CIA Claims Cyber Attackers Blacked Out Cities

Dotnaught writes to tell us InformationWeek is reporting that the CIA admitted today that recent power outages in multiple cities outside the United States are the result of cyberattacks. "We have information, from multiple regions outside the United States, of cyber intrusions into utilities, followed by extortion demands. We suspect, but cannot confirm, that some of these attackers had the benefit of inside knowledge. We have information that cyberattacks have been used to disrupt power equipment in several regions outside the United States. In at least one case, the disruption caused a power outage affecting multiple cities. We do not know who executed these attacks or why, but all involved intrusions through the Internet."

Why are systems like this hooked onto the internet

[munrom]

Am I the only one that thinks thats a really stupid thing to do?

Re:Why are systems like this hooked onto the inter

[Tablizer]

Am I the only one that thinks thats a really stupid thing to do?

It takes only a single breach. The story mentioned it may be an inside job, which means somebody may have put a single little link between the two systems, breaking the separation.
   

Re:Why are systems like this hooked onto the inter

[Evil Pete]

I really liked the last paragraph in the article:

Citing two Government Accountability Office reports on SCADA security, Paller said that people have been adding wireless and Windows to SCADA systems without really thinking about security. "They're gotten radically unsafe," he said.

Windows + wifi + scada + power_grid = fun_and_games

Re:Why are systems like this hooked onto the inter

[Lumpy]

No you are not, unfortunately most management at places like that are so incredibly stupid they ignore warnings about that and want it online anyways.

Hell Most water filtration plants are that way. Instead of an inconvenience of power out, those can kill the population. And yes I know what I am talking about I worked as an operator in one for 7 years.

SCADA systems have no reason being connected to any network other than their own secure one. It is gross incompetence on the management of those facilities t

Re:Why are systems like this hooked onto the inter

[Rogerborg]

Damn skippy. When I worked as a SCADA dev, we had one (1) machine connected to the internet, in a locked room. If you wanted to move something from there to a machine on the LAN, you did it by burning CDs, and the culture (rather than just the 'procedures') was genuinely against installing anything that wasn't absolutely necessary. Nobody outside of IT had admin access to their desktops.

That was our dev house procedures though. As you say, it all falls apart on the production systems. Once customers started using commodity Windows boxes, it was all over. We found one production box where the night watchman had hacksawed off the padlock on the back, opened it up and installed a sound card so that he could play games on it, presumably by plugging an optical drive in for the duration. It was pwoned by his warez and needed a brain wipe. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Re:Why are systems like this hooked onto the inter

[mapkinase]

Am I the only one who assumes that parent thinks that as a result of such attack cyberterrorist will lose his access to the internet or won't be able to complete the attack because the target will lose its internet connection?

Re:Why are systems like this hooked onto the inter

[Asmodai]

That's why they invented out-of-band management tools long, long ago.
Given the nature of how the internet works, having a dial-up line to a management console (who then requires authentication) is much better for OOB management than using the Internet.

Re:

[Psychotria]

You're absolutely correct. Remote administration is the way to go. Until the power goes out, in which case it's a holiday for the workers.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

You're absolutely correct. Remote administration is the way to go. Until the power goes out, in which case it's a holiday for the workers.

Did UPSes and generators just cease to exist? Did physics suddenly change and stop batteries from working?

Re:

[budgenator]

I remember that once just as I was about to click submit on one of my slashdot posts, the power went out, not just in my house but the whole North-East power-grid went down and for 3 days. Most of the last-mile sides of the internet fell flat on their faces, no cable modem from Comcast! The only thing that stayed up was the telephone.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

Last time I had a cable modem and a power outage at the same time, the cable stayed on for about two hours and then went out. Of course, DSL is still up at times like these! And so is satellite, so is cellular. The telco has enough batteries to run the POTS network for a good long time, and probably enough generator to run it at full capacity in most cases.

HI! We are the US's Profesional Lying Team!

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

We are into lying, like, you know... BIG TIME!

We also have secret wars, illegal financing, blackmail, brainwashing, manipulation of the press, assassination, extra-judicial surveillance, detention and punishment. What'd I leave out? Oh, yeah! "Harsh Interrogation". That's just "torture" between us. But I digress. The mainline business is lying - it's like the life-blood of the other operations.

