Owner Would Get Paid

jalopnik.com

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Re: The Colonial Pipeline Was Fine, Shutdown to Make Sure Its Owner Would Get Paid

#51

Post by simfoo »

qalmakka wrote: post #21

IMHO, the USA has made the mistake of privatizing too much of its crucial infrastructure, ignoring that certain things are inherently monopolistic in nature and do not benefit at all from being in private hands. Privatizing infrastructure is extremely positive if there's any chance for competition to arise - for instance, Italy has moved from a monopolistic state phone company to a well regulated and open free market…

Not just in the US. In Germany economic-liberal politicians keep pushing for privatized infrastructure all the time, arguing it would be better managed by a private company.

This goes as far as privatizing toll collection on public streets. Unsurprisingly this always leads to badly maintained infrastructure and higher costs in the end.

Re: The Colonial Pipeline Was Fine, Shutdown to Make Sure Its Owner Would Get Paid

#52

Post by Hamuko »

austincheney wrote: post #48
andrewstuart2 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think maybe you have to think about the total economic impact for the article and frustration to make more sense. Fuel is a very fundamental part of our economy and almost always goes toward producing much more value than the value of the fuel itself. Add to that, shortages can and do contribute to irreversible losses like loss of life. If every gas distributor shut down because ransomware hit them all, you could c…

If only the world economy ran on tears and sympathy instead of recorded transactions. I should pray that all my utility and food providers function without charging me money... until they go bankrupt and I am left with neither.

You'd probably be pretty pissed if your electricity provider suffered a ransomware attack on its billing system and then decided to stop your heating completely on its own accord because it can't know if you're paying your fair share.

Re: The Colonial Pipeline Was Fine, Shutdown to Make Sure Its Owner Would Get Paid

#53

Post by phreeza »

colechristensen wrote: post #4

The author of this article comes off as really very clueless. Yes, in fact, if a store's computers go down they don't just let customers walk out the door with products and hope they get paid eventually? As far as I understand colonial is basically a big gas station connected with a series of tubes. Look ma, the gas pump still works but it doesn't keep track of how much we pumped or charge us any more! Of course they…

Isn't the argument that it should be a utility and not a purely for-profit business? Would you expect your local water company to shut off supply if they have a similar bookkeeping problem?

Re: The Colonial Pipeline Was Fine, Shutdown to Make Sure Its Owner Would Get Paid

#54

Post by londons_explore »

andrewstuart2 wrote: post #9
colechristensen wrote: post #4

The author of this article comes off as really very clueless. Yes, in fact, if a store's computers go down they don't just let customers walk out the door with products and hope they get paid eventually? As far as I understand colonial is basically a big gas station connected with a series of tubes. Look ma, the gas pump still works but it doesn't keep track of how much we pumped or charge us any more! Of course they…

I think maybe you have to think about the total economic impact for the article and frustration to make more sense. Fuel is a very fundamental part of our economy and almost always goes toward producing much more value than the value of the fuel itself. Add to that, shortages can and do contribute to irreversible losses like loss of life. If every gas distributor shut down because ransomware hit them all, you could c…

I wonder if there is a capitalistic approach so solving this problem (making incentives align between the needs of the fuel distributor and that of the economy in the case of technical failure)?

The only approach I see is perhaps to have written into contracts with all buyers some kind of compensation for the pipeline being unavailable per hour.

Then colonial will prefer to have the pipeline turned on handing out free fuel because it's cheaper than the compensation for turning off.

Re: The Colonial Pipeline Was Fine, Shutdown to Make Sure Its Owner Would Get Paid

#55

Post by silviot »

qalmakka wrote: post #21

IMHO, the USA has made the mistake of privatizing too much of its crucial infrastructure, ignoring that certain things are inherently monopolistic in nature and do not benefit at all from being in private hands. Privatizing infrastructure is extremely positive if there's any chance for competition to arise - for instance, Italy has moved from a monopolistic state phone company to a well regulated and open free market…

Competition is not only ineffective in monopolistic markets. Also oligopolic markets are very inefficient. In Italy's example the price you now pay for your mobile plan (7 €/month for 50 GB) was made possible by Iliad, a new ISP that broke the Italian oligopoly and forced all competitors to bring prices down (or better data caps up) ten fold in the span of a few months.

Re: The Colonial Pipeline Was Fine, Shutdown to Make Sure Its Owner Would Get Paid

#56

Post by austincheney »

Hamuko wrote: post #52
austincheney wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only the world economy ran on tears and sympathy instead of recorded transactions. I should pray that all my utility and food providers function without charging me money... until they go bankrupt and I am left with neither.

You'd probably be pretty pissed if your electricity provider suffered a ransomware attack on its billing system and then decided to stop your heating completely on its own accord because it can't know if you're paying your fair share.

They do that anyways here even without ransomware attacks. There were all kinds of articles about it on the front page of HN.

Re: The Colonial Pipeline Was Fine, Shutdown to Make Sure Its Owner Would Get Paid

#57

Post by alibarber »

neltnerb wrote: post #36
alibarber wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But a credit card still keeps track of how much you spend - it doesn't rely on you honestly reporting how much you spent over the month...

Oh, I think they are talking about the earlier period where you just did a carbon copy of the card, got it signed, and if the card was a fake there was certainly no way to tell at the time. It would be the equivalent of a bad check, talking the days before swipe machines.

I guess, but discounting active fraud, there is still a paper trail of how much you spent; The bank will still have said "We think you owe us $100, here is our reasoning based on things you signed" never "you spent some amount of money we're not sure of - please give it to us" or "all of our customers spent $1million, so let us have your share, whatever you think that may be" as would be the case here.

Yes, the system would fall apart if you disputed every single transaction and made them supply irrefutable evidence you did in fact authorise the transaction - but it doesn't revolve entirely on the trust that people will keep their own account of what they think they spent.

Re: The Colonial Pipeline Was Fine, Shutdown to Make Sure Its Owner Would Get Paid

#58

Post by josho »

HPsquared wrote: post #24

If ever there was a good candidate for a company to bailout to prevent damage to the wider economy, this is it.

On the flip side you are bailing out a company for neglecting to have a disciplined security practice and a failure to build and execute their disaster recovery plan.

Rather than bail out the company perhaps nationalizing it is the better recourse. It would certainly make other companies seriously reconsider how they invest in DR and security.

Re: The Colonial Pipeline Was Fine, Shutdown to Make Sure Its Owner Would Get Paid

#59

Post by Nullabillity »

FeepingCreature wrote: post #20
romwell wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Yes, in fact, if a store's computers go down they don't just let customers walk out the door with products and hope they get paid eventually? They better do that if they get the permission from the gov't to operate the only grocery store in the area, and people weren't able to get food otherwise.

Okay, so establish some sort of "crisis service fund" that pays out when payment processing breaks through no fault of your own. This is something the state can do at any time. Honestly, allowing a monopoly without planning something like this just seems careless. Providing service without hope of ever being paid is stupid. The market is pretty good at selecting against stupidity.

Sounds like solving the problem from the wrong end. The payment infrastructure is the service provider's responsibility, not the state's.

Instead, set up strict SLAs with harsh fines; make it more expensive to shut down than to provide free service.

Re: The Colonial Pipeline Was Fine, Shutdown to Make Sure Its Owner Would Get Paid

#60

Post by Hamuko »

austincheney wrote: post #56
Hamuko wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd probably be pretty pissed if your electricity provider suffered a ransomware attack on its billing system and then decided to stop your heating completely on its own accord because it can't know if you're paying your fair share.

They do that anyways here even without ransomware attacks. There were all kinds of articles about it on the front page of HN.

When?
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