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The Power Grid Is Far More Vulnerable to Cyber Attacks Than Most People Realize
The Power Grid Is Far More Vulnerable to Cyber Attacks Than Most People Realize
In December of 2015, 230,000 people in Western Ukraine lost power after 30 substations were mysteriously shut off. Contrary to what most people assumed at the time, this wasn’t an innocuous power outage. The authorities would later admit that the loss of power was caused by a cyber attack, which marked the first time that malware was successfully used to attack a power grid. A similar, albeit more sophisticated cyber attack, occurred one year later just outside of Kiev. Given the current tensions between Russia and Ukraine, it’s widely believed that the Russian government was responsible for these incidents.
However, there’s more to this story than meets the eye. A computer security company has been investigating these attacks, and has discovered the malware that was used to take down the grid. They’ve found that it’s far more dangerous and easier to use than anyone realized before.
The danger of the malware is that it can automatically trip the breakers within a power system that keep the electrical lines from being overloaded. If one breaker is tripped, the load is shipped to another portion of the power grid. If enough are tripped, in the right places, it’s possible to create a cascading effect that will eventually overload the entire system, said Weatherford, who was formerly the chief security officer at the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, the regulatory authority for North American utilities.
“In some cases, it could then take days to restart all the plants,” he said.
Two things stand out about the malware, dubbed “Industroyer” by the researchers — it’s an order of magnitude easier to use than previous programs and it wasn’t actually deployed to do any real damage, meaning whoever’s behind the December attack might simply have been testing the waters.
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Why You Need to Prepare for the Cashless Society
Why You Need to Prepare for the Cashless Society
Earlier this month, the European Central Bank suggested that the 500 Euro note needs to be eliminated. Not long after, academics and policy makers in the US started to call for the elimination of the $100 bill. This isn’t something that the average person really thinks about on a regular basis, or even cares about. The vast majority of our purchases are done through digital channels these days. Unless you’re about to buy a used car on Craigslist, you probably won’t be needing the hundred-dollar bill. For most people, eliminating it would be an inconvenience at best.
So what gives? Why is anyone even considering the elimination of these bills? It seems like there is simply no need for it.
The truth is there are a lot of reasons why governments and banks want to eliminate these high denomination notes, and none of them are good. It should go without saying that the people who are pushing this are not going to give you a straight answer. You’re going to hear them give the same excuse over and over again for the foreseeable future: Large denominations are indispensable for black market transactions. They enable drug dealers, tax evaders, corruption, and terrorism.
But that’s just what they’ll say in the beginning. One day they’ll give all those same excuses, except instead of suggesting the elimination of large denomination bills, they’ll suggest we get rid of cash instead.
That’s right. What the government, multinational corporations, and the central banks really want, is a completely cashless society, and they’re going to start by eliminating the bills we don’t use very often. Pro-gun supporters will recognize this strategy as the “slippery slope.” Start out with something small that sets a precedent, and quietly eliminate everything over a long period time so no one notices.
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This Is the One Global Disaster That Most People Aren’t Aware Of
This Is the One Global Disaster That Most People Aren’t Aware Of
In general, preppers have a pretty well-rounded awareness of all the ways our communication systems can break down. If anything, the failure to communicate with modern technology is at the root of any serious disaster, including solar storms, nuclear war, or emp attacks. There are also the more conventional disasters like earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, and in some cases famine and plagues if they go on long enough. Truth be told, it’s not really a disaster unless phone lines, televisions, and the internet are knocked out in some capacity.
But the one disaster that most preppers aren’t aware of is known as the Kessler syndrome. This scenario was first proposed by NASA scientist Donald J. Kessler in 1978, who suggested that in the near future, the accumulation of space trash would make it nearly impossible for us to maintain satellites in Earth’s orbit. The theory goes that as more satellites are placed into orbit, there will be more debris floating around our planet, which will eventually lead to a cataclysmic chain reaction.
At the heart of the matter is the fact that it’s pretty much impossible to put something into space without leaving something else behind. And after sending thousands of objects into orbit over the past 60 years, there are now 170 million man-made objects orbiting our planet, and nobody has figured out how to remove this debris. These objects include equipment left behind by astronauts, nuts and bolts, spent rocket stages, abandoned satellites, and everything in between. Some are as small as paint chips, while others are the size of semi trucks.
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Canadians Are Panicking Over Food Costs After Currency Collapse
Canadians Are Panicking Over Food Costs After Currency Collapse
It’s no secret that America has a serious inflation problem. Though the Federal Reserve insists that our inflation rate is only at around .5%, we’ve all seen the price of food, rent, healthcare, and energy skyrocket over the past 10-20 years. However, this has been a gradual shift. Canada on the other hand, has just seen the price of every day goods rise precipitously over a very short period of time.
The crash in oil prices has crippled their economic growth, and led to the decline of the Canadian dollar, as well as a predictable increase in the cost of imports like food. For those of us living in the US, this provides a really good example of what life may be like should the dollar take a plunge in the near future. Here’s what our northern neighbors have been dealing with:
It is often said that a free-floating currency acts as a shock absorber.
But when Canadians go shopping for groceries these days, they’re getting nothing but the shock—sticker shock, that is.
On Tuesday, the Canadian dollar, commonly known as the loonie, broke below 70 U.S. cents for the first time since May 1, 2003.
For America’s northern neighbor, which imports about 80 percent of the fresh fruits and vegetables its citizens consume, this entails a sharp rise in prices for these goods. With lower-income households tending to spend a larger portion of income on food, this side effect of a soft currency brings them the most acute stress.
James Price, director of Capital Markets Products at Richardson GMP, recently joked during an interview on BloombergTV Canada that “we’re going to be paying a buck a banana pretty soon.”
Canadians took to twitter this week to share their collective horror over the rising cost of food. Cucumbers are $3 each. A head of cauliflower is $8.
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