by Alec Muffett
Reddit is seeing through the bullshit:
(direct comment link)
-1 point for imagery but +5 for grasp of the essentials.
Bit worrying about the nuclear submarines but I’d be more worried about them running aground whilst the systems are down than a launch or anything like that… right?
Remember: the whole thesis of Government Cybersecurity is that they are more competent than the private sector, and are here to help all of us.
I believe there are naval anti-missile systems are based on Windows NT.
(Yes, the things that spot an airborne threat and throw several tons of lead at it very fast)
Knew a bloke who worked on a ship and said there was really only one button to press and that was the absolutely massive, red “NO” button that you jumped on if it ever had a false alarm for a helicopter that was trying to land. Very similar to the “Off” switch most people use when confronted with NT.
(lets hope they’ve been decomissioned : http://www.asiapacificdefencereporter.com/articles/12/Anti-Ship-Missile-Defence
“Improvements in the man-machine interface are provided by the adoption of the Windows NT© applications software, advanced colour workstations and the use of COTS-based hardware throughout the system” )
In defence of squirrels I expect large/long steel objects would work better. That said the site near Exeter is a cathedral to power supply and it would be a crime against electrical aesthetics, as well as bloody inconvenient if anything happened to it.
Don’t the DoD have special munitions, the approximate equivalent of throwing bucket loads of chains into the switching station? Sound easier and more reliable than malware.
They dumped chaff – ‘carbon chaff’ perhaps? – on Baghdad’s power stations pre-invasion. Same theory.
Squirrels are lower-tech.
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