Washingtonpost.com: Internet 1, Blackout 0

Byline: Robert MacMillan

No refrigeration, no subways, no smooth traffic flow, no air conditioning -- well, at least the Internet worked.

So did the phones, at least in theory. That was the big message in the tech media's coverage of the mega-blackout that took down the power grid serving much of the northeast United States and southern Canada yesterday.

Oh, and the FBI said the Blaster worm had nothing to do with it.

The largest blackout in U.S. history did not affect Internet service because the data networks are "redundant, robust" and all those other cliches that tech companies typically apply to their networks, the BBC reported.

"California-based Keynote Systems , which monitors average traffic times across the net's backbones, said it saw no appreciable slowdown of traffic when the power cut hit," the BBC continued. "'As is true of the telephone system, the internet and major websites have been engineered with redundancy and backup power systems to withstand power outages,' said Eric Siegel , a spokesman for Keynote. 'As long as there isn't major physical damage,' he said, 'such as that caused by the July 2001 Baltimore tunnel fire, or major congestion, such as that caused by the SQL Slammer worm in January 2003, the internet and the web have enough redundancy and resilience to withstand most problems.'"

The BBC also cited AT&T spokesman Dave Johnson 's rosy comment: "There is no impact that we are aware of. All data switching centers and long-distance switching centers have large battery racks and diesel generators which automatically kick in whenever we have a power failure such as this." * BBC: Net Survives Power Outage

AT&T and Keynote were widely quoted in the media. The San Francisco Chronicle cited the same sources when it reported: "The power failure did not cause major disruption on the Internet. Consumers continued to pay bills, book flights, play blackjack and read breaking news about the blackout online -- and in some cases read that news to friends on the East Coast over phone lines. They were able to do this because the major Internet service providers have extensive backup power systems." * The San Francisco Chronicle: Passing the Test: Business Systems Survive Outage

Detroit Free Press columnist Mike Wendland noted that " Comcast cable and other broadband carriers said their systems all maintained connectivity, thanks to emergency power. Lots of e-mail and instant messages were exchanged during the late afternoon hours on battery-equipped laptops. But as that power drained, Internet traffic slowed. The Net was there. But with no electricity, it was like no one was home." * The Detroit Free Press's Mike Wendland: Worried Callers Overload Cell Phone System

Can You Hear Me Now?

The question, of course, is how people reached some of their friends on the East Coast when mobile phone connections were spotty at best.

Wireless industry representatives told some news outlets that the networks were working just fine, which in theory is great. But in the same way that an unaffected Internet meant little to people who didn't have power for their computers to go online, the wireless networks were running but were so overwhelmed with calls that their capacity maxed out, leaving many cell phone users listening to that annoying busy signal.

The Washington Post cited a story from the scene. "'It was trial and error. We just kept trying until it worked,' said Heather Istwany , a D.C. first-grade teacher who was in New York on summer break. She was meeting a friend in Grand Central Terminal around 4 p.m., just as the power went out. She and her friend left the train station and immediately tried to call friends by cell phone. For the first hour, Istwany got either a fast busy signal or silence. But as she walked to the Manhattan Bridge toward Brooklyn, service finally seemed to work."

" Verizon Communications Inc. said both its wireless and conventional telephone networks worked throughout the outage, although so many affected residents tried to use their cell phones that users often heard fast busy signals, a sign that the network was overloaded," the Post also reported. * The Washington Post: Calls, E-Mails Get Through

AT&T's Johnson told the Boston Globe that his company "was having no problem connecting long-distance calls into and out of the blackout area, despite a 25 to 30 percent increase in calling volume."

"Officials at other major networks were nearly as upbeat," the Globe also reported. " John Johnson , spokesman for Verizon Wireless , said his company's cell sites have batteries capable of keeping them running for 10 hours. Most also have backup generators, and portable units can be delivered to those sites that don't already have generators."

The Globe's sources must have characterized their message a little differently than the ones at some other outlets, including the Post. In a less optimistic summary, the Post reported: "Other wireless companies, including AT&T Wireless, Nextel Communications Inc. , Sprint PCS and Cingular Wireless said their networks had experienced some problems in areas where the electricity went out. Sprint said that while its major switching centers were operating, there were 'multiple cell sites that were impacted.' Nextel said several hundred cell sites in affected areas of New York, New Jersey, Michigan, Ohio, Connecticut, Massachusetts and 'possibly surrounding states' were not operating because of the power loss. Engineers were restoring power using generators throughout the evening, a spokeswoman said. Cingular said the network it shares with T-Mobile in New York City had 1,650 cell sites down. Cingular spokesman Ken Ketley said the company was concerned that the longer the outage lasted, the more sites that could go down as the batteries ran out." * The Boston Globe: Telecoms Say Voice, Data Largely Unaffected by Outage

Out of all the business and tech media, the hardnoses at The Wall Street Journal appeared the least affected by the telecommunications spin machine: "Some subscribers to Verizon Wireless, AT&T Wireless Services Inc., and Sprint PCS, all strong players in the areas affected by the power outage, were unable to make cellphone calls late Thursday afternoon. Spokespeople for the wireless operators attributed the difficulties mainly to the sudden spike in cell phone traffic, not the power outage itself. But some wireless equipment went down with the outage. The difficulty with the wireless networks raised the question of how the carriers, all of whom were severely impacted by the devastation of the Sept. 11, appear to be surprised by the power outage," the Journal noted. "However, the carriers could not explain why the network was not capable of handling the high call volume given its experience [after Sept. 11]." * The Wall Street Journal: Phone Companies Cope With Heavy Telecom Volume (Subscription required)

The Journal and other reports noted that landline service continued normally, except for hapless customers who only own cordless phones. The New York Times reported: "Verizon, the main telephone provider in the Northeast, said that in the first hour after the power failure, call volume was 300 percent above normal levels in the metropolitan New York City area." * The New York Times: When Wireless Phones Failed, Callers Turned to Land Lines (Registration required)

The best spin of the day came from Brenda Rainey at Verizon Wireless, whose take, as told to the San Francisco Chronicle was tinted -- however unintentionally -- with the old "blame the victim" line: "Nothing's wrong with the system," Rainey said. "It's like those news stories that say call volume's high on Mother's Day. It's the same concept."

