6 ms·

Funny, how we're all suddenly privy to highly classified information. Yesterday, if you'd have publicly shared this one substation is enough to take down Heath

by michh 1y ago

Funny, how we're all suddenly privy to highly classified information. Yesterday, if you'd have publicly shared this one substation is enough to take down Heathrow for an entire day, you'd have been disappeared by the British spooks for sharing extremely sensitive information threatening national security and you'd probably end up behind bars for over a decade. Today, we all just know because it happened to catch fire, exposing the flaw.

hypeatei 1y ago
Taking out any power infrastructure is going to cause significant problems, no? I don't think that's a national secret in any country. I get it, all modern intelligence apparatus is draconian but this take doesn't really make sense IMO.
- michh 1y ago
  There's "significant problems" and there's taking out *the* most important airport in the country. Yes, there are other airports but this one matters most. Both in terms of (inter)national perception and in terms of real damage to the economy. From an US perspective it'd be like taking out JFK, LAX and ATL at the same time. But even then, it doesn't really compare.
- chaps 1y ago
  What a weird take. Arresting someone for reporting a major security vulnerability is pretty shitty thing for a state to do. What you're suggesting is that that's not actually that bad. Same sort of logic that leads to people getting arrested for looking at HTML and reporting that it includes passwords.
  - tremarley 1y ago
    That’s what happened to Josh Renaud. Renaud discovered that Social Security numbers for teachers, administrators and counselors were visible in the HTML code of a public Missouri State Education website and reported it. Governor Mike Parson tried to file charges against him and labelled him as a criminal for doing so.
    - chaps 1y ago
      Yep! That's exactly what I was thinking of. I've been on the side of disclosing a handful of times and it's a gamble each time whether I'm going to get a CFAA threat (both implicit and explicit threats).
  - hypeatei 1y ago
    > What you're suggesting is that that's not actually that bad. When did I ever say or imply that? I agree that intelligence agencies are draconian, but to imply that you'd be locked away (never to be heard from again) for pointing out that a substation could be bombed and cause power issues is ridiculous.
    - chaps 1y ago
      They were using a bit of hyperbole for sure (though another poster accurately pointed out to you methods used against Northern Irish folk), but the reaction of gov agencies to use imprisonment (even as a threat!) for pointing out security fuckups isn't without precedence. It's happened to me :) So, I guess I really don't understand your point. That being arrested for pointing these things out isn't bad because it's not being disappeared?
    - michh 1y ago
      I shouldn’t have used the word disappeared, I just meant picked up. And yeah no, not for saying a substation exists and could be bombed. But for saying there is a single substation that, if taken out (by sabotage, terror attack, arson, or whatever), would cause great embarrassment and economic damage to the country by disabling THE British Airport? I think that’s a whole different matter.
FreebasingLLMs 1y ago
[dead]
crote 1y ago
This kind of information has been available via open data for ages, and it isn't exactly hard for a foreign power with boots on the ground to figure out either. With this kind of large-scale infrastructure it just isn't viable to rely on security through obscurity. If you want to protect against failure, invest in redundancy.
- rchaud 1y ago
  Sounds like a cost center. Heathrow is privately owned. Would the board approve?
  - fraserharris 1y ago
    Business continuity planning & investment is an important part of running an enterprise.
- michh 1y ago
  I didn’t mean this substation existing. I know that’s obviously not a secret. The fact taking it out takes out the entire main airport for at least an entire day is a different matter. Do you really think they’d have been fine with you announcing that to the world yesterday? Don’t forget the BT Tower existing was technically classified under the official secrets act, even though it was extremely obviously there for everyone to see including on maps.
casenmgreen 1y ago
You don't get disappeared in UK. Stuff goes wrong, Gov does stupid things, so do police - but that's process/people being stupid, not institutionalized disappearances.
- youngNed 1y ago
  laughs in Northern Irish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_techniques https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_techniques
  - casenmgreen 1y ago
    Yes. NI was different, and suffered the abuses and problems which come with internal conflict.
baq 1y ago
> because it happened to catch fire Not a conspiracy theorist here, but... there's been quite a few expensive things which caught fire in Europe in the past year and change and it turned out those things didn't catch it by accident.
- petertodd 1y ago
  An example from a few days ago is how Lithuania's government believes that the Russian military intelligence was behind an arson attack on an Ikea: https://www.euronews.com/2025/03/17/lithuania-says-russian-military-intelligence-behind-ikea-arson-attack-in-vilnius https://www.euronews.com/2025/03/17/lithuania-says-russian-m... There's also the "accident" that just happened to destroy a US military oil tanker. Sure enough, the captain of the ship was Russian: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/mar/12/captain-arrested-over-uk-ship-collision-is-russian-owner-says https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/mar/12/captain-arr... And it's very clear that multiple undersea cables have been intentionally cut by Russia-linked entities. You just don't drag anchors for hours over known cables by accident (the cables are on charts precisely to help captains avoid damaging them). We're at war with Russia, and these kinds of attacks have both economic and psychological harms. They also allow Russia to practice techniques in case they need to ramp things up for a hotter conflict.
  - jrhjasFG 1y ago
    [flagged]
traceroute66 1y ago
> we're all suddenly privy to highly classified information Its not highly classified. Its not even plain classified. Its available on streetmap. The substation (like most are) is located on the edge of a residential area / industrial estate. People walk and drive past it every day. Looking at streetmap, there's even a multiple big signs outside that says "North Hyde Substation". They don't even make any effort to hide it with obscured fencing, its all out in the open. As others have also pointed out, its in open data downloads for ages.
- michh 1y ago
  The fact this substation exists, yes, obviously. The fact taking it out takes out the entire airport: not so much! These kind of things usually aren’t dependent on a single substation. The fact that it is, is not something the UK government would have liked to be made public.
  - traceroute66 1y ago
    > The fact taking it out takes out the entire airport: not so much! These kind of things usually aren’t dependent on a single substation. Let me re-phrase that for you: It only took down the airport because the airport clearly did insufficient capacity planning in terms of backup mechanisms. How can I be so confident ? Because that exact same substation serves a number of large datacentres in the vicinity. Due to the grid constraints previously discussed here, many of those same datacentres take ALL their feeds (A,B,C etc.) off that one substation, the only difference is the cables are diversely routed. Not their choice, it was imposed on them by the grid. They have ALL been without ANY electrical feeds all day. I know that for a fact. HOWEVER, those same datacentres have been running non-stop like nothing happened. I know that for a fact. Why, because they have N+1 generators (which are regularly tested) with at least 48 hours of fuel, which was topped up this morning as soon as it became clear it was a major incident and with multiple fuel deliveries already pre-scheduled from multiple independent suppliers. I know that for a fact. The grid are of course very busy trying to work some magic to re-arrange things to get the datacentres back online. Meanwhile the datacentres are very happy to keep ticking away on generator power for as long as it takes, its not a problem for them, its an event they plan, prepare and practice for. Heathrow could have done the same. They could have added generator plants here and there over the years when they re-built terminals and such like. They didn't, or at least they didn't do so with sufficient capacity. Maybe Heathrow also fell behind on their generator maintenance and testing regimes. Who knows... There are people out there who say it is because their motto is "spend little, charge a lot", so they did de-minimis, prefering to focus on maximising revenue generating space. I could not possibly comment.

