Emergency declared and curfew imposed following North Carolina power grid attack

https://www.thepilot.com/news/emergency-declared-and-curfew-ordered-following-moore-power-grid-attack/article_b3b19780-7370-11ed-865d-c78d0de5d921.html

by anigbrowl • 4 years ago

214 229 4 years ago

thepilot.com

Shank• 4 years ago

This is a dead-ringer for the Metcalf sniper attack: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/02/05/272015606...

Edit: dead-wringer => dead-ringer

makeworld• 4 years ago

Seems like some group is making another test of their abilities. Perhaps gathering data on government response and repair times.

Makes me wonder if a coordinated multi-location strike is coming sometime in the future. Scary stuff.

bigbillheck• 4 years ago

What do you mean 'some group', those anti-trans people pretty much admitted to it.

dontbenebby4• 4 years ago

Alternatively you could notice how few of these things have happened since this article was published in 2014 and realize the kind of crazy that wants to end the world rarely has the executive function to do the needful :-)

candiddevmike• 4 years ago

Is is scary, especially after reading about how perilous black starts might be and the scarce sourcing of power equipment.

defrost2• 4 years ago

No need to invoke a large group when one or two individuals are quite capable of driving around several unattended stations and firing multiple rounds into transmission equipment.

It's not that difficult to know which bits to target for the greatest fallover effect.

anigbrowl14• 4 years ago

Not coordinated, think open source insurgency not unlike those in Iraq or Syria.

rnd03• 4 years ago

Makes me wonder if a coordinated multi-location strike is coming sometime in the future.

Well...yes. Of course it is.

If for no other reason than there are a lot of angry people who would love to spread misery around and they've now been given an idea of how to do it and places like 8chan and kiwifarms provides the encouragement and planning infrastructure.

So yes, I'd be extremely surprised if this kind of destruction doesn't escalate and become much more wide spread. What's gonna stop it?

anigbrowl14• 4 years ago

Yeah and no. Metcalf was similar in terms of targeting the transformer with rifle fire. But it was more professionally done (in terms of minimizing forensic footprint) and more hands-off, compared to the gate being pulled down by a truck as in this case.

There are a number of potential suspects, but my feeling is that if there are no arrests in 72 hours you can expect a bunch of copycat attacks. Substations are very poorly secured, and targeting them to cause power outages and provoke crises and riots in cities is a central plank of accelerationist guerrilla war fantasies. 'How it would go down' scenarios that hand-wave the details are widespread, and how-to instructions with varying degrees of specificity are eagerly circulated smaller extremist forums. These range from 'fun and profit' type onesheets that would would get a careless individual caught to quite professional ones suitable for (and probably derived from) military educational materials.

BTW it's 'ringer'.

version_five2• 4 years ago

The authorities quoted in the article said whoever did it had a good understanding of the power grid and what they were doing. Maybe it's common enough knowledge, I don't know but it gave me the impression that it wasn't trivially easy to do, making copycats, especially by just the kind of dumbass who would copycat this, less likely

f38zf5vdt• 4 years ago

The FBI is investigating after a right wing extremist appeared to take responsibility for the attack, with the intention of disrupting a local transgender event. [1]

https://twitter.com/Esqueer_/status/1599464591196491777?cxt=...

posterboy4• 4 years ago

Not that it matters but I looked up ringer and I beleive wringer is essentially correct but the w was lost and I'm not sure.

We used to speak of substitute players when a team needed to fill a spot with randoms, what is elsewhere called "ringer", nothing about cheating. There is an Old Norse word or something that is translated "fighter" . I don't remember its spelling and could not find the entry immediately. W would become lost in Norse, I guesd (Odin, Vatenfal). So I maintain the hunch that it is identical to wrestling because that's Ringen in German and wringen in Dutch. Again, allusion to the ring in which they fight is petty. Wrestling has a rich tradition but not endowed with literacy. This could easily lead to confusion next to war. Corrolary, a drug ring is not circular, since border running involves bands of war, though they could do a round call.

gnat• 4 years ago

NZ had a version of this recently too: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/479858/graham-philip-rec...

totetsu2• 4 years ago

"He felt that the views of those who opposed the government's actions weren't being heard, that the mainstream media weren't taking notice, that really it needed something to be done to promote those views," Nabney told the high Court.

