Re: US Govt Warns About Siemens S7 PLA - Iran Can Hack 'Em

On 23/08/2026 07:24, c186282 wrote:
> On 8/22/26 08:22, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
>> On 22/08/2026 00:49, Roger Blake wrote:
>>> I remember reading an article years ago where it was stated that
>>> when what came to be known as the internet was under development
>>> it never occurred to anyone that users would attack each other.
>>
>> Remember the Internet was devised initially (DARPANET) as a weapons 
>> grade military network that could withstand a nuclear attack and still 
>> allow someone to push the red button.
>> Which is why IP packets have no field representing 'cost' embedded in 
>> them
> 
>    "Cost" ? What exact def did you have in mind ?

  Lets say you contact a server. You could embed a cost field along with 
the source address. That being the cost of 'serving' that packet. 
Routers would [optionally] add intermediate fields to it so a total cost 
of delivering that packet to the end user would accrue. The far end ISP 
would add their charges and deliver the packet billing the customer for 
the total charges.

Online tables of cost centres  would tick up the costs between internet 
entities and the accounting be adjusted with actual cash transfers once 
a month or so.
The whole internet would be PAYG.

>> But the point remains TCP/IP was optimised cor reliability diverse 
>> routing and connectivity.
> 
>    Correct. It's pretty strong if used correctly.
> 
>    But it was also designed with a MUCH MUCH simpler
>    environment in mind. The packet-routing equation
>    alone these days is just insane.
> 
I don't think it is. Not on the traditional backbone. Its still BGP
Satellite is another matter, but that's a private protocol inside the 
satellite network


>    Ye and me are old enough to remember when there
>    was no 'internet', no DARPA-net. A Big Box somewhere
>    and low-speed direct serial connections, maybe over
>    horribly low-speed modems. The old IBM and DEC
>    systems were made for international collaboration
>    and commerce - over those SLOW SLOW connections.
>    Better condense yer data intelligently, and no
>    flashing ads for gambling and porn sites ! :-)
> 
Yup.

>> Any security was to be provided either at a physical level - cables 
>> inside locked locations - or at a higher level by firewalls, 
>> encryption and network virtualisation.
>>
>> It is not the fault of the Internet that people do not routinely 
>> employ these to protect their networks.
> 
>    Employing ENOUGH, and "enough" is harder and harder
>    to achieve every day now, is very DIFFICULT. Pretty
>    soon you are drowned by your own 'security' measures
>    and remember each 'measure' may have it's OWN flaws
>    someone can exploit.
> 
>    Basically you have to analyze YOUR risks - who/what/why
>    might want to get at YOUR stuff. For Joe Average, not
>    many are particularly interested except MAYBE stealing
>    his bank routing number or Amazon acct password if you
>    make it super-easy.
> 
>    For bigger biz and banking and govt/defense however the
>    risk is MUCH greater. Such systems attract the worst
>    of the worst and they WILL put major time/resources
>    into their evils.
> 
You would hope so, wouldn't you...

>    But, theoretically, the 'big' players OUGHT to be able
>    to afford a squad of their OWN in-house geeks who can
>    find and fix such evil efforts. But is seems fewer
>    and fewer DO - they just turn it over to "Company-X"
>    which promises everything and rarely delivers. In the
>    small print somewhere C-X be held harmless or be able
>    to SWEAR it was YOU who screwed their 'perfect'
>    protection scheme.
> 
Yup. Lets have a single point of failure called 'cloudflare'

>    Employ Company-X and, if all goes to hell, YOU can't
>    be blamed. It's all THEIR fault !!!
> 
But it doesn't matter, because they have made you dependent on them

-- 
The biggest threat to humanity comes from socialism, which has utterly 
diverted our attention away from what really matters to our existential 
survival, to indulging in navel gazing and faux moral investigations 
into what the world ought to be, whilst we fail utterly to deal with 
what it actually is.