Eight US Power Stations Have Been Attacked Since Mid-November (opb.org) 201
A week ago two power stations in North Carolina went out — cutting power to 40,000 residents — after being struck with gunfire, the Guardian reports. But looking back to late November, they add that "A string of attacks on power facilities in Oregon and Washington has caused alarm and highlighted the vulnerabilities of the U.S. electric grid..."
As first reported by Oregon Public Broadcasting and KUOW Public Radio, there have been at least six attacks [since mid-November], some of which involved firearms and caused residents to lose power. Two of the attacks shared similarities with the incident in Moore county, North Carolina.... The four Pacific north-west utilities whose equipment was attacked have said they are cooperating with the FBI.
The power supply wasn't disrupted in every case. But Oregon Public Broadcasting reported details on one attack from an email written by a security specialist with the Bonneville Power Administration: Two people cut through the fence surrounding a high-voltage substation, then "used firearms to shoot up and disable numerous pieces of equipment and cause significant damage," the security specialist wrote. The memo also referenced "several attacks on various substations," recently, in Western Washington, "including setting the control houses on fire, forced entry and sabotage of intricate electrical control systems, causing short circuits by tossing chains across the overhead buswork, and ballistic attack with small caliber firearms."
The power supply wasn't disrupted in every case. But Oregon Public Broadcasting reported details on one attack from an email written by a security specialist with the Bonneville Power Administration: Two people cut through the fence surrounding a high-voltage substation, then "used firearms to shoot up and disable numerous pieces of equipment and cause significant damage," the security specialist wrote. The memo also referenced "several attacks on various substations," recently, in Western Washington, "including setting the control houses on fire, forced entry and sabotage of intricate electrical control systems, causing short circuits by tossing chains across the overhead buswork, and ballistic attack with small caliber firearms."
Since November...hmm. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re: Since November...hmm. (Score:5, Funny)
ahh antifa, simultaneously loser jobless white kids who love safe spaces with nothing better to do but also black ops trained first class flying international assassins.
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Replying to undo erroneous moderation.
Re: Since November...hmm. (Score:4, Interesting)
It's a common trope among fascists that your enemy is simultaneously weak and pathetic and powerful and destructive..
Related reading on Rationality v... (Score:2)
Are you sincere? Or did you just Poe's Law me?
So hard to tell these days, but the Subject was rather vacuous anyway. Goes much farther back.
However, in related reading, Rationality by Steven Pinker has an extremely interesting analysis (in the penultimate chapter) of how people partition their beliefs, with the conspiracy stuff in one category separate from the beliefs that they operate on in everyday life. (But much of the book seems to be intended as a response to The Enigma of Reason by Mercier and S
Re: Since November...hmm. (Score:2)
It could very well as likely-if not more likely-have been conservative, 2A die-hards, coordinating over Telegram, that earn above median income, have expensive lifted trucks at home, and are mad about some "injustice" they imagine threatens their existence, such as women.
Take that with a grain of salt though, because stereotypes and prejudices are honestly over generalizations and often wrong.
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Why assume they're different from the dozens of attacks seen before? Do you have evidence that a change has occurred?
I'm more for finding out who is responsible, then we can take action to find out who they're associated with.
Right wing forums are full (Score:2)
It's like that sketch with the guy in the hot dog costume. We know who did this, we're just not acting on that knowledge.
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MAGA types, I assume. Being every bit as constructive as they always have been.
Yup. Absolutely. Possibly ex-military (or current military) as well.
These are the same people who complained when President Biden got the release of a U.S. citizen because the person was black, but didn't say a word when the con artist didn't lift a finger to get Paul Whelan released.
The same people who were abjectly silent when the con artist released 5,000 Taliban fighters [imgur.com] without getting anything in return.
The same people who remained silent when the con artist did nothing to get Marine Trevor Reed rel
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I would hope an ex-military person would have enough sense to properly damage a substation, not the chicken-shit stuff described above.
I don't get why they still build sub-transmission substations without firewalls or ballistic fences around critical elements.
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Ya'llquedas read books and strategies too. They dont have to be military or ex-military.
Why I said possibly.