Now trust us on this one: The Internet is extremely dangerous.

Really. You'll have to get on board with us o

OOB management isn't a panacea

[sshore]

Wardialers are to OOB management as portscanners are to internet-connected management.

Re:

[QuantumG]

Wardialers were popular because people often used security via obscurity to protect computer systems instead of proper authentication. "No-one knows the phone number, so we're safe."

Re:OOB management isn't a panacea

[NerveGas]

I don't think it's terribly different in power. Here, if you have central air, the power company asks you every month if they can install a gadget to let them turn your AC off whenever they feel like it, in "rolling blackout" fashion. They're not installing a dedicated line, which leaves either a signal over the powerline, or radio, either of which is likely to be VERY vulnerable.

It's been a looooong time since companies were interested in the best possible solution, these days when something like only making a 25% profit instead of a 27% profit can cause emotional investors to dump your stock, dropping the price, and causing your company a loss of net worth in the millions, they're mostly interested in just spending the least amount that they can.

Re:

[jonwil]

A wardialer wont work if the system has some kind of ringback (i.e you ring the modem and log in then the modem at the other end hangs up and calls you back on a pre-defined number)

Re:

[NeverVotedBush]

You can still have flexibility. Just have the callback call a number you can call-forward. Then if you are in another location, just set call-forwarding to the new number before calling in.

As to SSL, two-way certificates, etc, you just use a gateway, maybe with VPN, etc, and let the gateway handle the authentication/encryption duties and once you are in, you can talk to the simple embedded stuff.

My bet is that,probably like so many installations that get hit with penetrations and then screwed with, th

Re:

[Mr. Freeman]

So.... quite useless then? I don't know much about this so correct me if I'm wrong but I was under the impression that port scans are worthless for actually doing anything. They can tell you if a vulnerable process is running, but if one isn't then you aren't getting in. A wardialer would have to find the phone number to dial which is presumably easily, but then they would actually have to get past whatever security measures the system has.

Re:

[starfishsystems]

Wardialers are to OOB management as portscanners are to internet-connected management.
...
The same security concerns that apply to network management interfaces apply to OOB management interfaces.

These are excellent points. Given the number of responses, I don't know why you haven't been modded up already.

I've worked with all sorts of organizations who make access to their systems extra slow and tedious by requiring dialin. This is always explained as being for "security" reasons.

Um, no. All the

Re:

[budgenator]

mostly they use an out-of-bands, according to Bruce Parens they frequntly use RF signals over the powerlines!

It has historically operated over a primitive form of "BPL", analog or digital control signals transmitted over long-haul power lines, generally using a low-frequency signal. In Northern California, we can hear a RTTY signal around 137.5 KHz that might be SCADA leaking from power lines into the air, and the power companies have opposed the allocation of a ham frequency in that band becuase they claim

Re:Why are systems like this hooked onto the inter

[baileydau]

I thought the exact same thing. I'm no expert on power grids and how they're managed, but I think there are two possible reasons why their control systems were hooked up to the Internet:

1. There may be situations where the systems need to be remotely administered, and using the Internet is a much, much cheaper way to facilitate this than deploying a completely private network infrastructure just for this purpose, which probably isn't very practical (for both physical and financial reasons).

2. pr0n browsing.

Actually here in Australia, the power generation company (at least in my state) does have it's own control network. It used to be Copper, but a while back they replaced it with fibre. They ended up with so much excess bandwidth that they wholesale it to companies. I assume they have their fibres separated from everyone else's.

Option 2 may cut into their profits a bit though :P

I haven't read TFA yet, but an attack from the Internet should *never* happen to something as important as this.

Where I work, we have an In-Confidence network and some Protected stuff. Each level is ONLY allowed to connect to ONE level lower and then only via approved security mechanisms. So the In-Confidence can access the (Unclassified) Internet, but the Protected stuff can't talk to the Internet at all. Actually in our case we don't bother connecting the Protected stuff even to our In-Confidence network.

I would assume a power control system would be much higher security than In-Confidence (that's pretty low - any decent business should be at least that level in reality), and thus not allowed to talk to the Unclassified Internet.

This of course is for Government networks. The US power companies (as are most in Australia) are privately owned, so they don't have to worry about such trivial things as security rules.

