10:17 – A lot of preppers are concerned about a nuclear EMP attack or a repeat of the CME Carrington Event taking down the power grid. I estimate the probability of the former to be < 0.001/year and the latter to be about 0.01/year. Of considerable more concern to me--especially given recent news about Chinese attacks on US computer systems–is the grid being taken down by computer crackers, Chinese or otherwise. I estimate the probability of that occurring as > 0.1/year. If that estimate is correct, the probability is about 0.65 that some sort of serious computer attack on our infrastructure will occur within the next decade.
I am flabbergasted that critical facilities–power grid control, nuclear power plants, pipelines, municipal water treatment plants, and so on–use ordinary general-purpose computers, many of them running MS Windows(!). If that’s not bad enough, what moron decided to allow critical control systems to be connected to the Internet? Those control systems should be secured from physical access, running stripped-down versions of Unix/Linux or another secure OS, with the OS and applications on ROM, no connection to any network, and the USB ports epoxied closed. Apparently, none of that is being done in most critical control systems.
I wouldn’t put my air conditioner or fridge on the net, let alone something critical.
“I am flabbergasted that critical facilities–power grid control, nuclear power plants, pipelines, municipal water treatment plants, and so on–use ordinary general-purpose computers, many of them running MS Windows(!). If that’s not bad enough, what moron decided to allow critical control systems to be connected to the Internet? Those control systems should be secured from physical access, running stripped-down versions of Unix/Linux or another secure OS, with the OS and applications on ROM, no connection to any network, and the USB ports epoxied closed.”
Indeed, and probably Windows XP. I’d use one of the BSD variants or a Fed-security level of OpenVMS (which a lot of banks and financial centers still use, and HP backed off dumping it; it’s ongoing.)
“Apparently, none of that is being done in most critical control systems.”
You expected anything different from the geniuses in charge of stuff like this?
Just back from the VA in White River Junction; nice two-hour chat with the doc, probably my last time with him, as now all my chit can be done just down the road in lovely Burlap, a half-hour instead of two hours. He’s a really good guy and started out teaching English and social studies at an inner-city Cambridge, MA skool when I was working for Uncle. Said he taught nothing; it was all basically riot control, every day.
Got shots for flu and shingles.
Email from wife; not in until midnight tonight and staying at her mom’s place near the airport accordingly, back up here tomorrow. Home for a week and then off to Philadelphia.
_77 Days in September_: A Novel of Survival, Dedication, and Love (The Kyle Tait Series) by Ray Gorham:
http://www.amazon.com/77-Days-September-Survival-Dedication/dp/1499616015/
Book number one of series of two books. This book was a POD (print on demand) book, printed Nov 7, 2014 in Delaware. The second book is only available in ebook currently but I hope it goes POD soon so I can order it soon. I really like the POD books even with their weird feeling covers. Amazon does the printing for these books using their Createspace subsidiary. I would like to see them pick up a lot more books.
_77 Days in September_ is about a dude walking from Houston to home in Montana after an EMP event above Kansas that fries all electrical items in the Continental USA. All he has is a cart of his stuff and a .22 LR Marlin rifle with two bricks of ammo (1000 rounds). He catches a ride to San Angelo from Houston in an old jeep from a friend and mostly walks from that point. Cities are major nightmares and so are sudden blizzards on lonely highways in the Rockies.
There seems to be a LOT of these apocalyptic EMP speculative fiction books. I like them! I ranked this book high because of my rule that if you keep me up all night reading then it is a five star book.
My rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars (2,538 reviews)
Then again, why read fiction when we can easily see the beginning stages of our continental dystopia occurring before our eyes?
I wouldn’t give a wooden nickel for the average person’s chances walking from TX to Montana during a situation like that. Possible, but not remotely probable. There would be hordes of panicky and/or homicidal peeps all over the landscape, for one thing, and the weather is another. A .22 ain’t gonna cut it, unless you’re Donny Delta or Sammy Seal and you work best all alone.
Winds howling away again here and rattling the bejayzus outta the windows; new windows coming Monday morning.
I am flabbergasted that critical facilities–power grid control, nuclear power plants, pipelines, municipal water treatment plants, and so on–use ordinary general-purpose computers, many of them running MS Windows(!). If that’s not bad enough, what moron decided to allow critical control systems to be connected to the Internet? Those control systems should be secured from physical access, running stripped-down versions of Unix/Linux or another secure OS, with the OS and applications on ROM, no connection to any network, and the USB ports epoxied closed. Apparently, none of that is being done in most critical control systems.
I am 100% with you. Actually, it is worse than that as these critical plant operating systems need to be real time. There are several options for these from Honeywell and Foxboro but several people seem to think that Windows is good enough nowadays.