Re:Since November...hmm. (Score:4, Interesting)
Is there evidence of that or is it based on assumption?
If we're throwing out random possibilities, ecoterrorism is a thing, with both AdBusters and Just Stop oil in recent news. Externally, both China and Russia would like us to focus on our internal issues and stop fiddling about overseas. Or it could be MAGA nutters because ?reasons?. Without evidence there is no basis for any assertion.
We can criticize their methods though. Taking out transformers with rifle rounds? Really? This is America, damnit. We can do better than that.
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Re:Since November...hmm. (Score:4, Interesting)
Let me be clear they don't believe Trump won they believe he's still actively president in some weird conspiracy theory.
We saw this effect during the 2020 election when Trump ran ads with footage taken during his term in office telling voters that this would be biden's America.
It's literal double think. As far as I can tell the problem is they can't actually hold multiple ideas in their heads at the same time so that by the time one idea is fully formed in their head it's out the door for the next idea allowing them to receive two contradictory ideas at the same time. Like a fifo buffer for stupidity
Re: Since November...hmm. (Score:3)
"Let me be clear they don't believe Trump won they believe he's still actively president in some weird conspiracy theory"
We used to put people like this in mental hospitals. But mental hospitals are bad so we closed them 40 odd years ago, rather than trying to reform them.
This, and all the crazy shit we see in the downtowns of America's big cities on a daily basis in the end result of deinstitutionalization.
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Re: Since November...hmm. (Score:2)
And imagine they find out that the SS they destroyed was linked directly to the windmill farm and it fed power to eco friendly businesses.
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Unless you consider power substations to be works of art I don't think there's a rational case to even bring up these groups. The power stations were shot with rifles, no one glued themselves to the fucking things.
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Taking out transformers with rifle rounds? Really? This is America, damnit. We can do better than that.
That's a very good point, and it prompts me to wonder if this might be a false-flag operation. Probably not, but my inner conspiracy theorist felt compelled to raise the possibility.
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We can criticize their methods though. Taking out transformers with rifle rounds? Really? This is America, damnit. We can do better than that.
How are you measuring? This is a very, very cheap attack which can completely offline a facility, from a literal kilometer away (since transformers are nice big targets, maybe even further.) It's very, very hard to detect an attacker using these means. What would make these attacks "better" to you? You could even do it remotely with very inexpensive hardware...
Too Many Nutters (Score:3)
they'd hit coal & gas plants
These are types of power station. The article seems rather non-specific about the type of power stations targetted and in some cases they seem to have distribution stations so I'd say the motives are still very unclear it could be left-wing ecoterrorists, right-wing extremists or just some nutters with a conspiracy theory about electrical transmission.
That's the problem we seem to face as a society today - there are so many nutters running around it can be hard to tell which group are doing what.
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>"That's the problem we seem to face as a society today - there are so many nutters running around it can be hard to tell which group are doing what."
Exactly. But it is easier to just jump to whatever convenient conclusion pushed by the media and/or by personal prejudice.
And what is making it worse is extreme partisanship coupled with media that is every bit as underhanded and non-transparent as government seems to have become.
We need more facts and less sensationalism.
More reporting and less opinionism
Re: Eco terrorists wouldn't hit power stations (Score:3)
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Right. Can't charge my EV. I guess I'll just break out my diesel bro-truck for a week.
Eco terrorists would do something like sabotage the Keystone oil pipeline.
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Re: Since November...hmm. (Score:2)
"Videotaping our crime spree is the best idea yet!"
I bet there is a video or two on the net of their 'handiwork' that the perps posted.
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For example, "Golly, I'm glad they only used small arms and not anti-material weapons!"
(Maga type would know the difference, BTW.)
Anti-materiel (sp) weapons are expensive. They are also a big red flag. There are not that many people that own them. Using one would only make you easier to track down. There is no need whatsoever to use such weaponry against soft targets like power plants. A totally normal high-powered rifle bullet, preferably hard ball that isn't designed to expand, can penetrate most buildings and still damage equipment inside of them.
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For example, "Golly, I'm glad they only used small arms and not anti-material weapons!"
(Maga type would know the difference, BTW.)
