Experts Call For Preserving Copper, Pneumatic Systems As Hedge For Cyber Risk (securityledger.com) 169
chicksdaddy quotes a report from The Security Ledger: The United States should invest resources in preserving aging, analog infrastructure including telecommunications networks that use copper wire and pneumatic pumps used to pump water as a hedge against the growing threat of global disruption resulting from a cyber attack on critical infrastructure, two researchers at MITRE argue. The researchers, Emily Frye and Quentin Hodgson with The MITRE Corporation, note that critical infrastructure is increasingly run from converged IP (Internet Protocol) based networks that are vulnerable to cyber attack. That includes so-called "lifelines" -- essential functions like water, electricity, communications, transportation and emergency services. That marks a critical departure from the past when such systems were isolated from the internet and other general purpose networks. "Each lifeline rides on, and is threaded together by, digital systems. And humans have yet to design a digital system that cannot be compromised," they write. With such civilization-sustaining functions now susceptible to attack, the onus is on society to maintain a means of operating them that does not rely on digital controls, Fry and Hodgson write. In many cases, that means preserving an older generation of analog infrastructure and management systems that could be manually operated, The Security Ledger reports. From their article: "In the case of communications, for instance, what is required is the preservation of a base core of copper-enabled connectivity, and the perpetuation of skills and equipment parts to make analog telephones work. Today, we see a move to decommission the copper-wire infrastructure. From a pure business standpoint, decommissioning copper is the right thing to do; but from a public-safety and homeland security perspective, we should reconsider. Decommissioning copper increases homeland security risk, because failover planning calls simply for relying on another server, router, or data center that is also subject to compromise."
I wonder if they realize... (Score:5, Insightful)
That ever since the 80s, those copper lines simply plug into a digital phone switch anyway?
Re: I wonder if they realize... (Score:2, Insightful)
Suppose you want to have two communication infrastructures, one in use and the other for backup. We are moving towards an all-cell infrastructure. They are saying the best choice for the other infrastructure is the copper phone network -- it exists and is pervasive (unlike cable or fiber). The other choice is to build something new. If you want to have two infrastructures, why would you dismantle the one you aren't using and build a new one you aren't going to use?
Re: I wonder if they realize... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would you dismantle the copper phone network?
Perhaps because it is (or seems to beancounters) expensive to maintain. The cables are quite old and do break and then need fixing. The thing is of course that it provides something you previously got "for free" as in you were paying for the network anyway and its resilience got taken for granted. Now, we're paying for something else, like computer networks, and don't see why we're still having to pay for "something we don't use" all that often. These people are saying the resilience we used to get for free (because the network was just that well-made) is important enough that we should keep the thing around.
Me, I think that simply saying "keep the old stuff" isn't good enough. Instead, realise that traditional telco engineering is wildly different from the computer networks techie engineering, as can be seen from comparing, say, atm and ethernet. I'm not talking about bitrates, I'm talking about the other guarantees that atm does provide and ethernet hardware expects higher layers to "fix it in software" in spite of its best efforts to thwart it. It's a mindset difference.
Computer network "engineering" is quite frequently "marginal in the best case is good enough", where telco engineering is more like "full service in the worst case and we'll reluctantly call it a day". I'm not talking telco management stupidity and incessant price gauging, I'm talking engineering mind-set. Traditionally-engineered telephone service will continue during black-outs, despite the hardware obviously needing power to do so. Modern, "converged" telephone service very likely won't, for so many reasons it's not funny any longer.
So I think that in the long run it's going to be cheaper and more functional to remember how and why the POTS was engineered like it was, and do something similar with modern technology. Perhaps as a second network for critical infrastructure, since you really should keep it separate from the other networks anyway, "converged" or not.
But do it with tech that's closer to what's being used for the other network, like glass, only with much less complexity and more hard service guarantees, like battery backups, truly geographically diversified redundant routes, easily manufacturable parts, and low-power hardware so the batteries last longer, perhaps with solar panels to power distribution points, and so on, and so forth. You can do a lot here beyond relying on century-old tech. But if that old tech truly is the best, then we'll use that. It's about functionality that the modern stuff simply doesn't provide and isn't really designed for, not clinging to times past.