On a side note, I'm constantly amazed at the expectation of vendors and PHBs that we will automatically open up our network so that some stray vendor can remotely debug their dodgy application. Yea sure, we'll let you in from your totally unknown network that has only knows what security holes and stuff going on inside it to access our server(s) with elevated privileges. Especially when everyone working in our IT department has gone through a security clearance, and they have whoever they snagged off the street.

Actually I've just had a look at TFA, and it doesn't have any sort of details on what / where (not USA) / when (well vaguely - recently) / why (profit ???) / how these attacks occurred.

Re:

[Charbox]

On a side note, I'm constantly amazed at the expectation of vendors and PHBs that we will automatically open up our network so that some stray vendor can remotely debug their dodgy application.

My developers gave up on that a long time ago. Now, whenever the end user asks for live assistance, or in any one of a number of error conditions, we spawn off an ssh tunnel from the customer site to our mothership server, send the error/status report, and leave the thing open for three days.

Yeah, we snag custome

Re:

[Moonpie Madness]

Of course you've nailed it on the head. It so some moron engineer manager can check the status on his laptop at home and then tweak something he doesn't need to tweak remotely. I bet it looks cool, too.

Why not let the status report over the internet but have some kind of private connection standard to tweak in emergency? I guess it just wouldn't do to have to call the plant operators. But come on, man. This could be a 2400 baud completely original modem that you can dial from your cell phone, but only

Re:

[kongit]

My dad is an engineer working for a power company. Whenever this topic comes up he normally just shrugs and says won't work or that it isn't as green as you think it would be. First of all not every home has the ability to produce power by solar, wind, or other means. Of course in some areas like AZ it would have a good chance of working but then you have to consider the second point. To produce solar panels or wind turbines one must exert energy and also cause pollution. Santa Claus does not deliver t

willful negligence vs gross negligence

[SgtChaireBourne]

You're right. Putting any kind of control system for critical public utilities on the internet is gross negligence.

And if MS Windows is involved, then it escalates to willful negligence.

Just in time...

[subl33t]

... for US Federal elections. Coincidence?

Re:Just in time... not how you think

[commodoresloat]

FTFA:

Donahue said that the CIA had thoroughly weighed the pros and cons of making this information public, according to Paller.

And then decided that it should be made public but only after 5 pm on a Friday so that by the time most people notice, it's old news.

Re:

[NeverVotedBush]

Actually, the original post was a clip from a SANS NewsBites email. While it did come out on Friday, the main announcement was probably sometime during the week.

Re:

[commodoresloat]

The article says that extortion attempts followed the cyber-attacks, which suggests this is criminal, not political. Not that they can't be both of course, but someone trying to disrupt elections probably wouldn't call in a monetary demand until after they really succeeded in their goal.

Re:

[Gregb05]

Also, considering what was said at the bottom of the article, I have to say that I doubt the political nature of this announcement, Unless we think Windows is good here...

Paller said that people have been adding wireless and Windows to SCADA systems without really thinking about security. "They're gotten radically unsafe," he said.

i smell...

[Anonymous Coward]

a thinly-veiled excuse to get all george orwell up in your internets. this is the same CIA that found weapons of mass destruction in iraq...

Die Hard 4.0

[slyn]

Is there really any excuse of convenience that justifies connecting the nations major utilities to the internet?

At least if there is a firesale Justin Long and Bruce Willis will be there to save us. Coincidence that Mac Guy would be the one to save us? I think not.

Re:

[Bob54321]

You mean it wasn't factual that they had to go to the site to shut down the power. My belief in documentaries has just plummeted.

Re:

[slyn]

I'm confused as to what you are asking, but it says in the article:

Paller said that Donahue presented him with a written statement that read, "We have information, from multiple regions outside the United States, of cyber intrusions into utilities, followed by extortion demands. We suspect, but cannot confirm, that some of these attackers had the benefit of inside knowledge. We have information that cyberattacks have been used to disrupt power equipment in several regions outside the United States. In at le

Where and When?

[imemyself]

I actually did skim the article, but I didn't see anything pertaining to when these attacks/outages happened or where (other than outside the US). Does anyone have an idea about what power outages they are refering to?

