Archive for the 'Infrastructure' Category
U.S. to Try to Shoot Down Spy Satellite
February 15th, 2008Remember how the Magic Anchor took out those undersea fiber optic cables recently, and how the network operators re-routed some of the traffic; satellite links played a key role. In strategic information warfare, decapitation means taking out not only the primary links, but the backup ones as well. I’d imagine that .mil would have had […]
Welcome to Cyberwar Country, USA
February 14th, 2008Another mulibillion dollar boondoggle. In the Wired piece below, there’s just one voice of reason. John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, says, “They’ve got the whole thing tarted up, and it’s hard to tell what they’re actually doing.” That’s it. He gets it. Information Warfare is part of the military industrial complex now, but look into […]
Rand Sinks as South African Electricity Grid Fails
February 12th, 2008Via: Bloomberg: Gold is above $900 an ounce and platinum has never been higher, yet traders are selling the South African rand faster than any other major currency because President Thabo Mbeki can’t keep the lights on. The rand is down 12 percent this year against the dollar, six times more than the next-worst performer […]
BlackBerry Service Out in North America
February 12th, 2008Via: AP: A major service outage afflicted users of the popular, addictive BlackBerry smart phones across the United States and Canada on Monday, wireless carriers said. Officials with AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless said BlackBerry maker Research in Motion Ltd. told them customers of all wireless carriers were affected. It was not immediately clear how […]
Bomb ‘Hoax’ Leads to Air Evacuation of Oil Platform
February 11th, 2008I thought that the Magic Anchor was still on the loose! Via: Independent: The Special Boat Service and the RAF joined a huge emergency response to reports of a bomb on a North Sea oil platform, which included plans to evacuate more than 500 people. The Special Boat Service and the RAF joined a huge […]
The FBI and InfraGard
February 9th, 2008Via: Progressive: Today, more than 23,000 representatives of private industry are working quietly with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. The members of this rapidly growing group, called InfraGard, receive secret warnings of terrorist threats before the public does—and, at least on one occasion, before elected officials. In return, they provide information to […]
Abandoned 5.5 Ton Anchor Found Near Damaged Fiber Optic Cable
February 9th, 2008Magic Anchor theories are already swirling around the blathersphere. Rather than wasting any more words on this, speculating about what went on in Davy Jones’ Locker, I put together an image for all Magic Anchor theorists to consider. Have a nice day. Via: AP: An abandoned anchor was responsible for cutting one of the undersea […]
Problems with Five Undersea Fiber Optic Cables
February 6th, 2008It’s a definite WTF moment. Via: Khaleej Times: A total of five cables being operated by two submarine cable operators have been damaged with a fault in each. These are SeaMeWe-4 (South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe-4) near Penang, Malaysia, the FLAG Europe-Asia near Alexandria, FLAG near the Dubai coast, FALCON near Bandar Abbas in Iran […]
NSA to Monitor Computer Networks of All Federal Agencies
February 6th, 2008Via: Washington Post: President Bush signed a directive this month that expands the intelligence community’s role in monitoring Internet traffic to protect against a rising number of attacks on federal agencies’ computer systems. The directive, whose content is classified, authorizes the intelligence agencies, in particular the National Security Agency, to monitor the computer networks of […]
The “No Internet in Iran” Story is Bullcrap, but that Didn’t Stop 17 People from Submitting it
February 4th, 2008I don’t expect people to know much about computers, but the story about Iran having no Internet access is complete nonsense. It scares the living crap out of me that so many Cryptogon readers are propagating this nonsense without even trying to verify whether or not the story is true. (In fairness, one Cryptogon reader […]