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I just ran out of mod points, but your comment is so insightful I decided to quote it just to give it +2 visibility.
Why would you dismantle the copper phone network?
Perhaps because it is (or seems to beancounters) expensive to maintain. The cables are quite old and do break and then need fixing. The thing is of course that it provides something you previously got "for free" as in you were paying for the network anyway and its resilience got taken for granted. Now, we're paying for something else, like computer networks, and don't see why we're still having to pay for "something we don't use" all that often. These people are saying the resilience we used to get for free (because the network was just that well-made) is important enough that we should keep the thing around.
Me, I think that simply saying "keep the old stuff" isn't good enough. Instead, realise that traditional telco engineering is wildly different from the computer networks techie engineering, as can be seen from comparing, say, atm and ethernet. I'm not talking about bitrates, I'm talking about the other guarantees that atm does provide and ethernet hardware expects higher layers to "fix it in software" in spite of its best efforts to thwart it. It's a mindset difference.
Computer network "engineering" is quite frequently "marginal in the best case is good enough", where telco engineering is more like "full service in the worst case and we'll reluctantly call it a day". I'm not talking telco management stupidity and incessant price gauging, I'm talking engineering mind-set. Traditionally-engineered telephone service will continue during black-outs, despite the hardware obviously needing power to do so. Modern, "converged" telephone service very likely won't, for so many reasons it's not funny any longer.
So I think that in the long run it's going to be cheaper and more functional to remember how and why the POTS was engineered like it was, and do something similar with modern technology. Perhaps as a second network for critical infrastructure, since you really should keep it separate from the other networks anyway, "converged" or not.
But do it with tech that's closer to what's being used for the other network, like glass, only with much less complexity and more hard service guarantees, like battery backups, truly geographically diversified redundant routes, easily manufacturable parts, and low-power hardware so the batteries last longer, perhaps with solar panels to power distribution points, and so on, and so forth. You can do a lot here beyond relying on century-old tech. But if that old tech truly is the best, then we'll use that. It's about functionality that the modern stuff simply doesn't provide and isn't really designed for, not clinging to times past.
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Another feature of the Ma Bell POTS architecture: along with being battery powered, all the high failure parts were in the CO, where they could be easily accessed and repaired.
The terminal equipment (phones) were very, very rugged, designed to outlive their owners and function without trouble for many years. Even the touch-tone keypads still work fine after 40 years of use.
I can understand why the telcos don't want the copper infrastructure. It's not profitable for them, people are dropping wireline phone
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The main reason why telcos don't want copper anymore is that their copper infrastructure is regulated. The Telecom Act of 1996 requires that the line owners open up the copper to competitors for a reasonable rate (reasonable is defined and calculated by the FCC). It turns out that wireless and fiber are essentially unregulated and listed as "information services" rather than as utility services. Pretty much, the phone companies don't have to share their last mile infrastructure with competitors.
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The main reason why telcos don't want copper anymore is that their copper infrastructure is regulated.
I think the main reason they don't want copper, is that nobody is going to pay $60/mo for a landline phone any more. None of my coworkers have them, and I switched to a $20/mo VOIP provider. Additionally, there's not a lot you can do with copper, compared to fiber and coax. So there's not even a chance of repurposing the copper infrastructure.
So, no income from consumer phone lines, coupled with an infrastructure nobody wants, means no more copper.
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And the problem isn't the Internet but the defective hardware plugged in at either end. The main problem being Microsoft Windows running on Intel hardware. 'The Mitre Corporation' are these the people that recommended Homeland security run on Windows
Do not question Commander Adama (Score:5, Funny)
Winter or Cylons are coming. One of those.
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People can use analog systems without relying on computers. That is what is meant by a reserve control system. Full stop.
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There's a huge difference between a DMS-100 switch, like I used to manage, and VoIP. The former is safe, but the latter is vulnerable. No real phone switch, while providing Internet access, can be controlled from the Internet.