And so he caused 1.2 million of damage to Electricity infrastructure. Tell me again why I'm the rambling conspiracy theorists for suspecting NZ is the target of disinformation trying to undermine trust in and the functioning of society..

deadly_syn2• 4 years ago

I would actually argue that disinformation is only thiz level of effective when a society is already sick. Its alot easier to point to whats falling apart to back up your argument, than it is to build a intricate web of shadowy lies.

I guess what im saying is I feel like disinfo is a misnomer compared to what i see it as. Demoralization.

And honestly when people do become a product of manufactured value by propagandists, we dont usually treat them with dignity. Usually I see agression and equally bad faith arguments made in favor of the "truth". Which only further feeds the us vs them mentality in those individuals.

lolbyutuwha2• 4 years ago

Those kind of attacks occasionally happen in France. Who is behind it? Putin? China? No, quite often it happens to be, and I kid you not, a militant group of wine producers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comit%C3%A9_R%C3%A9gional_d%27...

yarg• 4 years ago

We get the odd fucking munter that destroys some shit for no reason.

Like beating up the America's Cup, or chopping down the tree on One-Tree Hill (which we still haven't renamed).

thatguy09002• 4 years ago

Vast majority of physical infrastructure has no security beyond a rickety fence. It is good that most terrorists are as mentally unstable as they are, because a rational person with some easily homemade bombs could easily disable most anything they want with no real chance at being caught.

pessimizer• 4 years ago

Or it could be that there simply aren't very many terrorists that want to hurt random civilians without the FBI's encouragement.

I think it has more to say about how civil the countries and groups the US has attacked are, at least when it comes to hurting US innocents in return.

ckdarby3• 4 years ago

Yes! A single person with a bunch of time, $200k, and making purchases that aren't watched at all has all the resources required to take out the entire electrical grid and cause mass loss of life.

Legit too scared to even write the concept down in the event someone got the idea to even try.

Aeolun2• 4 years ago

I think most people here can extrapolate from what you have said to an actionable plan. We simply have no motivation.

fbdab1034• 4 years ago

Bombs seems like too much work. I think you could drive a truck into most electrical stations too much the same effect.

thatguy09002• 4 years ago

You can probably only do that once, though. There's really no reason to be caught with a quick timed bomb throw and walk away. Or just shooting it with a rifle from accross the street after reading some Wikipedia pages to learn where to shoot.

dontbenebby4• 4 years ago

I didn’t think the invisible committee operated south of the Mason Dixon line.

(Fragen Sie mich noch einmal, ob ich Französisch spreche, und ich werde Sie auf weniger unterhaltsame Weise an die Wand stellen.)

WJW• 4 years ago

So do you speak French?

dopidopHN2• 4 years ago

Ça m’a l’air d’être de l’Allemand. Je suis rouillé mais je comprend bien. A pars le context… et la dernière phrase en fait.

dontbenebby4• 4 years ago

So do you speak French?

Je veux supprimer mon compte :-)

camdenlock• 4 years ago

“No suspects have been named in the shootings, and investigators have yet to announce a potential motive.”

MonkeyMalarky• 4 years ago

Emily claims to know...

rc_subreme• 4 years ago

Rudolph the Red strikes again.

onionisafruit• 4 years ago

Rudolph the Red knows rain, dear.

