The infrastructure of industrialism is fragile and vulnerable

by Michael Smith Veshengro)

The infrastructure of industrialism is fragile and vulnerable, ripe for disruption and sabotage.
Weaknesses of security in the great majority of industrial control systems could allow hackers to create cataclysmic failures in infrastructure, according to researchers at the Black Hat security conference in 2013.

Our dependence on technology – fragile technology – to run everything from power stations and electricity grid, gas supplies, water supplies and even the transport system for supplies of food and good to the supermarkets and stores, might be the very undoing of the world as we know it today.

It does not require an EMP device detonated at altitude to knock out the infrastructure of nations. All it requires is hackers disrupting the system and making it crash and everyone is up the proverbial creek without a paddle.

The one this affects more than the big guys, however, is the average Joe on the street, so to speak for let's not believe for one moment that the powers-that-be will suffer. They will have their bunkers, their food supplies and their families taken care of.

Not only is the infrastructure of industrialism vulnerable to attacks by hackers and saboteurs, it is also vulnerable to solar flares and such like events. Such events, without even the need for any hacking, could send nations back into the stone age, at least for some time, by knocking out vital infrastructure, such as electricity, gas and water supplies, and the supply chains to the markets upon which people depend for their food.

We have become far too reliant on high-tech for almost everything and even our communications, not just telephone, whether ordinary or cell phone, are all dependent, on satellites and other high-tech means the breakdown of which, whether caused by hacking or other destructive force.

Considering also and especially the climate cataclysm and biosphere collapse being caused by global industry and its incessant greed, we must change how we live and how we work before it is too late.

We also have to consider that there is no factory or industrial production that is also sustainable as far as the environment and the Planet is concerned. That means that we need to return to less consumption and to products made by craftspeople and artisans, food from proper (local) farms and our own gardens and such, and making much more for ourselves, as was the way of our grandparents and their parents.

That does not, however, necessarily, mean that we have to return to the Dark Ages or even the nineteenth century for we do have means at our disposal, means that do not have to be polluting either in production, to generate electricity, to produce – yes, produce – gas for cooking and even heating, but we will have to make changes in how we use this electricity and gas and we will have to get away from the motorcar and get back to human-powered, and animal-powered, means of transportation.

When it comes to electricity and other energy consumption we simply use too much, and it is not (just) households that are at fault here but industry and businesses in general, as well as government, local and central.

Do office buildings really need to be illuminated all through the night when no one is home? Do street lighting have to be on all through the night? Do our motorways in Britain really have to be lit up at night? And government has the audacity to shout at households to stop wasting energy, even though we must stop wastage in the home too.

However, the stand-by setting and some other supposed power hogs are not at all and this becomes evident to anyone who uses a power meter in the home such as “The Owl” or similar. But the government and some agencies keep telling us that that is where most of the power is supposedly wasted while not looking at their own stoop first.

When it comes to where we live and work and how we live and work then, yes, we need to take a step back, even in time, and get back to some sensibility and normality.

We cannot continue to commute hundreds of miles to our places of work and then travel back to our dormitory towns and villages of an evening. We need to work again where we live and live where we work and, although this might be a little more difficult, under the same roof, well, almost.

Our towns and villages must become vibrant communities again where people not just sleep but actually live and work, and our cities must be repopulated again and made liveable. And electric power and other energy must be generated and created locally in close proximity too where people live and work and with renewables this is not a health issue as was the case with the coal-fired electricity plants in London in the early days.

We must decentralize power generation so that no event, man-made or natural, can knock out every bit of power from the entire nation, for instance. The Second World War and the attacks on power stations and especially the hydro-electric dams, by the Allied forces on German areas, such as in the Ruhr Valley, that managed to knock out a great deal of the area and further afield and crippling industry should be just one example as to the why of decentralizing power generation and energy production.

Decentralized power generation means that it is far harder to wreak such havoc and even more so if renewables are in play as in “every building a power plant” with solar, wind, etc. generation methods.

But we must also de-technify (sorry, just invented that word) the controls and the distribution so that no hacker or EMP event can knock the systems out and thus the lights.

While I am no Luddite and use computers to a great extent, thus not advocating that we got rid of everything computerized, I also know their vulnerability and not just to hackers and electromagnetic pulse and this includes lightning strike.

The talk is often as to “hardening the infrastructure” against such events but that is a great deal easier said that done and thus we need to cut ourselves off from the over-dependence on technological controls and return to a more manageable way of doing things. But with local power plants and such like this is extremely easy and easier still with electricity generation on each and every building for use by the building and with surplus going to the neighborhood.

Only by changing the way that we live and work and the way we do things can we prevent a breakdown and total destruction of the Planet.

Small is beautiful...

© 2013

Blackout Channel 4TV

A “review” by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

“Blackout” was a feature-length 'What-If' drama exploring the effects of a devastating cyber-attack on Britain's national electricity grid that was broadcast in the beginning of September 2013 on Channel 4 TV in the UK.

Based on expert advice and meticulous research, Blackout combined real user-generated footage, alongside fictional scenes, CCTV archive and news reports to build a terrifyingly realistic account of Britain being plunged into darkness.

