Interesting People mailing list archives
IP: who needs info warfare -- a bit more
From: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 1997 22:05:32 -0400
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 1997 18:56:45 -0700 To: farber () cis upenn edu From: Suzanne Johnson <fuhn () ricochet net> Subject: Re: IP: who needs info warfare Interestingly, the story of the power outage has received relatively little press here in Silicon Valley.=A0 Had there been ANY computer involvement,= I'm sure the world would have heard much more of the evils of computers and the Internet.=A0 As it is, evidently someone let them self into the power substation and within the space of a few minutes,=A0 turned 39 switches into a position that would cut power off to a wide area.=A0 Investigators are finding that literally hundreds of people have keys to the sub-station so the investigation is going somewhat slowly.=A0 The outage happened at about 6am on a weekday morning.. transportation (BART) and power were affected. Although about six months ago someone shot up another PGE sub-station, security still consisted primarily of surveillance cameras.=A0 Now however, PGE is beginning to patrol and/or guard some of the stations. During the last part of this same week, a local paging company went bankrupt and quit business... leaving about 250,000 people in California off the air. It's not always technology that is the villain. At 07:02 PM 10/25/97 -0400, you wrote:
While I appreciate the potential dangers of IW, the vulnerability of our existing physical infrastructure has been and should be equally worry some. Drive down 101 south of San Jose and look at the power interconnect within a few feet of the freeway and think what a good pitching arm could do. Look at the LA Aqueduct or the TWO water feeders that supply Manhattan.=20 What me worry. Dave SAN FRANCISCO (AP) Utility officials increased security at power stations around San Francisco on Friday after FBI investigators said someone intentionally cut power to the city's downtown.=20 "It was a deliberate act," said FBI spokesman George Grotz. "It was not an accident, and it was not a computer intrusion."=20 | ************************************************** "Photons have neither morals nor visas"=A0 --=A0 Dave Farber 1994 ************************************************** =20
************************************************** "Photons have neither morals nor visas" -- Dave Farber 1994 **************************************************
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- IP: who needs info warfare -- a bit more Dave Farber (Oct 25)