Ross: Some things should never be plugged into the public internet
Feb 9, 2021, 6:32 AM | Updated: 8:54 am
Did you hear about hacker who hit the water supply for the Tampa suburb of Oldsmar, Florida?
“The hacker was controlling the computer systems’ mouse, and was able to increase the level of sodium hydroxide in the water supply from about one hundred parts per million to more than 11,000 parts per million,” said Jeff Pegues, CBS News correspondent.
The local sheriff explained what sodium hydroxide is:
“Sodium Hydroxide, also known as lye, is the main ingredient in liquid drain cleaners.”
Yeah! It’s used to control water quality.
So let me just ask – how many post-apocalyptic movies does it take for us to understand that some things should never be plugged into the public internet?
Anything that guides planes to the runway, counts votes, launches missiles, controls traffic lights, pumps coolant at the nuclear plant or, yes, controls the amount of DRANO in the water … needs to have a sentient, highly-trained, well-rested, thoroughly vaccinated operator PHYSICALLY at the controls!
Did you know there’s even a website that displays all the computers currently on-line anywhere in the world?
There are even YouTube videos to help you use it:
“There’s so many targets out there,” one video says.
Because millions of people just leave their computers on:
“People with their web cams on … and sharing something personal – oh gosh – that’s — uh, that’s bad.”
I’ll have to pixelate that.
Happy ending: That Florida water system has now been unplugged from the internet, and no one was harmed — America’s IT first-responders to the rescue — avoiding another CAT6-tastrophe.
Without them, we’d all be streakin’ at the Super Bowl whether we realized it or not.
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