I have my software running on several of these but all of them are on calculational servers that the control systems queries for optimal plant setpoints. I really do not know very much but they are very proud of the setup which sells for a six figure amount for eight figure equipment.
Mr. Lynn is correct; they could easily plunder even more of our tax dollars and do the right thing with secure machines that are built specially for these sites. But jeezum, at least get off the Windows train wreck. They could even use x86 servers running BSD and harden it to their hearts’ content.
Nothing will be done, of course, until there is a disaster, and then, guaranteed, they will do more of the same thing that caused the disaster in the first place.
I’m vindicated! I never have bought this line that drinking lots of water everyday — more than you are thirsty for — is somehow good for you. BBC Magazine now agrees with an analysis by their staff writer doctor.
“Saying that you should drink more water than your body asks for is like saying that you should consciously breathe more often than you feel like because if a little oxygen is good for you then more must be better.”
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24464774
If a horse knows whether to drink or not, when why wouldn’t man? Apparently, a study was done on athlete performance in Miles- and Don-land at 3 levels of hydration, and those who were most dehydrated performed equivalent to those who were fully hydrated. In fact, studies point to the fact that overhydration disturbs the body’s sodium level to a dangerous degree. I say, like the built in life-ticks of your heart, you’re wearing out your kidney ticks unnecessarily.
No problem. I have never forced myself to drink, like some of those around me, who try to convince me I should force down more water, too. Turns out that those doc’s who claim drinking so much is good for you, are paid to say that by the bottling companies.
I eat when I’m hungry and drink when I’m thirsty; probably a quart of wottuh a day, all year. If I’ve been mowing the lawn or shoveling snow, well, more than that, then, obviously. I don’t need no doctor….’cause I know what’s ailin’ me…etc.
probably a quart of wottuh a day, all year.
Add in that gallon of Moxie and Dr. Bob’s your Uncle.
Yeah, I am well-hydrated, and fairly well-nourished, too.
Doc gave me a mostly clean bill of health; BP was 122/72; good haht rate, and nommul temp. Weight down from a high last year of 265 to 233. Cholesterol (bad kind) is marginal, so may go on low statins and I gotta get more exercise.
Was surfing PBS on the tee-vee earlier and it was sitcoms from the 70s, and unfunny.
Meanwhile wireless here started dropping off again repeatedly or slowing down a lot, not sure if it’s due to VERY windy conditions outside and/or everyone else in the ‘hood on the net, but I got fed up and hardwired it to the modem. Mint box is on the wireless and just hanging now at “connecting.”
Here we go again, with network issues….I may just hardwire the whole damn lot.
Current speed test: 29.46 down and 12.30 up.
Just like the Cydonians and Utopians, we’re all gonna DIIIIIE!!
Where’s my tinfoil hat?
“‘Much of the evidence is either channeled through automatic writing, psychic messages or the interpretation of ancient texts.”
Same methodologies used for our political party platforms and our foreign policy at State. Perfect.
Hey, the sooner them aliens get here to wipe us out, the sooner us true believers will be raptured and y’all who ain’t will be cast into the Everlasting Lake of Fire. Oh wait–I’m a Catholic.
Sorry, channeling Jack Chick again…
…gotta go get my Death Cookie tomorrow morning…
If that’s not bad enough, what moron decided to allow critical control systems to be connected to the Internet?
I think that a Windows system not connected to the Internet is probably more secure than a *nix system connected to the Internet. There have been several exploited vulnerabilities in *nix systems (e.g. Shellshock) which have affected many different *nix distributions. I have had to patch everything from Ubuntu to VMWare for this recently.
Those control systems should be secured from physical access, running stripped-down versions of Unix/Linux or another secure OS, with the OS and applications on ROM, no connection to any network, and the USB ports epoxied closed.
Epoxying the USB ports isn’t going to that much good. If the bad guys can get physical access to a machine, they can own it.
The critical systems are connected to the Internet because it’s convenient and cheap. Same reason ATM’s are. The banks have decided it’s cheaper to suffer some losses than to properly secure them. Plus they routinely try to stick their customers for losses caused by lack of security.
Rick in Portland
I wouldn’t connect the controller machines to the net, period. They ought to run an o.s. that is considerably hardened and physical security to the site ought to be paramount. None of these precautions are in effect currently, for the reasons Mr. rick says. In all my years of cop and security work, plus IT/security, nothing was more plain to me than that it is as he says: convenience and cheapness trump safety and security every time. They’d rather take the risks of loss and damage than spend the money, time and resources properly securing something/anything. And they’ll stick somebody besides themselves with the blame and the costs when, inevitably, something bad happens.
