Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

jalopnik.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 106 posts

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

#91

Post by koheripbal »

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…

The author here is misrepresenting his sources to spin a specific agenda point, in order to construct a false narrative. It's as fake as fake news gets.

From the author's own sources...

> Colonial’s corporate IT network and the process control network are connected and exchange information about how much fuel each supplier or distributor receives in order to bill them for it.

> ...they could change [data about the] flow rates, they could modify the data

> Although infecting Colonial Pipeline’s process control network would be disruptive, it isn’t the only concern. Colonial’s control system also connects to the control systems at tank farms that feed fuel into Colonial’s pipeline.... An attacker can potentially pass through Colonial’s control systems into the control systems of these farms.

I really hate advocacy journalism. It's such a fundamentally dishonest medium.

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

#92

Post by alanfranz »

silviot wrote: post #55
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.

No, not tenfold. Iliad entered a competitive market, but my pre-iliad price was around 10 eur/month, albeit with smaller data allowance.

Iliad helped lowering prices by offering a lower end service.

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

#93

Post by mannykannot »

MattGaiser wrote: post #18
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…

> It's not too far fetched either to hope that their customers would be willing to self-report. Sure you might get some people who'd take advantage of the situation Would you bet millions of dollars on the goodness of the typical person?

When all parties are losing a bunch of money on acount of the shutdown, the rational choice would be to accept some lesser risk than these known losses in order to get things working to some degree, if that were technically feasible.

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

#94

Post by Hamuko »

austincheney wrote: post #89
Hamuko wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not in any way similar. The Colonial Pipeline was not shut down because they ran out of petroleum to distribute.

The Texas power grid didn’t run out of fuel either. It was known there needed to be controlled outages a couple weeks in advance. What wasn’t known was the scale or duration of the problem. At any rate you are just looking for something to cry about. You asked for a hypothetical counter example not expecting to get one and now are splitting hairs to qualify big tears.

>The Texas power grid didn’t run out of fuel either.

"As of Wednesday morning, when the power outages were at their most severe, the cold had snuffed out about 46 gigawatts, or about 40 percent, of power-generation capacity in the state."

Sounds a lot like the grid did in fact run out of "fuel" (as in the product that they deliver).

>You asked for a hypothetical counter example

Of an electricity provider cutting power of its own accord because their billing service was not functioning, not because the electricity production in Texas dropped due to freezing while demand shot up.

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

#95

Post by throwaway378037 »

eps wrote: post #35
throwaway378037 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both are valid, it’s journalistic headline abbreviation. It can be read as: > [the] shutdown [was] to make sure Or with your correction it would be read as: > [it was] shut down to make sure So it’s not incorrect in the source article, it is just using the noun shutdown , rather than the verb to shut down .

You are being way too generous. Your first expansion is a very big stretch.

Perhaps, though I’m not arguing that it was a good headline. My point was only that it is a valid headline, as long as you understand that shutdown is the noun.

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

#96

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#97

Post by neltnerb »

alibarber wrote: post #57
neltnerb wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 syste…

Sure, but the store that accepted the invalid credit card has traditionally been on the hook. The store is the one being targeted even if the person whose credit card was stolen can get off with disputing the charge.

And before everything was networked, there was no way for a store to check with the credit card company that the card wasn't reported stolen. That's the trusting people part, it's the store that is trusting people without the ability to even verify that the card hasn't been reported stolen.

Yes, there is a paper trail, but the situation I'm talking about is analogous to a bad check or a counterfeit bill -- there's no recourse if the bad actor can't be found and the store is on the hook.

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

#98

Post by alibarber »

neltnerb wrote: post #97
alibarber wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 syste…

Sure, but the store that accepted the invalid credit card has traditionally been on the hook. The store is the one being targeted even if the person whose credit card was stolen can get off with disputing the charge. And before everything was networked, there was no way for a store to check with the credit card company that the card wasn't reported stolen. That's the trusting people part, it's the store that is trust…

Ah I understand now - from the shop’s point of view yes there is risk in this.

I am just about old enough to remember this time - it’s funny to think that security hinged on checking if the signature looked ‘right’. For cheques I remember here at least for yours to actually be accepted anywhere you needed a ‘cheque guarantee card’ which was basically just a debit card but with a fancy hologram - so a certificate of your ‘goodness’ - up to a certain limit per cheque. The shop would copy the details and this would supposedly guarantee they’ll be paid.

I was going to say that shops could have asked for ID - but at this time driving licences didn’t have a picture and weren’t cards - so no one carried them anyway. There was probably a lot of ‘subjective’ acceptance around the place (‘does this person look trustworthy, would they really be given a credit card or did they steal it?’) come to think of it…

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

#99

Post by neltnerb »

alibarber wrote: post #98
neltnerb wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but the store that accepted the invalid credit card has traditionally been on the hook. The store is the one being targeted even if the person whose credit card was stolen can get off with disputing the charge. And before everything was networked, there was no way for a store to check with the credit card company that the card wasn't reported stolen. That's the trusting people part, it's the store that is trust…

Ah I understand now - from the shop’s point of view yes there is risk in this. I am just about old enough to remember this time - it’s funny to think that security hinged on checking if the signature looked ‘right’. For cheques I remember here at least for yours to actually be accepted anywhere you needed a ‘cheque guarantee card’ which was basically just a debit card but with a fancy hologram - so a certificate of y…

Yes, I didn't want it to veer off topic, but I think it is extremely obvious that such standards involved implicit or explicit biases, as well as real recognition of individual customers' actual past behavior (like if a gas station has taken advantage of them in the past).

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

#100

Post by sam0x17 »

MattGaiser wrote: post #18
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…

> It's not too far fetched either to hope that their customers would be willing to self-report. Sure you might get some people who'd take advantage of the situation Would you bet millions of dollars on the goodness of the typical person?

No, I would create legislation that mandates that the pipeline must keep running in situations like this at the company's expense
Post reply on HN