Bill would give president emergency control of Internet

[Tagus]

Yo man...can you hook me up?

Radioactive high, now that's a trip.

I do have a nice selection of drugs that I could use to determine if you're brain dead or not due to altered regional cerebral perfusion..........

Medical humor zing is worth double burn points btw.

[pohibaba]

You're aware that Obama has nothing to do with this, right?

Do you think that he would sign the bill if it reached his office? If so then he's just as culpable as whoever wrote and voted on it.

[Tagus]

Don't know why you're apologizing.

America's Hackable Backbone - Forbes.com

"In retrospect, Lunsford says--and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission agrees--that government-mandated safeguards would have prevented him from triggering a nuclear meltdown."

This study happened two years ago during the course of extensive testing by the NRC to try to determine loopholes in the networks of our facilities so that they could be eliminated. Here are a list of some of the new requirements since the study in question:

10 CFR 73.54 Protection of digital computer and communication systems and networks.

It's just these kind of fear-mongering articles that the government use to get control of what they want. It's not retarded by any means to suggest that we have security issues with our systems or that there is no reason to search for ways to improve them, but the government stepping in is never the solution. Hell, they can't even run themselves.

[netz]

"In retrospect, Lunsford says--and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission agrees--that government-mandated safeguards would have prevented him from triggering a nuclear meltdown."

This study happened two years ago during the course of extensive testing by the NRC to try to determine loopholes in the networks of our facilities so that they could be eliminated. Here are a list of some of the new requirements since the study in question:

Yeah, I only linked that article because it went contrary to what everybody else in the thread was suggesting Hacking a nuclear reactor apparently wasn't too unthinkable an idea in the not-too-distant past... not sure why anyone is surprised that things might not be, or might not have been, as secure as they should be.

However, it definitely isn't justification for letting anyone, the president included, arbitrarily disconnect whatever network they think is a "risk" on a whim.

[Tagus]

Yeah, I only linked that article because it went contrary to what everybody else in the thread was suggesting Hacking a nuclear reactor apparently wasn't too unthinkable an idea in the not-too-distant past... not sure why anyone is surprised that things might not be, or might not have been, as secure as they should be.

However, it definitely isn't justification for letting anyone, the president included, arbitrarily disconnect whatever network they think is a "risk" on a whim.

It isn't even the threat of disconnection that bothers me to be honest... it's the threat that the government could come into essentially any private network at any time and make suggestions for "improvements" and have the absolute power to enforce them. I can see it already... for our particular site they would likely run some sort of an audit that determines that we need something. For example, and here's a fucking stupid item if I ever heard of one... a proximity badge. They would then take bids from vendors for the contract on proximity badges, give the bid to whoever their particular favorite was (i.e. they gained the most from choosing), and six months later I'd be required to wear a badge that logs me off my computer when I exit an 8 foot radius of the PC for security purposes, thus making my job much more difficult to do while providing no benefit of any kind AND costing my company money that somehow ends up, all told, back in the government's pockets.

[blkswrdsmn]

Ok, who is this Bill character, and how does he have the authority to give control of the internet to people?

[Tagus]

Ok, who is this Bill character, and how does he have the authority to give control of the internet to people?

some assfag who gets paid in anal rape and likes making my job more difficult in the name of homeland fucking security.

[Tagus]

IIRC, this is pretty old. I remember reading something similar about this bill like 2 months ago? Still, the fear mongering bullshit aspect of it hasn't changed. Eunhye has been on an Obama-trolling spin as of late, gets him/her off I would assume. Not that disagreeing with the president is bad, just trolling with fear mongering is lol'able. Almost as funny as the RNC Emails trying to tell people that if the Gov finds out you're a republican they're denying you health care, lol.

Oh, also lol@google ads, before I logged in:

Spoiler: show

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lastly, I almost spit out my water reading BRPs comment.

edit:
it's great to see the nuclear experts coming out to defend something that is slightly irrelivant to the topic. Now all we need is BG Legal to show up and that's /thread

@ your edit... it was totally irrelevant, yes... but the threat of a nuclear site being hacked was the only example anyone could give for why this bill could be considered a good idea. When it's a setting that you work in every day and somebody says something you don't think has any merit, why not speak your mind? It might be pointless, but so is lol@google ads.

