On Thu, Aug 14, 2003 at 11:43:07PM -0500, Scott Dier wrote: > It was funny to see the speculation on /. about the worm causing the > power outage today. Someday there will be an emergency caused by a > widespread security issue that people end up ignoring, and they will > start to learn why its important to care. Scary enough, the CERT BOF at > usenix 2001 the #1 thing that scared a few of the guys there was > electricity control computer networks and their exposure to the > internet. (from their own consulting experience) Of course, this was > 'pre 9/11', but yikes. I flew into Chicago on Tuesday for the grand tour of Equinix (a large fortress where they searched me more thoroughly than airport security, and removed all electronic devices before allowing us through just to make sure I didn't have any devices capable of taking pictures or recording audio), when we got to the main electrical control room, they were showing the redundant systems, and the two touch screen panels that control their entire power grid. When the engineer brought up a sub menu I noticed the tell-tale Visual Basic default program icon in the top left corner of the dialog. This is the kind of place that has subdued lighting _everywhere_ so you can't see who they're hosting (ie, financial institutions, government agencies, telecoms) Luckily, after showing off the redundant touch screen panels, the engineer pointed to a bank of switches, knobs, and gauges on another panel indicating it was the manual control panel in case both of the touch screen systems went off-line. Aside from that though, if you're looking for a secure place to host something where you can leave a $10,000 piece of equipment on a table in the lobby for a few hours without worry, Equinix is the place for you. -- Matthew S. Hallacy FUBAR, LART, BOFH Certified http://www.poptix.net GPG public key 0x01938203 _______________________________________________ Twin Cities Wireless Users Group Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota http://www.tcwug.org tcwug-list at tcwug.org https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tcwug-list