Re:I wonder if they realize... (Score:5, Informative)
Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
The government PAID AT&T, Sprint and Verizon to upgrade the switches to IP. The FBI added Colo cabinets at the main switch sites. The FBI can wiretap directly WITHOUT interacting with the Companies. OC-12s direct in the switch matrix. No more echo cancellers or M13s. OC12 in and out of the switch to a DSC/DXC.
"In 2006 Nortel introduced the Communication Server 1500 (CS 1500) Softswitch based on VOIP to modernize the DMS based telephone switches. A CS 1500 softswitch system can replace all the DMS component modules except for the LCMs, reducing the footprint of a DMS-100 to one 19" rack and allowing operators to reduce cooling and power requirements significantly"
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> allowing operators to reduce cooling and power requirements significantly
This is no joke. We replaced our DMS-10 switches with C15s. In some locations, we had to add heat to buildings that never before needed it.
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That was also my thought. The time that there was some electronic switch instead of an virtual packet switch are long gone, and the times that relays actually switched connections instead of computers/digital electronics which operated analog switches even longer.
And DoS attacks on such Networks are much easier than DoS on the internet.
Re: I wonder if they realize... (Score:2)
Some of the old stuff should be easier to just dust off(point-to-point microwave links, say, were crushed by fiber on bandwidth; but refurbishing a limited number of transceiver stations is going to cost a lot less and be a lot faster than repairing or rebuilding the old school copper network.
The bigger issue seems like one of "and what are we going to plug int
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That ever since the 80s, those copper lines simply plug into a digital phone switch anyway?
Because in case of power failure the phone system, even ISDN is designed to continue to work on racks of 48V batteries at CO even if poer is lost ti the subscriber site. ISDN TA and PABX are designed to switch in low power/reduced mode if mains goes out. At the CO there are a couple of generator and a tank of petrol designed to power the system for two days. For this very reason mountain refuges have an UHF phone patch link with a battery backup even if there is 2G/#g or even LTE coverages in most cases. Ce
Re:I wonder if they realize... (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyone with solar.
So, to sum up: (Score:2)
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STEAMPUNK!!!!
Local override (Score:2)
While controlled normally over the Internet, this are still pumps and other powerful motors.
As long as the power is on (either from the net or from a local backup), they can be operated manually and locally, or at least they should have that option. This way, in case of a cyber attack that somehow cripple the remote control rooms, of course we should go back to basics: send someone over who can pull the network cable, and manually press the "On" switch. The same you'd have to do if you keep old machines aro
Critical infrastructure and converged IP networks (Score:3, Interesting)
Listen up children and I'll tell you the solution. The solution is to not run your critical infrastructure on converged IP based networks. I presume converged is a code-word for 'cloud'. And if the NSA hadn't acted to dilute security on the Internet, these networked devices wouldn't be so easy to attack.
Re:Critical infrastructure and converged IP networ (Score:4, Interesting)
Listen up children and I'll tell you the solution. The solution is to not run your critical infrastructure on converged IP based networks.
The problem is that almost everything today is "critical infrastructure". It's one thing to build a separate network for dams and nuclear power plants if you deem those as critical infrastructure. It's another if you deem our entire telecommunications system as critical infrastructure. Moving that to IP based systems is pretty unavoidable today.
All of this has happened before, all of this will (Score:5, Interesting)
âoeYou'll see things here that look odd, even antiquated to modern eyes, like phones with cords, awkward manual valves, computers that, well, barely deserve the name. It was all designed to operate against an enemy who could infiltrate and disrupt even the most basic computer systems. Galactica is a reminder of a time when we were so frightened by our enemies that we literally looked backward for protection.â
Just don't rely on a monoculture of systems (Score:2, Interesting)
The base of any system security is not to rely on a monoculture. If all your systems run on Windows using the same hardware, software and firmware version which the creators have long abandoned.
Require that critical systems are modifiable by the end user and can be carried from platform to platform, it's the government after all, they can set the laws and reject any contract from entities that are either too large or don't want to adhere to basic rules of security and risk management.
