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U.S.'s Biggest Gasoline Pipeline Halted After Cyberattack

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Re: U.S.'s Biggest Gasoline Pipeline Halted After Cyberattack

#91

Post by dillondoyle »

wolverine876 wrote: post #65
joejerryronnie wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d prefer a new Cybersecurity branch of the military with full funding and resources rather than Space Force.

Should the military be handling domestic cybersecurity? That seems especially perilous to civil liberties, something out of dystopian sci-fi. The military's role isn't to provide peace and justice for citizens, it's to kill people and destroy things. That's not an insult to the military, that's what soldiers will tell you; we need to be realistic about it. They should not be operating around civilians in peacetime (e…

Not securing cyber and our infrastructure will kill and destroy things.

What would be an example of a civil liberty violated by for instance standing up a large Brigade or service of tech soldiers who secure, patch, work to shore up our critical infra and services? + a lot of funding; we already prop up the lockheads of the country.

I agree that it seems our Gov. can't be trusted not to intrude into our communications and other civil liberties.

But this is more about industrial control, supply chains, the foundation of software etc.

The gov didn't react or try to stop speech attacks on digital platforms even though they knew it was happening. They didn't even report it was happening because of I think naive political concerns.

Personally I liken it to missile defense and other existing programs which we spend a HUGE amount of money on.

Not securing our infrastructure could have even bigger consequences.

We're already in a growing cold war, personally I think decent potential to go hot within a decade.

Even looking at the little publicly reported easy hacks the, let alone the unknown advanced capabilities of state actors, the first salvo attacks will probably wipe out a huge portion of both sides infrastructure and basic digital necessities to function in our society. At least we're getting more serious about defending space because the military has their owned assets up there.

Maybe MAD would focus these attacks on military targets but I don't trust these nation states, or perhaps our own, to limit the radius. And maybe it's not even possible with how inter connected things are.

Re: U.S.'s Biggest Gasoline Pipeline Halted After Cyberattack

#92

Post by dillondoyle »

BoorishBears wrote: post #43
joejerryronnie wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 m…

I'm not sure it wouldn't be as barbaric at least if that word means human suffering and death. But I agree it's the future of war.

Re: U.S.'s Biggest Gasoline Pipeline Halted After Cyberattack

#93

Post by LMYahooTFY »

echelon wrote: post #46
randomhodler84 wrote: post #40

Earlier 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…

> Our government's ability to bail out the economy, protect its most vulnerable.

How did the bailouts in 2008 help the vulnerable people who were subjected to predatory loans and lost their homes?

> Nevermind the fact that cryptocurrency is destroying the environment. That's just a minor detail.

Can you back this up with any data? Just went through a paper published on this topic by a couple of environmental researchers and the methodology was quite awful, and the authors did not understand mining.

I'm happy to discuss any data you have.

I'm a bit pessimistic because you don't sound open to the idea that cryptocurrencies have any value at all.

Re: U.S.'s Biggest Gasoline Pipeline Halted After Cyberattack

#94

Post by bourgwaletariat »

jtchang wrote: post #51

In a twisted sort of way I am happy to see these types of ransomware attacks making headlines. Before it was much harder to quantify how much a breach might cost but with ransomeware you get a fuzzy lower bound. Also the prevalence of these attacks might actually make us all safer in the long run.

I think I understand your POV and can see why one might find some peace in it, but I don't. More crime, or I suppose mroe news about it, so we know how much crime costs? More attacks make us safer? It's a means justify the ends argument, but it doesn't hold water.

It's eerily similar to "burn it all down" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerationism, which, itself is on the rise and burning from both ends.

I infer your point to be that more attacks might cause the victims to step up their defenses. It's a cat and mouse game. Always has been in all realms.

"It'll get worse before it gets better." I've been hearing that for decades. I'm starting to wonder, due to what appears to be a decline in civility. Following the rules only works if we all do. Those who eschew the rules have an obvious advantage.

Where has integrity gone? We are tearing ourselves apart and justifying it ... or coming to terms with it I suppose, by saying it'll be better some day.

Well... when... exactly? By what measure will we know?

I know Stephen Pinker, Hans Rosling, and various folks say it's the best time to be a human. Okay. Sure. I see the math. I'd like to see them update their charts for data out over the past year.

But ... anecdotally, none of that math seems to percolate down to my community. The people around me are in constant fear. I just saw a woman walking down the road, all by herself, I had clear vision for a mile and so no one else but her... and she was wearing a mask.

She was afraid. She was anxious. Regardless of the relative safety that exists today, or the belief that it'll be safer tomorrow because of the lack of said safety, the people around me aren't feeling it.

They're buying guns because red people are coming for them... or the blue people already are. Or the government will. There is literally no milk at the store because of an HDPE shortage prompting the grocer to put a Force Majeur notice on the dairy fridge door.

Trust has broken down. Fear of our own neighbors is up. Crime is up. Poverty is up. Suicide is up. Cyber crime is up. Inflation is up. The Gini coefficient is up.

I really have trouble believing that making it worse real fast, or even reporting more of it, is going to make it better.

I don't see it.

Re: U.S.'s Biggest Gasoline Pipeline Halted After Cyberattack

#95

Post by sky_rw »

bourgwaletariat wrote: post #94
jtchang wrote: post #51

In a twisted sort of way I am happy to see these types of ransomware attacks making headlines. Before it was much harder to quantify how much a breach might cost but with ransomeware you get a fuzzy lower bound. Also the prevalence of these attacks might actually make us all safer in the long run.

