GCHQ to pore over blueprints of Chinese built Brit nuke plants UK spies will go through the blueprints of computer systems of nuclear plants due to be built by Chinese firms in the UK in a bid to allay security concerns, The Times reports. GCHQ’s role in the assessment was confirmed on the eve of Chinese President Xi Jinping's four-day state visit to the UK. Security chiefs have …
is just miffed that they didn't have a hand in Stuxnet, only a USA-Isael (and possibly German) collaboration.
So they are desperate to be in on the action next time.
Observed in the wild far beyond the target, centrifuges in Iran.
There is a theory that the Fukushima Number 1 disaster was partly due to a Stuxnet infection.
I will only say that they were running numerical controllers from the same source (Siemens).
Have no idea, but it would not surprise me.
Idiotic security breaches in the run-up to that included senior sailors and officers on submarines sharing files, including blueprints, on Winny, National Police Agency police doing the same kind of thing, many more.
Failsafe mechanisms that should have still been working, even after the wave, at Fukushima Number One failed.
I am not saying it is so, but there is still a non-zero probability of some idiot plugging an infected USB card or similar into a PC connected with the control systems.
After all, that is how it worked in Iran (although in that case, there is a strong possibility of treachery in introducing Stuxnet).
No. Just no. Tsunami triggered an unforseen sequence of events due to the plant being placed in a previously prior act. If Stuxnet were a significant factor, and this plant design shared with one or more other plants, that would explain the secrecy surrounding the full accident report. Further it would explain why all the other plants were taken offline until just recently.
I'm not saying this is true or no, just fits some of the behaviors I've been observing. (And exactly who the US sent over nearly immediately. People with similar qualifications to mine).
You have good logic.
Never any leaks from moi, military training, although I think Edward Snowden had good reason to, the things he released showed violations of anything admirable of the US, IMHO.
Likewise, Bradley Manning, although I was very surprised to see that a 'private first class' is an 'intelligence officer' in the US army of today, the video release was a real public service.
However, Manning was a serving soldier, I have mixed feelings about the ethicality.
Snowden was a contractor, but his contract must have included a strict non-disclosure clause.
I think both were right to do what they did, but it makes me uncomfortable to think about the ethics of the situations.
One makes a promise, one keeps it.
All very confusing to me, when thinking seriously.
I said nothing of the kind.
However, I will not dignify your trolling on behalf of Graceland with any reply other than that fail-safes that should not have failed, even in the face of that wave, did fail, Stuxnet was extremely widespread, the target was numerical controllers from Siemens, and they happened to have a big role at Fukushima Number One.
All I am saying is that it is not a zero-probability factor.
Basically the entire plant will be a bug.
Spying on what, precisely? The routine operation of a power plant, every last detail of which is already known to the folks who built it?
I'd be a smidgeon more concerned that it might be possible to command it from outside. However, surely it will be possible to operate the plant even if its internet connection is taken down? (Ideally, there should be an air-gap between a nuke plant's control systems and the internet at all times, not just when the risk of attack is believed to be high).
And surely they still use simple analog fail-safe systems, since any digital system is prone to glitching? If any key safety parameter goes too far beyond normal safe operating levels a relay de-energises and a cascade of such failsafe switching-off cuts power to the electromagnets from which the control rods are suspended, leading to a reactor shut-down rather than melt-down. (If this is not the case, the design needs to be amended pronto! )
Not a chance Stuxnet had anything to do with it. The problem at Fukushima was the tidal wave knocking out all power to every single indicator, gauge and valve actuator in the reactor system for all 4 reactors. Even if there HAD been a stuxnet infection there simply wasn't a single system still running after the tidal wave for it to have any effect. The hydrogen explosion that followed after the depressurising of reactor 1 was delayed for political/bureaucratic reasons then knocked out what little power and control remained at reactor 2 and 3. Hydrogen from reactor 3 then leaked through a pipe interconnect between the buildings, build up in reactor building 4 and exploded, causing heavy damage to a reactor building containing a reactor that was in cold shutdown. The only reason reactor 2 was spared an explosion was because the power knockout left some vent panels open at the top of the building, allowing the hydrogen to dissipate. Fukushima is a giant clusterfuck of problems, not just in Tepco and the operation of the plant itself but also in the government and organisations in charge of oversight and/or safety. Not to mention crippling Hiroshimasyndrome in the general populous stopping any effect measures being taken now to mittigate the problems.
