Looks like an interesting segment on 60 Minutes tomorrow night, about the U.S. power grid's and other vital systems' vulnerability to cyber attack.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/11/06/60minutes/main5555565.shtml

The revelation is part of a Steve Kroft investigation into how computers and the Internet can be used as weapons to be broadcast on 60 MINUTES Sunday, Nov. 8 (7:00-8:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.

Former Chief of U.S. National Intelligence Retired Adm. Mike McConnell believes it could happen in America. “If I were an attacker and wanted to do strategic damage to the United States, I would either take the cold of winter or the heat of summer,” he tells Kroft. “I would probably sack electric power on the U.S. East Coast, maybe the West Coast and attempt to cause a cascading effect.” If hackers did attack the U.S. power grid, “The United States is not prepared for such an attack.” says McConnell.

All the more reason to have a well designed home with proper ventilation/insulation I suppose. Up until the 1950's wasn't every home built that way?

"Up until the 1950's wasn't every home built that way?"

No. There were homes built long before then that had no insulation at all.

My mother lived in a house in Las Vegas that was built right after WWII. I moved there in 1989 to fix it up for her so she could get a decent price. This is an area that has temperature extremes of 0ºF to 116ºF (18ºC to 47ºC). There was no insulation anywhere in the house, top, bottom or sides. I made enough tips on the first New Years to call in the blow-in insulation guy to at least get it into the ceiling. The house also had no built-in source of heat, and faced east toward tall trees.

I don't know when the fanaticism about building every house to face the street (instead of the sun) started, but it was over 100 yrs ago. I can't believe that people had never noticed the advantages of solar gain prior to the 1960s (even though it is still ignored by most builders today, if the PNW is any indication).

Cody Lundin was talking about the house he had built in his last book (When All Hell Breaks Loose), and he has no mechanical heating or cooling, and that's Arizona.

My dream: straw bale/passive solar.

Sue

A bigger problem might be remotely turning off power & disabling the "smart meter" on your house.

A few months ago a paper was presented on the security of these devices: there was none. Anyone on your leg of the system can send a command to your meter to turn off power to your house.

Worse: there is a firmware upgrade command, also unprotected. After turning off power an attacker can load garbage over the meter's firmware, completely disabling it, meaning that the power company must send someone put to physically _replace_ the meter to turn power back on (the meter cannot be repaired on site - it must be replaced).

This is a doomsday scenario if carried out in Phoenix around noon on a 120F day. A coordinated attack on the system in several areas should easily overwhelm the number of workers available to replace the meters as well as the number of working meters in stock (all of which will be easily killed smart meters too).

Aw heck, all we have to do is flick a couple of switches in Quebec to do that.

Didn't that already happen?

I dunno... wouldn't all the Canuck's suddenly start sweating to death from hyper-functioning home furnaces if that happened? Kind of an accidental mass heat-stroke disaster?

Nah, even the separatists are smart enough to use gas or fuel oil heat. That total electric crap is expensive!

Depends. I seem to recall that Quebecers use electricity for heat quite a lot, because of the huge hydroelectric resources they have. This was the preferred/subsidized choice for a long time.

In the Maritimes (East Coast), I think heating oil is the preferred choice.

In Alberta, it's natural gas all the way. We have a large domestic supply, and it's easy to dig pipelines in that good glacial clay.

On Vancouver Island, the only way to dig pipelines is with dynamite. I think that propane, often supplemented with a wood stove, is pretty common.

Aren't you glad you asked?

I watched the 60 Minutes segment tonight.

Instructive. It should have given a few million people something to think about.

Perhaps some of them will be Googling tonight and find this forum.