Just watched Austin City Limits with their Americana program of various musicians but I warn’t too impressed; some of the male singers evidently shout or scream their lyrics now, which I find disconcerting, but the crowd ate it up.
We got some moving of stuff to do tomorrow in advance of the window installations on Monday but otherwise it’s NFL Sunday.
Oh, and no verdict in the Ferguson thing yet; the jury is gonna put it off till Monday; i.e., until they get the definite word from Barry or one of his minions as to how to vote. Anyone know Eric’s whereabouts this weekend?
If you are a deer — don’t EVER shop at a Walmart!
http://www.wthr.com/story/27458387/deer-dies-after-entering-hammond-walmart
Naturally dumbass cretin shoppers tried to get close to a wild animal panicking inside the store. Guaranteed every time. Idiocy reigneth supreme in this land.
This from one of my firearms site emails just now:
“”The protests in Ferguson, Mo., on Friday night grew larger than previous days’ gatherings of protesters, despite the rain and cold weather,” nationalreview.com reports. “Police officers used a megaphone to ask protesters to leave the street outside the Ferguson Police Department or they would be arrested. In this video, protesters responded by chanting ”F— the police” and shouting “We don’t give a f— about your laws like you don’t give a f— about our lives.” And there you have it. Or will. Soon. Which won’t be this weekend, according to foxnews.com.””
OFD beat me to it, but here’s that NRO link anyway: Warning: Video contains foul language.
Will Ferguson be the spark that ignites the nation?
There is no need to make this stuff up. Real life is stranger than fiction.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/11/22/two-arrested-separate-assaults-logan-international-airport/oBl3fU57bU3L8WbMsQjvRM/story.html
http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2014/11/cops_man_crashes_naked_through_ceiling_at_logan_attacks_elderly
A naked guy falls through the ceiling of a women’s restroom at Logan airport, then proceeds to choke a passing elderly man with the man’s cane.
Note that Boston has many laws. An appropriate one for every age group that might be attacked by naked men in an airport.
“Will Ferguson be the spark that ignites the nation?”
Hard to say; it will depend on how the regime plays this caper. The baiters, right up to the WH, have been fanning the flames pretty good so far. It will be interesting to see the outcome, reaction and how the “authorities” calibrate their responses. I’m stocking up on Moxie and pretzels.
“There is no need to make this stuff up. Real life is stranger than fiction.”
I keep saying this, too, but no one believes me. Why read dystopian fiction, or watch the various movies and tee-vee shows when we have stuff like this going on all the time now? Insanity is vying with idiocy for the crown in North Murka now. But in the United States of Amnesia, this will all be forgotten when the manure goes through the fan on Monday, assuming that’s the big day in Missouri.
Then maybe another beheading in Syria or sumthin.
While a lot of other stuff goes on in Mordor and on Wall Street that we never hear about. Plots have they laid, inductions dangerous. Now is the autumn of our discontent made inglorious whatever and all the clouds that lower’d on our house, deep in the bosom of the cesspool buried…
Ferguson ain’t gonna light anything around me. Rednecks here will wring the necks of anybody that tries to start something. They had better stay down there in St. Louis. All the rabble-rousers better steer clear of Tiny Town or any city in Indiana, except maybe the liberul education capital of the known universe. (Anything outside Indiana is definitely unknown by anyone around here, except me. Well, maybe they know about Kentucky, but not Tennessee.)
“…except maybe the liberul education capital of the known universe.”
Harvard. By a country mile.
I have said the same thing to peeps here in New England who fret and stew that hordes of zombies will swarm outta Megalopolis and slaughter us all up here. I tell them that very few will make it much beyond the exurbs and those that do will be shot to shit forthwith.
I just saw some stats on CCW in this country; 9 million *known* CCW licenses issued to active carriers. How many more *tens* of millions are carrying without any license at all? And that’s just handguns. Didja know that all 50 states now allow CCW? License reqs vary widely but there it is; all 50 states. And the percentage of women CCW holders is skyrocketing.
I just hope they’re a bit more careful with where they leave their belongings than the females in this family….
Oh, Harvard is no part of the known universe. I am speaking of Bloomington, Indiana, which now has the best steak I have ever had. Place called “Little Zagreb”. Ate there last night and treated 2 others in the family. Bill was just over $200, including tip, tax, and wine. Yesterday, I was saying it was only the equal of the best beef I have ever had, but then tonight I did some research (ain’t the Internet wunnaful?) and found that the best I ever et, which was at The Piccadilly Restaurant in White Bear Lake, MinneeeSOtuh, is no more. It was closed in 2005 after being operated by the same family for 91 years. So Zagreb is now the best steak I have ever had. Most expensive, too.
