I'm betting the power is out because of the computer worm!

[TeeYiYi]

Seriously. I'll bet that's what did it.

TYY

[LastRobot]

1. why's it called blast.exe, hmmm?

I hate to get out my tinfoil hat, but you're probably right.

[TeeYiYi]

2. I have no problem . . .

I think I'll put mine on right now. :hi:

TYY :tinfoilhat:

[Fescue4u]

3. Maybe

But I sorta doubt it. Power generation systems are actually pretty damn old, with control systems being decades old.

They havent "advanced" enough to ran on Windows yet :)

Nonetheless, it still a possibility, Im a net engineer and my largest client is a power company (not the one affected thank god) and if this was caused by a virus, I've got a long summer ahead of me.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

5. Actually...

A hell of a lot of the modern power control systems, especiall the ones in Canada use a real-time, Posix-Compliant OS called QNX(Cue-nix). So do a lot of nuclear power plants and stoplights.

[midnitemoleman]

4. Question is, why does NY get power from Canada?

If they had been attacked by the GOP, um... Im sorry the terrorist. Why depend on Canada and not YOUR OWN country for power security. Because if all this happened in Canada (Bush get's his paybeack somehow huh), we should have the International Homeland Security right?

[molly]

9. Niagra Falls is the generating station to my knowlege

[TacticalPeek]

12. Real security would be international in nature.

And electrical power distribution systems squat over national boundaries because of physics and economic logic.

In fact, Bucky Fuller had the idea of interconnecting and integrating the whole planet's grid, so the light side/dark side of Earth rotation and hence of demand would yield the most efficient setup possible; ergo, do more with less.

[slackmaster]

6. I'll bet it has nothing to do with the computer worm

You're on.

[TeeYiYi]

8. I'll take your bet and raise you a nickel! ;-) ........n/t

TYY :tinfoilhat:

[DS1]

19. I'll raise that a dime, power systems run on Unix

.

[TeeYiYi]

20. Totally Unix? Don't you think there might be . . .

. . . some Microsoft in the mix somewhere along the line?

TYY

[DS1]

22. maybe for email and solitaire, but anything critical is unix

.

[GAspnes]

7. Doubtful

Power plants don't run critical equipment on Windows. In fact, the power stations and networks I've worked with use computers (older mainframes, mostly) for SCADA monitoring, but the controls that affect power delivery and such are custom, electro-mechanical, and not affected by a computer crash.

More likely it's a hot afternoon, the Niagra grid (which supplies NYC, Ottowa, Detroit and other large Eastern cities) took a hit -- generator went offline (there is the report of a fire in a Manhattan ConEd generator) -- and things cascaded from there. Once a cascade failure starts, the first sub-grid that can't keep up with the additional demand trips out, and then it's all downhill from there.

[linazelle]

10. I just heard the same thing from a caller on the radio here in Chgo.

He cited a previous outage that was preceded by a computer virus in Oct. '01 and speculated this might be the same thing.

[LuCifer]

11. I just don't get how...

...they say RIGHT OFF THE BAT that this IS NOT TERRORISM RELATED. Well damn! Y'all that good huh? Then HOW CUM YOU CAN'T GET THE 9/11 THING RIGHT????? DICKS. Sure, I am with ya, it could be cuz of that worm virus. But...what is its origin? *INSERT DRAGNET THEME*

I hate to sound pesemistic, but, I would rather be on the safe side and assume THE WORST. At least then if it is indeed NOT terrorist crap, then great. But at the very least, DO NOT be stupid and rule it out. Jesus.

Lu Cifer

[TacticalPeek]

13. They know some things they don't know,

but they don't know some other things they don't know. They aren't sure yet which of the things they don't know this is.

I dunno, sumpin'.

[Generic Other]

14. I posted this on another thread but it seems apropos

I really believe that the end of the world will come by accident. This piece by Douglas Coupland is prophetic. While he imagines a rapture with no people, the opposite of what we are seeing, he too agrees with T's theory that a screw-up caused everything go down domino style.

The End of the World"(or The Seven Days of UNcreation)©AdBusters 39 (Jan/Feb 2002)
Douglas Coupland
1

It's noon, Thursday, Eastern Daylight Time, and every human being on Earth has just vanished in one huge and completely unselective rapture. Had there been any warning, people might have parked their cars on the roadside or landed their planes, but no, so immediately the world's roads become flaming wreckage-strewn ribbons, while crashed jets punctuate the landscape with fireballs.To witness the scene around, say, a freeway circling Dallas, Texas, one would have the impression of a landscape on which 10,000 black tethers have been lashed to the sky.And then things go quiet, at least for a few minutes -- the quietest few minutes the planet has known for centuries, but this doesn't last long, as everything has been left running. Dams continue to generate electric current, and gas pipes continue to deliver gas and fuel rods remain inserted in their cores. Gas stoves, heating systems, security lasers and Bunsen burners cause houses, businesses, prisons and hotel rooms the world over to burst into flames, followed by oil wells and forests and, most critically, nuclear power stations, beginning with less sophisticated and undermaintatined models in the former Soviet Union, as well as those on the Asian subcontinent. The smoke they produce is certainly thick, but the isotopes they release into the jet stream and air sheds is in levels inconceivable to even the most nuclear-paranoid.By midnight, most of the Northern Hemisphere fares slightly better in an On the Beach sort of way, but the mist of angry isotopes from the north begins arriving around the 24-hour mark.

http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/s/a/saw23/STS100/EotW.html

[Lurking Dem]

15. More likely it's the solar flares.

Remember when that happened the last time and half of Canada went dark?

[Generic Other]

16. I haven't heard any Canadian news

Are they reporting?

Heaven knows the way we've been treating them of late...I want to hear that Canada is still there!

Hellooo??

[Generic Other]

17. MSNBC reporting FBI investigating worm. Tee Yi wins the bet!

eom.

[TeeYiYi]

18. Hear that slackmaster? Get your nickels ready. ......n/t

TYY

[Feanorcurufinwe]

21. Did you notice it was right around 4:20?

Did you notice it was right around 4:20?

Some Canadian stoner power guy was tokin' up and dropped his pipe on some relay or something...