Re:

[FriendSite.com]

We had power outages here in Vancouver, various blocks went out... but it was reported in the media that it was due to the high winds... hmmm, strange that only a few random blocks downtown were affected?

Los Angeles

[commodoresloat]

LA has been getting them over the past few weeks pretty regularly. Entire sections of Hollywood down for several hours at a time (maybe a dozen blocks at a time), and then a couple days later it will be a section starting a few blocks away. Seems to have stopped a couple weeks ago (or was it last week?) But of course I can't tell, I haven't been driving up and down LA to check if it's still happening. But it seemed really weird and random, and the cops were not directing traffic right away (which sugges

Re:

[commodoresloat]

LOL I just re-read the article and you're right, the attacks are said to have all happened outside the US; I thought I had read that they were coming from outside the US, not that the power went out outside the US. Oh well, I guess Los Angeles really is outside the US in so many ways....

Re:

[Hucko]

When you say a few blocks ... I don't believe they have switches at the transformer for x blocks that are connected to the internet (possible just expensive and probably uneconomical . I was an electrician and have worked in the local power supply division of an Australian power company at a remote mining community. The stuff I was working with was mostly 40+ years old, but we were updating some aspects of the distribution. It would be the switch yard that has the switching and rapid interrupt devices that

NOAA/NWS problems?

[Wilson_6500]

Does anyone remember the issues the NWS forecasting website was having the other day? I had thought it said something about server problems due to ice.I wish I remembered it the situation more clearly.

Re:Where and When?

[jandoedel]

In Soviet Russia, Power never goes out. It stays in the Kremlin.

Why not use air-gap firewalls?

[schnikies79]

There is no better security than just not being connected, end of story.

Where does this idea that every computer that exists must be plugged into the net come from?

Re:

[ecavalli]

Where does this idea that every computer that exists must be plugged into the net come from?

Microsoft, Linksys, Google, Yahoo ... I could go on, but the I don't want to test the theory that these text boxes have finite character limits.

Re:

[Z00L00K]

Works for standalone equipment, but an electrical grid is normally centrally controlled from a control center and they are either using radio links, leased lines or VPN to connect. VPN over a DSL connection is the cheapest alternative today. And any VPN needs some firewalls and if the firewalls leaks... You may have an intrusion.

Something smells.

[David McBride]

Why are we hearing about this from the CIA, of all places? I thought counter-intelligence was the purview of the FBI, and signals intelligence the role of the NSA.

Now add the fact that the US Director of National Intelligence has indicated that he wants to obtain the ability to monitor all Internet traffic data [arstechnica.com]:

"[...] the government must have the ability to read all the information crossing the Internet in the United States in order to protect it from abuse."

Contrast this with a second Ars article from yesterday, where the US Federal Energy Regulation Commission has just approved new security regulations [arstechnica.com] for the organizations (mostly private) that run the US electrical grid. Rather than blaming evil foreign hackers, Ars reports that:

"FERC notes, in its usual bureaucratic style, that "poor vegetation management" has caused most of the problems relating to past regional blackouts."

This all just sounds like an excuse to install packet loggers everywhere.

(And it's not just the US authorities who want to lock down and control the Internet; the UK also recently indicated a desire to install censorship devices at the ISP level [theregister.co.uk]. Good luck with that.)

Re:

[Solandri]

Why are we hearing about this from the CIA, of all places? I thought counter-intelligence was the purview of the FBI, and signals intelligence the role of the NSA.

The FBI has jurisdiction over intelligence matters inside the U.S. and occasionally involving U.S. citizens and property abroad. The CIA has jurisdiction over intelligence matters outside the U.S. So investigating induced power outages in foreign cities would be a CIA task.

Re:

[Jonner]

Since these alleged attacks happened outside the US, and may have involved people on the inside of the plants, it would seem to be within the CIA's realm, which has traditionally put a high priority on human assets. At least, neither the FBI nor the NSA should be snooping around outside the US. If this is intended as FUD to help the US government watch all Internet traffic, I think it's a waste of resources, since those who want to communicate covertly will just use strong encryption. I know I will if I sus

yeah, it's a powergrab justification

[SethJohnson]

This is another brick in the case the feds have been building to justify ballooning budgets for cyber-defense operations. Conveniently, increasing 'cyber defense' also grants the feds more abilities to inspect civilian communications, etc. Meanwhile, they ignore the meatspace threat of people physically attacking power centers. Increasing budgets for staffing people protecting physical power transmission doesn't get the feds anywhere they want to go.

