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20 Nov 2011 11:20

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Tech, U.S.: Report: Illinois industrial water pump damaged by … Russian hackers?!

  • Because that’s not weird or anything. On November 8, an industrial water pump in a rural Illinois town went down. Reportedly, the culprit was a Russian hacker who had gained access to the pump via compromised details from the software firm that produced the water pump’s remote-control software. The hack damaged the water pump, making it the first confirmed (but not claimed) cyber attack on an industrial system in U.S. history. The hack harkens back to last year’s Stuxnet attack on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. Stuxnet, a piece of malware reportedly created by the U.S. and Israel with the expressed purpose of damaging the country’s budding nuclear program, reportedly gave the Iranian nuclear program a huge setback. Excuse us, we’re gonna hide out in a bunker to protect ourselves from the fallout from the forthcoming cyberwar. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

22 Mar 2011 13:23

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World: Power lines connected at Fukushima Daiichi, not turned on yet

  • Power lines up in all six Fukushima Daiichi reactors: Which is great sounding news, but they’re not out of the woods yet. There are a number of implications to this, mainly that cooling systems can be turned back on, thus pumping water back into the reactors and preventing a meltdown of the fuel rods. However, the power hasn’t yet been switched on, as engineers fear that the pumps, damaged as they are, could cause an explosion if activated abruptly. That aside, this news is a credit to the bravery of the workers who stayed at the plant. We hope the government gives them truly first-class care once this is over, it’s the only moral thing to do. source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

21 Mar 2011 14:53

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World: Smoke and steam cause day-long delay at Fukushima Daiichi

  • The hope for Fukushima The prognosis for Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has been thought to be improving in recent days, as efforts to install new power lines to the facilities, and thereby restart the cooling pumps, have been going well. Reactors 5 and 6 now both have cooling (those units are storing already spent fuel rods, not active ones).
  • Today’s smoke-fueled Delay A plume of dark smoke was recently seen rising from Reactor 3, over a pool of spent fuel rods. Reactor 2 also seemed to have white steam rising. While the cause of the plumes is not known, officials say they see no spike in radiation, though workers have been evacuated and work halted until tomorrow. source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
 
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