Italians Believe Terrorists Cut Power

The Telegraph (UK) ^ | 9-29-2003

[blam]

Italians believe terrorists cut power

(Filed: 29/09/2003)

Almost half of Italians believe terrorists caused the power outage that left most of the country paralysed yesterday.

A fast food van provides the only light at the Colosseum

The national grid company, GRTN, blamed the blackout on problems in the Swiss and French networks.

The Swiss power firm ATEL said a tree had been uprooted by strong winds and knocked out a line carrying power to Italy over the Alps. It agreed that that alone could not block power to the whole country and blamed Italy's power grid for not reacting quickly enough.

Almost all of Italy's 57 million people were affected by the blackout, which was on a scale similar to last month's collapse in north America and Canada.

Four deaths have been attributed to the outage. Italian Industry Minister Antonio Marzano called for an investigation.

[MEG33]

One half of Freepers on the first link announcing the blackout thought it was sabotage and linked to our,the Brit's ,and Denmark's blackouts.The others were explaining grids or looking for tin foil.

[Ann Archy]

My tin-hat vote goes to TERRORISM.

[Mark]

The French did it!

[RightWhale]

Who needs terrorism when the power grid has so many antiquated components and the inter-tie is susceptible to damage by a tree?

[Lobbyist]

The lights went out in Sorrento when I was there a few years ago. But they still continued to cook the food and pour the wine. It was wonderful!

[snooker]

There was just a spot on the local NBC station where a spokesman at Sandia Labs was doing drills to see how they could stop the lights from going out.

Seems there is something to these SCADA internet connected control system that can allow hacker induced false information to be fed back to power plants causing them to 'make wrong decisions', which makes the grid go unstable, then the lights out.

Too many occurences if you ask me.

[Unknowing]

Now why would terrorists want to inacpacitate power grids throughout the Western world? Offhand, I can only think of about six reasons, but I'll bet that clever people can think of many more:

(1) Cover for other operations;
(2) Containing masses of people together, especially in metro tubes;
(3) Testing their ability and working up to someday inacpacitate the power grids of entire continents, exclusive of Texas of course;
(4) Stranding a lot of people in harsh winter weather;
(5) Psy ops to induce us to mistrust our systems and leaders;
(6) Preparation for disrupting trading at crucial moments, such as "triple-witching-hour" when certain contracts expire.

If the ability to affect the electrical grid using software does exist, and the electrical grid does seem to have been affected, then the software attack theory seems not only plausible but to some degree probable. This given that the terrorists have been seeking the means to conduct such attacks, and that they are evil and profoundly determined.

[_Jim]

Seems there is something to these SCADA internet connected control system that can allow hacker induced false information to be fed back to power plants

Speculation in abscence of *any* knowledge of the 'gear' involved at a 'plant' ...

[blam]

I'll cast my vote for #1.

I have a question. If you were on an airliner that had been successfully hijacked and you had a cell phone, who would you call, 911?

[_Jim]

Too many occurences if you ask me.

TOO many occasions where maintainence of power line right-of-ways is lax ...

[_Jim]

(1) Cover for
(2) Containing
(3) Testing their
(4) Stranding
(5) Psy ops
(6) Preparation for

Not *one* shred of evidence for any of the above - so this is what comprises fiction ...

[_Jim]

... thought it was sabotage and linked to our,the Brit's ,and Denmark's blackouts.

Ya know - there was a link!

Electrons ceased to flow because breakers 'tripped' out in each case!

Eureka!

[John W]

Jim-I'm not sure its 100% healthy to trust what anyone,even a fellow Freeper with great electrical knowledge, says about occurences such as these given the absolute relentlessness of our enemies.So,make whatever comments you want,I'm concerned.

[_Jim]

So,make whatever comments you want,I'm concerned.

... if fear makes you feel better - have at it!

[MEG33]

Son of a gun!

[John W]

Not looking to feel better,looking to live a while longer.Not sure I can trust the government to do its part to make that happen,given the track record.And,as always,crowd control is the primary concern not only of government,but,in this case of the industry that failed-for whatever reason.

[_Jim]

So,make whatever comments you want,I'm concerned.

A thought just occurred to me - these 'scenarios' involving technologies and systems beyond the comprehension of most common folk -laymen if you will- seem to follow a similar track to the SARS threads of earlier this year.

WHEREIN it almost seemed to be that y'all were enjoying a common, shared "fret-in" where commmon fears, based on wild speculation usually, were shared, somehow making, it appreared all those concerned feel that muck better.

Kind of an 'Oprah Winfrey' effect if you will; a modern man's alternative to wild chants and the buring of exotic herbs meant to 'ward off' unseen, evils.

[_Jim]

Not sure I can trust the government to ...

Well, there's your problem spunky!

Somehow you are under the mistaken impression that ALL that is and goes ON around you is the product of GOVERMENT!

Well, let me inform you; FAR more of your life is regulated by various professional organizations involving ENGINEERS who understand this technology animal that has been tamed so WE don't have to live in caves and build wood-fueled camp fires each night ...

[_Jim]

Son of a gun!

It's *so simple* once it's explained - isn't it!?