Palestinian authorities ask Gazans not to film rocket launches from private homes: Links 1, 2021

1. Are there any engineers reading this site that can offer comment on this video? The claim is its a pipeline engineer, and this crisis is manufactured, as the oil can be made to flow with manual valves and the computer aspect is not critical.

***UPDATE*** This guy is totally wrong. It cannot be fixed manually, and a five million dollar ransom was paid right away despite protestations about it initially. In fact the pipeline had been well and truly crippled by the hackers. This is the fault of many presidents not having paid any serious attention to CYBERSEC since George Bush.

2. Its funny how yesterday’s “right wing conspiracy nut” is today’s oracle at Delphi

 The continuing miniaturization of electronics is opening up some exciting possibilities when it comes to what we might place in our bodies to monitor and improve our health. Engineers at Columbia University have demonstrated an extreme version of this technology, developing the smallest single-chip system ever created, which could be implanted with a hypodermic needle to measure temperature inside the body, and possibly much more.

3. Randy Hillier: This Week in Covid

4. Gaza’s leaders are asking people not to film rockets being launched from civilian homes cause you know.. uh oh!

5. Florida Governor DeSantis reminds us what a sane leader sounds like.

Thank you all for your participation in the excellent conversation that the comments on the reader’s links have become. Today was a meeting day, so we are a little behind on posting. But there is much goodness to come.

About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

15 Replies to “Palestinian authorities ask Gazans not to film rocket launches from private homes: Links 1, 2021”

  1. For some years I was developing software for gas station, in order to monitoring and automated different processes. I don’t know how things are done in USA, but in all my software there was always a possibility to switch from automatic to semi automatic and manual control. As extra precautions, every 24 hours there was a full backup of all data. In worst case, you just disconnect the affected computers and switch to reserved systems. There were always minimum 2 computers with image of the control system ready to replace the main control computers in case of fail. And usually, all pumps and valves have also manual control. So, I suspect intention in all this shutdown.

    • When you talk about this kind of infrastructure at this scale and importance, only a retard will build a control system with only automatic control based on software.

    • Only a retard will build a system based only on computer control for such infrastructure.

    • Fully automated systems are in use for not so long. How did they manage to function in 1950’s, 1960’s, 1970’s?

    • If things are as stated in your update, that the systems can’t be controlled manually…then… I have no words…

    • I must say that at a moment we also had ransomware attacks. I was having special systems monitoring communications and all communications were cut with the exterior when the security programs detected the attack…After 2 control servers were affected, took 27 minutes until all systems were up and running. I must say that most attacks were from USA, China, Pakistan. At a moment I was surprised to find that from MIT (USA) we were having many attempts to penetrate the security. But, there were security programs made by me…we never used known commercial software. Because at a moment in time (as a young programmer) I was also playing with hacking.

      • I just hope that the USA national electric systems are not build using the same logic. Or water systems.

  2. I completely agree with you, Stefan. If there exists an automated-only piping system in the world I have not seen it, and I have spent my life around piping systems in various parts of Canada. I will go so far as to say automated-only systems don’t exist because they cannot.

    For the pipeline to be manually unfixable means that all valves on the system have no handles! Therefore the most important question is why were men not sent to the field to open them?

    • It is stupidity at extreme to build a system that can explode, using only software controlled systems. Even if you fool yourself with the over estimated AI, you should not build such stupid systems. Human workers have something AI will never be able to comprehend: INTUITION.

  3. Ref: ransomware of pipeline
    I work in CyberSec, but not with PLCs, I’ve discussed with people who do work on PLC security this side of the border, I understand there is a very similar setup, which is now pretty much international. PLCs is what they were locked out of, not the actual valves, and it’s not a matter of just bypassing a couple, it’s many thousands of PLCs, and it’s not just the valves, that’s only a few of them, there are monitors / pressure sensors and such.
    Seen conflicting news, but I understand they paid the ransom immediately, and were not given a working decryption key.

    • Retards.
      I never exposed in my work the industrial network (intranet controlling PLC’s and functional equipment) to internet. This is first rule.
      I was working one year to build a software capable to mirror intranet control servers on internet, without giving direct access to intranet. When an engineer push a button on the screen, from home, the action was send to a server analyzer of the action. If the action is identified as not logic, it was not executed.
      In everything I was doing, security was always my main focus. I prefer to have 5 workers watching the pressure indicators and react correct when pressure can destroy everything, than relaying 100% on computers and PLC’s.
      I was working in oil industry and industrial robots/CNC networks.
      Even when you do an update to your devices, first you verify in a virtual environment and only after everything passes the virtual test is diploid to physical devices. If you have an error, you can blow a country literally.
      Second, all your PLC devices have a parallel security manually (analog) electric control system. If a PLC stops/stuck/burn/explode, then you have a parallel valve, motor, pump…manually controlled to override the error. At least in important points. I can’t believe a national petroleum network rely only on automatic computer controlled devices and PLC’s. If you can’t control by computer, you just press a button with your finger and open/close a parallel analog device on the same pipe/container/pump system in case of alarm or malfunction.
      Of course, the automatization is a massive network of electric devices, sensors, surveillance, all connected to a central point from where the industrial process is manipulated. But eliminating the backup manually controlled systems ?
      You might be right, and everything is just PLC/computer controlled. But this is proof of imbecility.
      Next time they should use the IoT devices…to make it more funny. Specially in nuclear power plants.
      And then…paying and not getting the key…pfff.. ..that’s a good scenario for a movie about idiots.

      • Ohh, you do know the systems well.
        I work in a pretty complex environment, we use DMZs, to get into “backend” we jump through hoops, won’t go into detail, but 5FA might not be an exaggeration. with only a few staff needing that access very manageable.
        “But this is proof of imbecility”, I understand there are many more staff needing that level of access, its around 5000km of pipeline and I know the push back when security slows down operation, this is going to be on management, training and cost cutting.
        I don’t see an issue with automating stuff like this for reliability, relying on the technology is great, that’s what they claim they have. But they obviously did not have a proper security and definitely no tested DRP, they tried to restore from backups first, found that was too slow, so shelled out the 5m, they got the decryption key, they started decrypting, then that took too long also, so they ran decryption and restore in tandem.
        Total incompetence, probably going back decades. and this disaster prob won’t even hit them financially. It’s the consumers that were hit, essential infra, even if a public company needs to be answerable. And maybe the feds need to give it oversight.

  4. Piping systems are a series of pipes, fittings, valving and controls. If you hook your control up to the internet you deserve to be hacked idiot. This stuff has been around for decades and my guess this is all BS. New Green Deal test just like the FauxFlu! Face it…you are being probed for weakness American Serf.
    R