Washington Post reported it was a ransomware attack.
It may not have been a targeted attack.
U.S.'s Biggest Gasoline Pipeline Halted After Cyberattack
41–50 of 218 posts
Re: U.S.'s Biggest Gasoline Pipeline Halted After Cyberattack
#42Perhaps we should pass a law that no utilities / infrastructure should be attached to the internet. Private networks are fine for this purpose.
Re: U.S.'s Biggest Gasoline Pipeline Halted After Cyberattack
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's quite a strawperson - it creates a fictional story and then criticize the characters. The U.S. government has been addressing computer security in infrastructure for a long time.
I’d prefer a new Cybersecurity branch of the military with full funding and resources rather than Space Force.
I've always secretly hoped warfare would move to the digital realm soley.
We have some shades of that happening already, but I imagine a future where instead of sending young people to die,warring nations wreck each others economies remotely... which again isn't too far from current day.
While there'd still be casualties it wouldn't be nearly as barbaric as current wars, more developed nations would finally have as much skin in the game as disadvantaged ones, etc.
The way I see it, the best way to discourage war is to make it unprofitable. If war just becomes directly hurting each other's ability to make money I could see war, or erm excuse me armed conflicts, getting a lot more unattractive.
Re: U.S.'s Biggest Gasoline Pipeline Halted After Cyberattack
#44It's only a matter of time, there's gonna be physical casualties at some point in time. We've all seen it in the movies. Experts have warned of the dangers of tethering vital utilities controls to the internet. Is it not possible to develop protocol or device that operates outside of the web but functions like the'two-man' rule used to launch nuclear bombs?
Those devices don’t work like a nuclear bomb control does - that is adding resistance/controls to taking an action.
The appropriate analogy is more like a nuclear reactor. They require some system controls to stay functional and healthy (water temp increases in loop x, increase motor speed of pump y, if already at or exceeding speed z, set off an alarm).
These controls need constant monitoring in a control station somewhere, sometimes tuning or fixing if there is a bug or issue somewhere, etc.
A lot of the cost of a nuclear plant is trying to cover every possible scenario and being compliant with endless regulations for stuff like this (and everything else).
That most non-nuclear plants don’t want to deal with the hassle and expense shouldn’t surprise anyone. That non-nuclear plants often don’t even TRY to cover basic cases SHOULD dismay and surprise people. These issues have been well known and publicized for literally 30 years.
A reason safety guys in these industries have the saying ‘regulations are written in blood’ is often not because no one sees the danger. Rather, until the body count reaches a certain point, no one can justify the expense to require it be fixed.
Re: U.S.'s Biggest Gasoline Pipeline Halted After Cyberattack
#45Washington Post reported it was a ransomware attack. It may not have been a targeted attack.
20 odd posts and yours is the only sensible one.
It's certainly a security incident but until we know more it's hard to say the infrastructure was specifically targetted for an 'attack'
Re: U.S.'s Biggest Gasoline Pipeline Halted After Cyberattack
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Both are correct. The state of computer security is unacceptable and needs to be fixed. Today its profit-motivated extortionists, but anything they can do is also an option for spy agencies, and is it really that hard to imagine anti-oil activists pulling the same stunt some day? On the other hand, crypto is the thing behind the profit motive. If crypto is impractical (if there were no way to convert it to real curre…
Yes, we need to ban math. Math is the root of cryptography; which is the root of cryptocurrency. Ultimately it’s numbers. They are the worst. Everything bad comes from the interaction of points on elliptic curves. Get out of here with this.
Cryptocurrency, not math and cryptography.
Cryptocurrency is a bunch of people thinking their bets are more important than the government's control levers of monetary and fiscal policy. They'd rather make a quick buck and disregard the fact that this takes away our government's sovereignty. Our government's ability to bail out the economy, protect its most vulnerable.
It's more important that the Winklevosses and early supporters get all the economic upside, and it's just fine if the US dollar slides into the abyss. Lower income folks surely won't get screwed by this.
Nevermind the fact that cryptocurrency is destroying the environment. That's just a minor detail.
Cryptocurrency is selfishness and hubris.
All the smart people working on this insanity would be doing the planet much better if they were working on fixing social media or making tools for cancer researchers. I'm not for telling people what to do with their lives, but this observation seems pretty obvious to me.
Re: U.S.'s Biggest Gasoline Pipeline Halted After Cyberattack
#47It's only a matter of time, there's gonna be physical casualties at some point in time. We've all seen it in the movies. Experts have warned of the dangers of tethering vital utilities controls to the internet. Is it not possible to develop protocol or device that operates outside of the web but functions like the'two-man' rule used to launch nuclear bombs?
> the'two-man' rule used to launch nuclear bombs?
Yes. It's called Threshold Cryptography and it generalizes 'two-man' rule to require that N of M authorized users agree to an action.
But it's not really necessary here. What's needed for infrastructure is to get it off the internet and to quit using insecure operating systems and languages.
Re: U.S.'s Biggest Gasoline Pipeline Halted After Cyberattack
#48Re: U.S.'s Biggest Gasoline Pipeline Halted After Cyberattack
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, we need to ban math. Math is the root of cryptography; which is the root of cryptocurrency. Ultimately it’s numbers. They are the worst. Everything bad comes from the interaction of points on elliptic curves. Get out of here with this.
Cryptocurrency, not math and cryptography. Cryptocurrency is a bunch of people thinking their bets are more important than the government's control levers of monetary and fiscal policy. They'd rather make a quick buck and disregard the fact that this takes away our government's sovereignty. Our government's ability to bail out the economy, protect its most vulnerable. It's more important that the Winklevosses and ear…
It isn’t, and you might be a little misinformed. But it’s ok, you can scream into the abyss as long as you like.
We don’t want to cure cancer (don’t know how). We want to free the world of the tyranny of central banking, debt-based economies and theft of savings through inflation. It is a noble endeavor. Selfishness is continuing along the old broken road. There are new, better ones.
Re: U.S.'s Biggest Gasoline Pipeline Halted After Cyberattack
#50It's only a matter of time, there's gonna be physical casualties at some point in time. We've all seen it in the movies. Experts have warned of the dangers of tethering vital utilities controls to the internet. Is it not possible to develop protocol or device that operates outside of the web but functions like the'two-man' rule used to launch nuclear bombs?
>It's only a matter of time
According to some sources, it's been done before:
>CIA plot led to huge blast in Siberian gas pipeline
>Thomas Reed, a former US Air Force secretary who was in Ronald Reagan's National Security Council, discloses what he called just one example of the CIA's "cold-eyed economic warfare" against Moscow in a memoir to be published next month.
>Leaked extracts in yesterday's Washington Post describe how the operation caused "the most monumental non-nuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space" in the summer of 1982.
>Mr Reed writes that the software "was programmed to reset pump speeds and valve settings to produce pressures far beyond those acceptable to pipeline joints and welds".
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/...