by michh 1y ago

hypeatei 1y ago

Taking out any power infrastructure is going to cause significant problems, no? I don't think that's a national secret in any country. I get it, all modern intelligence apparatus is draconian but this take doesn't really make sense IMO.

michh 1y ago
There's "significant problems" and there's taking out *the* most important airport in the country. Yes, there are other airports but this one matters most. Both in terms of (inter)national perception and in terms of real damage to the economy. From an US perspective it'd be like taking out JFK, LAX and ATL at the same time. But even then, it doesn't really compare.
chaps 1y ago
What a weird take. Arresting someone for reporting a major security vulnerability is pretty shitty thing for a state to do. What you're suggesting is that that's not actually that bad. Same sort of logic that leads to people getting arrested for looking at HTML and reporting that it includes passwords.
- tremarley 1y ago
  That’s what happened to Josh Renaud. Renaud discovered that Social Security numbers for teachers, administrators and counselors were visible in the HTML code of a public Missouri State Education website and reported it. Governor Mike Parson tried to file charges against him and labelled him as a criminal for doing so.
  - chaps 1y ago
    Yep! That's exactly what I was thinking of. I've been on the side of disclosing a handful of times and it's a gamble each time whether I'm going to get a CFAA threat (both implicit and explicit threats).
- hypeatei 1y ago
  > What you're suggesting is that that's not actually that bad. When did I ever say or imply that? I agree that intelligence agencies are draconian, but to imply that you'd be locked away (never to be heard from again) for pointing out that a substation could be bombed and cause power issues is ridiculous.
  - chaps 1y ago
    They were using a bit of hyperbole for sure (though another poster accurately pointed out to you methods used against Northern Irish folk), but the reaction of gov agencies to use imprisonment (even as a threat!) for pointing out security fuckups isn't without precedence. It's happened to me :) So, I guess I really don't understand your point. That being arrested for pointing these things out isn't bad because it's not being disappeared?
  - michh 1y ago
    I shouldn’t have used the word disappeared, I just meant picked up. And yeah no, not for saying a substation exists and could be bombed. But for saying there is a single substation that, if taken out (by sabotage, terror attack, arson, or whatever), would cause great embarrassment and economic damage to the country by disabling THE British Airport? I think that’s a whole different matter.