That would not surprise me at all. Catastrophic failures and systems placed in a hitherto unknown state are for all practical purposes synonymous. I've got yet another tell all in the hopper to read. I just wish I could pull down the classified version as I used to. Then I got the bonehead and the boneheaded action that resulted in a "No? Duh!" Oh well.
There's something more there....
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If the UK is so incompetent, that they have to call on France for a design, and China to build it?
Why not call for Hitachi, proven experience with engineering with engineering for 'Nukular' reactors, piping etc.
In the end, I have to agree with commentors on other sites, the real reason is try to draw China into western orbit.
News flash: it will not work.
Personally I'd be more worried about the involvement of EDF...
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/uk-nuclear-strategy-faces-meltdown-as-faults-are-found-in-identical-french-project-10186163.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11662889/Faulty-valves-in-new-generation-EPR-nuclear-reactor-pose-meltdown-risk-inspectors-warn.html
I suspect they examine code for critical infrastructure regardless of its source, but that their involvement is being announced in this case in response to lowing from the press. Usually I'd be most worried about the French (who, of all the developed nations, have probably the worst reputation when it comes it industrial sabotage and espionage), but given that we already have an ICT to their grid any damage there is probably already done.
The US probably would make war on Airstrip One if Airstrip One ever tried to get rid of all those US military bases and assert its independence from the US.
Seriously, though, "hostile to the West" is a meaningless expression and in any case has nothing to do with "keeps political prisoners and suppresses dissent". Many of the UK's and the US's best allies do exactly that.
Well, he might have been speaking a bit hastily by saying 'hostile to the west', but it doesn't make it an unreasonable point. Think about where China has points of conflict: Taiwan, the South China Sea, Japan. In each case, the other side is a US ally. China knows full well that in any conflict that pulled in the US, or even just a US ally, the UK and the West in general is highly unlikely to take the Chinese side. Do you think France, for example, is an equivalent position?
"The US probably would make war on Airstrip One if Airstrip One ever tried to get rid of all those US military bases and assert its independence from the US."
Yes, I'm sure you're right. I'm just struggling to think of any examples to support this rather strong conclusion, at least since the end of the Cold War. Could you help my memory a little?
I think you have got this backwards.
China has lost face because the most economically successful parts of China are Hong Kong and Shanghai - both of which turn out to have benefited from foreign rule.
China wants to show that it can be economically successful in the UK, with infrastructure, mechanical and electronics products (Huawei), thus doing with us what we did with Hong Kong. If the UK is economically successful with Chinese input, this will restore face.
They might start with the Trident missiles and firing systems.
I appear to have been mistaken in an earlier post, the mega-death dealing bombs (nuclear warheads) are supposedly still UK-made, I find it hard to believe that. I suspect they are really made in the USA, with token UK supervision and knowledge for a fig-leaf.
I think that on the Reg., only Lewis Page is fit to answer that, but whether it is allowed or not by the law, I do not know.
My own spell of military service, I resigned because of our closeness to nuclear war plans. Never made it to Kapitan, would be much better off if I had, my mother hates me for it, but I think it was the right choice.
Not so good in cash terms. Just did not want to participate in plans for mass-murder.
The UK had Polaris / has Trident mostly in order to guarantee that the US will be nuked if they are ever used* and so the US has a very good reason to ensure - via its conventional troops etc - that the UK never feels threatened enough to do so.
So of course the US would like to stop the UK even having the possibility of wiping out Moscow. If that means that, as with the early years of Polaris, the submarine-based nuclear weapons don't actually work, then great.
* If Moscow disappears in a radioactive cloud, the Russians are not going to go 'Well, it was probably just the British, we'll just wipe them out and leave the US alone because no way would it be them...'
"I suspect they are really made in the USA, with token UK supervision and knowledge for a fig-leaf."
Can anybody confirm that on the side of the warheads, next to the UL sticker, is a notice that reads "Assembled in the UK. Covered by one or more US patents. May contain nuts."?
...but why not build British-built nuclear plants in Britain then? (Okay, a lot of "British" in this sentence, just to bring the point home :) )
It doesn't get much more sensitive and dangerous... Can't we do it ourselves, or do we accept the risk simply because it's cheaper to let them build it?
I'd suppose because the last plants we built were built almost 50 years ago and we don't have the skills, hardware know how, plans or IP required to build a modern nuclear plant. That would be my guess. So if we did it ourselves it would cost far more, take far longer and likely be an inferior product.
Well, the Chinese had to start somewhere when it came to building reactors, and the British could as well. I expect it has more to do with who is coughing up the money, plus the Chinese government does actually promote engineering whereas the British government have spent the last 50 years promoting the financial sector instead. Hence we have plenty of bankers, but hardly any engineers.
