Archive for the 'Infrastructure' Category
Economist Intelligence Unit: Manning the Barricades
March 28th, 2009Here are EIU’s probabilities on how the economic crisis will unfold: Scenario 1: Stimulus stabilizes system — 60% chance Scenario 2: Stimulus fails, leading to depression — 30% chance Scenario 3: Dollar collapse, social unrest, violent protest — 10% chance If I was forced to guess, these would be my numbers: Scenario 1: Stimulus stabilizes […]
“Smart” Power Grid Is Found Susceptible to Cyberattack
March 23rd, 2009Thanks, Captain Obvious. Via: PC World: An emerging network of intelligent power switches, called the Smart Grid, could be taken down by a cyberattack, according to researchers with IOActive, a Seattle security consultancy. IOActive researchers have spent the past year testing Smart Grid devices for security vulnerabilities and have discovered a number of flaws that […]
Warning Against Adverse Health Effects From the Operation of Digital Broadcast Television
February 22nd, 2009PDF download is available, but you need a free ScribD account. Via: ScribD: Warning Against Adverse Health Effects From the Operation of Digital Broadcast Publish at Scribd or explore others: Engineering Research digital broadcast DVBT
Orbital Collision: Please Pick Up the Nearest Black Courtesy Phone
February 12th, 2009So, an Iridium satellite just happened to collide with a defunct Russian military satellite… You’re about to learn how the sausage gets made, and, before we begin, you should know that it’s not pretty. I don’t know the whole story about Iridium, but it has got to be one of the spookiest tales of them […]
Blank Spots on the Map: The Dark Geography of the Pentagon’s Secret World
February 12th, 2009UPDATE: Contest Results The target was a picture of my ancient, tattered Audio Technica headphones sitting on the concrete floor. There were no direct hits, but 9 of 13 submissions had something to do with round things. For days, it looked like Evil Chopsticks was going to be the closest one, since he or she […]
French Fighter Planes Grounded by Computer Virus
February 8th, 2009Via: Telegraph: French fighter planes were unable to take off after military computers were infected by a computer virus, an intelligence magazine claims. The aircraft were unable to download their flight plans after databases were infected by a Microsoft virus they had already been warned about several months beforehand. At one point French naval staff […]
Every Military Net Accessed at Once, Thanks to ‘OB1’
January 31st, 2009Machines that are physically connected to the public internet are going to share physical connections with classified networks. * grin * What could possibly go wrong? If the hacker owns the hypervisor, he/she owns all data traversing the hypervisor and is in a position to sample, redirect, or spoof anything. Without some form of fail-safe, […]
Fannie Mae Logic Bomb Would Have Caused Weeklong Shutdown
January 30th, 2009Via: Wired: A logic bomb allegedly planted by a former engineer at mortgage finance company Fannie Mae last fall would have decimated all 4,000 servers at the company, causing millions of dollars in damage and shutting down Fannie Mae for a least a week, prosecutors say. Unix engineer Rajendrasinh Babubha Makwana, 35, was indicted (.pdf) […]
30GB Zunes Failing Everywhere, All At Once
December 31st, 2008Cylons attack? Probably not. Anyway, there’s an object lesson in critical infrastructure here, even though this situation involves digital music players. Via: Ars: Around midnight Pacific time last night, 30GB Zunes began restarting and locking up at their boot screens. Reports have swamped official forums and fan sites, and Microsoft has yet to officially comment […]
Three Out of Four Undersea Cables Connecting Internet Traffic Between the Middle East and Europe Have Been Cut
December 20th, 2008Via: PC Magazine: European telecommunications providers reported Friday that three out of the four telecommunication cables connecting Internet traffic between the Middle East and Europe had been cut. In a statement, France Telecom reported that the “Sea Me We 4” cable was cut at 7:28 AM local time, the “Sea Me We3” was severed at […]