Re:Just don't rely on a monoculture of systems (Score:4, Insightful)
The monoculture is unavoidable in industry unless you want to spend an exorbitant amount on service contracts and staff training. Latest trends tend towards reducing the different number of systems and the different platforms not only because of costs but also due to reliability reasons as a variety of different systems work in different ways and experts which are too thinly spread across platforms tend to make more mistakes.
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The monoculture is unavoidable in industry unless you want to spend an exorbitant amount on service contracts and staff training. Latest trends tend towards reducing the different number of systems and the different platforms not only because of costs but also due to reliability reasons as a variety of different systems work in different ways and experts which are too thinly spread across platforms tend to make more mistakes.
Pay me now, or pay me later. As usual, the cost of the 'later' option is likely to be much higher - perhaps as much as your life is worth.
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You forgot the maybe. There's a incredible number of systems out there and a petty few which have actually fallen victim to attack. Why not asteroid insurance while they are at it?
Speaking of insurance, that's the bit you missed. Insurance companies pay for externally induced losses. They don't pay for expensive service contracts. Your comment just doesn't make financial sense for any company.
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I am not talking about differing standards. If anything, we need to converge on standards while diverging on implementations. It brings both job and systems security, what is the cost of mixing too much chemicals in the water supply? Even if it's not toxic, how many millions would it cost if a particular combination accelerates corrosion?
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I didn't say standards. If anything most vendors follow common set of standards just with different systems. But the end result is the same with diversity comes cost.
what is the cost of mixing too much chemicals in the water supply?
Something that should not be fixed by making one system robust. This is the basis for any industrial safety - independent system. If the cost is high then there will be an independent safety system to shut things down to prevent an unsafe situation. Unfortunately "shutting down" is exactly what this article is talking about and trying to avoid.
Um No, That is Not The Solution (Score:4, Insightful)
Um no, that is not the solution, the solution is to air gap anything you cant afford to have break due to hacking, and hunt down criminal hackers around the world. Treat state sponsored hacking like an act of war, and make sure everyone knows you will respond with devastating force.
Air gapping critical infrastructure should be a federal law, because anything connected can eventually be hacked given enough time and resources.
Nothing will change until people die (Score:1)
Air gapping critical infrastructure should be a federal law, because anything connected can eventually be hacked given enough time and resources.
At this point it should be obvious that more & more critical infrastructure will be hooked up to networks, including the internet. Even if experts consider that dumb.
Conclusion: good advice won't help, what's needed is casualties. When a cyberattack takes out large parts of the power grid, or causes a chemical plant to blow up, and people actually DIE as a result, THEN maybe air-gapping will be looked at in a different light. Until then, prepare for cyberattacks to have worse & worse real life ef
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Re:Um No, That is Not The Solution (Score:4, Insightful)
Unlike a bomb, it can be very difficult to definitively establish state-sponsored hacking as responsible for an attack. You can't (or shouldn't) start a devastating war over a gut feeling.
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> Um no, that is not the solution, the solution is to air gap anything you cant afford to have break due to hacking,
Good so far...
> and hunt down criminal hackers around the world.
We already do that...
> Treat state sponsored hacking like an act of war, and make sure everyone knows you will respond with devastating force.
DANGER WILL ROBINSON
Here's your problem: you assume you can attribute cyber attacks. You generally cannot in the event of a competent actor (ex: a state actor). This last year sh
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Um no, that is not the solution, the solution is to air gap anything you cant afford to have break due to hacking
That solution is something that you can only come up with if you have a simplistic view of exactly how these systems are built. Air gaps in many cases are not only impractical but in some cases impossible in the way modern infrastructure is run and in many cases this is the result of the general population's expectation of the infrastructure. In fact you'll probably find federal law requires the opposite of air gapping as data logging for incident investigation is often mandated in realtime and offsite.
And
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> In fact you'll probably find federal law requires the opposite of air gapping as data logging for incident investigation is often mandated in realtime and offsite.
You can get pretty frigging close to a one-way airgap. For example - if you want to prevent intrusion but log off site in real time, then airgap your facility and send your logs to an in-facility logging system which then send the data though the gap via a one-way communication channel to a second system which is connected to the internet.