Anti-materiel (sp) weapons are expensive. They are also a big red flag. There are not that many people that own them. Using one would only make you easier to track down. There is no need whatsoever to use such weaponry against soft targets like power plants. A totally normal high-powered rifle bullet, preferably hard ball that isn't designed to expand, can penetrate most buildings and still damage equipment inside of them.
Just taking out all the insulators and dropping high powered wires onto the ground is going to cause a significant amount of havoc in itself, as these are not the sorts of things you keep in a large stock ready for instant replacement (nor can be instantly replaced).
And given the fact that transmission lines cross large amounts of empty land, there are plenty of targets of opportunity even if the switch yards themselves are guarded.
The tactics of shutting down switch yards and transmission lines via rifles
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... and now that attacking the power grid is getting more attention, watch it become the Thing To Do for any idiot with any kind of grievance. Organized or unorganized.
I think there are a lot more spare insulators in stock than spare transformers or SCADA stuff, though. Power companies are set up to fix lines because lines get screwed up all the time.
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Hmm, 8ga [thefirearmblog.com] chain shot...
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A lot of that equipment is filled with oil. Make (shoot) a hole...it drains out. The pictures they've shown, appear to be in the radiators.
I believe some of the other equipment is filled with gas...same story.
(Sulfur-hexafluroide? IIRC...)
In a sense...some of this equipment is pretty easy to damage.
Perhaps it's time to upgrade the fences (Score:2, Interesting)
Two people cut through the fence surrounding a high-voltage substation
Really? May I suggest that these facilities' fences be upgraded to two layers with a 50000 Volt inner fence as a layer to blow up anything that tries to cut through them?
Re:Perhaps it's time to upgrade the fences (Score:4, Insightful)
Two people cut through the fence surrounding a high-voltage substation
Really? May I suggest that these facilities' fences be upgraded to two layers with a 50000 Volt inner fence as a layer to blow up anything that tries to cut through them?
Yeah, it's not as if high powered rifles with scopes exist, that allow for the perpetrators to stand off and shoot up places from a distance.
And that's not even getting into the fact that man traps using deadly force are illegal in the US.
Or that you have now added additional risk to the people who legitimately work in these locations. OSHA would have a field day with just that alone.
Re:Perhaps it's time to upgrade the fences (Score:4, Insightful)
We should ban Non-law-enforcement non-military possession of firearm scopes and rifles designed to shoot farther than 300 feet, and excise-tax the rounds to $1000 per bullet or higher similar to Alcohol is taxed;
Just because some people don't realize this: This is a "solution" that is targeting firearms that are 1% of the problem, but are the majority of use.
I mean "firearm scopes and rifles designed to shoot father than 300 feet" describes hunting rifles better than they do military ones. You're proposing banning, for example, my bolt action .300 WBY and charging $1k per shot.
Roughly 90% of murders are done with handguns. Shooting up distribution stations and power stations with rifles is worthy of investigation and prosecution, but it's a joke in the face of murders.
Re: Perhaps it's time to upgrade the fences (Score:2)
Just install solid fences. Brick or concrete will do*. They don't even have to be that strong. If a sniper can't see inside, they won't know where to shoot.
*More expensive than chain link, I know. But if we can afford miles of freeway sound walls because some Karen complained, we can afford this.
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PETA might complain about all the dead wildlife around the substations...
Offer PETA the opportunity to do so with them paying for additional mitigations by soliciting contributions for that purpose. I am all for taking measures to protect Wildlife in addition to meeting security needs, So long as those who wish to protect the wildlife are willing to pay for all the necessary additional expenses in order to implement the mitigations. Obviously those who aren't concerned should not be forced to pay for t
Upgrade Society (Score:2)
Really? May I suggest that these facilities' fences be upgraded to two layers with a 50000 Volt inner fence
That's a whack-a-mole game that I don't think we can win. If we protect the power stations they can go after the transmission lines or pick some other vulnerable infrastructure. The only way to beat this is to upgrade our society to stop people from getting to the point where they think this sort of behaviour is something they can get away with. Currently, we have lots of rights which are great but these need to be balanced by responsibilities of which we seem to have close to none.
