Vulnerbilities of Interconnection

Fri Sep 6 21:32:57 UTC 2002

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 9/6/2002 at 11:26 PM Brad Knowles wrote:

>At 2:01 PM -0700 2002/09/06, Jeff Shultz wrote:
>
>>  Said tube electronics were apparently more survivable against EMP
>>  effects. Or was that the point you were making? I think the real
>>  surprise was a toggle switch that Belenko said was supposed to be
>>  flipped only when told over the radio by higher headquarters. It
>>  changed the characteristics of the radar.... sort of a "go to war"
mode
>>  vs. the standard training mode.
>
>	I wouldn't be too surprised.  The Patriot has a clock problem, 
>and can't be left turned on for an extended period of time.  There 
>are plenty of military systems everywhere in the world that have 
>various operational issues that may not materially reduce their 
>effectiveness in their official role, but which may make them less 
>suitable for other roles.

Actually I suspect it was an anti-jamming feature. Think about it....
the jammers would all be programmed based on the training mode, which
presumably we would have heard before. All off the sudden this thing is
broadcasting an entirely new signal... 

<snip>

>>  Coonts has an inflated idea of what an outage there would do the
the
>>  internet... but there is a lot of other stuff fairly nearby, isn't
>>  there?
>
>	What do you mean by "nearby"?  Do you count the "TerraPOP"?  Do 
>you count Langley?

I thought that MAE-East was somewhere around there? I know that there
is a fair amount of high-tech in that particular area. I don't know how
far away Langley itself is.... another target was basically "The Mall"
where it took out a couple of fly-by-wire Airbuses. Interesting book
from a techno-thriller standpoint. Just don't confuse it with
reality.<G> 

-- 
Jeff Shultz
Network Support Technician
Willamette Valley Internet
503-769-3331 (Stayton)
503-390-7000 (Salem)
tech at wvi.com 

...most of us have as our claim to fame the ability to talk to 
inanimate objects and convince them they want to listen to us.
		-- Valdis Kletnieks in a.s.r