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Technology Thursday
Spies have hacked into our electrical grid. At least that's what the Wall Street Journal reported recently.
The spies came from China, Russia and other countries, these officials said, and were believed to be on a mission to navigate the U.S. electrical system and its controls. The intruders haven't sought to damage the power grid or other key infrastructure, but officials warned they could try during a crisis or war.
"The Chinese have attempted to map our infrastructure, such as the electrical grid," said a senior intelligence official. "So have the Russians."
[...]
Officials said water, sewage and other infrastructure systems also were at risk. "Over the past several years, we have seen cyberattacks against critical infrastructures abroad, and many of our own infrastructures are as vulnerable as their foreign counterparts," Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair recently told lawmakers. "A number of nations, including Russia and China, can disrupt elements of the U.S. information infrastructure."
The other day I posted about the cybersecurity bill that a couple of Senators have proposed. Threats like this are obviously something proponents of more centralized cybersecurity efforts have in mind. A version of that proposed legislation is available at Open Congress.
China, of course, is denying any involvement in any infiltration. A blogger over at Wired is skeptical about the anonymous U.S. sources who spoke to the WSJ and wonder whether talking up vulnerabilities in various infrastructures, including the electrical grid, is meant to lay the groundwork for giving the government and intelligence agencies more control. I suspect all of the above may be true. Our various infrastructures are vulnerable, crumbling, and run-down - in part due to decades of ideological anti-government rhetoric suggesting that government investment in anything is inappropriate. The Chinese (and the Russians and..) are almost certainly gathering information about U.S. infrastructure vulnerabilities, just as we're gathering information about theirs. And the intelligence agencies almost certainly do want more authority and control over many aspects of U.S. infrastructure.
So it's a fine mess. The upshot, though, is that our infrastructure--not just the electrical grid, but transportation, communication, water, and so on--is vulnerable, not only to monitoring by other nations and potential disruption during (or to cause) a crisis, but also to more benign sorts of failures and malfunctions due to lack of maintenance and simple wear-and-tear. These are not the sorts of challenges that individuals or even small groups can meet on their own. Nor are they the sorts of problems that politicians are likely to campaign on. But they merit thoughtful attention and ultimately action at the local, state, and federal levels.
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