
Nuclear Plants Cautiously Phase Out Dial-Up Modems - jwb119
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/10/nuke_modems/
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ComputerGuru
From the article: _“The use of modems inherently introduces cyber security
vulnerabilities to the systems to which they are attached.”_

I disagree. In a modem-to-modem connection, the system is as secure as the
underlying physical infrastructure. If those phone lines are secure, so is the
data being transmitted on them. And the government _does_ have guaranteed
secure phone lines between strategic bases.

The minute you move from analog-based communication to digital, it is _then_
that you "inherently introduce" vulnerabilities to the system. Between the
undetected buffer overflows, the sheer pervasiveness of digital
interception/intrusion tools, and the dificulties in keeping data confined in
a digital network; I'd say VPN systems are at least an order of magnitude more
likely to be cracked than a modem-modem connection over secure phone lines.

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riffic
and if those phone numbers were ever published it would be trivial to busy
signal them to death.

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RyanMcGreal
Analog DoS attack?

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timdorr
I seriously thought this was a The Onion article based on the title. Gotta
love incredibly dangerous things running on antiquated hardware.

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davidw
Antiquated == "Well Tested" in many cases. They don't run stuff like the space
shuttle on the very latest AMD chips, for instance.

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selven
Indeed. A few fighter jets still run on vacuum tubes, I believe.

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davidw
That's nothing - there are a few Chinese jets left that have a little guy with
an abacus crouched in the nose.

[ Sorry, couldn't resist, I liked the mental image too much. ]

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zandorg
There's an Asimov story about that too.

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chrischen
They should use a muon based communication system. I hear they get 100 bits
per second or something. Security by infeasibility.

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selven
Nah, use <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_over_Avian_Carriers>

