In MHO--the next big terror attack will come from the internets: Case in point.

Folks: this will probably fly under the radar of our Kardashian obsessed MSM---but this is a big big BFD.

Water utility hackers destroy pump, expert says

Updated Hackers destroyed a pump used by a US water utility after gaining unauthorized access to the industrial control system it used to operate its machinery, a computer security expert said.

Joe Weiss, a managing partner for Applied Control Solutions, said the breach was most likely performed after the attackers hacked into the maker of the supervisory control and data acquisition software used by the utility and stole user names and passwords belonging to the manufacturer's customers. The unknown attackers used IP addresses that originated in Russia.

Weiss cited an official government report from the state where the regional water district was located. It was dated November 10, two days after the hack was discovered. The document indicates that the utility had been experiencing unexplained problems with its computerized system in the weeks leading up to the breach.

“Over a period of two to three months, minor glitches had been observed in remote access to the water district's SCADA system,” Weiss said during an interview, in which he read a verbatim portion of the document to The Register. He said that the attackers were able to burn out one of the utility's pumps by causing either the pump or the SCADA system that controlled it to turn on and off “repeatedly.”
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/17/water_utility_hacked/

Case of chickens and all that.

If you just wanted to fuck with infrastructure, believe me when I say this: you do NOT need the internet to do that. There are plenty of places, even relatively open and unprotected, where one or a few people could wreak serious havoc. When I went to Maine last year, I got to visit a hydroelectric dam that supplied power for tens of thousands of people in central Maine as well as a goodly fraction of the US paper milling industry. It was completely open and had no human presence--there wasn't even a closed gate. Anybody could have walked in there, shot the padlock off the maintenance entrance, and trashed the place. I know a place fifteen minutes from my home that has tens of thousands of gallons of fuel oil in easily breached tanks, completely unguarded. Electrical substations, automated water plants, there's plenty more like that.

Destroying infrastructure isn't flashy enough for serious terrorists who want mass casualties. Hell, one of the planes on 9/11 flew almost straight over the Indian Point nuclear reactor. But they didn't give a shit, because they wanted to bring down a building, not cause an additional few thousand cases of cancer over the next 20 years. Trying to destroy infrastructure by remote might be fun for asshole kids who think they're great hackers, but I doubt it's ever going to be a serious venue of terrorism.

I'm in the Network Security Business and trust me when I say, the hack mentioned above has everyone on edge.

If folks knew just how many control systems are network controlled, they would think differently.

For instance:

Stuxnet is a computer worm discovered in June 2010. It targets Siemens industrial software and equipment running Microsoft Windows.<1> While it is not the first time that hackers have targeted industrial systems,<2> it is the first discovered malware that spies on and subverts industrial systems,<3> and the first to include a programmable logic controller (PLC) rootkit.

This worm has not been defeated and is sitting out there waiting for orders.

ghosh.

designed to distract us from the hell that's being done ...

"Look, there are thousands of people peacefully protesting in the streets of the U.S. cities!"

"Don't bother me ... Kim K. got divorced! I need details!"

on the internet?

This is serios shit and it has network security experts on edge. A vast majority of our infrastructure is contolled by networks.