BLKNSLVR9• 4 years ago

I haven't heard that joke in a decade or two. Genuine thanks for the simpler-time nostalgia.

rch• 4 years ago

I wonder how well stocked the U.S. is with replacement inventory for facilities like this.

jeffbee• 4 years ago

On NPR Marketplace recently there was a utility-size transformer maker interviewed who said their current lead time was well over a year.

https://www.marketplace.org/2022/11/14/a-shortage-of-electri...

rtkwe2• 4 years ago

That's for new orders not an indication of replacement depth held by the utility companies though. Also in an emergency orders could be redirected to companies that need them unless it's a country-wide damaging event.

ckdarby3• 4 years ago

It isn't the replacing part that is the problem, but the rebooting part that is the larger worry.

nathanaldensr• 4 years ago

No, it's both. You need to do research that will show you just how long the lead times are for transformer equipment and supplies.

Oh, and those lead times are still getting longer.

cesarb• 4 years ago

If it's just a couple of local substations, "rebooting" is AFAIK not very hard. First the substation is connected to other substations by closing the breakers on each high-voltage circuit between them, one by one; this energizes the transformers in the substation. Then the breakers to the outgoing feeders are closed one by one, which sends power to the loads. There might also be some maneuvering far from the substation to move loads from one substation to another.

What's hard is when the outage is also on the generation side; "rebooting" from a full outage (black start) can be a complex dance between starting generators, connecting substations, and energizing loads, since generation has to be matched to consumption at all times, and nearly all generators need power themselves to run (on a full black start, small diesel generators, started by even smaller batteries, are the initial point).

dtgriscom• 4 years ago

My understanding is that large transformers aren't standard; they need to be custom-made for their application. (Not sure why, and there'd be big benefits to changing this, but that's what I've heard...)

m0x4• 4 years ago

DVEs have been talking about ways to target power substations for a while now. This is the first instance that I've seen of someone actually acting on that information.

Background: https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/591331-dhs-warn...

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/domestic-violent-extremists-plo...

m4jor• 4 years ago

Someone did it back in 2013, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalf_sniper_attack

Trouble_0079• 4 years ago

Also back in; Oct. 11, 2004, 10:25 PM UTC / Source: The Associated Press

Removal of bolts leads to towers’ collapse : https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna6228355

m0x4• 4 years ago

Thanks for sharing, I wasn't aware of the 2013 and 2004 instances of this sort of thing happening. LE has been pushing intelligence bulletins about this sort of thing being talked about more frequently in certain circles over the last couple of years. I suppose the tactic is the same, though the intention now seems to be different than 2013 and 2004. Not to suggest that we know why this happened, though there are certainly a lot of narratives that are being backed up by OSINT.

This thread, as an example, shows OSINT being used to backup claims of possible motive - https://twitter.com/notcapnamerica/status/159948643252742144...

soupfordummies• 4 years ago

Thanks for posting this! I’ve been doomscrolling around about this NC event for the past couple hours trying to recall the vague memory I had about this sniper event.

LatteLazy• 4 years ago

DVE=Domestic Violent Extremist I believe...

m0x4• 4 years ago

Correct.

alphabettsy• 4 years ago

I don’t believe a motive was ever revealed but a domestic extremist was the cause of the Nashville bombing around the holidays in the last few years, targeted communications infrastructure.

tamaharbor• 4 years ago

In west Texas, vandals use power transformer bushings for target practice all the time.

pixl97• 4 years ago

Which is a lot different from dumping a mag into one of the expensive and hard to replace components at a substation, then driving around to another substation and doing the same thing again. The large oil filled transformers get really expensive really fast.

SoftTalker2• 4 years ago

I mean, it sounds like something that drunk or just stupid kids might do. Like smashing mailboxes, but scaled up.

notfromhere• 4 years ago

Would not be surprised to learn they got this idea after all the news coverage of the infrastructure attacks in Kyiv

landemva3• 4 years ago

US did this in Iraq and Libya years ago. https://truthout.org/articles/war-crime-nato-deliberately-de...

