A rumor of electrical power grids being hacked via the Internet

Here is a scary report -- electrical power grids shut off by hackers demanding money using the Internet.

Ted Bridis of the AP is reporting:

Hackers literally turned out the lights in multiple cities after breaking into electrical utilities and demanding extortion payments before disrupting the power, a senior CIA analyst told utility engineers at a trade conference.

All the break-ins occurred outside the United States, said senior CIA analyst Tom Donahue. The U.S. government believes some of the hackers had inside knowledge to cause the outages. Donahue did not specify what countries were affected, when the outages occurred or how long the outages lasted. He said they happened in "several regions outside the United States."

"In at least one case, the disruption caused a power outage affecting multiple cities," Donahue said in a statement. "We do not know who executed these attacks or why, but all involved intrusions through the Internet."

Unfortunately, the CIA doesn't seem to want to verify where this happened at.

I did a Google news search and there are power outages being reported all over, but most notably in Africa and Pakistan.

If anyone else cares to speculate, a link to Google and power outages can be seen, here.

Problem is power outages happen all the time and I'm not sure if the search reveals any unusual activity.

Of course, the CIA will not confirm or deny exactly which outages were caused by hackers.

Apparently, the CIA official announced this at a SANS conference in New Orleans on Thursday. Information Week has more information on this, here.

Nonetheless, if power grids can be shut down using the Internet, it makes me wonder how secure we really are sometimes?

Last summer shutting down power grids was part of the plot in the movie, "Live Free or Die Hard" starring Bruce Willis.

AP article (courtesy of SF Gate), here.

San Francisco Supervisor charged with bribery, extortion, mail and voter fraud!

There are some of us wondering how many more politicians will be caught with their hands in the cookie jar. In the past few years, quite a few of them seem making a mockery of the oath they took when they went into public service.

One of the San Francisco's own is being prosecuted for a host of fraud charges, including the fact that he himself committed voter fraud.

Karen Gullo at Bloomberg.com is reporting:

Ed Jew, a member of San Francisco's board of supervisors, was charged today with fraud, bribery and extortion for allegedly soliciting $80,000 from business owners in exchange for using his influence with the city's planning commission.

An indictment handed down today by a federal grand jury in San Francisco accuses Jew, 47, of soliciting bribes from Quickly tapioca drink shops in San Francisco, according to a statement by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California. In May, Jew accepted $40,000 in cash from Quickly representatives, prosecutors said.

SF Supervisor Ed Jew is also under investigation for committing voter fraud. SF Gate (Cecilia M. Vega, Jaxon Van Derbeken) reported in June:

Embattled San Francisco Supervisor Ed Jew surrendered to Burlingame authorities Tuesday night after San Francisco's chief prosecutor filed criminal charges against him and issued a warrant for his arrest, saying the lawmaker lied about where he lives in order to run for office.

Jew, who turned himself in with his bail bondsman at his side, posted $135,000 bail and was released.

The arrest and felony charges bring to a head a City Hall scandal that has dogged the rookie supervisor ever since FBI agents last month raided his city office, his residences and his Chinatown flower shop.

Interestingly enough, Wikipedia has a very detailed write-up on the ongoing Ed Jew saga, here.

Bloomberg.com story, here.

SFGate.com story, here.