Ides of March traveling music fits right in with this news from the future scientists of DU.
https://pratt.duke.edu/news/engineers-develop-hack-to-make-automotive-radar-hallucinate/
Engineers at Duke University, led by Miroslav Pajic, the Dickinson Family Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Tingjun Chen, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, have now demonstrated a system they’ve dubbed “MadRadar” for fooling automotive radar sensors into believing almost anything is possible.
The technology can hide the approach of an existing car, create a phantom car where none exists or even trick the radar into thinking a real car has quickly deviated from its actual course. And it can achieve this feat in the blink of an eye without having any prior knowledge about the specific settings of the victim’s radar, making it the most troublesome threat to radar security to date…
I don’t know about you but I thought “MadRadar” accidents were being arranged by the alphabet hitters for years now.
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Time to take a step up to Infrastructure security…
…I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, find that foreign adversaries are increasingly creating and exploiting vulnerabilities in the United States bulk-power system, which provides the electricity that supports our national defense, vital emergency services, critical infrastructure, economy, and way of life. The bulk-power system is a target of those seeking to commit malicious acts against the United States and its people, including malicious cyber activities, because a successful attack on our bulk-power system would present significant risks to our economy, human health and safety, and would render the United States less capable of acting in defense of itself and its allies. I further find that the unrestricted acquisition or use in the United States of bulk-power system electric equipment designed, developed, manufactured, or supplied by persons owned by, controlled by, or subject to the jurisdiction or direction of foreign adversaries augments the ability of foreign adversaries to create and exploit vulnerabilities in bulk-power system electric equipment, with potentially catastrophic effects. I therefore determine that the unrestricted foreign supply of bulk-power system electric equipment constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States, which has its source in whole or in substantial part outside the United States. This threat exists both in the case of individual acquisitions and when acquisitions are considered as a class. Although maintaining an open investment climate in bulk-power system electric equipment, and in the United States economy more generally, is important for the overall growth and prosperity of the United States, such openness must be balanced with the need to protect our Nation against a critical national security threat. To address this threat, additional steps are required to protect the security, integrity, and reliability of bulk-power system electric equipment used in the United States. In light of these findings, I hereby declare a national emergency with respect to the threat to the United States bulk-power system… etc, etc, etcetera.
How come we never heard about that national emergency? I’m thinking if the power elite publicized the vulnerability of the U. S. power system instead of pushing the experiment, less people would be dead today and we might have more money in the Treasury.
Biden’s idea of protecting the Nation…
One glaring failing. Probably more than one but I’m focussing on this one.
From https://www.energylawinfo.com/2021/04/bulk-power-order/
Last week, the Biden Administration through the Department of Energy, took actions regarding Executive Order 13920 (the “Bulk Power Order”). Such actions effectively established a clean slate for how the Biden Administration will implement the Trump-Era order. This article summarizes the timeline of the Bulk Power Order since its issuance last year, including the actions taken by the Biden Administration last week, and the Biden Administration’s initiatives going forward.
Timeline
On May 1, 2020, former President Trump issued the Bulk Power Order, which prohibited certain transactions involving bulk-power system electric equipment manufactured or supplied by persons owned by, controlled by, or subject to the jurisdiction of a foreign adversary that poses an undue risk of catastrophic effects on the security or resiliency of U.S. critical infrastructure or the national security of the U.S.[1]
On December 17, 2020, pursuant to the authority granted to it under the Bulk Power Order, the DOE issued a “Prohibition Order” which prohibited the acquisition, importation, transfer, or installation of specified bulk-power system electric equipment that is from the Peoples Republic of China and that directly serves Critical Defense Facilities.[2] The Prohibition Order expressly prevented utilities from procuring from China certain bulk-power system electric equipment that directly serves facilities that are (1) critical to the defense of the United States and (2) are vulnerable to a disruption of the supply of electric energy provided to such facility by an external provider.[3]
On President Biden’s inauguration day (January 20, 2021), the Biden Administration suspended the Bulk Power Order for 90 days, which effectively also suspended the Prohibition Order.
On April 20, 2021, (A) the Biden Administration’s suspension of the Bulk Power Order ended such that Bulk Power Order resumed effect, and (B) the Biden Administration took the following actions: (1) it entirely revoked the Prohibition Order, (2) it announced a new cybersecurity initiative, and (3) it released an RFI seeking input from energy industry stakeholders to inform future recommendation for supply chain security in the US energy systems.
The Cybersecurity Initiative and RFI:
On April 20, 2021, DOE announced an initiative to “enhance the cybersecurity of electric utilities industrial systems and secure the energy sector supply chain.”[4] Referring to this as the “100-day plan”, the initiative will be a coordinated effort among the DOE, electric utilities and the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and is intended to enhance the security of facilities, systems, networks, and software.
Specifically, the initiative will modernize cybersecurity defenses and will:
Encourage owners and operators to implement measures or technology that enhance their detection, mitigation and forensic capabilities;
Include concrete milestones over the next 100 days for owners and operators to identify and deploy technologies and systems that enable near real time situational awareness and response capabilities in critical industrial control system (ICS) and operational technology (OT) networks;
Reinforce and enhance cybersecurity posture of critical infrastructure information technology (IT) networks; and
Will include a voluntary industry effort to deploy technologies to increase visibility of threads in ICS and OT systems.[5]
Concurrently with the Cybersecurity Initiative, the DOE issued a request for information (RFI) seeking input from energy industry stakeholders to inform future recommendations for supply chain security in the US energy systems.[6] Comments received in response to the RFI are expected to help the DOE “evaluate new executive actions to further secure the nation’s critical infrastructure against malicious cyber activity and strengthen the domestic manufacturing base.”[7]
The RFI requests information and recommendations as to how to best develop a comprehensive long-term strategy geared towards addressing “pervasive and ongoing grid security risks” and notes that attention is also needed to mitigate the risks associated with potentially compromised grid equipment that has already been installed on the system.