On the +GDP side of this, the war makers and reconstruction companies get to replace the broken windows.

kthejoker22• 4 years ago

Civilization will end because it is so much easier to break things than build them.

halpmeh• 4 years ago

Building things is a lot more fun though, so there is still hope. You run into problems if you create a society where people can’t build. Then they turn to destruction.

coffeebeqn• 4 years ago

How is that true now but not for the last 10 000 years? Somehow we build more than we destroy very consistently

tshaddox• 4 years ago

I suspect it would depend on the popularity of various ideologies which are antithetical to civilization.

kthejoker22• 4 years ago

First, civilization has collapsed on the small scale (Mayas, Roman Empire) and due to the same causes - relatively modest disruptions to food supply, border security, access to labor, etc.

And the division of labor, economic sprcialization, and technological advancement has created way more weak links.

There were no nuclear bombs or dependencies on large scale agribusiness, satellite comms, the Internet. or in this case electrification to sustain society.

To be clear I'm not predicting collapse because the grid has some vulnerability, I'm just saying if you wanted to collapse society, it would almost certainly involve (again, extremely modest, scalable, and boringly effective) sabotage like this.

jrm43• 4 years ago

Kind of surprising to not see the words "domestic terrorism" here, so let me be the first?

This very well could be domestic terrorism and for now it would be prudent to treat it as such.

hedora• 4 years ago

What is your definition of domestic terrorism? (I don't understand how it "could be", vs. "clearly is".)

Anyway, the press seems to be loathe to use that term when white conservatives are involved, and it happened in North Carolina.

spoils19• 4 years ago

I think we should wait before labeling what could just be economically anxious Americans exercising their right to free speech.

masterjack• 4 years ago

Shooting up and destroying key infrastructure for a town leaving many without power sounds a lot more like domestic terrorism than free speech, especially if it is in response to a small number of adults having an event you disagree with.

DiggyJohnson2• 4 years ago

What is the actual importance of this rhetoric / labeling discussion over all emerging domestic news stories? Do you not feel that it constantly gets in the way of an actual discussion. I feel like this topic has been ongoing for over a decade.

There are so many ways to describe the world. This is being described as a “[premeditated] attack”. Is there some ulterior motive I’m missing?

Sorry to seem to ranty over this, but it seems like an extremely forced meme at this point. I’m usually arguing for the importance of words, but on this specific criticism, genuinely, I beg the question, who effing cares?

voltaireodactyl3• 4 years ago

The legal system is who effing cares, in this instance. There are different mechanisms and agencies that deal with terrorist vs premeditated-but-non-political-in-objective acts.

I think a lot of the desire for specificity in terminology that you’re seeing demanded is stemming from a desire for people to see organizations step in that truly have the resources, investigative experience, and political will to accomplish progress in this arena — for example certain offices of the FBI.

dmix5• 4 years ago

There's been tons of times Reddit has been littered with 5000+ upvoted threads attributing attacks to x and then the next few days the post explaining it wasn't x gets 300 upvotes and quietly dies.

If I've learned anything being terminally online it's that it's always better to wait until some basic evidence comes out rather than to speculate and get into flame wars over it.

anigbrowl14• 4 years ago

Because the US doesn't have a federal domestic terrorism statute, and so things that we'd confidently label 'terrorism' if they happened overseas or originated in a foreign country become the subject of thorny debate if they have a domestic origin and an otherwise identical fact pattern.

A decent write up of the legal issues here: https://www.aclu.org/other/how-usa-patriot-act-redefines-dom...

deanCommie3• 4 years ago

Because this was a targeted attack with the intentional goal of disrupting a drag show [0].

There is a rising alt-right extremist movement that is attempting to demonize LGBTQ and drag as pedophiles and groomers.

Their methods are only getting more extreme [1].

They have very clear goals that are absolutely fall under the definition of terrorisms: They are attempting to terrorize a specific subset of civilian population into going back into the closet, under the threat of violence.