Ob
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You can, that solves *one* of the very *many* problems with cutting off systems from each other.
Your solution works well for a small chemical plant. Beyond that there are technical reasons that airgapping from public infrastructure would be cost prohibitive, and sometimes cost impossible.
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You can use a one way opto-isolator to 100% air gap your system while still transmitting data for logging and tracking purposes.
Our most important secrets and most secure computer systems are air gapped inside Faraday cages. Physical access is controlled by armed guards. That is about as secure as humanly possible at this time...
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Like the other reply you've only solved one small problem out of the very large reasons that these systems are interconnected. We can't expect a modern utility to function in the modern ways we expect when the utility is geographically disperse if it is isolated.
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Um no, that is not the solution, the solution is to air gap anything you cant afford to have break due to hacking, and hunt down criminal hackers around the world. Treat state sponsored hacking like an act of war, and make sure everyone knows you will respond with devastating force.
Air gapping critical infrastructure should be a federal law, because anything connected can eventually be hacked given enough time and resources.
You can compromise but it comes with a cost. I recently read a case study about a power outage in the Ukraine due to Russian hackers compromising the computers controlling the grid infrastructure. The Ukrainians responded to this by simply disconnecting the computers and going back to manual control, something they were able to do because their infrastructure is pretty old. It allowed them, according to the authors of that piece at least, to bring their system up much faster than what is possible with moder
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And if they try to do that to the US under Trump, $5 says they get a cruise missile up the ass (we have specific missiles that home in on Russian made jamming equipment, demonstrated during the second Iraq war). Russia prospered under the feckless Obama administration (remember the "reset button" with Hildabeast?) The Trump/Russia collusion BS is just a smokescreen for the Democrats to try and hobble the Trump administration. Trump and Putin both know they aren't allies, and Putin knows Trump is not afra
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... Treat state sponsored hacking like an act of war, and make sure everyone knows you will respond with devastating force.
And then devastating force is met with devastating force, and so on, until a victor emerges. But by that time the victor may only have hours to live on a planet no longer fit for life. And the victor may not even be the horse you backed...
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Maybe in your fantasy land. In the real world, humans do not have the capability to make the entire planet uninhabitable. Stop confusing scifi with reality...
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Air-gapped networks have been hacked. You might have heard of Stuxnet, which was a V
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While you are technically correct, you are citing the one in a billion moonshot (Stuxnet), which is the exception instead of the rule. As a business, if you airgap your critical infrastructure and ALSO follow best practices (that was assumed on my part, since you have infrastructure that needs to be airgapped in the first place) unless you are being targeted specifically by the NSA, CIA or other state level attackers who also have human assets in play, you are pretty safe...
Wrong technique (Score:2)
Disconnect and decentralize (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want to prevent a wholesale shutdown of services by hackers then the best way to do that is to disconnect your most vital systems (water, electricity and transportation) from communications networks (the internet).
* The last reason (price) for not using solar+battery almost everywhere is fading fast and we should encourage the proliferation of isolated power systems. With the exception of exotic locations, only businesses should need to have access to the power grid.
* Depending on and funding combative nations to fuel our transportation has been foolish since day one, we need to switch to electric vehicles posthaste.
* Finally, we need to start changing our water systems into closed loop systems to conserve the water we can access to minimize external dependency because the climate is changing.
We have two choices: adapt or die.
This approach has no life (Score:2)
Legacy systems will quickly become obsolete, as their stagnating performance will make them useless for future computing and communication tasks. Sure you can have a working 300 baud modem, but what would you do with it on today's internet and industrial control systems? Servers will probably time out trying to deliver a web page through it. In the world where Moore's law reigns, retiring older technologies only makes sense.
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"Servers will probably time out trying to deliver a web page through it."
There's your problem right there. "Web pages" are inherently full of fluff. You don't need pictures to run control systems; you could do it all in plain text, or even XML, and 300 baud would be "fast enough" for most purposes.
