7 ms·

As a german, can't agree more. From what I get talking to people is, that they have an irrational fear of a nuclear holocaust and nuclear waste.

rizkeyz 5y ago
We live at the dawn of cyberterrorism, I'm glad we are stepping out of nuclear now.
- BlueTemplar 5y ago
  Hopefully the few computers needed do not use generalist OSes and aren't connected to the Internet either ?
  - selfhoster11 5y ago
    IIRC, some nuclear readout panels were accessible over the public internet using badly secured VNC, so I think that's not the case.
  - goodpoint 5y ago
    I assume you never worked in security.
    - BlueTemplar 5y ago
      Should we be concerned then about nuclear weapons to be hacked too ?
      - goodpoint 5y ago
        Not to the point of detonating them - they have a lot of physical safeguards.
- selfhoster11 5y ago
  It's not impossible to purpose-build hardened, incompatible, read only systems that can submit telemetry to the outside world while only providing actual control on-site (or via restricted channels). Stuxnet wouldn't have happened (or would have been a very rare event) if they built their system this way.
  - RealityVoid 5y ago
    Stuxnet happened despite being air gaped. Regardless, I am confident you can place physical safeguards that could not lead to nuclear emissions even in the event of loss of control over the computer systems.
    - selfhoster11 5y ago
      It happened despite being air-gapped, because they used general purpose hardware and software. If their systems were built on purposely incompatible hardware and software (as I proposed) and could mainly communicate using a serial console, the attack surface would be much, much lower, and the attacks would be much, much harder.
      - RealityVoid 5y ago
        Having worked on for a short stint with some power plant control systems, I can say that, at least the systems I worked with, were quite niche. The actual control was happening on these racks that ran a VxWorks OS on some Motorola, I think they were, MCU's. Despite this, the systems were interfaced with some Windows machines that did supervision. When they were operating, they had redundancies, and were quite locked down. Of course, at that time, I was a noob and did not understand _everything_ that was going on in there. Actually, now that I think of it, the WDPF system it was derivated off was used in some nuclear power plants as well. Regardless, what I wanted to say was... being obscure, while it makes things mildly harder for skiddies is not a big deal for state actors or more resourceful attackers. The Stuxnet was highly targeted and they got access to specific vulnerabilities in the Siemens DCS systems that were running there. Just having exotic systems is no guarantee. I agree, obscurity is a layer of defense in depth, but no guarantee. Surely you don't suggest they use a new purpose built HW for each control system design. Also, control systems DO need to have their SW updated as well. It's obvious you can't make it hard read only. You do have physical lockout mechanisms for this though.
- Zardoz84 5y ago
  And why you need any electric central connected to internet ?
- DocTomoe 5y ago
  Here's a radical idea: Maybe your potentially dangerous industrial machinery does not need to be directly connected to the internet?
- goodpoint 5y ago
  Not only cyber. A nuclear power plant makes an excellent target for terrorism or war. Even if the attack is completely unsuccessful it would cause panic. Furthermore, highly centralized electricity generation makes the distribution network very vulnerable as well.
arethuza 5y ago
Not sure I would describe a fear of nuclear holocaust as "irrational" - had the Cold War gone hot Germany would have been very heavily targetted. Mind you, I'm not saying that justifies the current fear of nuclear power but then again it doesn't really surprise me. Maybe it's just a lingering fear of anything with "nuclear" in the name.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
drran 5y ago
Why «irrational»? It just to add color to your message, or you truly believe that radiation contamination is harmless?
- theshrike79 5y ago
  People are bad at statistics. The probability of a catastrophic event in a modern nuclear plant is vanishingly low. Even the overworked ancient plants from the 60's and 70's we are currently running are exceedingly safe. People will rather take constant death from coal power than risk a low-probability event.
  - drran 5y ago
    Yeah, but we have multiple catastrophes already, despite the vanishingly small number of nuclear plants. If we want to increase the number of nuclear stations by 10x, we need to make them 10x safer just to keep the number of catastrophes at the same 1/30y level. Do you have an idea how to make a nuclear plant 10x safer comparing to today?
    - fsflover 5y ago
      > Do you have an idea how to make a nuclear plant 10x safer comparing to today? Yes. All the reasons for the catastrophes are well known.
      - drran 5y ago
        There are 1) known reasons for known catastrophes, so we can protect against them, 2) unknown reasons for known catastrophes, so we need to make a guess, and 3) unknown reasons for unknown catastrophes, which are not happened yet, including state sponsored attack on a nuclear plant. We cannot be prepared for unknown unknowns, so we need to plan for the worst case scenario. The worst-case scenario for nuclear plant is continent scale Red Forest (about 1M Chornobyl's). Do you know how to reduce continent scale threat to just the size of a nation or a town? Nuclear fusion or LENR can do that, because of small amount of radioactive materials and no positive coefficient by design, but how you can do that for massive fission?

rizkeyz 5y ago

We live at the dawn of cyberterrorism, I'm glad we are stepping out of nuclear now.

