From the department of “No”
I’ve quickly created the very poorly drawn diagram above to ruthlessly dismiss the infuriating notion that’s floating around the news today that “’Anonymous’ May Soon be able to Hack Power Grid”. Fear mongering at it’s worst and nothing more.
Firstly, as the image above attempts to illustrate: A black hat hacker on the internet has no access to the systems that actually control the flow of power: Power Plants, Distribution Lines, and Substations. These are controlled by local and remote control panels that don’t communicate using the internet, instead generally relying upon outdated serial protocols and point-to-point radio links. Someone with physical access to these lines may quickly be able to gain access, but their presence would be evident, and they couldn’t do it from home.
Now, local power grids may communicate with other grids and statewide ISOs (Independent System Operators) about how much power they’re generating and using, but they do not directly control systems over these links. Power consumption and generation is generally fairly predictable, so if a hacker could manipulate this data, his ruse would likely be evident. A group of hackers could also DDOS an ISO to strike some turmoil into the energy marketplace, however thankfully these people have telephones, and generally will just call each other to coordinate when the network is down.
Some “Smart Grid” technologies allegedly do just allow telnet access into critical systems, but this is very rarely implemented for the obvious reason: It’s the stupidest god damn idea anyone has ever had.
Now lets review the critical point here:
If Anonymous can gain control of the power grid, so could rouge nations, terrorist groups, separatist movements, disgruntled former employees, disenfranchised teenagers, american idol rejectees, scientologists, time travelers, space aliens, and anyone else with dial up and time to learn.
So if that’s the case, which I really doubt it is, but if that’s ACTUALLY the case: Don’t speak out about Anonymous, dear feds… GO FIX THE FUCKING POWER GRID.
