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Metcalf Sniper Attack
- valuearb 6y ago2015: “While we have not yet identified the shooter, there's some indication it was an insider," said Caitlin Durkovich, assistant secretary for infrastructure protection at the Department of Homeland Security.
- csilverman 6y agoI always wondered about this. First thing that crossed my mind at the time was that it was (1) idiots who thought it would be fun to cause high-profile trouble, or (2) terrorists, but it sounded a bit sophisticated for #1 and as far as I know, no one ever claimed credit for it. After reading one of the references (https://money.cnn.com/2015/10/16/technology/sniper-power-grid/ https://money.cnn.com/2015/10/16/technology/sniper-power-gri...), and learning that they think it might have been an insider, a third possibility occurs to me: what if it was someone—maybe a PG&E employee—who knew first-hand how unprotected this infrastructure was, and wasn't being taken seriously? Especially given the Homeland Security report a year earlier about how easy this kind of attack would be. Conspiracy-theory stuff, maybe, but: > The assault...became a harsh wake-up call for energy providers, who have since become obsessed with the physical security of their remote power stations. > PG&E alone has pledged to spend $100 million to improve security at its facilities...Transformers are often custom designed, sometimes costing $3 million each—and replacements are slow. Plus, physical attacks on energy distribution machines are much more effective at taking out the power grid than a computer hack. And it's incredibly easy to pull off, several energy utility firms told CNNMoney. > Experts attending GridSecCon, held by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation this week, are now discussing the need to enclose electronics in 1/2-inch thick armor plating that can stop high-powered rifle rounds. Power utilities have started loading remote substations with infrared cameras, gunshot audio sensors and even seismic recorders that catch vibrations.
- bargle0 6y agoThere’s a fourth option: intentional vandalism that isn’t terrorism, like the fire on the USS Miami.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- csilverman 6y agoYeah, arbitrary vandalism was the first option I considered. Can't rule it out, although whoever did this seems to have shown more caution/coordination than you'd expect from a couple of drunk idiots taking potshots at street signs.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 6y agoNot drunk idiots, an insider. Compare e.g. the incident where a disgruntled worker decided to flood an area with raw sewage through false radio commands (https://www.mitre.org/sites/default/files/pdf/08_1145.pdf https://www.mitre.org/sites/default/files/pdf/08_1145.pdf)
- roywiggins 6y agoOr the guy fingered for the 2001 anthrax attacks. If it was an insider, it was probably someone with a workplace grievance. Maybe someone who had raised concerns about security and wanted to prove himself correct, or just someone with a boss they disliked who wanted to make trouble.
- Sevrene 6y agoOh wow, that's my local area and I had never heard of this. Thanks for posting. Makes you wonder what happens that doesn't get discovered.
- skylanh 6y agoWell, if we're doing actionable conspiracy theories then: - it caused $15 million in damage, and $100 million in updated security -> contractor needing work - it was a "domestic terrorism" event -> what legislation or policies were on the table at this time? Those would be my starting points.
- jonathankoren 6y agoThat’s not the only weird sabotage that has happened in San Jose. Back in 2009, someone intentionally cut some fiber optic cables. They’ve never been found. https://www.mercurynews.com/2009/04/09/san-jose-police-sabotage-caused-phone-outage-in-santa-clara-santa-cruz-counties/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2009/04/09/san-jose-police-sabot...
- tyingq 6y agoProbably someone hoping for copper to scrap.
- natcombs 6y agoThat video does not appear to show anything for four minutes. Did I miss something? Edit: Now I have a feeling that I got trolled and that's the point of the video
- unkeptbarista 6y agoThe action is easy to miss after nearly two minutes of nothing happening. If you fast forward you might not see it at all. 1:54 What I believe is the signal flash near the fencing. Lower left of the video. 2:06 You will see sparks from a bullet striking the fencing. A bit higher up than the signal flash, and on the extreme left of the video. 3:01 Toward the middle right of the video, a bullet striking the fencing. Update: NPR article with timing of events seen in video. They say first flash is also bullet related and not the signal flash I thought it might be. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/02/05/272015606/sniper-attack-on-calif-power-station-raises-terrorism-fears https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/02/05/272015606...
- urda 6y agoThanks so much for this.
- daneel_w 6y agoThere are a few smaller and larger sparks now and then. The resolution, quality and low frame rate renders the entire video more or less useless.
