Electrifying: Play-By-Play

via William Knowle's Infosec News (a security news compilation organization), comes this fascinating North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) report document (expertly presented by E&ENews Reporter Blake Sobczak) - ostensibly, a 'play-by-play' of the first cyberattack of a US Energy Utility. Think it can't happen here? It already has...

"But the March 5 event was significant enough to spur the victim utility to report it to the Department of Energy, marking the first disruptive "cyber event" on record for the U.S. power grid (Energywire, April 30). The case offered a stark demonstration of the risks U.S. power utilities face as their critical control networks grow more digitized and interconnected — and more exposed to hackers. "Have as few internet facing devices as possible," NERC urged in its report." - via E&ENews reporter Blake Sobczak

When a Tree Falls in St. Louis, Will the Power Go Out?

A superlative bit of combinatorial scholarship coming out of St. Louis University, where Sean Hartling, Vasit Sagan, Paheding Sidike, Maitiniyazi Maimaitijiang and Joshua Carron have lashed-up geospatial sciences, machine learning, UAVs, and no-small level of intellectual virtuosity to study trees, the natural felling thereof, and power outages. Todays' Must Read for you ICS Boffins and Foresty geeks (while not ignoring the AI, ML, UAv and Network Information Security types as well).

"At SLU, geospatial science meets machine learning. In a study recently published in Sensors, Saint Louis University researchers paired satellite imaging data with machine learning techniques to map local tree species and health. The data generated by the project will help inform best practices for managing healthy green spaces as well as trimming programs to avoid power outages following storms." - via Carrie Bebermeyer, Senior Media Relations Specialist at St. Louis University

MIT: Underwater to Atmosphere Radio Communications Perfected

Incroyable! Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers have developed what could very well be the 'holy grail' of submarine-to-surface communications. Monikered TARF, the system ostensibly converts SONAR to RADAR with no mid-processing steps required. Absolutely superb work, and today's Must Read.

Smart Is As - Smart Isn't, The Litany of Smart Meters →

Whatever you do do not turn up the heat...

Whom Done It →

In what wraps up to be a superbly crafted screed penned by Glenn Greenwald, laboring at The Intercept; in which, the Good Mr. Greewald details the perceived falsehoods swirling about the alleged Russian Intelligence Services hacks of the Burlington Vermont electrical generation utility. Today's Must Read.

Project West Ford →

Absolutely Astounding... Project West Ford. I'll let the video speak for itself.

Faraday Home

The ulitmate whole-house signal-attenuation device.... Behold, the Faraday Home, perfect for the paranoid amongst us; or those that suffer from idiopathic environmental intolerance attributed to electromagnetic fields (IEI-EMF).

FCC Issues Net Neutrality Order Document →

The Federal Communications Commission has issued the codified order targeting Net Neutrality. Entitled FCC 15-24*, for GN Docket Number 14-28, In the Matter of Protecting and Promoting the Open Internet, Report and Order on Remand, Declaratory Ruling, and Order. At over *Four hundred pages long*, this document will (likely) become one of the most highly contentious Orders emerging this year (or the weapon of choice for conspiracy theorists due to it's weight*) from the Commission.

NIST Announces New Internal Report Targeting Smart Metering →

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has announced a new internal report detailing a framework targeting Smart Meter Upgradability (NIST Internal Report NISTIR 7823), Advanced Metering Infrastructure Smart Meter Upgradeability Test Framework). Authored by Michaela Iorga (a member of the Computer Security Division, in the Information Technology Laboratory (ITL) at NIST) and Scott Shorter (of Electrosoft Services, Inc. in Reston, Virgina), the document is also available at the International DOI System under NIST.IR.7823.

I reckon the document's abstract sums it up quite nicely:

"As electric utilities turn to Advanced Metering Infrastructures (AMIs) to promote the development and deployment of the Smart Grid, one aspect that can benefit from standardization is the upgradeability of Smart Meters. The National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) standard SG-AMI 1-2009, “Requirements for Smart Meter Upgradeability,” describes functional and security requirements for the secure upgrade—both local and remote—of Smart Meters. This report describes conformance test requirements that may be used voluntarily by testers and/or test laboratories to determine whether Smart Meters and Upgrade Management Systems conform to the requirements of NEMA SG-AMI 1-2009. For each relevant requirement in NEMA SG-AMI 1-2009, the document identifies the information to be provided by the vendor to facilitate testing, and the high-level test procedures to be conducted by the tester/laboratory to determine conformance." - via NIST IR 7823

Meanwhile, you can also track, examine and attempt to contain your surprise at the latest, recognized industiral control systems & supervisory control and data acquisition systems vulnerabilities from our colleagues st US-CERT, here.

Google Creates Quantum Chip →

News, via Wired's Robert McMillan, of trouble in paradise. In this case, an error prone computational quantum platform the search leviathan Google Inc. (NasdqGS: GOOG) is running, down yonder in Mountain View...

"The crux of the problem is a phenomenon called bit-flipping. This happens when some kind of interference—cosmic rays, for example—causes the bits stored in memory to “switch state”—to jump from a 0 to a 1 or vice versa. On a PC or a server, error correction is relatively easy." - via Wired's Robert McMillan

• Image depicts a D-WAVE branded quantum computational device

Internets of Energy →

In which, the National Science Foundation NSF regales us with the Horrible Revelation that our power grid's baseline technological underpinnings are firmly ensconced within Industrial Age capabilities. Bad says you, Huzzah!

Net Neutrality Doomed? →

via Jeff Hecht, writing at the IEEE's Spectrum Magazine, notes the fundamental issues with the interwebs may not be oversight, policy or warring leviathan corporate monstrosities. It, that is, Network Neutrality, may be doomed from a technical perspective... Read it and Weep.

Automotive Security, The Shaming

via Wired's Andy Greenberg, comes news of a United States Senate report, detailing answers provided by 16 car makers as responses to questions from United States Senator Markey in 2014 targeting automotive vulnerabilities. Simply astounding.

No Signal →

Well written report on the 'plight' of folks that reside in Green Bank, West Virginia, [story by Michael J. Gaynor, and photography by Joshua Cogan, appearing in the often erudite The Washingtonian]. The unfortunate/fortunate circumstance for resident of the town is a complete ban on wireless networking and other devices that interfere with the utilization of the radio-telescope equipment ensconced at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, home of the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope.

The truly fascinating component to this story is of the towns attractiveness to folks that are electrosensitive. Electrosensitives [also known as Electromagnetic Hypersensitives] are humans that suffer deleterious effects when exposed to much of modern technologies [in this case, electro-magnetic fields, and the like]. Absolutely fascinating  [regardless of certain aspects of this syndrome I am reasonably skeptical]. You be the judge...