If some foreign entity wanted to wreak havoc on America'

Re:

[failedlogic]

I thought the same thing but for a different reason. I think its very rare (can't emphasize that enough) that the CIA ever "confirms or denys" any questions asked to it by the media let alone releases a comment to the media.

If the breach is the result, though, of remote IP software installed on the power grid for persons to administer the electrical grid, I think this is gross negligence, stupidity and downright dangerous. It seems with the amount of capital and revenue power companies have and the fact the

We don't have TIME!!!

[Duncan Blackthorne]

Quick, somebody call Jack Bauer, he'll know what to do!

Re:We don't have TIME!!!

[Psychotria]

You are correct. He will capture the nasty people, torture them and make them confess under duress... err wait

This is really serious!

[no-body]

You must have clicked the box: "Always trust news from CIA"

BS

[dotancohen]

I call BS on this one. I was in the US just two weeks ago. The airport was at security level 4 out of 5. I asked an officer what the threat was, and he told me that in the four years that he had been working there, the threat level had not budged from level 4. That means that there are effectively only two levels of threat: 4 and 5. This also means that the officers are authorized to perform 'checks' and other violations of the rights that I know Americans used to hold dear. This is a temporary situation, I understand, however the temporary situation has been in effect for over four years it seems! I believe that the CIA 'admitting' that the power outages are attacks are a way to drum up public support for more 'checks' and ways to survey the public. If they were real attacks then I doubt the CIA would make that public. I also doubt that the CIA would be the agency to do make that public. I don't subscribe to the many conspiracy theories that populate Reddit, but from the little that I did see in the US in the three days that I was there, things have changed since 1999 (last time I was there). People are now scared. People _want_ their government to invade their lives. That is scary. I was thinking of Winston Smith the whole time.

I don't think so

[commodoresloat]

This information was released at a major security conference. If they wanted to just scare everyone they would have released this info more directly to the public rather than at a meeting of specialists who could see through a line of BS. And if they were really going for the fear factor they'd leak this on a monday or tuesday morning, not at 6pm on the friday before a long weekend. It sounds to me like they want to diminish any possible panic, not amp it up. Notice they're not blaming terrorists or enemies either; the strong implication is organized crime with some kind of inside connections. I tend to be pretty skeptical of CIA but based on the little info that is here I'm guessing they're not making this up, and they probably are hoping that letting people know who are responsible for computer security at more localized levels will make it more likely for them to trace the perps.

Re:

[dotancohen]

And if they were really going for the fear factor they'd leak this on a monday or tuesday morning, not at 6pm on the friday before a long weekend. It sounds to me like they want to diminish any possible panic, not amp it up.

Obviously they don't want to cause public panic. Just 'public awareness'.

Re:

[deimtee]

Winston Smith has now never existed.
Thinking of unpersons is doubleplusungood.

Pfffft

[Tablizer]

That's ridiculous. Power and services don't just suddenly cu
     

Re:Pfffft

[jamesh]

That's ridiculous. Power and services don't just suddenly cu

At least when they do cut out, the residual power left in the system enables you to submit your incomplete slashdot message posting. What an age to be alive!

errrr

[Psychotria]

What is firehouse?

Re:

[SeaFox]

Firehouse [wikipedia.org]

Re:

[FireFury03]

What is firehouse?

http://slashdot.org/firehose.pl [slashdot.org]

Re:

[jonaskoelker]

It's when Chuck Norris sets his foot ablaze with mere willpower, then does a roundhouse kick.

Better news report

[greg1104]

Presuming that InformationWeek had their typical lame coverage here, a quick search found a much better article about this at Forbes [forbes.com] (they even know to ask Bruce Schneier about it!) where they link to a nice background article [forbes.com] about these SCADA systems.

Deja lu--not the kind you're thinking of, either

[Wilson_6500]

I'm not saying this is a dupe, but I have the weirdest feeling that I've read this same summary with the same comments, even, a few years ago.

