Power Grid Information Relating to Blackouts.

My global recommendations are currently being reviewed by Dartmouth College in a project "taking a cross section of US political commentators on current events and evaluating their respective recommendations."

"I was wondering if you wouldn't mind briefly answering a question I have on a potential technology vulnerability related to Electronic System Control and Data Acquisition systems for me? Apparently the power is broken into six grids across the US and a vulnerability exists with the black e-SCADA boxes. What are your thoughts on that?"

"I must say you are well-informed on cybersecurity matters. As far as SCADA systems are concerned: A lot of the material is restricted (for the same reason that Sean German's PhD thesis at George Wash U is restricted) because of the ease with which malicious people (not necessarily terrorists) can exploit these systems for nefarious purposes. There are hundreds of vulnerabilities concerning SCADA systems, not just one - this is as much a design problem (different era - no one cared about security then) as it is the disconcerting rush with which we, as a society, choose to make our society's neuralgic points accessible to the wider public (China has explicit war manuals stating that our dependence on functioning electronic infrastructure will be our downfall in a war). The power grid is probably the lynchpin - because if that goes down, we do not really have a clear idea how to get it back up and running again (I am not a power engineer, this is what I have been told in private)

There have been incidents regarding dams, sewage treatment plants - in 2000, in Brisbane Australia, Vitek Boden, a disgruntled former employee of the company that had installed the computerized water system for Maroochy Shire Council, hacked into the sewage control computers and used radio transmissions to alter pump station operations. Raw sewage overflows were created on at least two occasions - at the Coolum Hyatt Regency Resort and at the nearby township of Pacific Paradise, where one million litres of raw sewage ended up in a stormwater drain.

The big scare is, as you have astutely pointed out, an attack against the power grid structure in the US. To my knowledge, this has never been carried out successfully (meaning grid collapse) to date. I include a link to a high level report we wrote about this in December 2002

(http://www.ists.dartmouth.edu/ISTS/ists_docs/cselectric.pdf). (Note this is a PDF).

Concerning the e-bomb: The ex Soviet Union was keenly aware of this fact, which is why when a defector arrived in the West in the mid 80s with a then top-of-the-line Mig-29, to their utter surprise, US engineers found that its flight guidance systems did not rely on IC (integrated circuits) but on vacuum tubes (like in old radios) - which would not be fried by an EMP during a nuclear explosion. Again, our electronic systems are much more delicate than widely acknowledged, so this type of attack will work. However, I think our saving grace is this: Baring an EMP effect from a nuclear detonation (in which case we are probably doomed anyway), 'conventional' e-bombs have to targeted to be effective - and not many nations/groups possess the means of accurate delivery."

From a previous post on another thread:
"The "power lines" in Ohio are now being discounted as the original cause and grid operators have made statements that as early as noon on Thursday, there were "very strange" fluctuations in the voltage and loads on the grid."

This was reported on the air on Fox News on 18 August, then quickly dropped from any national media that I saw. "Experts" even on this site began discounting these statements and quickly latched on to the "...345 kv powerline failures in Ohio..." theory.

I suppose we all just feel more comfortable with nice neat answers, but have you seen what's beginning to trickle out now?

Joint Task Force's Timeline of Blackout

Transcripts Reveal Blackout May Not Be First Energy's Fault

Task Force Notes Problems Before Blackout

Just a couple of excerpts...
"Voltage shifts, line problems and power plant shutdowns were observed "well before" midday and across several states..." "...many things happened well before 12 p.m. ... across several states" and some of those problems also "may be relevant in a causal sense to the blackout,"

"Midwest utilities were struggling to keep their systems in balance hours before last month's massive blackout,

Personally, I believe the jury is still out on this one, that we may in fact never be told what really happened, and that we should all be a bit more hesitant to jump at convenient answers offered up far too quickly for what is often a very complex situation.

Interesting, no?

I have to wonder how they managed to hush all this talk and gently persuade all major news outlets into believing the simple story of those 3 power line failures that caused it all....

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