Sensible Precautions or Paranoid Behaviour

[peter]

A week or two ago either the Norwegian or German government (I forget which) advised it's citizens that it would be politic to lay in a month's worth of tinned supplies and Water for use in the event of a serious disruption to internet dependant services, either deliberate or of technical malfunction in origin. Given the recent spate of cyber attacks and the UK governments announcement yesterday of plans to increase defence spending in this crucial area, this recommendation is no longer sounding quite as outlandish as it might have done in the past. I know some Watchers do take precautions along these lines and I'm beginning to wonder if it might not be a good idea to join them.

What is the likelihood of a serious cyber meltdown occurring any time soon, or will the risk only become majorley significant when the internet of things (IoT) becomes more firmly established?

[Sorus]

Born and raised in an earthquake-prone city, I was taught that you should always keep enough bottled water and food on hand for 3 days, since that's how long it would take to restore services after a disaster. Loma Prieta (that's the big quake we had back in '89) drove the point home, because we were without power and whatnot for three days. These days I try to keep enough supplies on-hand for a week. (Rule of thumb is one gallon of water per person per day - don't forget about pets and such as well.) I don't have space to store enough for a month.

More concerned about natural disasters than cyber attacks, but it's always good to be prepared.

[Avatar]

In theory it's sensible, but I don't bother. I'm not sure why internet disruption would prevent you from being able to go out and buy food etc. though...

--A

[peter]

All of the ordering, delivery and till systems are Internet based these days Av. Even the smallest disruption in supply causes the shelves to empty with frightening speed and if they could not operate their tills all of the big stores would just pull their shutters down. The logistics of the food supply chain is a huge operation when there are millions of mouths to feed.

[Sorus]

I'm not an expert by any means, but I have worked in retail and logistics and have dealt with many flavors of technical issues and whatnot. We are too dependent on our technology. It would certainly cause difficulties and there would be shortages and general supply issues, but I don't think many places around here would close completely. It's all about money, and they will find a way to keep the money moving. I've never worked anywhere that didn't have a way to manually accept credit cards, even if it's just a 'knucklebuster' machine with carbon paper. We dealt with rolling blackouts during the whole Enron fiasco and very few businesses closed when the power snapped off. These days, stuff like PayPal and ApplePay would be unavailable, but we managed for years without them and I don't think their loss would cause society to collapse.

[Savor Dam]

Like Sorus, I grew up in the SF Bay Area and have an ingrained habit of being prepared for earthquake or other natural disaster. Living in the Northwest now, storms sometimes take the power down; about a dozen years ago our house had no line power for over a week...in December.

Nothing terribly formal, but a well-stocked larder and freezer, a few igloos of water, firewood, and a few other precautions will sustain me and those under my wing for a while.

As for payment technologies, green paper and little pieces of metal are a great fallback option...

[Avatar]

Yeah, y'know, out here in Africa we are at least a little less dependent on the tech. It's changing, but we would get by. also of course, much less in terms of natural disasters that are immediately destructive.

We just have to worry about the imminent collapse of the social order and stuff like that. Not hurricanes or earthquakes.

--A

[peter]

We've been suffering with some serious till issues in the shop of late. Last night we had a situation where briefly both tills were frozen and we had no way to open them or take payment of any kind. It had happened in a large Aldi store in the town a few days before. I'm less convinced about stores ability to keep serving in the event of a major meltdown. Also, as Sorus notes, the distribution system is very fragile...........

[Sorus]

We've been suffering with some serious till issues in the shop of late. Last night we had a situation where briefly both tills were frozen and we had no way to open them or take payment of any kind.

Did you try rebooting? Seriously, that usually works.

I do inventory, and most of my work is done on an iPhone. The main app constantly freezes and crashes and the wifi only 'reliably' covers about half my workspace. There are days when I hand my boss 20 reports instead of 5 because doing them in smaller bites minimizes my loss when the system crashes. Yay technology. There are days when I have to write my reports on paper and input them when the network is functioning. (Fortunately that doesn't happen as often these days.) But - the 'old-fashioned' ways still work.

[peter]

We are rebooting each till every time it freezes Sorus - sometimes as many as five times per shift. The software solutions guys are saying it's a hardware issue, the hardware guys the opposit....... we've even been told the problem goes back to something that is handled in India fer goodness sake! One of our IT guys spent half the day trying to make calls to Mumbai or somewhere the other day.

[Sorus]

Pretty sure it's a software issue, but I don't know how to fix it beyond rebooting when necessary and resisting the urge to hit the whole machine with a hammer.

[peter]

I think so too Sorus - one problem is that our systems are linked to so many different systems in order to provide a range of services from just one till point (bill payment, lottery, mobile top up's - you name it) and they don't always sit easily together. Some times in computing as in all things it's a case of less is more........

[deer of the dawn]

Getting back to the original question, I think a month's supplies of water and preserved food is pretty serious. Since I am reading the Gap, I find multiple possible motivations and agendas behind such "advice":

1. The public service announcement was made in order to stimulate the economy.

2. The announcer's brother is a grocer who has fallen on hard times and the announcer hopes that people will shop like crazy and help his business so he doesn't have to bail him out (again).

3. The government is PLANNING on an artificial internet shutdown. This could serve to: (a) create a false sense of mistrust of the world outside the borders, (b) create a sense of paranoid dependence upon the caring, wise government and (c) clear out internet traffic for a really epic WOW battle.

4. The government is creating an air of disapproval of internet dependency so that people will mistrust and become ignorant. And an ignorant populace with a medieval economy would be really easy to control and do experiments on.

I really need to finish my masters degree and my nonfiction book so I have time to write a science fiction/conspiracy thriller. That could keep me out of trouble for a couple of years.

[peter]

You do not strike me as a person that is afraid of a bit of trouble now and again Deer! But more seriously, I think it's entirely possible that we are becoming entirely too internet dependant and that it is actually altering the structure of the human brain in terms of the way we think. Peoples 'attentive span', boredom thresholds and the like seem to be changing, together with what they see as acceptable behaviour (our daughter's new boyfriend came to tea the other day and continued to play a game on his mobile phone as he ate his meal at the table). I saw a medical student udent studying and taking notes from Wikipedia, rather than referring to the standard medical texts. The depth of people's thinking is highly plastic and subject to the way we take information in and as with computer programming it's very much a case of garbage in, garbage out!

[Avatar]

Shoot him Peter, shoot him before it's too late. As for the med student...I don't even know how to process that...he should be shot too. Or misdiagnosed with something atrocious.

--A

[Sorus]

The last time I saw a new vet, I caught them Googling my cat's fairly common medical condition. Human doctors are even worse.

[Avatar]

The price of instant information. Now, if only we could make sure it was trustworthy...

--A

[peter]

Agreed Av - flog the rank and file and fling the ring-leaders from the Tarpeian rock!

[Avatar]

Google will figure it out eventually.

--A