I think I understand your POV and can see why one might find some peace in it, but I don't. More crime, or I suppose mroe news about it, so we know how much crime costs? More attacks make us safer? It's a means justify the ends argument, but it doesn't hold water. It's eerily similar to "burn it all down" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerationism , which, itself is on the rise and burning from both ends. I infer…

While you’re probably right on the zeitgeist aspect of this, I think you’re missing the practical aspects of what OP is talking about. We have major vulnerabilities to key infrastructure components. Publicly exposing these helps harden them. Yes 9-11 added a ton of security theater and fear, but it also resulted in armored doors on airplane cockpits. I’d like to see the armored door of the energy infrastructure implemented.

Re: U.S.'s Biggest Gasoline Pipeline Halted After Cyberattack

#96

Post by bourgwaletariat »

sky_rw wrote: post #95
bourgwaletariat wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I understand your POV and can see why one might find some peace in it, but I don't. More crime, or I suppose mroe news about it, so we know how much crime costs? More attacks make us safer? It's a means justify the ends argument, but it doesn't hold water. It's eerily similar to "burn it all down" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerationism , which, itself is on the rise and burning from both ends. I infer…

While you’re probably right on the zeitgeist aspect of this, I think you’re missing the practical aspects of what OP is talking about. We have major vulnerabilities to key infrastructure components. Publicly exposing these helps harden them. Yes 9-11 added a ton of security theater and fear, but it also resulted in armored doors on airplane cockpits. I’d like to see the armored door of the energy infrastructure imple…

That's not the society I want. I don't want stronger doors everywhere. Tougher locks everywhere. Onerous security everywhere.

I prefer a society where passengers are free to chit chat with the pilots when they aren't busy. Where children who might be interested in being a pilot can see a cockpit in the air and how it's done.

I remember reading about the history of security in ancient Rome. The lengths to which normal citizens had to go to to protect their homes. I don't want that. No one wants that. No one wanted that then either.

It's a distraction from productivity. It's a constant worry factor that consumes brain waves that could be spent making all our lives better.

Instead, we have to divert our attention to those who want to make it worse.

Re: U.S.'s Biggest Gasoline Pipeline Halted After Cyberattack

#97

Post by rossjudson »

procarch2019 wrote: post #52
protomyth wrote: post #42

Perhaps we should pass a law that no utilities / infrastructure should be attached to the internet. Private networks are fine for this purpose.

I think the issue there is data, even on critical infra. Modernization, reliability and the such require data analysis. There are definitely ‘strong’ ways of protecting the assets and mitigating attack vectors, but almost no way to eliminate them entirely. For example, event if you isolate the process computers you’ll typically have an interface node that presents the data up a level (hopefully to a DMZ). Obviously y…

I'm gonna watch Battlestar Galactica again for ideas.

Re: U.S.'s Biggest Gasoline Pipeline Halted After Cyberattack

#98

Post by stunt »

jeffbee wrote: post #90
mikewarot wrote: post #60

Connecting infrastructure to the internet is something that is done for many reasons. It would be a vast improvement of security if most of those connections went through a data diode[1] and only allowed monitoring. Knowing what is happening now with critical infrastructure, through the internet, can be done in a completely safe manner. It is a solved problem. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unidirectional_networ…

What would be the difference between having a data diode between your control and monitoring network and external monitoring systems, versus just splitting the monitoring part off into a completely separate network with ordinary two-way traffic?

What you explained doesn't solve the problem. You still want to have an unidirectional network in place at least between your critical infrastructure to the monitoring systems.

Monitoring systems are usually separate and often have their dedicated network too, but they still need some sort of network connection to your critical infrastructure to do their job (monitoring).

Re: U.S.'s Biggest Gasoline Pipeline Halted After Cyberattack

#100

Post by mariojv »

adventured wrote: post #80
DangitBobby wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do cryptocurrencies save you from a debt based economy or inflation? Don't you still need to pay for goods and services in the same debt-based economy? How does the flavor of money change whether someone needs to go into debt? What would prevent cryptocurrency values from inflating or deflating?

A large cryptocurrency like Bitcoin is entirely capable of functioning like gold as a hedge against fiat inflation. I'm not much of a crypto cultist (which is the latest trend here on HN, to tag anybody that defends crypto with that to shut down conversation), however it's extraordinarily obvious at this point how cryptocurrencies can help you evade inflation in eg USD or evade the debt damage to the US economy. Bitc…

I think this take is a little alarmist.

Yes, the national debt is increasing, but from 2000 to 2020, the percent of federal debt owned by the Fed increased from ~11% to ~18%. [0] That is hardly uncontrolled money printing. Private investors are still buying the bulk of treasuries despite the low interest rates, because they're extremely safe investments. I do believe that inflation will pick up a bit, especially for assets vs. consumables, but I don't buy the idea that we'll see anything much worse than what was going on in the 70s or 80s.

As far as the size of the debt, we're close to where we were in terms of debt to GDP ratio after World War II, but the cost to the country in terms of GDP of maintaining the debt has held fairly stable throughout modern history. [1] Considering the historically unprecedented impact of COVID-19 and the cost of dealing with the crisis, a temporary bump in debt is totally unsurprising to me, especially with how cheap it is to borrow.

I don't have a strong opinion on whether crypto will hold value well over decades or not, but I find arguments that crypto's rise is inevitable because the collapse of the USD is inevitable to be particularly unfounded.

[0] https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2018/04/whos-buying-treasuri... - expand and compare Q4 2000 to Q4 2020. [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYOIGDA188S

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