Wednesday, April 8, 2009

"Cyberspies" hack our grid while Obama chills out the planet?

the WTF news item of the day is a tough tossup between:

Chinese and/or Russian "Cyberspies" hacking and leaving behind malicious software in our electrical grid.
Cyberspies have penetrated the U.S. electrical grid and left behind software programs that could be used to disrupt the system, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

The spies came from China, Russia and other countries, and were believed to be on a mission to navigate the U.S. electrical system and its controls, the newspaper said, citing current and former U.S. national security officials.

The intruders have not sought to damage the power grid or other key infrastructure but officials said they could try during a crisis or war, the paper said in a report on its website.

It takes my electrical company 4 days to fix a downed power line, god only knows how long it takes them to run Norton Antivirus on the entire system. That's what gets rid of Cyberspies, right?

AND

The revelation about exactly how far reaching the "all options on the table" approach to climate change can be.
Tinkering with Earth's climate to chill runaway global warming _ a radical idea once dismissed out of hand _ is being discussed by the White House as a potential emergency option, the president's new science adviser said Wednesday.

That's because global warming is happening so rapidly, John Holdren told The Associated Press in his first interview since being confirmed last month.

The concept of using technology to purposely cool the climate is called geoengineering. One option raised by Holdren and proposed by a Nobel Prize-winning scientist includes shooting pollution particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect the sun's rays.

Using such an experimental measure is only being thought of as a last resort, Holdren said.

"It's got to be looked at," he said. "We don't have the luxury ... of ruling any approach off the table."

I can't tell you how glad I am that we finally have a group of people in power that are taking issues like this seriously. That said, this idea scares me to death. Maybe we can just let the climate hang out with Obama for a while, and it'll end up being way cooler?
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