The film plotted the days following a nationwide power cut, as experienced by a cast of ordinary characters struggling to feed and protect themselves and their families. These eyewitness accounts reveal the disastrous impact of a prolonged blackout on hospitals, law and order, transport, and our food and water supplies.

The program cast members of the public from user-generated footage, weaving real-life archive with scripted drama to tell the story of how Britain could descend into chaos and anarchy without power.

It is rather a wake-up call but amazing how many people, judging from Twitter and other communications in regards to this TV pilot, as to how vulnerable the electricity grid is and that their TVs are also powered by the grid. And comments like that are rather scary. Britain seems be becoming more and more Americanized, also in stupidity.

A number of interesting points were raised, so to speak, in the program and people would do well to understand and to heed them.

Number one is that there are priorities and that the government is not going to be able to protect and provide for the individual and that people will be, more or less, on their own.

The fact that everything is, basically, reliant on electricity almost nothing will work and that includes telephone, Internet, television and wireless (radio) reception only via battery-powered or wind-up radios. Gas and water also will be affected and will not work, that includes the water treatment plants and thus it is advisable to have alternative means and prepping is very important.

Supermarkets and shops in general rely on daily deliveries and in a crisis will be out of food and bottled water within an hour ow two and thus having a supply of food and water at home is important.

However, and this message was also given loud and clear, if you are making and having your own preps, including generator and such, do not broadcast it far and wide but keep it well under your hat.

While in the movie people kept using their cell phones it has to be understood that (1) in the event of any crisis, as we saw in London with 7/7 the cell phone network will be prioritized for emergency services use ONLY and thus the ordinary user will be left in the dark, and not just as far as the lights are concerned. And (2) that the batteries of such devices do not last for ever and most of them will be dead within hours if they have to be trying to lock onto a signal all the time.

Fuel will be for essential services only and the ordinary motorist better understand that he will have no chance to get the stuff. Thus driving around looking for fuel or trying to get to somewhere is not going to work, aside from the fact that, which was not shown in the program though, most places will be locked down under emergency powers. You will not be able to leave the area where you are and it has to be understood that under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 the armed forces will be deployed on the streets and a lot earlier than the movie suggests. And you can bet your bottom dollar that they will not just be there with batons to keep order. They will be authorized to use lethal force as they deem appropriate.

That means that even if you have a full tank in your car, which will not get you all that far, you may not be able to use it to leave your area. Better also consider some means of alternative transport such as and especially the humble bicycle. Not that the towns and cities will be very safe to be out and about with that either.

Even once such a crisis ends, as in this scenario the electricity grid having been reestablished food and other commodities may still be days or weeks away before they turn up again in the supermarkets, if the latter have not been looted and burned out, requiring some time to rebuild and restock.

Our electricity grid is not just vulnerable to cyber attacks and thus making it not “smart” at all but also to electromagnetic pulse (EMP) which can come about as a result of enemy action as well as from natural sources such solar flares of the right magnitude or the explosion of an asteroid in the Earth's atmosphere. In the latter cases this could knock out more than just one country's electricity network and EMP will do more damage than any cyber attack possibly could.

What also does not work in any such event are ATMs and only cash will do. But when you have got all your money, as most of us have, in the bank then getting at it will be impossible. “Oh, for that reason you should hold gold and silver coins”, say many preppers. OK, and you show me a filling station, in such a crisis, where they will accept gold and silver coins as payment.

In fact, almost everything depends on electricity and computer networks and that includes your bank and even if they would be open they would not be able to open the safe. It has a time delay lock that is, guess what?, powered by electricity. The way things are when the grid fails – this “smart” grid – we are all basically screwed.

Instead of investing in an ever more sophisticate “smart grid” the government should concentrate on localized renewable power generation so that the grid would hardly matter anymore, and allowing communities to create their own power systems.

The movie also so rightly pointed out, as with the words of the “survivalist”, that people are stupid when it comes to such a situation in that the looters took plasma TVs and other such items for which they would need electricity, not that anyone would support looting, I am sure.

Hopefully this movie served as a wake-up call for many who saw it to the fact that (1) our electricity grid is extremely vulnerable to cyber attacks and, alas though this was not mentioned, EMP, (2) that we cannot rely on the authorities in such an incident (or any other for that matter) and (3) that one needs to make some preparations for such events and that means having food and water and other supplies at home (but without letting the entire neighborhood know).

As far as radio reception is concerned it will have to be battery-powered or wind-up and for person-to-person communications you will have to think of things other that cell phone or even landline. Two-way radios are useful for family short range communications but they, and that is to be remembered, are NOT secure.

As the movie also made clear, though it could have done more on it and properly, bugging out is not an option as you will be stuck for, unlike in the movie, the authorities will shut down towns and cities much faster than it showed and secondly you will not be able to rely on obtaining fuel for a motor vehicle if that is your option of travel.

How far do you think even a full tank of fuel in your car, even if there are no roadblocks, will get you, especially if you live in the big urban areas? Not very far at all and not far enough to do your own thing.

Be prepared and prepared to hunker down, to bug in, rather than to bug out.

© 2013