BlueTemplar 5y ago
Hopefully the few computers needed do not use generalist OSes and aren't connected to the Internet either ?
- selfhoster11 5y ago
  IIRC, some nuclear readout panels were accessible over the public internet using badly secured VNC, so I think that's not the case.
- goodpoint 5y ago
  I assume you never worked in security.
  - BlueTemplar 5y ago
    Should we be concerned then about nuclear weapons to be hacked too ?
    - goodpoint 5y ago
      Not to the point of detonating them - they have a lot of physical safeguards.
selfhoster11 5y ago
It's not impossible to purpose-build hardened, incompatible, read only systems that can submit telemetry to the outside world while only providing actual control on-site (or via restricted channels). Stuxnet wouldn't have happened (or would have been a very rare event) if they built their system this way.
- RealityVoid 5y ago
  Stuxnet happened despite being air gaped. Regardless, I am confident you can place physical safeguards that could not lead to nuclear emissions even in the event of loss of control over the computer systems.
  - selfhoster11 5y ago
    It happened despite being air-gapped, because they used general purpose hardware and software. If their systems were built on purposely incompatible hardware and software (as I proposed) and could mainly communicate using a serial console, the attack surface would be much, much lower, and the attacks would be much, much harder.
    - RealityVoid 5y ago
      Having worked on for a short stint with some power plant control systems, I can say that, at least the systems I worked with, were quite niche. The actual control was happening on these racks that ran a VxWorks OS on some Motorola, I think they were, MCU's. Despite this, the systems were interfaced with some Windows machines that did supervision. When they were operating, they had redundancies, and were quite locked down. Of course, at that time, I was a noob and did not understand _everything_ that was going on in there. Actually, now that I think of it, the WDPF system it was derivated off was used in some nuclear power plants as well. Regardless, what I wanted to say was... being obscure, while it makes things mildly harder for skiddies is not a big deal for state actors or more resourceful attackers. The Stuxnet was highly targeted and they got access to specific vulnerabilities in the Siemens DCS systems that were running there. Just having exotic systems is no guarantee. I agree, obscurity is a layer of defense in depth, but no guarantee. Surely you don't suggest they use a new purpose built HW for each control system design. Also, control systems DO need to have their SW updated as well. It's obvious you can't make it hard read only. You do have physical lockout mechanisms for this though.
Zardoz84 5y ago
And why you need any electric central connected to internet ?
DocTomoe 5y ago
Here's a radical idea: Maybe your potentially dangerous industrial machinery does not need to be directly connected to the internet?
goodpoint 5y ago
Not only cyber. A nuclear power plant makes an excellent target for terrorism or war. Even if the attack is completely unsuccessful it would cause panic. Furthermore, highly centralized electricity generation makes the distribution network very vulnerable as well.

arethuza 5y ago

Not sure I would describe a fear of nuclear holocaust as "irrational" - had the Cold War gone hot Germany would have been very heavily targetted. Mind you, I'm not saying that justifies the current fear of nuclear power but then again it doesn't really surprise me. Maybe it's just a lingering fear of anything with "nuclear" in the name.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

drran 5y ago

Why «irrational»? It just to add color to your message, or you truly believe that radiation contamination is harmless?

theshrike79 5y ago
People are bad at statistics. The probability of a catastrophic event in a modern nuclear plant is vanishingly low. Even the overworked ancient plants from the 60's and 70's we are currently running are exceedingly safe. People will rather take constant death from coal power than risk a low-probability event.
- drran 5y ago
  Yeah, but we have multiple catastrophes already, despite the vanishingly small number of nuclear plants. If we want to increase the number of nuclear stations by 10x, we need to make them 10x safer just to keep the number of catastrophes at the same 1/30y level. Do you have an idea how to make a nuclear plant 10x safer comparing to today?
  - fsflover 5y ago
    > Do you have an idea how to make a nuclear plant 10x safer comparing to today? Yes. All the reasons for the catastrophes are well known.
    - drran 5y ago
      There are 1) known reasons for known catastrophes, so we can protect against them, 2) unknown reasons for known catastrophes, so we need to make a guess, and 3) unknown reasons for unknown catastrophes, which are not happened yet, including state sponsored attack on a nuclear plant. We cannot be prepared for unknown unknowns, so we need to plan for the worst case scenario. The worst-case scenario for nuclear plant is continent scale Red Forest (about 1M Chornobyl's). Do you know how to reduce continent scale threat to just the size of a nation or a town? Nuclear fusion or LENR can do that, because of small amount of radioactive materials and no positive coefficient by design, but how you can do that for massive fission?