- guerrilla 6y agoStarting at 1:50 you can see a flash at the bottom, after 2:00 you can see sparks occasionally on the left fence and the fence to the top-right. There's more sparks before 3:00. The video could certainly be shortened.
- Cactus2018 6y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQzAbKdLfW8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQzAbKdLfW8 The 3:01 spark is the best. Could this video could be processed (AI!) to remove the background and highlight the interesting bits.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 6y agoWhy is it called an act of domestic terrorism? Was it ideologically motivated?
- tyingq 6y agoGood question since they didn't catch anyone. It looks pretty remote, so perhaps not surprising the culprit wasn't seen.
- ojbyrne 6y agoIt's in a suburb of San Jose. I don't think it can be classified as "remote."
- tyingq 6y agoWell, it doesn't look urban or suburban to me. But, hey, you're the expert. https://www.google.com/local/place/fid/0x808e2f6cead39bb3:0x6340de8983062e5f/photosphere?iu=//geo1.ggpht.com/cbk?panoid%3DG1s611AqxP3l3vWKst0ldA%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dlu.gallery.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D160%26h%3D106%26yaw%3D61.646606%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100&ik=CAISFkcxczYxMUFxeFAzbDN2V0tzdDBsZEE%3D https://www.google.com/local/place/fid/0x808e2f6cead39bb3:0x...
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- mlyle 6y agoIt's right along the freeway. A couple hundred thousand commuters from south SJ suburbs pass it every day. It's in a little band of open space between South San Jose and those suburbs. https://goo.gl/maps/2TfHJKYXBExg4SqH7 https://goo.gl/maps/2TfHJKYXBExg4SqH7
- mikeyouse 6y agoYep - might look a little remote from the streetview, but it's the parcel just North of Coyote Ranch in the bottom right of this map: https://i.imgur.com/8eU58wG.jpg https://i.imgur.com/8eU58wG.jpg There are tens of thousands of people living within 5 miles of it.
- urda 6y agoI remember this, still wild re-reading the entire record of events.
- digi59404 6y agoI was on duty as security for a.. semi secret substation designated as critical infrastructure that night. In the Bay Area, we just had to divert power a little bit. It basically didn’t affect the grid at all. Everyone was all a little more worried as to if this was isolated, if we were next, etc etc. Transformers that are small are often on hand and easy to swap out. But some of the bigger ones have months long lead times. The facility we were at had transformers that had a 6 month lead time from Germany to replace them and they had to be sent via boat as they wouldn’t fit in planes. The average person isn’t going to know that about transformers. Which leads more credence to the fact it’s an inside job.
- crehn 6y agoOut of curiosity, how does one “divert power”?
- MadVikingGod 6y agoWhat that practically means is power that would have normally come through those substation would be delivered by some other source, and thus go through a different set of substations. What most people don't understand is that it's important that the demand + the transmission losses = the production, not just as a whole, but also for each link. To help with that most places don't produce 100%, and a lot of higher power links are redundant. But that can only cover so much. If it's not a high demand day you can probably source power from other providers, but sometimes that's not enough.
- digi59404 6y agoEIL5 Answer. Power (mostly) follows the path of least resistance. Like water does. To divert power certain stations or links in the grid can offer resistance via either terminating, or other means. Another thing is, It’s a common understanding that power facilities can produce and modulate power. But they can also spin in reverse, thus using power.