[Kryssan]

"In retrospect, Lunsford says--and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission agrees--that government-mandated safeguards would have prevented him from triggering a nuclear meltdown."

Gotta love scare tactics.

However, it does seem like the interconnectivity problem I posed earlier is available for hacking. Which means they can control the powergrid. While that is a problem, seeing as people losing power is a bad thing, the whole 'prevent him from triggering a nuclear meltdown' is so stupid it's hard to even fathom. He couldn't trigger a meltdown because he doesn't have access to the reactor controls.

As I stated earlier, the actual I&C systems aren't connected to anything. The only type of remote monitoring on I&C systems involves taking a camera and pointing it at the meters and gauges on the control boards. That's it. It's impossible to control the reactor from anywhere except the I&C boards themselves - which aren't connected to anything network wise. It would be possible to remove power to those boards by manipulating the electric plant, but what that would gain you... is a whole lot of nothing. Remove power from the boards, the reactor SCRAMs, end of story. At that point its just a DHR issue. A lot of the plants have been modified with passive systems now, and those that haven't have engineered safeguards with backup power supplies that once again aren't connected to a network - they're solely for the reactor systems, so they don't need to be monitored as part of the electric grid as they don't supply power to it.

It doesn't surprise me the electric plant however is available for people to manipulate. The grid itself is massively outdated, and tests have proven on several occasions that outside influences can manipulate it if they want. I know several plants have upgraded their site LAN systems to be more robust and localized (not just nuclear plants), but some things are still going to require communication across network links, and the civilian plants aren't required to encrypt that particular datastream. The only parts that are required to be encrypted are the nuclear grade ones; although, I can't speak for all the plants. I know of about half a dozen (nuclear plants; no idea about nonnukes) that maintain separate networks, like they're supposed to, for the two sides of the house, but I'm not going to say they all do that.

At any rate, the worse a hacker can do as I stated previously is change modes of regulation, turn off turbine generators, etc. Could they do damage that way? Hell yeah. Electricity does cool things (and by that I mean instances involving St. Elmo's fire) when you reverse power stuff. The reactor side of it isn't affected by any of this, however.

[AoE]

the la li lu le lo

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...ome_Smiley.png

[Cephius]

@ your edit... it was totally irrelevant, yes... but the threat of a nuclear site being hacked was the only example anyone could give for why this bill could be considered a good idea. When it's a setting that you work in every day and somebody says something you don't think has any merit, why not speak your mind? It might be pointless, but so is lol@google ads.

It really was the only thing that came to mind as a worst-case scenario. I posted it without thinking that clearly any system that could cause a meltdown would be isolated from the outside.

Still, there are plenty of other things that are controlled by computers and probably aren't secure as they could be. Most railroad switches are computer controlled. Subway trains rarely have human operators on them anymore. Dams and hydroelectric power plants are almost completely controlled by computers remotely. Are all these systems secure against hackers? Probably not.

The wording of the bill as proposed is bad and I doubt it'll get passed as worded. Any time the government puts a hand of control on anything in the private sector, you need to be careful. But I think the point of this is to save lives in the event something is compromised. The article mentions how Bush grounded all flights in the US after 9/11 happened. Does anyone think that was a bad idea? I think this is meant to have the power to do a similiar thing, but only in extraordinary circumstances that we hope never happen.

[ertyu]

Do you think that he would sign the bill if it reached his office? If so then he's just as culpable as whoever wrote and voted on it.

You'll have to forgive Seno, if the govt. passes something good he'll be the first to say "omg look what Obama just did to help us all!" and if it's something bad he'll say "It's not like this was all his doing"

And also, I think people are taking what Ceph said way too literally. I think he was just giving some form of example that the president having this sort of power would be a good thing, and that he wouldn't automatically be like "Ok guys, shut down 4chan" for no reason.

[Kirin]

Nevermind.

[Skjie]

You're all talking like every major government in the world isn't being attacked every single moment right now.

[Khamsin]

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g2...madagascar.gif