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or even XML, and 300 baud would be "fast enough" for most purposes.
Not even close. For a relevant example, in the XML-based OpenADR standard (demand-response, i.e. control of electrical loads such as heating) the "oadrDistributeEvent" message (essentially the command "you water heater, turn off now") is a few kilobytes, or over a minute at 300 bps. The response oadrCreatedEvent (ie.e ack) is over a kilobyte.
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> 300 Baud is plenty, stop thinking in your silly webpage
That might have been true for credit card terminals prior to chip verification (that basically just had to dial in, confirm that the card number, expiration date, and (maybe) CVV was legit, and get confirmation that the transaction was likely to be approved... but with NEW cards that have a chip for authentication, a 300-baud CC terminal will take upwards of TWENTY SECONDS to complete a single transaction due to all the handshaking and (relatively)
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That's a good points. The next thing will be post-quantum crypto, and will probably need to exchange data of significant size, even if everything else is made efficient.
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nit-picking I know. But the specified length limit for RS-232 is 50ft=15m. You can usually get away with pushing that a little. But back in the day I really did run into occasional problems with data quality on long cable runs. I wasn't a big fan of RS232 BTW -- too many legal, incompatible, configuration options.
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We needed drivers then we need drivers now, Normal PC serial ports just got cloned extensively so that they all need the same driver and it's built in. USB should be similar serial is a well-defined thing and should be baseline (on anything but Windows).
Overall it's a poor premise, we need to ensure these are not overlay networks but running modern air-gapped networks is far better than some ancient tech as far as outside the building.
Steampunk Copper Pipe Dreams (Score:4, Insightful)
Our society cannot function on steampunk technology - if it did it would be a different society, no matter how alluring the aesthetic.
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Our society cannot function on steampunk technology - if it did it would be a different society, no matter how alluring the aesthetic.
One thing's for sure - there'd be a lot more supervillians around.
Damn you, Hackers (Score:1)
I remember watching Hackers for the first time back in the mid '90s, and my suspension of disbelief couldn't get past all the things depicted as being hooked up to the internet. Apparently, some other fuckers were watching it, and thinking it was a great idea.
Mark my words, Hollywood probably got killer robots right too - they're just wrong on the date.
Is that English? (Score:2)
Seriously. I didn't know telecommunications networks use pneumatic pumps used to pump water. What function could they possibly have in a telecommunication network? Oh... Pneumatic pumps pump water as a hedge against global disruption resulting from a cyber attack on critical infrastructure. Pumps. What can't they do?
One good EMP later.... (Score:1)
One good EMP will take down the copper connections quite nicely. But, then, the power to make the controls driven by the copper connections work will be as gone as that for the FIOS or other connections.
{^_^}
Business Theft (Score:3)
Telcos have been actively pushing residential customers off of copper wire and onto VOIP, and making ENORMOUS savings on their costs - but continuing to charge the rates that used to pay for copper landlines. The only savings to the customer is free long-distance, which costs practically nothing for the telcos to provide.
And yet, when the power goes out, so does my VOIP phone line, provided by the local telephone company. I've got a UPS to power the phone router, but apparently there isn't one at the telco switch. So when power goes out, so do the "landline" phones, AND the cell system (which is ALSO powered by the electric utility).
I really ought to buy a new HAM radio, since I used to be an ARES operator. Because in a widespread power outage. that might be the only communications link.
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but apparently there isn't one at the telco switch
A problem which has nothing to do with copper vs VoIP, and everything to do with a stupid telco provider.
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Let's be honest.
In any extended power outage (let's say a week or more), pretty much communication is going to be the least of your worries in most places.
No power = dangerous roads (lighting) + no fuel (pumps) + no shops (payments, refrigeration, etc.) + no medical (hospital power, etc.) + no mass media (emergency broadcasts, etc.)
Although you certainly would appreciate a way to talk to others, there's not going to be an awful lot that anyone could do unless they were power-independent too, and they're unl
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And though you might put things on a UPS (which is NOT a solution past a handful of hours of outage), your ham kit will suffer the same problem too. Sure, you can battery power it for a while. Maybe longer than a phone line. But eventually it will still fail too.