They are organized, and they are motivated. That's why it's important to call it terrorism - because there are networks of extremists that continue on their mission even if the specific individuals can be identified that commit individual crimes. There is a movement behind them to continue on the mission.

[0] https://twitter.com/Esqueer_/status/1599464591196491777?cxt=...

[1] https://www.vice.com/en/article/epzv9a/libsoftiktok-trans-ch...

wereallterrrist2• 4 years ago

Gee, maybe google the word or news story before writing 3 paragraphs about it? Yes, it was to shut down an 18+ drag show.

For the average folks with horrid (or biased) memories, do you really no remember post-911? We screamed "terrorists" over and over and how American interests would not be scared off by terror tactics.

Theyre suppressing expression. They have openly fascist intents. Theyre successfully shutting down other shows due to fears of violence.

In what world do you think this increasingly frequent type of targetted violence should not be talked about? Or just when its barely related to a social issue you have opinions about...?

jrm43• 4 years ago

Along with the obvious legal points made below, I also believe there are important social/cultural points. Which is to say, better (subconscious) threat modeling.

For many Americans, the word "terrorist" conjures an image of, e.g. a Muslim foreigner.

Data and experience suggests that the above is very not likely, and also, that domestic terrorism is likely more of an issue.

In other words, you get clarity, which reduces fear at best, and helps people more accurately threat model at worst.

nadieyninguno14• 4 years ago

Just spitballing here - turning it into an “event” might will spur copy-cat attacks around the country.

The slow-play around reporting of possible attackers and motives is trying to stop the social contagion.

greedo3• 4 years ago

These groups are already organized and coordinated. They mobbed/brigaded school board meetings in a coordinated fashion. They know who their allies are, and are now starting to act out in more violent fashion. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

bagels2• 4 years ago

We don't know why it was done. Isn't intent of the action part of the formula for terrorism?

anigbrowl14• 4 years ago

Yet. You are correct about credit claims being part of the formula, but it's not a hard requirement.

tapper• 4 years ago

They don't like to use the words "domestic terrorism" when the people who did it are white.

DiggyJohnson2• 4 years ago

It’s being called an “attack”. Do those not mean essentially the same thing? Are there instances of minorities attacking the power grid that are readily labeled “domestic terrorism”? This seems like an overconfident and overly dismissive point, in my opinion. You’re making an instance of an attack/domestic terrorism on the American power grid a racial rhetoric topic, instead of focusing on the actual thing itself. Seems weird to me.

nxm• 4 years ago

Cite evidence? Buffalo and Michigan (which was done mostly by FBI informants)… media almost instantly labeled domestic terorrism.

bcrl2• 4 years ago

Curfew seems excessive. We have had a number of 8-12 hour power outages around here and the local governments have never declared curfew. Parts of Ottawa were without power in the spring for 2 weeks after the derecho and there was no curfew.

mcphage2• 4 years ago

There’s a difference between a weather event and a hostile attack.

torben-friis• 4 years ago

Consider that the curfew could be caused not by the outages, but by the fact that there could be further attacks, or the suspicion that whoever did this wanted the outage as a first step for a more extensive plan.

bcrl2• 4 years ago

It's far more likely to be vandalism, and that happens from time to time with infrastructure all over the place. Jumping to such an extreme overreaction does nothing other than make life miserable for everyone that's innocent. Deploy police to monitor infrastructure for sure, but locking down law abiding citizens seems like overkill.

htag2• 4 years ago

I doubt curfew would have been called if this was a technical accident or natural disaster.

shagmin2• 4 years ago

Normally outages don't call for a curfew in the area, but in this case there was looting going on.

BLKNSLVR9• 4 years ago

A grenade (or IED) or two thrown in coordination into a few of those local-area transformer / power distribution stations would cause state-level chaos.

