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

Massive solar flare sparks solar storm; possible threat to power grid, computers

Disruptions to power grids, satellite navigation systems and computer systems feared

By Michael Smith (Veshengro)

On June 7, 2011 the US Space Administration (NASA) registered the strongest solar storm since 2006 and it is feared that it could affect systems on Earth.

The most benign effect assumed will be increases aurora activities, that is to say it should be possible to witness awesome polar lights.

Other effects, on the other hand, which would be far from benign, could be damage to satellites, interruptions and other problems by the transmission of satellite communication and data, such as GPS, because of an increased mass of electrons in the ionosphere. Disruptions to power- and communications networks through induction are also possible.

While this event was bad enough, so to speak, space-weather experts are concerned about future solar events.

The sun's 11-year cycle of activity, driven by tangled surface magnetic fields, will hit its maximum in late 2013 or early 2014. Magnetic messiness will peak around that time and prompt nasty solar storms.

We will, however, probably see [extreme] flares every couple of months instead of years and if one of these powerful flares – and its coronal mass ejection – faces Earth, the particles will pound satellite components with charged particles, short some out, and potentially cripple them.

On the planet's surface, extra currents of solar particles drive extra electric current through power lines and heat them up. A solar storm in 1859, for example, caused telegraph lines to burst into flames. Power companies distribute loads to avoid such a disaster, but energetic solar storms could still blow transformers and lead to power outages, especially during heat waves like the one sweeping the eastern U.S. this week.

"Despite great countermeasures, the power grid is still vulnerable and we could be in for some serious problems, and not just, as if this were not bad enough, as regards the power grid. Communications, which today more often than not rely on satellites also could be severely crippled and impossible for days, if not longer.

This also could seriously effect and impact on aviation and maritime traffic as all communications, nowadays, are dependent on satellites, as does the navigational systems of aircraft and ships.

Yet another proof, if any more proof would be needed, that we have become too reliant and dependent on vulnerable high-tech equipment which could be put out of action by electromagnetic pulse and fields.

Individual computer centers could be secured by use of a Faraday cage and the same could, probably, be achieved for the PC at home, but the problem is that the Internet, the system of communication that we have become so dependent upon, and that includes me, as I am no Luddite, can and will suffer under such “attacks.”

So far, as time of writing, several days after the event on the sun, nothing awful seems to have happened so far but, as some scientists stated, it could be several days before the impact could be felt with all power.

This may, on the other hand, just be a “shot across the bow” and should be used as a wakeup call to harden our critical infrastructure systems and the Net is part of that critical infrastructure.

© 2011

Fragility of the power grid

by Michael Smith

The catastrophic failure of only two electricity generating plants in Britain, including the nuclear power station “Sizewell II”, in May 2008 should really have brought home to all and sundry but at least and especially to those in power that something must be done to protect the people and the country's infrastructure from such an event ever occurring again.

While I do know that there will always be the possibility of a fluke incident, as this may just have been one of, this, however, proves how extremely vulnerable we are in this country – and probably not just in this country alone – due to our highly centralized electricity generating industry.

Also to a degree the fact that most of our utility companies are foreign owned, and one is hard pressed to find one that is still a British one. Even “nPower” whose agents keep claiming that they are a green company and wholly British is foreign owned, namely by RWE of Germany.

The majority of our power stations are huge, not to say, gigantic, and far, far away from where people live and the power is actually consumed.

They, as individual stations, supply millions of households, as well as businesses, hospitals, schools, and so on.

The total failure of already only one of those can cause severe problems and also put a strain then of gigantic proportions onto the national electricity grid. If more than one station goes out then we are getting into serious trouble already and the power will, probably, go out to tens of thousands of homes, businesses and other places and this, obviously, can have rather serious impact on so many things. In some cases such failures can cause loss of life.

Fritz Schumacher in his books “Small is beautiful” suggested the things that we are, I know, finally coming to, namely localized power generating plants and people thought him crazy in those days of the 1960s when everything that was being build in that department had to be ever bigger and hence further away from the actual electricity consumer. And the fact that those stations then supply thousands upon thousands of homes, businesses, offices, and other establishment has then tremendous negative implications in the even of a failure.

Local power generating plants, as once advocated by F Schumacher and others, myself included, are now, finally, being looked at and they also make sense not just in the supply issue and the issue of a failure of the huge power stations.

Locally generated electricity can be of a lower voltage rating than that which is being generated far away and needs to travel a long distance. The power loss over the long distance in the cables is being compensated for by the extreme high voltages with which the electricity is leaving the power stations, in many cases those are 20,000 volts and more.

In order to generate that amount we waste a lot of resources and locally generated electricity would be better for everyone and here we could work on less than 1,000 volts and more than likely even directly at commercial and domestic current.

Both the environmental aspect of small local power plants and the savings in resources are important on the level of protecting the national infrastructure as well as the environment. Thus local CHP facilities, for instance, would kill two birds with one stone and also that many of those could be powered, say, by methane from sewerage plants or from waste wood and thus reduce the impact and also our reliance on oil and gas.

The fact is that those large power stations are not as economical as they once were tauted to be for they do waste a lot of resources in the production of the very high current that is required in order to transport the power over the long distance that it has to travel to its final destination, the end-consumer, to you and me at home, to our offices, factories, schools and hospitals, and everywhere else.

While the UK currently still produces oil and natural gas and is even a seller of same on the world market in the not so distant future Britain will have to become, once again, a net importer of oil and gas and then we are at the mercy of the likes of the Russian Federation and other such states and can be held to ransom over gas and oil supplies.

Smaller power stations, and here ideally local area CHPs, can go a long way towards this country's self-reliance as far as electricity is concerned, especially as other fuels can be employed here, as already indicated.

This would be good, as said, as regards the protection of the environment and the protection of the infrastructure of the nation.

© M Smith (Veshengro), January 2009
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