Category Archives: power grid

Lights Out in Québec: The 1989 Geomagnetic Storm

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I found myself staring up at the sky on the night of March 13, 1989, with my girlfriend and her parents in the backyard of their house. The sky was on fire, almost literally. Red and pink sheets of plasma streamed out in a circle from directly overhead, with blue-white streaks like xenon flashes occasionally strobing across the sky. We could actually hear a sizzling, crackling sound around us. The four of us stood there, awestruck by the aurora borealis we were lucky enough to witness.

At the same time, lights were winking out a couple of hundred miles north …read more

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A Bold Experiment In A Decentralised Low Voltage Local DC Power Grid

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January, for many of us in the Northern Hemisphere, can be a depressing month. It’s cold or wet depending where you live, the days are still a bit short, and the summer still seems an awfully long way away. You console yourself by booking a ticket to a hacker camp, but the seven months or so you’ll have to wait seems interminable.

If you want an interesting project to look forward to, take a look at [Benadski]’s idea for a decentralised low voltage local DC power grid for the upcoming SHA 2017 hacker camp in the Netherlands. The idea is …read more

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The Electrical Grid Demystified

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Our society needs energy, and lots of it. If you’re reading this then the odds are astronomically good that you’re on a computer somewhere using energy, with the power cord plugged into the mysterious “black box” that is the electrical grid. The same is true if you’re reading this on a laptop or phone, which was charged from said black box even though it may not be connected at this moment. No matter where you are, you’re connected to some sort of energy source almost all the time. For almost every one of us, we have power lines leading up …read more

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The Ukrainian Power Grid Was Hacked Again

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Experts say the country appears to be a “testbed” for cyber attacks that could be used around the world. Continue reading The Ukrainian Power Grid Was Hacked Again→

Hackers Suspected of Causing Second Power Outage in Ukraine

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The same group of hackers that caused the power outage across several regions in Ukraine last Christmas holidays might have once again shut down power supply in northern Ukraine during the weekend.

According to Ukrainian energy provider Ukrenergo, a c… Continue reading Hackers Suspected of Causing Second Power Outage in Ukraine→

Solar Power Firm Patches Meters Vulnerable to Command Injection Attacks

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Locus Energy has patched 100,000 of its residential and commercial power meters that were vulnerable to command injection attacks and code execution. Continue reading Solar Power Firm Patches Meters Vulnerable to Command Injection Attacks→