Where I live, these seemingly critical infrastructure outposts, are protected by nothing more than high chicken-wire fences. Cyber Squirrel is the best and longest-lived exemplification of the sensitivity and scale of this vulnerability: https://cybersquirrel1.com/

This being my favourite:

  14.01.2015

  Eagle

  Geraldton, WA, Australia

  Sheep's head dropped by eagle blamed for power outage

dmix5• 4 years ago

Apparently "Lead time on replacement parts" is the biggest issue today with dealing with the issue in a prompt time frame. Maybe they should stock up on at least 1x set of repair parts that would take a long timeframe to replace?

Ukraine has shown how important electric substation part supply chains are.

BLKNSLVR9• 4 years ago

Quoting from the movie Contact:

"Why build one, when you could build two for twice the price?"

I'd assume this isn't standard procedure, but agree that it should be, considering the increasing importance of power supply to society and in the current terror-paranoia state of the world.

SoylentYellow• 4 years ago

Exactly. Critical infrastructure needs a strategic reserve.

jrs235• 4 years ago

There's a 1 year lead time for reserve replacement parts too. And if everyone orders now because of long lead times then the lead time will increase (for non reserve replacement we need it now parts).

throw0101c• 4 years ago

Examples:

The supply chain for grid components is even tighter now than it was earlier this year, Robinson said. The lead time for large-scale transformers is 90 weeks on average and the lead time for distribution transformers is six to nine months, she said.

* https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/market-insight...

“I deal with a number of different clients on the utility side and about a year ago we started to see lead times from transformer manufacturers creep up. Before the pandemic, you could get a large transformer ordered in less than a year. Today that is rare. A relatively large manufacturer in the US was at about 38 months. That used to be 38 weeks if you were to compare,” Templeton said.

[…]

It is still relatively easy to get a 10 MVA transformer from a supplier utilities know and are used to dealing with, but a 1000 MVA transformer might not be available from a reliable source, Templeton said.

* https://www.tdworld.com/utility-business/article/21243198/tr...

Expansion of factories:

* https://electrek.co/2022/10/12/hitachi-energy-power-transfor...

throwawaytoilet3• 4 years ago

A VHS cassette tape thrown over transmission lines in the middle of nowhere coordinated at 3 or 4 key locations would do that too… and much easier ordinance to acquire. NMS systems can’t react and load shedding chaos is likely.

BLKNSLVR9• 4 years ago

Hah. My point was that it's scarily easy. I like that your point is that it's way scarily easiER.

Wouldn't Beta be slightly more effective? /s

patmcc• 4 years ago

I think a lot about how terrorists don't act and I guess I don't understand their motives. Electric grids, fiber optic lines, train tracks, bridges, water mains, sewage treatment, all of these can be pretty easily disrupted with equipment that isn't hard to get and doesn't require extensive training. And the disruption could be extreme.

I mean, I'm glad they're not doing any of this, but I'm puzzled.

burritas4• 4 years ago

What's the significance of VHS tapes?

pengaru• 4 years ago

In the original Italian Job they tossed a stolen bicycle over a fence into the substation to cause a power outage.

I find it hard to believe VHS tape wouldn't just vaporize instantly without disrupting anything. A steel bike frame however...

burritas4• 4 years ago

Don't underestimate meth heads looking for copper. I knew a power company employee that told me there were more than a couple of incidents of a tweeker getting fried at the local sub station after they scaled a 9-foot wall covered with warning signs, topped with razor wire, and monitored by a few security cameras...presumably with the notion they'd get a whole lot of copper out of there while everything was energized.

BLKNSLVR9• 4 years ago

This highlights the vulnerability beautifully. If your random meth-head can get close enough to do some amount of infrastructure damage (frying themselves or not), a coherent enemy, mis-guided or otherwise, with time and resources to plan and execute, could do exponentially more.

But maybe drug-seekers are more crafty than I give them credit for. They're probably amongst the most motivated of humanity to reach their end-goal, so maybe it's not as good an example.

