I tend to visit this forum at rather irregular intervals, and I have just noticed the August 9th thread by "al" entitled "is this statement for real?" Al's post relates to reports that Georgia State Rep. George Grindley, head of that state's Y2K Task Force, has said that he has been warned to prepare for power outages lasting *possibly* as long as three weeks in some areas. On Al's thread I have posted a response based on my own correspondence with Rep. Grindley a month ago. No doubt it raises more questions than it answers, but some people might still find it interesting. And before anyone asks: no, I don't have a copy of that AP or Reuters news article from last summer reporting a joint NSA/DoD/FBI exercise in 1997 on cyber terrorism. It was an online article and I should have printed it out at the time. My mistake. Frankly, at the time I found what that news article reported to be rather hard to believe; various subsequent rumblings, including Rep. Grindley's statements, now lead me to believe the news report was accurate, at least in part. It appears that the feds are indeed sweating possible cyber terrorist attacks against our basic infrastructure in the coming months, though I would imagine it's virtually impossible to assess the odds of such attacks occurring or their chances for success.

On a different but related note: has anybody uncovered any more information as to why Cameron Daley, chief operating officer of TAVA/Beck, thinks that regional power outages lasting as long as three weeks are at least remotely possible? As I recall the original June 30th "Bloomberg News" article, plus Drew Parkhill's subsequent telephone interview with Daley, Mr. Daley contended, based on TAVA's work with some 100 U.S. electric utilities, that at least some power companies had thought they were ready for Y2K when they weren't, and that TAVA had subsequently uncovered various missed problems that could have led directly to outages. I'd be interested in any detailed information as to the types of systems involved, and the types of power companies. In the "Bloomberg News" article, Mr. Daley, a former exec with Boston Edison, was quoted as saying that some of these companies had been distracted by deregulation and had simply not examined some systems as thoroughly and as in depth as they should have done; I figured at the time that type testing and excessive reliance upon unverified vendor statements could have also been the culprits involved. But, again, I'd appreciate any further details. That was quite a statement to make for publication, after all. Rick, you used to work at TAVA; do you know Mr. Daley personally?

-- Anonymous, August 17, 1999

Answers

don, thanks for the info. i found it quite interesting. we seem to have more than problem, both are computer related, one inadvertant and one malicous. keep digging. thanks, al

-- Anonymous, August 17, 1999