FreebasingLLMs 1y ago

[dead]

crote 1y ago

This kind of information has been available via open data for ages, and it isn't exactly hard for a foreign power with boots on the ground to figure out either. With this kind of large-scale infrastructure it just isn't viable to rely on security through obscurity. If you want to protect against failure, invest in redundancy.

rchaud 1y ago
Sounds like a cost center. Heathrow is privately owned. Would the board approve?
- fraserharris 1y ago
  Business continuity planning & investment is an important part of running an enterprise.
michh 1y ago
I didn’t mean this substation existing. I know that’s obviously not a secret. The fact taking it out takes out the entire main airport for at least an entire day is a different matter. Do you really think they’d have been fine with you announcing that to the world yesterday? Don’t forget the BT Tower existing was technically classified under the official secrets act, even though it was extremely obviously there for everyone to see including on maps.

casenmgreen 1y ago

You don't get disappeared in UK. Stuff goes wrong, Gov does stupid things, so do police - but that's process/people being stupid, not institutionalized disappearances.

youngNed 1y ago
laughs in Northern Irish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_techniques https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_techniques
- casenmgreen 1y ago
  Yes. NI was different, and suffered the abuses and problems which come with internal conflict.

baq 1y ago

> because it happened to catch fire Not a conspiracy theorist here, but... there's been quite a few expensive things which caught fire in Europe in the past year and change and it turned out those things didn't catch it by accident.

petertodd 1y ago
An example from a few days ago is how Lithuania's government believes that the Russian military intelligence was behind an arson attack on an Ikea: https://www.euronews.com/2025/03/17/lithuania-says-russian-military-intelligence-behind-ikea-arson-attack-in-vilnius https://www.euronews.com/2025/03/17/lithuania-says-russian-m... There's also the "accident" that just happened to destroy a US military oil tanker. Sure enough, the captain of the ship was Russian: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/mar/12/captain-arrested-over-uk-ship-collision-is-russian-owner-says https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/mar/12/captain-arr... And it's very clear that multiple undersea cables have been intentionally cut by Russia-linked entities. You just don't drag anchors for hours over known cables by accident (the cables are on charts precisely to help captains avoid damaging them). We're at war with Russia, and these kinds of attacks have both economic and psychological harms. They also allow Russia to practice techniques in case they need to ramp things up for a hotter conflict.
- jrhjasFG 1y ago
  [flagged]

traceroute66 1y ago

> we're all suddenly privy to highly classified information Its not highly classified. Its not even plain classified. Its available on streetmap. The substation (like most are) is located on the edge of a residential area / industrial estate. People walk and drive past it every day. Looking at streetmap, there's even a multiple big signs outside that says "North Hyde Substation". They don't even make any effort to hide it with obscured fencing, its all out in the open. As others have also pointed out, its in open data downloads for ages.

michh 1y ago
The fact this substation exists, yes, obviously. The fact taking it out takes out the entire airport: not so much! These kind of things usually aren’t dependent on a single substation. The fact that it is, is not something the UK government would have liked to be made public.
- traceroute66 1y ago
  > The fact taking it out takes out the entire airport: not so much! These kind of things usually aren’t dependent on a single substation. Let me re-phrase that for you: It only took down the airport because the airport clearly did insufficient capacity planning in terms of backup mechanisms. How can I be so confident ? Because that exact same substation serves a number of large datacentres in the vicinity. Due to the grid constraints previously discussed here, many of those same datacentres take ALL their feeds (A,B,C etc.) off that one substation, the only difference is the cables are diversely routed. Not their choice, it was imposed on them by the grid. They have ALL been without ANY electrical feeds all day. I know that for a fact. HOWEVER, those same datacentres have been running non-stop like nothing happened. I know that for a fact. Why, because they have N+1 generators (which are regularly tested) with at least 48 hours of fuel, which was topped up this morning as soon as it became clear it was a major incident and with multiple fuel deliveries already pre-scheduled from multiple independent suppliers. I know that for a fact. The grid are of course very busy trying to work some magic to re-arrange things to get the datacentres back online. Meanwhile the datacentres are very happy to keep ticking away on generator power for as long as it takes, its not a problem for them, its an event they plan, prepare and practice for. Heathrow could have done the same. They could have added generator plants here and there over the years when they re-built terminals and such like. They didn't, or at least they didn't do so with sufficient capacity. Maybe Heathrow also fell behind on their generator maintenance and testing regimes. Who knows... There are people out there who say it is because their motto is "spend little, charge a lot", so they did de-minimis, prefering to focus on maximising revenue generating space. I could not possibly comment.