From: "Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri@netcom.com>
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1998 12:54:57 +0800
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Subject: SCADA in power grid
Message-ID: <199809090318.UAA21915@netcom13.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain





this is from http://www.garynorth.com/y2k/detail_.cfm/2439


                     Gary North's Y2K Links and Forums

                            Summary and Comments

                       (feel free to mail this page)
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       Category:  Power_Grid

           Date:  1998-08-29 13:57:30

        Subject:  The Convenient Lie:

            Link: http://y2ktimebomb.com/PP/RC/dm9834.htm

        Comment:  On August 27, I spoke before a meeting of 500
                  people -- 5% of a local town. At that meeting,
                  representatives of several industries spoke:
                  banking, telephone, electrical power.

                  When pressed by someone in the audience, the
                  representative of the power company insisted they
                  could run the entire company on manual systems
                  without compliant computers. Forget about
                  noncompliant chips. The company can do it manually.

                  I asked him straight: Can they run the SCADA
                  (supervisory control and data acquisition) system
                  without telecommunications? That's the computerized
                  system that tells them how much power is running
                  through the lines. "Yes," he said.

                  A week before I had been told by an engineer with a
                  large urban power company that without SCADA, they
                  would fry the lines permanently. "There is no way
                  we could run the system manually."

                  I guess engineers don't agree.

                  I told the audience this:

                  "No system can be switched to pre-computer manual
                  operations without training. Any outfit that claims
                  that it can be run manually had better have a
                  highly trained technical staff to take over in
                  2000. Does the outfit have a training manual? How
                  much training money has it budgeted?"

                  Any outfit that does not have the staff being
                  trained right now is lying when it says that it can
                  be run manually. It cannot be run manually by
                  phantom workers. The men who knew how to run it
                  manually were fired 30 years ago. The manual
                  systems were replaced. The industry did not spend
                  hundreds of billions of dollars on computerization
                  so as to have two separate operation systems. They
                  spent the money to get rid of manual systems.

                  Any time you hear some representative tell you his
                  public utility can be run manually, ask five
                  questions:

                  1. How many trained personnel do you need,
                  including substitutes, to run your system manually?

                  2. How many are currently undergoing training for
                  this task, and how many have finished it?

                  3. May I come in and see your training manual that
                  you use to train these people?

                  4. How much money has your company budgeted to
                  train this staff?

                  5. How much has already been spent?

                  You must call their bluff. They're lying. They have
                  no intention of trying to run anything manually.
                  It's just a PR ploy. It's Monica Lewinsky syndrome.
                  Nobody suffers any consequences for lying to the
                  public.

                  But can't they be sued for lying, i.e., misleading
                  the public? Not if all companies in the industry
                  collapse for the same reason. They will share the
                  blame, or pass it on to a higher authority: "An act
                  of God."

                  When you catch one of them in a lie this big, you
                  can rest assured: he knows that it can't be fixed
                  by anyone, so he knows he can't be successfully
                  sued.

                  Training to convert to manual systems won't work,
                  of course. The power industry can't be run
                  manually, and it's too late to fix the code.
                  Besides, nobody in the industry will pay any
                  attention to such warnings. But at least it lets
                  the industry know that you don't believe the lie
                  any more.

                  Dick Mills, who is a public optimist about the
                  power grid, recently issued a warning to the
                  industry: begin contingency planning. This includes
                  training. This is the best advice that anyone could
                  give the power industry -- not because the advice
                  could work at this late date, but because it's time
                  to call their bluff.

                  This is from Westergaard's site.

                  * * * * * * * * *

                  . . . Isn't there already a national emergency plan
                  in place for such as critical infrastructure such
                  as power? No, not to my knowledge. Please write and
                  tell me if I'm wrong.

                  Never before, has there been a threat to the power
                  system of such sweeping scope and magnitude as Y2K.
                  There was no need for a national electric-power
                  emergency plan. Prudence requires that we have such
                  a plan, not only for Y2K but also for other future
                  threats.

                  I foresee that this plan will need to span
                  national, state, local, public, private, utility
                  and non-utility boundaries. How might we accomplish
                  that? I've been told that existing presidential
                  executive orders allow the entire industry to be
                  nationalized at the stroke of a pen in case of
                  emergency. Thus the authority exists, but it will
                  do no good unless there are plans and trained
                  organizations in place to use it effectively.

                  There are numerous mitigating possibilities to be
                  considered. That is true of not only to electric
                  power but also to all industries and all facets of
                  the Y2K problem. . . .

                  It is already too late to finish Y2K remediation
                  for many companies, but it is not too late for
                  disaster preparations. To actually get practical
                  and practiced disaster preparedness plans in place,
                  we must accomplish three things. I see these three
                  as my working goals. I hope you do the same. . . .

                  We must plan, train, and practice the
                  implementation of emergency procedures. Those are
                  key elements of all emergency services like fire
                  and police. In the Y2K case, we have to combine
                  strangers into teams, invent new roles, and
                  practice. That takes time.

           Link:  http://y2ktimebomb.com/PP/RC/dm9834.htm

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