The revocation of the Prohibition Order, the announcement of a new Cybersecurity Initiative, and the issuance of the RFI effectively take the Bulk Power Order back to square one and give the Biden Administration a fresh start when it comes to addressing energy infrastructure security.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Securing the U.S. Bulk Power System: An Assessment of Executive Order 13920 (May 8, 2020), https://www.energylawinfo.com/2020/05/bulk-power-system/#more-2042.
[2] U.S. Dep’t of Energy, Prohibition Order Securing Critical Defense Facilities, 86 Fed. Reg. 533 (Jan. 6, 2021), https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2021-01-06/pdf/2020-28773.pdf.
[3] 16 U.S.C. § 824o-1(c) (2018).
[4] Press Release, Biden Administration Takes Bold Action to Protect Electricity Operations from Increasing Cyber Threats (Apr. 20, 2021), https://www.energy.gov/articles/biden-administration-takes-bold-action-protect-electricity-operations-increasing-cyber-0.
[5] Id.
[6] U.S. Dep’t of Energy, Notice of Request for Information (RFI) on Ensuring the Continued Security of the United States Critical Electric Infrastructure (6450-01-P), at 5 (Apr. 20, 2021), https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2021-04/RFI%20Ensuring%20the%20Continued%20Security%20of%20US%20Critical%20Electric%20
Infrastructure%2004202021.pdf
[7] Press Release, supra note 4.
Tags: Bulk Power Order
The U.S. electric industry is not responding to cyber-vulnerable Chinese equipment
March 4, 2024
The utility sector continues to ignore the cyber threat from Chinese equipment.
From 2006 through 2023, the U.S. has imported almost 450 transformers over 10,000 kVA from China. Of these, more than 360 of these Chinese-made transformers exceeded 100,000 kVA (these are the large transmission system transformers necessary for the operation of the grid).
Moreover, after EO-13920 was suspended by the Biden administration, utilities continue to buy Chinese equipment, including more than 125 large Chinese transformers since 2020.
Inverters are used in solar panels, electric grids, power generation, manufacturing, water/wastewater, etc. The U.S. has imported more than 170,000,000 inverters from China since 2002 (5 million in 2021)…
On Feb. 27, 2024, the report to the president, “Strategy for Cyber-Physical Resilience: Fortifying Our Critical Infrastructure for a Digital World” was issued.
According to the report, “Cyber-physical resilience is the capacity of an integrated system to keep running—even if not at peak performance—should it lose specific functions. Challenges include degradation or cessation of one or more aspects of the computational or physical functions due to component failures, human errors, natural disasters, or malicious attacks.
“For instance,” the report continues, “if one or more of computer-based controls, sensors, or Internet communications fail, the system should continue to operate. We should have an understanding in advance of how and how well such operations will proceed in light of one or more failures.”
However, there are processes where a compromise of one sensor, whether unintentional or malicious, can cause unexpected catastrophic failure such as the load swing example. Compromising one sensor can also provide critical information to an adversary even though the sensor appears to be operating properly.
There is a continuing concern with the hardware backdoors in large electric transformers to be able to receive spoofed sensor signals compromising transformer operation. The grid can operate even if a transformer is inoperable. However, engineers can be limited to react due to unexpected voltage fluctuations when a transformer malfunctions…
https://www.securityinfowatch.com/cybersecurity/article/53098118/the-us-electric-industry-is-not-responding-to-cybervulnerable-chinese-equipment is quite a sobering report and you haven’t read the half of it.
I’m including this https://michaelmabee.info/database-of-chinese-transformers/ information to support the concerns reported above despite the irony of being linked to https://www.resilientsocieties.org/about-us.html an organization that, in name, connects to the palatine of planetary planning, the mocking modest manipulators of humanity, the very root of resilience, the Rockefeller radicals.
If you want to puzzle through why Biden and the democrats pulled Trump’s Executive Order almost before they got off the swearing in stage visit https://www.rbf.org/sites/default/files/2021-12/2020_RBF_990PF.pdf and scroll on down to page 105 where their listed interests begin and start slow scrolling from there.
Then consider their screening force. They are listed on https://markets.ft.com/data/equities/tearsheet/profile?s=3898:HKGYou should see a few of their partners on that list as you scroll down the 990 form.
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The political elite should hold their SOTU show in a big tent. It was quite a magic show. According to some comments at https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/03/08/fact-check-state-of-the-union/? if Biden wasn’t a democrat they would have awarded him a few Pinocchio awards.
However, the problem with the Pinocchio observations is noticeable; while his nose failed to grow, in this case, his ears looked like they did.
With apologies to the Ides of March, the story about the Duke engineers got me to thinking about the Vehicle song and one thing led to another. What can I say, it’s Springtime when an old man’s thoughts turn to political criminals and their controllers… must be the Primaries…
They’re a band of strangers in a black sedan
They got US inside their jar
With pictures, candy, a long running scam
They can drag US into any war
They’re our vehicle, people
Taking US where they want to go
they’re our vehicle, people
they tell US everything we need to know
They school US
Fool US
Completely rule US
That’s not our Father’s style
Great God in Heaven you know He loves US