- reincarnate0x14 6y ago
- areoform 6y agoThe reason why the Intelligence Community freaked out is because this is exactly the kind of small-scale test they'd do to test a possible attack pattern. https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/12/27/military-style-raid-on-california-power-station-spooks-u-s/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/12/27/military-style-raid-on-... The people spooked here are spooks. And that should be telling for those of us on the outside. It's an attack scenario no one had planned for. I would highly recommend this article by Michael Lewis (and his book) that explores related systemic risk, https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/07/department-of-energy-risks-michael-lewis https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/07/department-of-energy... > The safety of the electrical grid sat at or near the top of the list of concerns of everyone I spoke with inside the D.O.E. Life in America has become, increasingly, reliant on it. “Food and water has become food and water and electricity,” as one D.O.E. career staffer put it. Back in 2013 there had been an incident in California that got everyone’s attention. Late one night, just southeast of San Jose, at Pacific Gas and Electric’s Metcalf substation, a well-informed sniper, using a .30-caliber rifle, had taken out 17 transformers. Someone had also cut the cables that enabled communication to and from the substation. “They knew exactly what lines to cut,” said Tarak Shah, who studied the incident for the D.O.E. “They knew exactly where to shoot. They knew exactly which manhole covers were relevant—where the communication lines were. These were feeder stations to Apple and Google.” There had been enough backup power in the area that no one noticed the outage, and the incident came and went quickly from the news. But, Shah said, “for us it was a wake-up call.” In 2016 the D.O.E. counted half a million cyber-intrusions into various parts of the U.S. electrical grid. “It’s one thing to put your head in the sand for climate change—it’s like mañana,” says Ali Zaidi, who served in the White House as Obama’s senior adviser on energy policy. “This is here and now. We actually don’t have a transformer reserve. They’re like these million-dollar things. Seventeen transformers getting shot up in California is not like, Oh, we’ll just fix the problem. Our electric-grid assets are growingly vulnerable.” > In his briefings on the electrical grid MacWilliams made a specific point and a more general one. The specific point was that we don’t actually have a national grid. Our electricity is supplied by a patchwork of not terribly innovative or imaginatively managed regional utilities. The federal government offers the only hope of a coordinated, intelligent response to threats to the system: there is no private-sector mechanism. To that end the D.O.E. had begun to gather the executives of the utility companies, to educate them about the threats they face. “They all sort of said, ‘But is this really real?’ ” said MacWilliams. “You get them security clearance for a day and tell them about the attacks and all of a sudden you see their eyes go really wide.” Edit Personal Interpretation: Someone hired highly trained mercenaries (?) to operate on US soil to test destroying critical infrastructure that led directly to Apple + Google. Large, stationary, expensive infrastructure that is lacking in redundancy. They knew exactly what targets to hit. It follows that they knew that there was backup capacity in the system. This was a test run. And bullets are cheap. What if instead of one team for one location, it had been three teams for three locations? Or, four? Five? Six? Could they have successfully crippled the nation? And plunged the stock market?
- Beldin 6y agoI don't understand why this is called a terror attack. From the article it seems managers got spooked, sure. But it doesn't read as if the general population was. Granted, it's possible the attack failed to achieve its goal and that's why the population is not terrorised. But even then: an actual terrorist could've easily kept track of news on damages caused and how close to great effect they had come. That would surely incentive them to try again. But I'm not aware of that happening. So what is the terror angle here?
- save_ferris 6y agoThe terror angle is that someone tried to disrupt a major component of the electrical grid. It’s hard to imagine a motive for such an attack that doesn’t involve trying to cause major panic to a community. That’s definitely qualifiable as terrorism. Just because they didn’t attempt again (that we know of) doesn’t mean that they weren’t terrorists to begin with. Also noted in the article, investigators later believed it to be an inside job. This goes into wild speculation, but if the attackers worked at DHS, they may have known how close an investigation came to revealing them and opted not to try again. We’ll probably never know why though.
- AmericanChopper 6y agoTerrorism is any use of violence or intimidation for the purpose of furthering a political goal. The political motive is a necessary element of terrorism. While you could presume terrorism as being the most likely explanation, it’s not the only one, as state sponsored acts tend not to be classified as terrorism (depending on the perceived legitimacy of the state in question). Of course is a politically loaded word, so people will redefine it to suit whatever their political agenda is. But that’s it’s original definition at least.