You may well be right, I think
you are wrong.
Chinese company was engaged because it is cheaper than to *train* people at home.
Many political leaders in China are engineers, why not?
In Japan, we have too many lawyers in politics (although their social standing and economic situation are very different to the west, qualification is through examinations, many of the failed revolutionaries of 45 years ago, many others since, choose law or para-legal, unless you are wanting to be appointed to the Napoleonic-style tribunals that are called courts, or be a judge, all you have to do is study and pass an exam) and professional politicians, but most companies are still run by people with a background in what the company *does*. If they are making games, a former game designer, if they are making tech, a programmer or engineer.
In UK, from what I see, management is all from rubbish studies, no exam law, arts ('humanities' or 'liberal arts', depending on place, nothing to do with 'art'), or even 'management studies', anything but the industry concerned.
USA is similar, with the few major companies founded by techies, but how many of them are still under techie control?
When Fiorina was ruining Hewlett and Packard's legacy, did anybody stop to think that she was a cretin when it came to technology?
I could continue, but will add, for the sake of human rights, that the career choice, other than legal or paralegal, of those who disagreed with Japan's imperialistic adventures, was teaching. They are good teachers.
The campaign to force them to do things they do not want to do has been running hotly for years, it is a great shame that the deprivation of rights for many Japanese schoolteachers is not recognised internationally.
I came here to post pretty much this.
NukularNRG is one domain I really do believe should stay nationalised and under the direct aegis and investment of the government or whatever subGovernmental body's best up to the task, and if none exists, make one.
How on Earth Britain squandered decades worth of knowledge and world-leading development only to end up with a mere reprocessing capability, I don't know.
All power to the French and Chinese, of course - it just saddens me beyond belief how ineffectual and lacking in self-belief our governments have been.
Sickens ye.
"How on Earth Britain squandered decades worth of knowledge and world-leading development only to end up with a mere reprocessing capability, I don't know."
Stupidity at all levels from Green & CND activists to the top of govt for several decades. Especially a predilection for having non-scitech graduates as senior civil servants and MPs.
"It doesn't get much more sensitive and dangerous... "
Sensitive, yes
Dangerous, no.
The UK suffered an explosion the size of a small nuclear bomb in the early 1970's. It was called Flixborough.
". Can't we do it ourselves,"
Not since the Thatcher government decreed the UK would abandon Advanced Gas Cooled work and buy in PWRs from that nice Westinghouse company (now owned by Toshiba, but they keep the name as the Americans get hot under the collar discovering they are owned by 'furriners).
The only UK reactor programme left is the Rolls Royce one that builds the reactors for Navy reactors.
Ironically the US dominance of this design is due to the fact the USN footed the whole development bill for it, so Westinghouse could sell it (relatively) cheaply and still come out with a shedload of profit, once they'd scaled it up to land power plant levels (about 10x bigger)
Both designs had major faults but PWR (mandatory enriched Uranium supply needed + 300c, 200atm water are not design pluses) basically the only design left standing with a supplier base in place.
Yay for the free market and the engineering smarts of the British Senior Civil Servant (: .
@sysconfig
As one who witnessed on site the shambles that was the Dungeness B construction,I would answer your question, "Can't we do it ourselves?" as "No, we can't".
An engineer there told me how he had been diverted to South Korea. In two years they turned a green field into a working power station. Then he got back to Dungeness. The only difference he saw was that there was more dust on various half built bits.
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>Because the City cannot raise funds
Well, the Chinese got involved because EDF couldn't raise the money itself either and even the Chinese are worried about their investment, to the extent that the UK Governmment has underwritten it. Even though the operating costs are already largely underwritten. Maybe they should have just underwritten UK investment in the first place (or given up on nuclear power like just about everyone else).
Maybe they should have just underwritten UK investment in the first place
With what? The same unfunded, cashless promises that underwrite all the other commitments that the UK bunglement has made over the years?
Because our idiot, idiot politicians signed free trade agreements without caveating them with a requirement for a balance of trade, the West has got progressively poorer in cash terms (fundamentally wrapped up as accumulated private sector debt, made worse by government deficit spending). Meanwhile, having exported but not imported China has foreign exchange reserves approaching four trillion dollars. It could spend that imports stuff from the West, but prefers to invest it in assets - so rather than buy Jaguars off the UK, they'd rather buy what will be the most expensive power station in the history of the world, and then collect rent off us forever.
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