Yeah, but you can run your HAM radio off a pedal-powered generator, or a rinky dink harbor freight solar panel.
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There is definitely a battery backup at the telco CO. If your service goes down when you have power issues in your area, it is more likely you are being served by a small cabinet or pole-mounted DSLAM which does not have a backup battery string or generator.
"Critical" means "urban" (Score:2)
In this case, "critical" means "urban."
Densely populated cities rely quite a bit on automation, facilitated by modern communication networks. Urban areas have a high population density. They are designated critical because they have more people per square mile than Billings, Montana.
If you live in NYC or LA, please explain why Billings, MT should care if you drown in your own sewage because your WiFi is down.
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Because Billings, MT receives a lot of money from NYC and LA.
In the US, urban areas subsidize rural areas.
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That is hilariously untrue, unless you think you can eat money.
Are you under the impression that rural areas buy all the food grown in rural areas?
Again, rural areas get money from urban areas. Both via government spending and the customers for what those rural areas produce.
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Rural living is the default condition for humans, it's what we evolved in.
No, we evolved in small hunter-gatherer tribes.
Then we figured out banding together and specialization resulted in higher output and towns and cities were formed.
Those towns and cities were surrounded by rural areas that sold food to the people in the cities.
Rural areas actually produce physical objects that are quite useful, namely food.
And that still doesn't change that rural areas get their money from urban areas.
Soo... (Score:2)
If we're going to add in the additional cost of preserving and maintaining the old systems that the new systems replaced, isn't it better to just use the old systems and save money by totally ditching the new ones?
Pneumatic Control FTW (Score:2)
Years ago, in my first job, I worked in a steel factory on control systems. They had a "gas plant" heated coal to extract coal gas for use elsewhere in the factory, which was a potentially hazardous environment, to put it politely. Despite the fire risk from the gas, they had to have electronic CO sensors for safety and to measure the gas quality, but those were designed to be safe in that environment. Beyond that, there were no electronics in the plant, nothing that could cause a spark. The control systems
Nobody knows about data diodes? (Score:2)
There's a thing, called a data diode... you have wild open internet on one side, and a safe network on the other.... data can only EXIT to the internet, and never enter... protected by the laws of physics themselves. You can monitor all you want, but never control, from the internet. These are the types of things we need to allow remote monitoring of stuff.
Yes, truly redundant systems should be kept in place... the FAA is phasing out a ton of VOR stations... but at least they've had the sense to keep a mi
Isn't that why we still have copper? (Score:2)
Therac-25 (Score:2)
Guess I'll keep my 56k modem? (Score:2)
Quick! Get me (Score:2)
We also need another Internet ... (Score:2)
... because the current one is trashed out.
Once business got their fucking tentacles snaking across the infrastructure, shit went downhill.
Tor is a failed attempt, but it's a good try.
worse yet (Score:1)
Re:Oblig (Score:4, Insightful)
Mechanical offline safeties wouldn't be a bad idea for a lot of things.
Re: Oblig (Score:2)
If critical infrastructure fallback systems are economically obsolete, it says a lot about the obsolescence of that economic system.
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Don't disagree. But the phrase you're looking for is probably "adequacy of that economic system." The notion that maximizing efficiency/minimizing costs will produce the best of all possible worlds seems a bit suspect.
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That's what we're currently trying to do. Doesn't seem to be working all that well though.
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Is this the best we can do? Rely on economically obsolete systems as a backup for cyberattacks?
Calling it 'economically obsolete' indicates that you've fallen for the propaganda of the voodoo economists whose 'live for today / profit is king' attitudes have already fucked us over so badly. There is nothing 'economically obsolete' about having that spare tire in your trunk, (and knowing how to change a tire), because it could save your ass in some nasty circumstances. It's incredibly old-school and seems almost quaint in this era of cell phones, auto clubs, and urban sprawl - and it costs the manufact
Re:Easy (Score:5, Interesting)
If you install a fiber connection to it, and power it with a belt driven generator (driven by an electric motor sitting outside the cage), you can safely use it via remote terminal without compromising the integrity of the Faraday cage.
