nanog mailing list archives

OT: Traffic Light Control (was Re: First real-world SCADA attack in US)


From: Jay Ashworth <jra () baylink com>
Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2011 11:16:54 -0500 (EST)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Owen DeLong" <owen () delong com>

As in all cases, additional flexibility results in additional ability
to make mistakes. Simple mechanical lockouts do not scale to the
modern world. The benefits of these additional capabilities far
outweigh the perceived risks of programming errors.

The perceived risk in this case is "multiple high-speed traffic fatalities".

I believe we rank that pretty high; it's entirely possible that a traffic
light controller is the most potentially dangerous artifact (in terms of 
number of possible deaths) that the average citizen interacts with on a 
daily basis.
-- 
Jay R. Ashworth                  Baylink                       jra () baylink com
Designer                     The Things I Think                       RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates     http://baylink.pitas.com         2000 Land Rover DII
St Petersburg FL USA      http://photo.imageinc.us             +1 727 647 1274


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