This is the biggest pile of BS ever

[Anonymous Coward]

This ain't Whiz Kids people, everything isn't connected, hackable, and DoS-able - and since when does the CIA say anything, much less in a press release? This is plain old simple psy-ops on dummmy Americans, who will say, "Yes, something must be done...for the children...", and then we'll all have a bunch more bullshit internet 'enhancing', privacy 'upholding', aptly named laws like the JESUS WRAPPED IN A FLAG Act.

Dear CIA, If you're so concerned, go unplug the router, and don't waste your breath and insult

This is a real risk

[Z00L00K]

And it is often caused by the fact that many control systems today depends on operating system from the same vendor as all other machines, namely Microsoft. In one way it's useful to have the machines on the net. This because it's cheap and easy to get a DSL line to the remote unmanned locations. The problem is that even if you do a VPN connection there is still a risk that the firewalls can be penetrated. (misconfiguration etc.)

There is always a balance between cost and protection and it's easy to cut back the costs, since the risks are very hard to weigh. Many companies calculates with a certain amount of downtime caused by "unforseen" events. What's in this category also depends on the amount of money put into the security bag. They are just comparing the agreements with their customers and the cost for protection and are figuring out that "OK, we can allow to have a day or more downtime without violating our customer agreements".

It's all about money, but sometimes you may think that there are people as mean as Marwin Meathead [hermanhedning.com].

TFA is leaving out the most important information

[Wolfier]

WHICH bloody cities???

Re:TFA is leaving out the most important informati

[Wolfier]

From some articles it seems that the affected cities are from Central and South America, including some in Mexico.

Usually Skynet wakes in August

[jafiwam]

At least, if you believe all the historical documents on video about it.

The par they always leave out of the historical video documents, is that Skynet as an infant, needs to play to learn like any other sentient being does.

Be worried when it STOPS playing and you don't notice anything for a while. /See you in Mexico!

If true

[nurb432]

What the hell is the control systems like this doing online in the first place?

Why should anyone believe them?

[unbug]

"We have information", "We suspect, but cannot confirm", "We do not know who executed these attacks or why", "other information related to the attack was not mentioned and is unlikely to be forthcoming". WTF? I suspect but cannot confirm that this is complete bullshit. I do not know who invented this bullshit or why. I will not mention other information related to this bullshit and it is unlikely to be forthcoming.

these systems are on the Internet?

[DragonTHC]

why?

They should be on their own darknet. Perhaps through POWERLINES?

These industries are stupid. And why should we believe anything the CIA says?

What really happened:

[merc]

The cyber-attacks were the result of cyber-intrusions conducted by cyber-hacker cyber-criminals intent on causing cyber-damage. When caught they will be elligable for cyber-representation by cyber-lawyers for cyber-prosecution. Unfortunately said attorneys will be unable to practice cyberlaw due to the cyber-trademark registered by cyber-lawyer Eric Menhart.

Cyber-lame.

Re:

[masdog]

It sounds like an excuse that some would use to nationalize certain industries.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, something like Enron could never happen in the private sector.

Re: 15% solution

[Black Parrot]

Private sector people, overall, are more likely to be responsible.

lol. Back here in reality, people in the private sector tend to do whatever they think they can get away with.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

Private sector people, overall, are more likely to be responsible.

lol. Back here in reality, people in the private sector tend to do whatever they think they can get away with.

Actually, I think it's true that people in the private sector are more likely to be held responsible for their misdeeds than those in government.

Any time a Senator says "god bless our contractors" a lawyer gets his horns and pitchfork.

Re:

[LKM]

You've got it backwards. In a real democracy, there are repercussions for fucking up. Most obvious, you don't get re-elected. In the private industry, there's jack shit people can do. As long as a company makes money, all's good for them - even if they make money at the expense of the public good.

Wars don't get started for political reasons, but for economic reasons.

But then, I think your post was meant to be ironic, anyway.

Re:

[QuickFox]

In a real democracy, there are repercussions for fucking up. Most obvious, you don't get re-elected.

Are you implying Bush didn't fuck up or that the US isn't a real democracy?

Re:

[LKM]

Are you implying Bush got reelected?

Re:

[drinkypoo]

The US is a republic, period, end of story. It always has been made QUITE CLEAR.

Re:

[QuickFox]

Sure it's a republic [wikipedia.org], as opposed to a monarchy [wikipedia.org].

