NEVER TOLERATE TYRANNY!....Conservative voices from the GRASSROOTS.

The next terrorist attack since 9-11 may already have taken place . . . . twice.

1) The latest and still unexplained attack (on Wall Street) is being decoded as a systems malfunction.

2) A September attack ( on a water facility) was blamed on terroristic computer hacking of Springfield Illinois water pumping facility.

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Flash Crash Threatens to Return With a Vengeance

Published: Friday, 30 Dec 2011 | 4:58 AM ET

What should investors watch in 2012? As the new year dawns, there are plenty of short-term issues on the horizon, ranging from the eurozone to fiscal gridlock in the US to upheavals in the Middle East.

But amid that list there is also another, often ignored, question to ponder: could 2012 produce a repeat of the “flash crash”, the bizarre episode that hit the U.S. equity markets back on May 6 2010?

Think about it for a moment. A full 18 months have passed since the strange episode that caused the Dow Jones [.DJI 12217.56 -69.48 (-0.57%) ] to tumble 650 points in half an hour, wiping $850 billion off share prices, before rebounding. Since then, the issue has faded from view amid the eurozone drama.

But to this day, nobody has fully explained what really happened on May 6. Nor is there any evidence that the fundamental problems that caused the flash crash have been resolved. That leaves some scientists fearing that not only is a repeat of that flash crash possible, but it is probable — and next time round, it could be even more damaging.

To understand this, take a look at a fascinating transatlantic research paper published by the Bank for International Settlements. One of the paper’s co-authors is Dave Cliff, formerly a financial trader who now runs the UK government’s Large-Scale Complex Information Technology Systems project, an endeavour that analyses the risks of IT systems in sectors including healthcare, nuclear energy and finance. The other, Linda Northrop, runs a similar project at Carnegie Mellon University, which was initiated a decade ago by the US military.

In recent years, these two teams have used engineering and science skills to analyse what they call socio-technical risks, or the dangers that occur whenever complex technological systems proliferate, creating “systems of systems” that nobody understands. In early 2010, well before May 6, they released a brilliantly prescient report that predicted that a systems failure loomed.

Since then, they have continued their research, with sobering conclusions. Most notably, these researchers believe that the flash crash was not an isolated event; on the contrary, it was entirely predictable given how IT systems have proliferated to create a system of systems that is now interacting in unpredictable ways that regulators and investors cannot comprehend, far less control.

Usually, this danger is not visible to investors. After all, markets generally work well, leaving financiers in the grip of a phenomenon that Diane Vaughan, the sociologist, called the “normalcy of deviance” (based on her work on the Challenger 1987 space shuttle disaster): because people have sailed close to the wind and survived, they assume they can continue to do this — and turn a blind eye to anything that seems uncomfortably bizarre.

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Did Hackers Shut Down Illinois Water Pump? Feds Looking Into It

Photo: itnews.sk

A water pump at a Springfield, Ill. utility failed Nov. 8. Usually this would be considered a technical difficulty, but this failure has raised eyebrows of the federal government.

Joe Weiss, a cybersecurity expert, disclosed the incident on his blog Thursday and pointed the finger at foreign cyber attackers. Now the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the FBI are investigating the pump failure as a possible attack, according to a Reuters report.

“DHS and the FBI are gathering facts surrounding the report of a water pump failure in Springfield, Illinois,” according to a statement from DHS spokesman Peter Boogaard. “At this time there is no credible corroborated data that indicates a risk to critical infrastructure entities or a threat to public safety.”

The breach was discovered when a water district employee noticed that the system kept turning on and off, resulting in the water pump burning out, according to Wired.

The hackers stole credentials from a company that makes software used to control industrial systems, Weiss said. They also stole usernames and passwords from the company to gain remote access to the utility.

In fact, the hackers may have had access to the utility in September, according to the “Public Water District Cyber Intrusion” report, released by the Illinois Statewide Terrorism and Intelligence Center on Nov. 10.

The report does not describe what the glitches were, Weiss told Wired, but could reference problems legitimate users experienced when trying to access the system remotely.

“They just figured it’s part of the normal instability of the system,” Weiss said to Wired. “But it wasn’t until the SCADA system actually turned on and off that they realized something was wrong.

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Submission: Feds investigating Illinois ''pump failure' as pos

Water Pump Destruction Not Due To SCADA Hack

"Federal officials confirmed they are investigating whether a cyber attack may have been responsible for the failure of... at a public water district in Illinois last week. But they cautioned that no conclusions had been reached, and they disputed one cyber security expert's statements that other utilities are vulnerable to a similar attack. Joe Weiss, a noted cyber security expert, disclosed the possible cyber attack on his blog Thursday. Weiss said he had obtained a state government report, dated Nov. 10 and titled 'Public Water District Cyber Intrusion,' which gave details of the alleged cyber attack culminating in the 'burn out of a water pump.' According to Weiss, the report says water district workers noted 'glitches' in the systems for about two months. On Nov. 8, a water district employee noticed problems with the industrial control systems, and a computer repair company checked logs and determined that the computer had been hacked. Weiss said the report says the cyber attacker hacked into the water utility using passwords stolen from a control system vendor and that he had stolen other user names and passwords."

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Hackers in Russia Shut Down U.S. Water Pump

By Medical Daily Reporter

Hackers from a foreign location shut down a water pump of an undisclosed utility in Illinois last week, according a report by a cybersecurity expert.

The hacker attack was reported by Joe Weiss, an international authority on cybersecurity in his blog on Thursday and could be the first known remote attack on a U.S. industrial system.

"The IP address of the attacker was traced back to Russia," Weiss wrote.

Weiss said the disclosure was made by the Illinois Statewide Terrorism and Intelligence Center after SCADA software used to control industrial systems was hacked and customer usernames and passwords were stolen.But it took 2 to 3 months before it was identified as a cyber attack, according to Weiss.

The SCADA system was powered on and off, burning out a water pump, according to the report.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are investigating the case, DHS spokesman Peter Boogaard said, according to Reuters.

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These incidents can be explained away using all sorts of technical jargon only understood by people in the know.

My personal opinion is Obama and the democrats have hobbled our national security with incompetants like Janet Napolitano and her department of Homeland Security to the point that a high school sophomore or one of the OWS crowd could easily disable our nation's infrastructure with an Ipod!