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If we protect the power stations they can go after the transmission lines or pick some other vulnerable infrastructure.
They can, but transmission lines at least are easily replaced And won't leave portions of the grid or large populations without power for months, whereas a lot of Substation equipment has got 6+ month lead times to order replacement, And thank goodness if they don't bust one of the large critical transformers that has no way to spare and takes 18 months to manufacture.
Well it's quite un
Re: Perhaps it's time to upgrade the fences (Score:2)
"Really? May I suggest that these facilities' fences be upgraded to two layers with a 50000 Volt inner fence as a layer to blow up anything that tries to cut through them?"
And any fire department would just let the place burn down and just keep the surrounding area from burning rather than let their men get electrocuted by a live security fence.
Think McFly, think!
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And any fire department would just let the place burn down and just keep the surrounding area from burning rather than let their men get electrocuted
What fire department in the world do you know is going anywhere remotely close to a hot transmission station? They don't touch anything until the power has already been cut, lol.
Re: Perhaps it's time to upgrade the fences (Score:2)
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Re:Perhaps it's time to upgrade the fences (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think any civilian electrical grid or equipment has ever been designed with being shot at in mind. Same with schools, malls, & churches. How did we get to the point where we think we need to protect stuff & people from gun nuts rather than preventing nuts from having guns?
Robert Anson Heinlein warned us:
What are the marks of a sick culture?
It is a bad sign when the people of a country stop identifying themselves with the country and start identifying with a group. A racial group. Or a religion. Or a language. Anything, as long as it isn't the whole population.
A very bad sign. Particularism. It was once considered a Spanish vice but any country can fall sick with it. Dominance of males over females seems to be one of the symptoms.
Before a revolution can take place, the population must loose faith in both the police and the courts.
High taxation is important and so is inflation of the currency and the ratio of the productive to those on the public payroll. But that's old hat; everybody knows that a country is on the skids when its income and outgo get out of balance and stay that way - even though there are always endless attempts to wish it way by legislation. But I started looking for little signs and what some call silly-season symptoms.
I want to mention one of the obvious symptoms: Violence. Muggings. Sniping. Arson. Bombing. Terrorism of any sort. Riots of course - but I suspect that little incidents of violence, pecking way at people day after day, damage a culture even more than riots that flare up and then die down. Oh, conscription and slavery and arbitrary compulsion of all sorts and imprisonment without bail and without speedy trial - but those things are obvious; all the histories list them.
I think you have missed the most alarming symptom of all. This one I shall tell you. But go back and search for it. Examine it. Sick cultures show a complex of symptoms as you have named... But a dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than a riot.
This symptom is especially serious in that an individual displaying it never thinks of it as a sign of ill health but as proof of his/her strength. Look for it. Study it. It is too late to save this culture - this worldwide culture, not just the freak show here in California. Therefore we must now prepare the monasteries for the coming Dark Age. Electronic records are too fragile; we must again have books, of stable inks and resistant paper.
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"These French groups have been talking (Score:4, Insightful)
We've allowed right wing media for the sake of clicks and winning elections to whoop people into a frenzy for going on 20 years. The rhetoric that some other is coming to destroy their communities has only increased.
One of the big changes the trans community noticed after the last gay nightclub was shot up was there was no grace period during which the right wing noise machine backed off on the violent rhetoric. And yes tell him they're listeners that every single queer and trans person is a child rapist is very very much violent rhetoric. I don't think you'll find many people who wouldn't declare open season on pedophiles so when you convince about 30% of the population that 1% of the population are guaranteed pedophiles you can expect some violence and we all know it.
Usually after their rhetoric causes one of the lunatics to go off and kill a bunch of people they back off for a few months. That didn't happen this time. We would get one line about thoughts and prayers and they would immediately start talking about groomers and accusing every single trans person of being a pedophile.
Meanwhile you've got things like a large Twitter profile whose users arranged to bomb threat against the children's hospital and that got special treatment from Twitter management to prevent them from being taken down.
It's different this time. the right wing is absolutely the ones conducting this violence and we all know it we just don't like to talk about it and before after an incident they would scatter like cockroaches. This time they're just doubling down.