Bad thing about eating at the Piccadilly, was that it was about 30 minutes back home to St. Paul after that nice warm, wunnaful, comfy meal, and in the late ’70’s, one could be assured that the car would never warm up in the winter cold of a typical -20F night before getting home.
Always managed to bring home a doggy bag of that good beef to my lovely Irish setter — who never barked unless there was real, honest-to-goodness trouble. Really miss her.
OFD wrote:
“Oh wait–I’m a Catholic.”
That doesn’t preclude you, but you’d better give up the idolatry.
Epoxying the USB ports isn’t going to that much good. If the bad guys can get physical access to a machine, they can own it.
It’s not to stop bad guys, it’s to stop the idiot users from plugging in a USB drive with the latest funny cat pictures on its. Along with the latest version of Stuxnet.
It’s not uncommon for computers in secure facilities to have all the ports physically disabled or locked up.
Exactly.
One I didn’t mention was prisons and jails, many of which are under computer control. Just imagine some fun-loving cracker decides to unlock every lock in tens or hundreds of prisons and jails, all at one time.
Last I knew, the correctional system IT infrastructure here in the Great Green Mountain State, you know, for things like controlling locks and doors and suchlike, was a hodgepodge of various old Linux distros mixed with old Winblows distros on ancient hardware in a dilapidated old dump of a house on the second floor with one wheezy air conditioner at the big state office complex in Waterbury, about 60 miles southeast of here. That has probably changed by now, since that complex was flooded out by Tropical Storm Irene a while back; it’s adjacent to riverside farmland and the smell of the manure on a hot summer day was something to be experienced by state workers, visitors and the inmates at the State Hospital. Hopefully they’ve since moved out to better quarters with upgraded hw and sw; I should look into that, just for laughs, as I’d had a job interview at that shop years ago. Once again, they’d wanted somebody who had a quirky mix of alphabet soup acronyms in their skill set that matched up precisely with their infrastructure, and I guess I just didn’t make the grade. I mentioned as I left, “Gee, I hope you can find somebody who has all this stuff.” And they said “Oh, they’re out there.” OK. And they would wanna work here why?
I agree with Lynn and Bob about this completely. I would have little problem with systems correctly designed being monitored over the Internet. Assuming it’s designed by a competent engineer and tested to confirm that failure of the Internet connected PC has no effect on the system itself. But being controllable from the Internet is a whole different ballgame. And using a PC running any operating system to control an complex embedded system is crazy. Using a Windows PC to do this is beyond crazy.
I do remember reading that a decent chunk of the population cannot accurately differentiate dehydration from hunger. Consequently, when someone’s body is telling them it needs more liquid they think they’re hungry and snack. So, forcing yourself to regularly consume water was supposed to be a weight loss aid.
Myself, I usually have a jumbo cup of ice water or iced tea (always unsweetened) next to me at work. I absent-mindedly drink about 80 ounces of liquid every weekday from 8-5. That’s not including what I may drink at lunch. When I get home I am no longer sitting in front of a computer with a handy cup to drink from, so I will frequently drink NOTHING from 5-9 and then about 9pm I find myself thinking, “Damn, I am REALLY thirsty, and then realize I haven’t drank a drop in 4+ hours.”
I wonder if by constantly over-hydrating yourself you can modify what your body thinks is a normal level of hydration? That is, can a guzzler have conditioned himself to have to guzzle to not feel thirsty?
Well, none of the people I know who purposely drink more water than they are thirsty for, seem to drink because of thirst. I wonder if thirst disappears altogether in these people?
One of our friends who visited during our time in Berlin was a big boy — about 6′-5″ and 300 lbs. He really was at a disadvantage, because he was used to downing a 16 oz tumbler of water before each meal (I saw him do this when all of us lived in Boston and ate out together), and even if you buy water at a restaurant in Berlin, it is a measly 4 to 6 ounce mini bottle, and it would take 3 to 4 of those just to satisfy his pre-meal thirst, let alone the refill tumbler he consumed during the meal.
I drink very little at mealtime, with most of my liquid intake — like our host — not being water, but juice, tea, coffee, or cola. Long ago, I took up an alcoholic friend’s assertion that “water never crosses my lips.”
What I have been reading lately about this topic is that how much water people need seems to vary widely and individually; the body makes its own adjustments to various hydration levels, so hydration at some particular level is not mandatory, but rather, the body can cope with a wide range of hydration; so-called diuretics like coffee, tea, and alcoholic drinks count toward one’s intake to hydrate; and sweating is not necessarily dehydrating, unless accompanied by sustained and prolonged physical exertion — like running a marathon.