But it's also a democracy [wikipedia.org], as opposed to a dictatorship [wikipedia.org].

More precisely, it's a representative democracy [wikipedia.org], as opposed to a direct democracy [wikipedia.org].

Republic means that it's not led by a hereditary monarch — as opposed to a monarchy where there is a hereditary monarch.

Democracy means that the people of the country either make the laws and the government decisions, or elect representatives who make the laws and the government decisions — as opposed to a dicta

Re:

[sumdumass]

You a little biased in your rant there. First, no matter what the politician wanted, it took an act of congress to get us into that war. Second, the levies and resulting flood had nothing to do with FEMA. It had more to do with corupt state and local authorities funneling funding for the levies to bonus projects to fund their buddies who got them elected. And even without that, it wasn't FEMA's job to do anything about the flooding, they are supposed to tend to the people afterwards. You can say that was al

Re:

[unitron]

Please find a dictionary or online equivalent and look up the words "mute" and "moot".

Re:

[budgenator]

Sometimes the hardest part of being the Mayor is recognizing when the village idiot has his flash of genius.

Re:

[schnikies79]

That is the governments fault, not the fault of blackwater (as an organization). It's up the government if they should be prosecuted, but instead they spirited out of the country, by the government.

They basically have a free pass. Hold them to the exact same laws that our military personnel are held to. See how fast they shape up.

Aside from that, I do believe that utilities should be privately controlled.

Re:

[schnikies79]

I didn't mean that, I mean in the case of blackwater, the government is the one responsible for prosecuting them since they are operating under contract with them.

Re:15% solution

[QuickFox]

but at least (in theory...) the president can ultimately be held accountable.

That's extremely theoretical. In practice, he got reelected.

Re:

[4D6963]

You can mismanage FEMA and let a major city turn back into a swamp

The, fixed it for you. Oh the irony.

Re:

[unitron]

It was mismanagement of a bunch of other stuff that led to the infrastructure failure in New Orleans, but it was the screwing up of FEMA by Shrub's (mis)administration that resulted in their inexcusably slow, poor, and totally inadequate response to the emergency caused by that infrastructure failure.

Re:

[Psychotria]

Indeed. Nature also produces nasty things like cyanide and strychnine, so the OP's argument is even more insane, even disregarding the smoking bit.

Re:

[insertwackynamehere]

what about eating :P

Re:

[schnikies79]

haha, I knew someone was going to say that..

Do you honestly know anyone that eats it? I know plenty of pot users and none eat it, except for one that swallowed a bit so customs wouldn't catch him. That was a good while ago though.

Re:

[sumdumass]

Two words for ya, Hash brownies! Nuff said.

Re:

[sumdumass]

You advocacy of marijuana puts your sig into an enlightening perspective.

Re:

[commodoresloat]

I'm not sure which is worse -- the paranoia about the CIA or your seemingly unsarcastic gratitude that the UK government would never pull an intelligence caper.

Re:

[flyingfsck]

What? They have electricity in Zimbabwe?

Re:

[Tarwn]

That depends on what you mean by "utilities". If your talking about corporate offices and so on, then yes, i'm sure they are hooked up to the net the same way most large businesses are. If you mean the individual plants, well, thats different.

The last power company I worked for in the the US (Southeastern US) was most definitely not setup this way. While it was possible to remotely connect into various plants, the deepest you could go was to connect to the Data Historian that had limited connectivity over t

Re:

[visualight]

Finally, education in this country is on a downward spiral due to being systematically dismantled by the federal government. The No Child Left Behind act is designed to guarantee mediocrity.

I think they're canceling art/shop/music/sports programs and focusing on math and reading because we need more people that know enough to make change and don't know enough to question what they're told on TV.

Re:

[jimrob]

I hope you realize that we didn't actually vote in Bush, ever. Period, end of story. Both elections were stolen. Thanks.

Gore and Kerry lost. Get over it. Typical Democrat whining - don't take fault for your shortcomings (i.e., poor choices in presidential candidates), but rather scream "UNFAIR!" and try to change the system to your advantage.

I'm not saying Bush is a great guy (I'm not fond of him at all), but he won. Get used to it. Quit making up excuses, and get over your egotistical Democrat mind