I know there's a bunch of people here who are right wing because they don't like paying taxes and they find trans people and gay people kind of icky. I know you're out there and I know you're listening. I also know you're not far enough gone that you'll get on board with violence.
But it doesn't work that way. You need either clean house now or get ready for the violence. And it seems fun at first you get to take out your frustrations through some of the good old ultraviolence. And then the trucks that bring food stop coming. And it's too cold to live. And you lose your job in the economic turmoil.
You have a couple of election cycles to do something about this. I know introspection isn't your thing. You wouldn't be on the right wing if it was. Right wing politics and policy have been shown to be objectively failures with worse economic and social outcomes. It's about feels not reals.
So I'm not going to appeal to your intellect but rather your sense of fear. Remember the Soviet union? What about North korea? That's us in 10 years if you keep down this path. That's what happens when you let violence happen because it's happening the people you're not particularly fond of.
Fringe groups (Score:3, Informative)
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Re:"These French groups have been talking (Score:5, Informative)
You are right ...
Whether it is MAGA and/or QAnon types who are responsible for the current power station attacks or not will be known eventually ...
But the bigger point is that right wing violence has been on the rise since at least the 1990s, but was overshadowed/overlooked/sidelined for a decade and a half because of Bin Laden's attack on 9/11 and its aftermath. That caused the focus to shift away from domestic home grown terrorist acts to foreign Muslim inspired terrorism, and ignoring the toxic brew of right wing violence that is simmering under the surface. When Trump got elected, much of it came to the surface, with attacks on synagogues, black neighbourhoods, then the Capitol itself.
Some links to read ...
Office Of Justice Programs: RIGHT-WING TERRORISM IN THE UNITED STATES [ojp.gov]
Brookings Institute: Assessing the right-wing terror threat in the United States a year after the January 6 insurrection [brookings.edu]
Comparative Study on Right Wing vs. Antifa Violence: Right-wing extremists have killed 329 victims in the last 25 years, while antifa members haven't killed any [businessinsider.com]
New York Times: The Right's Violence Problem [nytimes.com]
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When you see the world through only a view of your politics, then everything seems to fit, doesn't it?
There are crazy and violent and not-nice people out there of every and no persuasion. But the people most dangerous are often those like you, who polarize and blame. And in doing so, are no better than those you claim to despise when you post such rants.
I know it is hard for you to believe that there are good, peaceful, loving, compassionate, and intelligent people that can differ in perspective and goal
Re:"These French groups have been talking ... (Score:2)
Vive la France!
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Um
https://www.usnews.com/news/us... [usnews.com]
That nightclub shooting?
Re: "These French groups have been talking (Score:2)
Germany went down this road we are on now in the 1920s, and the right wing there thought "They are only going to come for the Jews, Gypsies, and others on the list of our sociey's "undesirables", but they would never come for me." A little while later, when the Nazi party was in full power, they went after more and more groups of people as they ever extended the reach of their pogroms, the same person who thought that they would never come for him found himself in a death camp and with a big frown on his fa
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The building were burned down (Score:3, Informative)
Don't you ever get tired of being wrong?
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No far right wing group has attacked government facilities and infrastructure.
Do you count the Oklahoma City bombing? This encyclopedia entry says that although McVeigh and Nichols weren't formally associated with any political group, their views were aligned with those of the Patriot movement: https://www.britannica.com/event/Oklahoma-City-bombing [britannica.com].
This report says 16 individuals associated with white supremacist groups were charged with attempts to attack critical infrastructure from 2016-2022: https://extremism.gwu.edu/sites/g/files/zaxdzs2191/f/CriticalInfrastructureTargeting0907 [gwu.edu]
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The OKC bombing came to mind because it was kind of a big deal. The report I linked is more recent.
There are many recent examples in this report: https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/CR_5154_25YRS%20RightWing%20Terrorism_V5.pdf [adl.org]
For a direct link to something recent, I think this counts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_boogaloo_murders [wikipedia.org]
Based on the above, and on the items in my previous post, it was factually incorrect for SuperKendall to say, without qualification, "No far right wing group has attack
Republican Terrorists - Soon 2nd Word Not Needed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Turning into? The cross burnings, lynchings, draggings, and mass shootings haven't been enough? They've literally been doing all of that stuff for decades or longer. They weren't always called MAGAts, but they were always there, just waiting for a strong leader to froth them up.