An EMP might take out the remote terminal and external motor, but everything inside will be fine. Since you still have a working belt-driven generator, you can use a lawnmower engine or something to drive the belt, and run your electronics even without a working power grid.
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It depends mostly on the complexity. If I designed a toaster oven firmware you wouldn't be able to find someone who could hack it. Because I'd do formal verification and prove it to be correct, and it would be easy to do so since it is a simple system. But if you have a heterogeneous networked environment, then designing for security quickly spirals out of control. It's theoretically possible to create an unhackable system in a complex environment, but it may actually be impossible to prove it to be secure,
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Then your house burns down, sorry.
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The system is secure as long as you don't have physical access to my toaster.
Obviously you can plug it into the wrong voltage (110? 220?), or stuff it full of newspapers and cause all sorts of havoc.
And the manufacture may have built it out of spec, and left out the water sensor that prevents you from killing yourself with a toaster in the bathtub.
Re:Copper is also digital (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course not. What they want is to quit using an obviously insecure technology designed for entertainment and casual communication for command and control of critical infrastructure. Maybe the internet can actually be secured. But so far, all the signs seem to say that it can not be -- at least not any time soon.
Like the his faithful Indian companion Tonto used to ask the old Lone Ranger. "What now Kimosabe?"
At least, these guys have a plan of sorts. Leave the phone lines in place. The financial community's response to similar problems is to pretend the problems don't exist. Anyone want to bet on THAT ending well?
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Maybe the internet can actually be secured. But so far, all the signs seem to say that it can not be -- at least not any time soon
The Internet is pretty secure. The issues with unauthenticated updates to BGP were fixed a couple of years back and I don't remember anything major since then. The endpoints connected to the Internet are a very different matter, but unless you're advocating typewriters then they're largely unavoidable.
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Hey, somebody could break into my den and use my typewriter to write ransom notes. Or they could steal my pen and use it to send out advertisements to oh, a dozen other people. Since my front door lock is a zwave device, they could even do this as part of a cyberattack.
This is only half kidding. From times ancient, computer security has been a tradeoff between the risks associated with any given level of security and the benefits obtained by operating at that level. You can run your computer wearing no
Re: Copper is also digital (Score:1)
I'm pretty sure copper meant anologue twisted pair, and was meant as a stand in for "80s and before tech "
The pneumatic tubes I took to mean mechanical switches, rather than wires and computers to switches. For example the NYC subway still has pneumatic controls in points.
I don't see any advantage to direct dial and modems vs the internet though. A firewall can do the same thing.
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Direct dial? What is this direct dial of which you speak? Next think you know, you'll be talking about cradles for old-timey phones in black bakelite and 300 baud, and I'll have to run screaming from the room before the word "teletype" is uttered...
Pardon me, my goose-quill pen is almost dry and my inkwell was emptied by a passing goat. I'll be right back.
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What they want is to quit using an obviously insecure technology designed for entertainment and casual communication for command and control of critical infrastructure.
You have that backwards. The Internet was originally designed for command and control of critical (military) infrastructure. One of the core design goals was that it be able to survive nuclear war, which it does by supporting multiple paths for data, with automatic re-routing. We repurposed this military design first for education and then later for business and entertainment, and now for nearly everything.
Maybe the internet can actually be secured. But so far, all the signs seem to say that it can not be -- at least not any time soon.
Nonsense. The Internet is quite secure. But to make that statement mean anything we have to define wha
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Actually not. ARPAnet was designed to tie a few dozen facilities doing government research together using a packet switching network and allow them to communicate via a common protocol (TCP/IP). The notion that one would use a publically accessible packet switching network for military command and control would have been instantly rejected back then. (And, one would hope still woul
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too late for the analog phone system (Score:2)
existing equipment is basically being kept alive by cannibalizing the unused machines installed in the 1990s for spare cards. there are no analog phones being made any more, it's all chip on board stuff, the 5xx series type of phones are almost 40 years past production.