"If you want a problem solved, tell a meth-head there's a score in it for them if they succeed"

defrost2• 4 years ago

Thank you for the cybersquirrel link, it made my day although I'd personally like to see the addition of lightning strikes, floods, and other non human vectors of destruction.

While I have nothing (for now) to directly add to transmission network down time, I can at least add another Western Australian bird story to yours . . .

[1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-11-08/zebra-finch-makes-nes...

The linked video rivals anything David Attenborough voiced.

LargoLasskhyfv• 4 years ago

There could be another angle to this!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zelenograd#/media/File:Zelenog...

Ahem. Just kidding, OFC...

m0x4• 4 years ago

U.S Department of Energy Secretary commented on the situation less than an hour ago, indicating that their CESER team is activated - https://twitter.com/SecGranholm/status/1599556157898735618

Trouble_0079• 4 years ago

Tweet not found;

Secretary Jennifer Granholm - @SecGranholm - 1h

I've been in contact w/ @DukeEnergy about the vandalism causing power outages for customers in Moore County, NC

and the @DOE_CESER team is working w/ federal partners.

Law enforcement is investigating this serious incident and Duke is working around the clock to restore service.

Trouble_0079• 4 years ago

This Tweet is now resolving for me, at the time of my first post ( 23 hours ago ), the tweet did not display.

mindcrime• 4 years ago

I don't do a ton of Wikipedia editing these days, but nobody had started a page on the Moore County power substation attack yet, so I started it. If any of you folks are Wikipedians, feel free to jump in and help update the page.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore_County_substation_attack

Aeolun2• 4 years ago

Wait, so Ukraine can restore power in half a day in the middle of a war, but a county in the middle of the US takes a week?

baybal2• 4 years ago

One country been in the state of war for 8 years, and another not (if you don't count one sided aerial bombing a war.)

lostmsu• 4 years ago

The curfew is there to curb the possibility of further attacks.

fbdab1034• 4 years ago

Ukraine has more or less had electrical infrastructure going down on a daily basis for months. Likely a tad more prepared for routing around sudden destruction of equipment.

Overtonwindow• 4 years ago

This very well mat be domestic terrorism and wise to regard it as such. Bullet's or improvised exploding ordinance?

alexpotato• 4 years ago

This may turn out to be a good thing in the long run.

Why? People (and news reports) have been highlighting the lack of security around critical infrastructure like this for years. Now that folks are deciding to attack these targets, hopefully more budget and time goes into actually securing them vs just throwing up some fences around them.

Granted, there could also be the power industries version of "security theater" but I'm going to err on the side of optimism.

ceejayoz3• 4 years ago

Can such a widely distributed system even be protected from a determined actor?

fbdab1034• 4 years ago

Certainly strikes me as impossible. There are so many vital things required to keep society functioning.

Water treatment, electrical generation, electrical distribution, hospitals, medicine production, medicine storage, ISPs, cell phone towers, intercontinental internet cables, cargo rail, oil pipelines, petroleum refining, snow/ice removal...

With increasing economies of scale and centralization, it is also possible that some large number of critical services might no longer be as distributed and resilient as they were 50 years ago. How many factories does Kraft/Tyson use to produce cereals or butcher meat?

noobermin• 4 years ago

Granted, there could also be the power industries version of "security theater" but I'm going to err on the side of optimism.

Literally this is all that happens. The only people who can be happy are those who sell security-ware.

Someone could get in a car and go and on a rampage running over multiple people downtown, and the response from people will be to put guardrails on every street and have people wear helmets outside, or even better, not be outside in anything other than a car, where the right alternative is to make a society where such happenings are rare and unthinkable not because of guardrails but because people are taken care of on a material level so they're less likely to turn into maniacs.

landemva3• 4 years ago

Regulated power industry typically is allowed by regulators a fixed % rate of return on the capital. More infra increases the number. They are already running up the capital base with the "green investments", so please don't increase the infra with security theater suggestions.

