[QUOTE]The Trump administration is accusing Russia of a new and ongoing operation to penetrate the U.S. energy grid.
U.S. national security officials say the FBI, the Homeland Security Department and intelligence agencies have determined that Russian intelligence and others are behind attacks on the American energy sector. The U.S. officials the energy industry targets were chosen deliberately.
The officials say the Russians obtained access to the energy system and “conducted network reconnaissance” of industrial control systems that run U.S. factories and the electricity grid. The officials say they’ve helped companies kick the Russians out of all systems currently known to have been penetrated.[/QUOTE]
[url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/federal_government/the-latest-us-accuses-russia-of-penetrating-us-energy-grid/2018/03/15/afdd34d4-2861-11e8-a227-fd2b009466bc_story.html?utm_term=.9d374b391c86]Washington Post[/url]
and Trump will probably go to twitter insisting that there's no reason to impose new sanction, he did not collude with them, and there is no evidence he did any crime...
Isn't it stupidly easy to blackout large parts of the US?
[QUOTE=ZombieDawgs;53203998]Isn't it stupidly easy to blackout large parts of the US?[/QUOTE]
Eyup. Most of the US Militia Movement has several transformers marked out on planning maps. Overall, a few well placed shots from .22LR or Pellet Rifle, and some chainsaws, would incapacitate an entire powergrid in most states for more then a week.
[QUOTE=ZombieDawgs;53203998]Isn't it stupidly easy to blackout large parts of the US?[/QUOTE]
Yeah, we do it ourselves every so often just for shits n giggles
[QUOTE=JoeSkylynx;53204019]Eyup. Most of the US Militia Movement has several transformers marked out on planning maps. Overall, a few well placed shots from .22LR or Pellet Rifle, and some chainsaws, would incapacitate an entire powergrid in most states for more then a week.[/QUOTE]
The Militia movement? What is that?
[QUOTE=JoeSkylynx;53204019]Eyup. Most of the US Militia Movement has several transformers marked out on planning maps. Overall, a few well placed shots from .22LR or Pellet Rifle, and some chainsaws, would incapacitate an entire powergrid in most states for more then a week.[/QUOTE]
That makes them sound like a bunch of terrorists. Militias are not going to stop the military by taking out residential and business power sources.
[QUOTE=God of Ashes;53204147]The Militia movement? What is that?[/QUOTE]
Basically jackass conservatives who hope for the government to eventually shift far enough to the left that they feel they can justify rampant, unchecked violence and murder under the guise of rebellion against tyranny. Of course if conservative tyranny happens to be actively taking control, they don't care and it shows how little fucks they actually give about their espoused views and excuse, revealing them as they really are.
A surprising amount of grids are in disrepair already. While performing an installation for a dairy, they lost all power for 30 minutes, and assured us it was the co-op, not our power equipment, that caused it. Said it wasn't uncommon for them to lose power for hours at a time.
The reasoning given by the co-op? "A bunch of birds must have sat on a wire, the when a truck drives by and spooks them the act of them all taking off causes the wire to 'jump', causing blackouts."
AND WHAT ABOUT THOSE EMAILS
Quite possibly one of the most disturbing things I've learned about my "neighbors"...
If push comes to shove, those guys could cut power to the cities before the National Guard get their marching orders.
Don't forget that they're also the single biggest source of domestic terrorism for the United States. The Oklahoma City Bombings were perpetuated by one such militia memember though if you ask the other memebers of said militia they were against the plan, blah blah blah.
Militias in the US are made up of people who either want to live off grid, don't trust the government unless its their specific brand and also subscribe to incredibly dumb historical ideas like the 3% movement who insist that only 3% of the colonial population rebelled against the British which ignores every bit of record keeping that we have today.
All you need to know is that a very large majority of them are labeled as domestic terrorists by the intelligence agencies for a good reason.
I've always found the U.S's strange radical conservatism to be hilarious considering how easily they can be manipulated by fascists they so often claim to be against (but secretly like most of what they do).
Its easier than other countries BC U.S. utility assets are privately owned rather than government operated. Attacking power infrastructure is already a high crime (and not really worth it for an individual person) so utilities don't tend to invest in major security assets outside of nuclear power plants. As an example, if the government thinks that Russian cybersecurity software has government ties, they can stop federal agencies from using it, but not necessarily private companies. So Russia gets to spy on our stuff by selling cyber infrastructure to our private companies. See below:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-to-ban-use-of-kaspersky-software-in-federal-agencies-amid-concerns-of-russian-espionage/2017/09/13/36b717d0-989e-11e7-82e4-f1076f6d6152_story.html?utm_term=.9b17bc41fb38
That said, if you wanted to cripple the grid for a while, attack the coal/natural gas plants that power neighboring nuclear power plants. The NRC says that plants have to shut down the reactors if a nuclear plant loses power from the grid as a safety precaution. Even if the nuclear plant isn't harmed it takes about 3 days of paperwork (and some physics) to restart a nuclear plant, and you knock out some major electricity suppliers just by focusing on a few fossil fuel plants (which don't have anywhere near the same level of security as nuclear plants). On top of technology needed to be modernized, policies need to be updated as well to consider grid resiliency instead of just safety.
They're probably one of many groups of idiots who oppose government in all forms, like sovereign citizens.
i was watching a show that followed an team that was hired to penetrate the power grid and cause mayhem. one of the times they just posed as interns from college and got into a power station without any background checks and were able to steal an employee's work phone which was sitting around in the open, a bunch of documents listing critical information, and plant a physical bug bot onto their network and were able to remotely control the station, pull information, and crash it at will. The security at most of these stations are so pathetic, i honestly believe foreign spies would have a harder time sneaking into a local government office than into a grid station.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pL9q2lOZ1Fw
I find that, in general, "anti establishment" people tend to be some of the most gullible, pliant lemmings a tryrant could ever hope to have. Trump supporters illustrate this exceptionally clearly.
Just in case you weren't worried enough, there's a year old article:
Russia escalates spy games after years of U.S. neglect
First they penetrate the president, then the penetrate the energy grid. Disgusting.
I'm sorry, Joe, but why is your "Militia" mapping out a plan on which transformers to attack to take out state powergrids? The more you talk about your involvement in these groups, the more you sound like armed extremists...
Its' a plan that was more-or-less a simulation by the US government, which was then adopted by militia groups. The US infrastructure isn't even on it's last leg, it's on a toothpick at best.
Most of this is stuff you pick up also for disaster readiness, because it pretty much highlights how fragile our systems really are.
Because if the militia is going to be prepared for a situation where it has to defend people against a tyrannical government, you kind of want them to have more to their strategy than just "shoot the people in charge". While it seems a little creepy, I can see how planning is key, even if you never have to use those plans.
Couldn't some other terrorist group, say salafi extremists, use a similar thing to defend their planning of terror/disruptive attacks?
I don't see why not. But I'm pretty sure the government has eyes on these (militia) groups, and already knows what they are planning and how to circumvent it, so it's a moot point tbh.
I've always thought that it's amazing how few substantial terrorist attacks/mass murders we have. It's seems so easy to do either.
In the UK at least a fair few plots are stopped before they happen, probably the same in the USA. Your security services save lives everyday and can't really tell anyone because that would compromise any assets Intel they gathered.
Props 2 police 👮 ✌️ 🎉
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