161–170 of 292 posts
Reminds me of this Bay Area incident from 2013 that has never been explained publicly: https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304851104579359...
April Sniper Attack Knocked Out Substation, Raises Concern for Country's Power Grid
By Rebecca Smith - February 5, 2014 : https://archive.ph/qILZ5
And : https://archive.ph/HCNOz
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A VHS cassette tape thrown over transmission lines in the middle of nowhere coordinated at 3 or 4 key locations would do that too… and much easier ordinance to acquire. NMS systems can’t react and load shedding chaos is likely.
What's the significance of VHS tapes?
A grenade (or IED) or two thrown in coordination into a few of those local-area transformer / power distribution stations would cause state-level chaos. Where I live, these seemingly critical infrastructure outposts, are protected by nothing more than high chicken-wire fences. Cyber Squirrel is the best and longest-lived exemplification of the sensitivity and scale of this vulnerability: https://cybersquirrel1.com/ T…
While I have nothing (for now) to directly add to transmission network down time, I can at least add another Western Australian bird story to yours . . .
[1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-11-08/zebra-finch-makes-nes...
The linked video rivals anything David Attenborough voiced.
Vast majority of physical infrastructure has no security beyond a rickety fence. It is good that most terrorists are as mentally unstable as they are, because a rational person with some easily homemade bombs could easily disable most anything they want with no real chance at being caught.
Bombs seems like too much work. I think you could drive a truck into most electrical stations too much the same effect.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's far more likely to be vandalism, and that happens from time to time with infrastructure all over the place. Jumping to such an extreme overreaction does nothing other than make life miserable for everyone that's innocent. Deploy police to monitor infrastructure for sure, but locking down law abiding citizens seems like overkill.
This is in no way anywhere near normal, come on now.
This may turn out to be a good thing in the long run. Why? People (and news reports) have been highlighting the lack of security around critical infrastructure like this for years. Now that folks are deciding to attack these targets, hopefully more budget and time goes into actually securing them vs just throwing up some fences around them. Granted, there could also be the power industries version of "security theate…
If you are really concerned, bury a propane tank plumbed to a generator.
Civilization will end because it is so much easier to break things than build them.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah and no. Metcalf was similar in terms of targeting the transformer with rifle fire. But it was more professionally done (in terms of minimizing forensic footprint) and more hands-off, compared to the gate being pulled down by a truck as in this case. There are a number of potential suspects, but my feeling is that if there are no arrests in 72 hours you can expect a bunch of copycat attacks. Substations are very…
The authorities quoted in the article said whoever did it had a good understanding of the power grid and what they were doing. Maybe it's common enough knowledge, I don't know but it gave me the impression that it wasn't trivially easy to do, making copycats, especially by just the kind of dumbass who would copycat this, less likely
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No, it's both. You need to do research that will show you just how long the lead times are for transformer equipment and supplies. Oh, and those lead times are still getting longer .
Yes, it is both. I do ask for you to reflect back on covid. Remember when trying to make a vaccine was 5-10 years, but when an entire country/world makes something a priority and become hyper focused and motivated they'll 10x output. The problem is when regardless of input you can't speed up the output. Think of a pregnancy, adding more pregnant women doesn't speed up the process, and consuming more inputs doesn't sp…