If you are really concerned, bury a propane tank plumbed to a generator.

zoklet-enjoyer• 4 years ago

This isn't the first time something like this had happened. What is DHS for if not preventing attacks like this? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalf_sniper_attack

rattlesnakedave• 4 years ago

Metcalf immediately came to mind for me as well. Horrifying. I remember a WSJ article that cited an FERC study and claimed <10 substations would need to be attacked to cause a nationwide blackout.

I think this is it, but on mobile and can’t find a mirror w/o paywall: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230402010457943...

anigbrowl14• 4 years ago

DHS does put out bulletins about this fairly regularly, and both they and the FBI actively monitor extremist groups. Thing is, most prosecutions you see fall into a few categories:

- Guys selling silencers or full-auto gun parts make easy money and get overconfident

- angry guy who's had enough goes around shooting his mouth off about it being time to 'Do something' and makes a new friend who wants to help but turns out to be an FBI agent

- wannabe guerrilla gets tired of never doing anything besides plinking in the woods and goes on a shooting spree instead (not being flippant; I know of one guy who picked a date, planned for months to shoot up a school, then said 'fuck it' a week early and shot up a supermarket instead because he was too excited to wait)

In some countries people get hit with severe charges for incitement or distributing extremist propaganda or possessing instructional materials (the UK in particular, because they have given their police vast powers to deal with terrorism going back to the 1970s). In the US distributing such material is protected by the first amendment but is a good way to get put on a list and maybe have men in suits show up at your home for some friendly conversation about who much you wouldn't like federal prison.

But although many hotheads signal their intentions loudly enough to get caught in advance, there's not that much you can do about determined actors who are smart enough to think about keeping their digital footprint small and their mouths shut.

divbzero• 4 years ago

Reminds me of this Bay Area incident from 2013 that has never been explained publicly:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304851104579359...

Trouble_0079• 4 years ago

Assault on California Power Station Raises Alarm on Potential for Terrorism

April Sniper Attack Knocked Out Substation, Raises Concern for Country's Power Grid

By Rebecca Smith - February 5, 2014 : https://archive.ph/qILZ5

And : https://archive.ph/HCNOz

rognjen• 4 years ago

Off-topic but I was shocked at the clean design.

Havoc• 4 years ago

Def becoming a trend

1letterunixname• 4 years ago

After past instances and a 60 Minutes' report, it's recommended now that solid barriers surround power stations.

https://securethegrid.com/2022/02/28/60-minutes-how-secure-i...

This incident is probably the result of white suprematists, malicious teenagers, and/or crazy people.

Also, I think transformers need armor around oil fins or designs that don't require liquid cooling.

bokohut• 4 years ago

The problem is vastly greater than being reported and for great reason obviously, copy cats. This past weekend nearly one million USD in losses alone were accrued by a regional power company at several regional substations via damage and theft. These incidents did result in power outages but not to the scale of affecting 5o,ooo people but instead only areas of several hundred. This problem is not isolated to only what you read in the news but is currently happening everywhere which in time will be impacting electrical costs and reliability for everyone. Lather in the supply chain issues and the depletion of on hand supply of drop-in replacements and some this winter, domestically and internationally, will be in the dark feeling the cold if electricity is their only means to survive.

https://www.wrde.com/news/elkton-car-fire-causes-50-000-in-d...

So maybe Motel 6 won't be leaving the light on for you as the core infrastructure problems are just getting started.

Trouble_0079• 4 years ago

FYI: Power Outages - North Carolina : <https://poweroutage.us/area/state/nort>

Edit to add below;

OK! Some questions, looking at the News aerial video shot of one of the switch yard and transformer,

  it looked to me, judging from the size of the primary input insulators to be about 110kv to 220kv input.

Why shoot up two sub-stations? - Is the area a ring-feed, if so did the perpetrator/s have that knowledge?

Emergency declared and curfew imposed following North Carolina power grid attack

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