London's Heathrow Airport announces complete shutdown due to power outage

Post by fraserharris » Fri, Mar 21, 2025, 4:28 PM UTC

rchaud wrote: post #122

crote wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of information has been available via open data for ages , and it isn't exactly hard for a foreign power with boots on the ground to figure out either. With this kind of large-scale infrastructure it just isn't viable to rely on security through obscurity. If you want to protect against failure, invest in redundancy.

Sounds like a cost center. Heathrow is privately owned. Would the board approve?

Post by Tempest1981 » Fri, Mar 21, 2025, 4:32 PM UTC

traceroute66 wrote: post #34

manarth wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The substations decribed in the power network case study above are for local distribution – 33kV stepping down to 11kV (×2) and 11kV to 415V (x12). The substation on fire (North Hyde) is a 275kV major distribution substation. That's a fairly significant distribution loss in itself (not just Heathrow but also 16,000 homes), and rebalancing the distribution will need careful coordination – flipping the switch on a load…

> not just Heathrow but also 16,000 homes You are off by a large number. More like 62,000 customers affected (although "only" 4,800 are actually without power right now)[1]. Also that area is more than just "homes". There is a lot of heavy elecrical load commercial stuff going on in that area too. [1] https://powertrack.ssen.co.uk/powertrack#QQ0573

Post by tremarley » Fri, Mar 21, 2025, 4:37 PM UTC

chaps wrote: post #129

hypeatei wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taking out any power infrastructure is going to cause significant problems, no? I don't think that's a national secret in any country. I get it, all modern intelligence apparatus is draconian but this take doesn't really make sense IMO.

What a weird take. Arresting someone for reporting a major security vulnerability is pretty shitty thing for a state to do. What you're suggesting is that that's not actually that bad. Same sort of logic that leads to people getting arrested for looking at HTML and reporting that it includes passwords.

Post by petertodd » Fri, Mar 21, 2025, 4:38 PM UTC

dredmorbius wrote: post #113

crazygringo wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would it be a national security issue? Military airports are working fine. National security doesn't rely on civilian airports. And communications networks aren't disrupted or anything. This isn't enabling terrorism. It's absolutely a huge economic issue. Economic-political. But I'm not seeing a national security angle here.

Most militarily-significant targets are themselves non-military. The Russian war of aggression on Ukraine is a prime example: power infrastructure, transportation, communications, commercial hubs, healthcare, and general civilian targets of opportunity are all targeted with high frequency by Russian forces. UK national security interests are spelled out in summary beginning on page 5 of this PDF, "Government Function…

Post by chaps » Fri, Mar 21, 2025, 4:42 PM UTC

tremarley wrote: post #135

chaps wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a weird take. Arresting someone for reporting a major security vulnerability is pretty shitty thing for a state to do. What you're suggesting is that that's not actually that bad. Same sort of logic that leads to people getting arrested for looking at HTML and reporting that it includes passwords.

That’s what happened to Josh Renaud. Renaud discovered that Social Security numbers for teachers, administrators and counselors were visible in the HTML code of a public Missouri State Education website and reported it. Governor Mike Parson tried to file charges against him and labelled him as a criminal for doing so.