- BoorishBears 6y agoThis is such a unnecessary nitpick since yourself seem to understand by calling it terrorism, people are explicitly declaring their belief that it was to political ends. It's like people calling a bush fire arson, then you giving the definition of arson and saying "arson refers to the deliberate act of setting a fire"... That's kind of the whole point of implicating it was arson, to further narrow the cause/motivation of an incident. Also the nitpick isn't internally consistent, if you want to be literal and say terrorism any use of violence for the purpose of furthering a political goal, how is a state sponsored attack not a terrorist attack? Are geopolitics excluded from your definition then? >State sponsered acts tend to not be classified as terrorism Says who??? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan_and_state-sponsored_terrorism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan_and_state-sponsored_t... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_and_state-sponsored_terrorism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_and_state-sponsored_ter... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_state-sponsored_terrorism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_state-sponso... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_and_state-sponsored_terrorism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_and_state-sponsored_terro... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar_and_state-sponsored_terrorism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar_and_state-sponsored_te... https://www.state.gov/state-sponsors-of-terrorism/ https://www.state.gov/state-sponsors-of-terrorism/
- natch 6y agoThe only significant facility I can think of in this area is the IBM Almaden Research Lab. It and another IBM office are very specifically in that area, which is an odd connection. Can't say whether their electrical service is provided by that substation, but they are geographically very close. https://goo.gl/maps/i7NWjxfomyXvZCBY9 https://goo.gl/maps/i7NWjxfomyXvZCBY9
- arnaudsm 6y agoOn a similar register, multiple French power plants were scouted by unidentified drones in the past 5 years. Transformers are an fragile point of failure of an entire country infrastructure. I hope security has improved since then.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 6y agoWhat I'm surprised about is the bullet casings and markers left at the site - wouldn't professionals remove those?
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- mkl 6y agoFrom the time line, they left in a hurry, just before law enforcement arrived. It's also not easy to collect 100 scattered bullet casings in the dark.
- kelnos 6y agoAnd there were no fingerprints found on the casings, which suggests they had either planned to leave them behind, or planned for the possibility that they'd need to get out of there before they could collect them all.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 6y agoLet me rephrase that: Wouldn't professionals plan to remove them, and thus have an attachment on the gun that collects them in a bag?
- shoes_for_thee 6y agoBeats me. I can speculate a bit: Perhaps professionals would be less likely to remove casings because they do not expect to ever go to trial, or know that the gun they used can not be connected to them (because perhaps it was issued to them for this job), are not local to the area or do not intend to remain in the US after the job. Only 100 casings were found, which does not strike me as very much... Basically just three people dumping a mag each + a smidge extra. It is interesting that the article mentions only finding 7.62x39. This kinda says non-NATO to me, or at least the shooters want us to think "ruskies!"
- ashtonkem 6y agoMeta: I thought the new rule was no more Wikipedia posts without context?
- montecarl 6y agoI hope not. These are some of my favorite posts!
- easton 6y agoFrom a cursory search, it looks like they aren't banned, but the algorithm makes them fall faster. It stinks, they are often good reads (although maybe the discussion isn't always that deep). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23117614 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23117614
- dredmorbius 6y agoAFAICT penalised in the algo but permiter: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23929687 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23929687 Recentish dang commentary: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastYear&page=0&prefix=false&query=author%3Adang%20wikipedia&sort=byPopularity&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastYear&page=0&prefix=fal...
- SV_BubbleTime 6y ago>Sniper attack >7.62x39 One of these things is not like the other.
- mkl 6y agoIt seems this calibre is more commonly used for assault rifles like AK-47s [1] than sniper rifles [2]? However, it seems to me that sniping describes behaviour more than weapon (e.g. the DC Sniper seems to have used an assault rifle [3]), so I don't see the problem. (I don't really know anything about guns, I'm just trying to understand the comment above that assumes we all do.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7.62%C3%9739mm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7.62%C3%9739mm [2] https://www.snipercentral.com/sniping-ammunition-calibers-cartridges/ https://www.snipercentral.com/sniping-ammunition-calibers-ca... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D.C._sniper_attacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D.C._sniper_attacks
- SV_BubbleTime 6y agoNo, the DC Sniper did not use an assault rifle. They used a Bushmaster XM-15, the same pattern as the most popular rifle in the country, sometimes called an “assault weapon“ (a political term for political purposes) because of four or five cosmetic traits. An assault rifle would have been prohibitively expensive. On the x39 and AK pattern guns, 400m for the round, 200m for the gun, typical maximums, although obviously there are videos of people shooting them both longer distances. By using the term “sniper” for “a bunch of guys unloaded on a transformer station with AKs or SKS”, it’s just using your ignorance to create a picture of the scarier thing. Same thing as confusing the difference between assault rifle (real) and assault weapon (not real).
- liability 6y agoThe supposed inherent inaccuracy of AK pattern rifles is a fud meme, primarily perpetuated by the type who also think M-16s are made by Mattel and other goofy boomer legends that were popularized before the internet made it easy to fact-check. However it's also a popular misconception that sniping is necessarily a matter of long range shooting. JFK was shot from under a hundred meters and that's commonly agreed to be the work of a 'sniper'.
