Grad Student's Work Reveals National Infrastructure

CodeHog writes "The WP reports about a student working on a PhD and how it relates to national (US) security. Very interesting that he has been able to get all this information. It raises some very challenging questions, should some of this information be classified?"

RTFA

[Anonymous Coward]

This has nothing to do with Windows or Linux. A terrorist with access to this information could simply look up points that have the biggest confluence of fiber optic cables and communication equipment and attack. They could similarly do the same with energy infrastructure.

Wires don't run Windows or Linux.

Re:What I REALLY want to know...

[robslimo]

I suspect he's using several tricks to discover correlate IP addresses to services providers, to businesses to physical locations and superimposing that data on a traditional map. The geographical info is available from many sources; the trick is tieing all that info together to form a coherent 'big picture'.

Some info on discovering the physical location of a IP address (or multiple IP's in order to form a physical route map) is available here [private.org.il]

Interesting that there is an extension to DNS as described in RFC 1876 that allows an owner to identify the location of their host.

Re:Similar website?

[kiley]

I think they are talking about the Eyeball series at http://www.cryptome.org [cryptome.org]

It seems to be down right now...but is on my daily reading list.

Re:You all have to decide

[Banner]

EXACTLY.

It's not really that big a deal, people HAVE to know where the wires are, where the pipelines are, etc, so they DON'T DIG INTO THEM AND DIE!

Ever see a gas pipe explosion because someone dug in the wrong spot and the crew burned to death? Or how about a town losing all of it's emergency and other communication because a cable got accidentally cut?

We have a 2nd amendment for a reason. Try using it and stop living in fear.

Re:Reminds me of a job I did in London

[Anonymous Coward]

"b) the way it is cantilevered out over the river means that, if it fell, it would land on top of the Ministry of Defence."

Not it wouldn't. It would simply fall into the river, and the river is wider than the height of the wheel (they constructed it lying in the river, and then hoisted it up. To fall on the Ministry of Defence, it would have to cross the river, Victoria Embankment (a big road) and then a small park.

Re:Similar website?

[Talking Goat]

I forgot to mention this article I found, dating back to December of 2000. Article [about.com]
It explains a bit about Cryptome.

It used to be

[ONU CS Geek]

public knowledge that you could find a few rogue backhoe operators in Columbus, cut some copper and fiber on Compu$erve's network, and kill every credit card transaction in the US, as they all went through CS's network.

Ask anyone who's been a phone guy. We don't fear lusers, we don't fear over-zealot bosses, we fear backhoes.

I also have a real problem with classifying/patenting things that have been funded with educational dollars. OSU has patents on what their grad students have done for their Ph.D stuff, and I'm not sure I really like that. Those students were receiving government grants to fund their research, and now, the public is 'protected' by it...even though they paid for it.

Re:You all have to decide

[iiioxx]

We have a 2nd amendment for a reason. Try using it and stop living in fear.

I can't figure out if you've gotten your amendments confused or if you're advocating armed revolt..?

1st Amendment: Freedom of speech.
2nd Amendment: Right to keep and bear arms.

When was the last time ...

[Blitzshlag]

Terrorists used information like this to attack the U.S.? I may just be young and stupid, but I don't recall any attacks that would have been thwarted if locations of buildings or infastructure was better hidden. It always seems to be bombs, bombs in public places.
Hiding information like this that one can go out into the world and witness for themselves (I can walk up to a powerplant and see it, as well as all the wires attached to it) seems impossible to me.

A Similar Project...

[Opinari]

The Post article refers to a similar project [jya.com] initiated by John Young, a New York City architect.