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Well...it's not exactly inner-city, legal gun purchasing, Republicans murdering each other on a daily basis.
No, they're murdering other people on a regular basis instead, for the color of their skin, or their sexual orientation.
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How many of those have there been lately...vs. little kids caught in inner-city crossfire?
I notice you didn't respond to my latest comment, choosing to go back to an older one instead, so you could try to avoid talking about homophobes shooting up clubs. These cowards always talk about we don't want you to do it in public, but when people try to have their own lifestyles in private they still get murdered for it by reich wingers.
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most recent
I think Uvalde followed that one. Some kid that was bullied finally snapped when his mother turned off the WiFi. So he couldn't play Fortnite [slashdot.org] probably.
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Most of the hardcore KKK freaks were Democrats anyway.
Throwing metal chains inside a substation (Score:2)
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Is a good way to become a crispy critter.
Boy howdy you are not kidding. The voltages we are talking about are lethal a thousand times over, and once they ionize the air around them it gets super exciting really quickly. Never know where it's going to go
Is this being instigated by Russia? (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't help but wonder if this is being instigated by Russia. We know that Russia has been trying to influence the American right for a while now (see Marina Butina for one example or Russian meetings with the Trump campaign for another, but we also know that they've funded far right groups in a number of other Western countries), so it wouldn't be surprising if they have agents in certain far-right on-line forums who might be suggesting or encouraging certain tactics. They started targeting Ukraine's power grid in early October and rebuilding it is going to require a lot of transformers. Is it a coincidence that not long afterwards there's a wave of American extremists destroying transformers here, thus lessening the global supply and making it less likely that US power companies would be willing to send spares to Ukraine? That could be a coincidence and I don't have any hard evidence, but it seems like there's good reason to be suspicious.
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Probably only very indirectly. They do subsidize certain right-wing causes, and once people with a particular mind-set get together, they start reinforcing each other's ideas. But, to me, this looks like locally created idiocy.
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I can't help but wonder if this is being instigated by Russia. We know that Russia has been trying to influence the American right for a while now (see Marina Butina for one example or Russian meetings with the Trump campaign for another, but we also know that they've funded far right groups in a number of other Western countries), so it wouldn't be surprising if they have agents in certain far-right on-line forums who might be suggesting or encouraging certain tactics.
I'm sure Russia is trying to rile up tensions in general, but these specific attacks aren't really their style.
Russia's playbook when it comes to NATO is military jets being annoying and cyber-attacks.
The joy of cyber-attacks is even when you get caught they're basically treated like spycraft than actual offensive actions.
But, if the US could prove a Russian agent instructed someone to fire a gun at critical infrastructure of US soil that could be grounds for war. And that's assuming they don't screw up and
Who remembers the ATHF PR stunt in Boston? (Score:2)
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Lol...I remember seeing the first whispers of the story, before anyone had any idea of what was going on...and instantly recognizing Ignignokt. Both laughing at, and becoming saddened by, how stupid and panicked the "normies" were.
Some of this ... (Score:2)
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Domestic terrorism (Score:2)
Obviously. Because of the means, my guess is from the right-wing. Probably some morons that believe the last election was stolen and now want to do "something" about it.
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Left-wingers use guns too:
https://www.history.com/this-d... [history.com]
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Sure. But on the right they are a fetish.
Inspiration from past attack? (Score:5, Insightful)
Whoever is behind the current attacks is yet to be known.
It may not even be the same ideology behind them all ...
There was a very similar attack on a power station in California [yahoo.com] back in 2013. It failed to bring down the power station though.
One wonders if the North Carolina, Oregon and Washington attacks are related, or just the modus operandi is the only similarity.
Shark attacks... (Score:3, Insightful)
This sort of thing has been going on for years. Potshots at road signs, water towers, radio tower beacons, and yes...electrical equipment. It has just
now suddenly been picked up in the national news, and amplified...just like how shark attacks are, even though they are statistically steady.