- nathanvanfleet 6y agoI kind of wonder if this was an inside job since it seems like their plan may have been to shut down power but it completely failed? Maybe it was people who worked there who just wanted to destroy some transformers and knew it wouldn't disrupt power. Certainly not impossible. But if they were insiders you think they would have done something that was actually going to get more noticed.
- sio8ohPi 6y agoIt wouldn't assume it failed. It caused $15M worth of damage for PG&E. It could easily have been a couple of disgruntled employees who wanted to hurt their employer.
- TwoBit 6y agoAnother explanation is it was perpetrated by somebody who would personally profit from the damage or damage repair.
- aaron695 6y ago"Additionally, following the attack, investigators found small piles of rocks near to where the shots had been fired, the type of formations that can be used to scout firing positions." I think that sums it up. Why do we think it's more than one person? [edit] The FBI states this attack is not terrorism, Wiki seems to miss this
- sio8ohPi 6y agoInvestigators will have a pretty good idea of where the shooters were based on where the spent casings piled up. Three piles of casings would mean three shooters, etc.
- aaron695 6y agoCan you quote that? Was it three? Are there any location maps of the spent casings? The one map I found only had one location. I can't find anything to back more than one. It's a important fact because it's rare you have two insiders doing something like this.
- sio8ohPi 6y agoI don't have inside details on the investigation; three is just an example. It shouldn't be difficult to id different firing positions from spent casings, so if investigators believe it was multiple shooters I assume traces on the ground reflect that.
- aaron695 6y agoNo investigators actually say it was more than one. Some leave it open. But that's what they do every shooting. One drunk possible ex-employee sums up the evidence. I like one quote of how they were a bad shot and kept missing the exact target. Some circular logic going on there. Maybe they were shooting somewhat randomly.
- 01100011 6y agoWouldn't it be better to just disperse a cloud of graphite like the US did in the first gulf war? Transformers seem physically rather tough, unless you can shoot an insulator(are they still ceramic or are they silicone nowadays?).
- EForEndeavour 6y agoI had no idea this "graphite bomb" was a thing. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphite_bomb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphite_bomb: The bomb works by spreading a dense cloud of extremely fine, chemically treated carbon filaments over air-insulated high voltage installations like transformers and power lines, causing short-circuits and subsequent disruption of the electricity supply.
- 01100011 6y agoYeah and any moron could build one. We really need to beef up our grid and stockpile critical components.
- coredog64 6y agoG. Gordon Liddy wrote about this in the 80’s. The story includes more than just transformers, but it identifies the impact of the issue and the means of attack. https://vocal.media/theSwamp/this-fictional-memo-to-the-president-from-1989-predicted-terrorism-in-the-us https://vocal.media/theSwamp/this-fictional-memo-to-the-pres...
- petee 6y agoMultiple gunmen shot at the transformers for 19 minutes...what about that sounds professional to anyone? That's not a quick attack, accurate shooting, nor the proper ammo to do real damage. Terrorists can't get a .50? The only impressive part is cutting the phone lines. Anyone with basic knowledge of a substation could inflict more damage faster than that. If I were to take a random guess, at best it was a cartel prepping to rob someone, and Telco operations aren't exactly new for them
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- regularfry 6y agoNobody seems to be paying much attention to the fibre cut. What if that was the point, not the substation getting shot up? What do we know about the effects on the network around that point?
- dgudkov 6y agoI'm curious how well data centers are protected from such a coordinated attack that involves an insider? Can a determined, educated group of terrorists disable multiple data centers (e.g. of Amazon) at once? What data center redundancy do the cloud providers have - can they withstand losing 2 data centers at once? How about 5? I'm sure they have good protection against technical accidents. But in the times when everybody moves their apps and systems into the cloud I'm not equally confident the cloud providers are equally well protected against a sophisticated, coordinated attack.
- sukilot 6y agoDoes it count as "terrorism" if nearly no one noticed it happened, and no me claimed credit or made demands? And why try to kill a power plant with guns instead of bombs? And why go to all the effort and only shoot 100 bullets? Seems like a bizarrely stupid plan executed by talented people, a strange combination. Also, calling it the largest attack on the grid is strange, when it was quite trivial compared to Enron.