11–20 of 96 posts
I find this site so fascinating, seeing how all the massive power lines are hooked up to far-away power plants and gradually have their voltage stepped down as they connect to consumers. All the undersea cables and pipelines I didn't know about.
It’s really interesting how perception of openness changes over time. During cold war publishing this information would send one directly to gulag.
I was told that Texas maintained its own energy grid independent from the rest of the nation’s eastern and western grids, and supposedly only had a handful of high-voltage DC lines running between Texas’s and the rest of the nation’s. Supposedly this was why we couldn’t rely on excess capacity from anywhere else in the nation while our power generation capability was down.
But this map doesn’t seem to show Texas as isolated - there appear to be many lines in and out and no clear separation?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Berlin, Germany just had a blackout because a left from centre organisation decided to set an electric exchange on fire. Right over new years and at a very cold time of year. Apparently the data on where the exchange was and how it would affect the surrounding neighbourhoods was openly available. The neighbourhoods affect were largely affluent. It’s probably also the reason why this is being reshared.
So what? The benefits of openly sharing this info greatly outweight the risks. I heard multiple times that professionals in the energy sector relied on shitty, difficult to obtain and incomplete information until the open source revolution. Soviet Union heavily edited publicly available maps, although it had great cartography for the military-industrial complex. And where it is now?
Have I said that it's bad or good? I was just pointing out that yes, apparently data like this does get used in for bad things. I am not judging, as you seem to assume, I'm pointing out.
It's a pity that others aren't as broad minded to consider both or all sides of technology. Technology isn't always automatically an improvement of the current situation. Yes it might solve the obvious problem but there are also side effects. Social media, for example, is a good demonstration of a bunch of side effects that weren't intended.
And so it is with open infrastructure, it can have unwanted side effects and we should be aware of those instead of hand waving them away. Mitigation here is difficult: open access and meshing up of data is important and should be encouraged. Hiding this data away won't help.
This is a bad idea in terms of security in war
Berlin, Germany just had a blackout because a left from centre organisation decided to set an electric exchange on fire. Right over new years and at a very cold time of year. Apparently the data on where the exchange was and how it would affect the surrounding neighbourhoods was openly available. The neighbourhoods affect were largely affluent. It’s probably also the reason why this is being reshared.
This is a bad idea in terms of security in war
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So what? The benefits of openly sharing this info greatly outweight the risks. I heard multiple times that professionals in the energy sector relied on shitty, difficult to obtain and incomplete information until the open source revolution. Soviet Union heavily edited publicly available maps, although it had great cartography for the military-industrial complex. And where it is now?
So what? Have I said that it's bad or good? I was just pointing out that yes, apparently data like this does get used in for bad things. I am not judging, as you seem to assume, I'm pointing out. It's a pity that others aren't as broad minded to consider both or all sides of technology. Technology isn't always automatically an improvement of the current situation. Yes it might solve the obvious problem but there are…
…and then you go on to imply it has bad side effects. But you haven’t actually made that case. Do you really believe that a hostile group would have difficulty finding important infrastructure to attack without an open infrastructure map?
When I lived in Texas, we had a massive storm in winter of 2021 leaving many without power for a week. I was told that Texas maintained its own energy grid independent from the rest of the nation’s eastern and western grids, and supposedly only had a handful of high-voltage DC lines running between Texas’s and the rest of the nation’s. Supposedly this was why we couldn’t rely on excess capacity from anywhere else in…
> The Texas Interconnection is maintained as a separate grid for political, rather than technical reasons
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So what? Have I said that it's bad or good? I was just pointing out that yes, apparently data like this does get used in for bad things. I am not judging, as you seem to assume, I'm pointing out. It's a pity that others aren't as broad minded to consider both or all sides of technology. Technology isn't always automatically an improvement of the current situation. Yes it might solve the obvious problem but there are…
> Have I said that it's bad or good? …and then you go on to imply it has bad side effects. But you haven’t actually made that case. Do you really believe that a hostile group would have difficulty finding important infrastructure to attack without an open infrastructure map?
I honestly do. A large part of what protects open, free societies is that the smartest people generally have better things to do than blowing shit up. If you’ve ever taken a close look at any heavy infrastructure, it should strike you how easy it would be to break into and disable (particularly if you aren’t concerned about getting caught).
On the balance, I still prefer these data being open. But there probably is a domestic-terrorism risk that’s amplified.