I mean, the ones in Oregon and Washington happened before NC, and were described as a string of attacks...but, I doubt many outside of Washington and Oregon heard anything about them? Yes...I realized NC affected more people. But what's more likely...a coordinated Al Qaeda (or whoever the current "cool kid" terrorsts are) attack...or, some yee-haws, by chance, caused a little more mayhem than they expected? Consider, that if it were more than high level vandalism, and actual "terrorsim"...don't you think they'd come up with something a little quieter, more effective, more destructive, and more widespread?
Citizens are jumping at shadows, and agencies are trying to justify their budgets.
You Americans (Score:5, Insightful)
All these amazing speculative posts, ranging from -1 Troll to +5 Insightful, throwing insults at one another.
It's the MAGA crowd! Terrorists!
It's Antifa! Terrorists!
A foreign spy with a rifle can cause this much mischief, for peanuts, while you bitch at one another? You'd be crazy 'not' to do it.
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This wasn't just an idiot with a rifle having fun. There are clear signs that it was an intended and planned assault. What it was supposed to accomplish is a lot less clear.
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Read the summary! You don't cut through a chain-link fence because you're bored and sitting around with a rifle.
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So...they quietly cut through a fence....so they could get close-in with their noisy, long-range weapons?
Most likely this. The picture of the gate knocked over looked like a typical right-of-way or access road gate. Not a substation enclosure fence. So they probably had to break down the gate to get in close enough to shoot.
If they had line-of-sight
That's a big 'if'. Rural substations in the woods are pretty hard to see from more than a few hundred yards away. Pretty much anything in the woods is pretty well concealed. It's not so much that it's precision shooting.
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Most rifle cartridges are effective at 100+ yards. Anything like NATO 7.62 or Soviet 7.62x39mm could do considerable damage at range, and a substation is a pretty beefy target.
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You have to see what you're aiming at.
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Do...you...even know what a substation looks like?
They're transformers and switches, etc...so, 10-20ish foot cubes. If they're within your aforementioned "few hundred yards", they are going to be pretty fucking hard to miss...with eyeballs or rifle rounds. You can go to the new articles and see that they aren't exactly camouflaged, nor do they have some sort of multi-hundred yard, chain link perimeter fence preventing someone from getting within visual range. Fence...yes, but probably within (generously)
Re: (Score:3)
Once is an accident.
Twice is a coincidence.
Three times is enemy action.
Re:You Americans (Score:4, Insightful)
The antifa theory is dumb. But it's also dumb to think that the Russians would need to use their own agents and risk their discovery when they could instead froth up some reich wingers like they have been doing.
SOMEbody needs to be pedantic here...Me I guess (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Since November... Hmmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
Diversion attacks? (Score:2)
Stop the slaughter of our electricity. ENLM! (Score:2)
They're not alone (Score:2)
In Oregon 7213 stop-signs were attacked this year alone with small and large caliber weapons.
Treat them as terrorists (Score:2)
Reopen Gitmo and send them there for a while.
Surveillance (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You are assuming that locally generated solar is available without the grid. This isn't usually true. For it to be true, you also need LOTS of other locally installed material, which drastically raises the price.
If you want purely local solar power, you probably need to replace all your appliances with DC versions. And the last time I checked the batteries needed were more expensive than the solar cells.
Re: National security is being ignored (Score:2)
2) solar costs 20K on up, normally around 30K.
Batteries are about 1/2 to 1/3 of the costs of solar. These have invertors.
Re: (Score:2)
You are assuming that locally generated solar is available without the grid. This isn't usually true. For it to be true, you also need LOTS of other locally installed material, which drastically raises the price.
You need batteries, which do indeed raise the price quite a bit.
If you want purely local solar power, you probably need to replace all your appliances with DC versions.
Why? What matters is having efficient appliances, what they run on is not the most important thing at all. Conversion losses are typically around 5% for quality inverters and generally under 10% even for crap, so while they're a factor they're not the most important one at all. A grid-tied system (with or without batteries) has an inverter by definition.
And the last time I checked the batteries needed were more expensive than the solar cells.
That depends (in part) on how many days you expect the system to be able to function without