Did we mention that this had nothing to do with the worm?

Pointing Fingers

In its coverage, The Washington Post underscored the frailty of the nation's power grid: "The instantaneous spread of the outage -- and its containment within the northeastern and midwestern states -- was a vivid demonstration both of how tightly integrated the U.S. electric power system's generators and transmission lines are and how computer-operated safeguards take over in emergencies, officials said." * The Washington Post: Woes Spread Across Grid In an Instant

The New York Times offered this telling bit of analysis: "The problem of preventing such power failures has been that, for the most part, no one has an incentive to invest billions of dollars in new wires, new towers and new transformers. The old utilities have sold off their power plants but still hold a highly regulated monopoly on the network of lines, and they would only invest in new transmission if state regulators would guarantee them rate increases to pay for it." * New York Times: Power Failure Reveals a Creaky System, Energy Experts Believe (Registration required)

Continued from page 1.

ComputerWorld quoted Joe Weiss , an analyst at Kema Consulting in Fairfax, Va. Weiss "said the power grid is frail from lack of capacity and because it is highly interconnected, making such widespread cascading failures possible." He "acknowledged that much of the research and development work for more resilient IT systems for the electric power grid -- called for last year by the National Research Council (NRC) -- hasn't evolved to the extent officials would like."

According to ComputerWorld, the NRC "report recommended that the Department of Energy work with the private sector to develop 'intelligent and adaptive' electric-power grid systems." From the report: "Such an intelligent grid would provide the system with the ability to fail gracefully, minimizing damage to components and enabling more rapid recovery of power. A key element would be adaptive islanding, a concept employing fast-acting sensors and controls to isolate parts of the power system. Operations models and intelligence would be needed to differentiate between failure of a single component and the kind of concurrent or closely coupled serial failures, at several key nodes, that could indicate the onset of a concerted attack." * ComputerWorld: Northeast, Canada Power Failure Exposes Infrastructure Frailty

Could the blackout have been caused by cyberterrorism? No one knows at this point, but yesterday's events bring to mind a scary piece written last year by Washington Post reporter Barton Gellman . In that article, Gellman wrote: "U.S. analysts believe that by disabling or taking command of the floodgates in a dam, for example, or of substations handling 300,000 volts of electric power, an intruder could use virtual tools to destroy real-world lives and property."

If the Blackout's Not Enough For You...

It's already early Saturday morning in places like New Zealand, which means the pernicious Internet worm that attacked Windows-enabled computers earlier this week should already be using those computers to attack Microsoft 's security Web site.

That's right -- the week's other story of electronic trouble is readying itself for its sequel this weekend, and various media reports indicate a lot of activity in the network security field to try to figure out how to rid the Internet of this troublesome worm.

"Security experts say Microsoft likely will seize upon telltale weaknesses in the worm to minimize its impact. The most obvious step Microsoft could take would be to redirect traffic generated by legitimate Windows Update visitors to an alternate Web site. Microsoft is letting users know that they can find the same software fixes at www.microsoft.com/downloads," washingtonpost.com reported. * washingtonpost.com: Microsoft Braces for Worm Onslaught

The Washington Post newspaper, in a separate article, noted that the worm might leave "a potentially more dangerous calling card": "Although worms can eat files, launch attacks to deface Web sites and otherwise disrupt networks, experts say such results often are diversions to mask a more malicious intent: implanting hidden 'back doors' in the attacked systems that can allow malicious hackers to break in and steal sensitive information, such as financial or corporate records, or inflict more damage well after an initial attack appears to have been resolved. Increasingly, experts say, such attacks are the work of sophisticated criminal organizations that use worms to enable fraud, embezzlement, identity theft and sabotage." * The Washington Post: NetWorm Heightens Security Concerns

The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the worm is causing "small crashes that other measuring systems have failed to detect." VeriSign's Ken Silva: "Everyone else is reporting that this thing is going away, but we're still seeing a ripple effect throughout the Net." According to Silva, "VeriSign's root servers generally get about 10 billion queries a day, but are now getting an additional 3.7 billion requests. While the surge is not enough to crash the Net, Silva said it suggests Blaster has knocked out many low-level computers that normally direct traffic, stressing the central directories. 'The message here is: Don't drop your guard,' Silva said." * The San Francisco Chronicle: Smaller Users Hardest Hit by Blaster Virus

The Wall Street Journal said that the worm's spread has slowed but variants are still a concern. On a more analytic level, the Journal's sources criticized the Windows operating system, noting that the latest versions are the least secure ever despite Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing Initiative .

"Whatever the origin of the worm, security experts say one thing is clear: The outbreak increases pressure on Microsoft to make its software more reliable and secure. 'End users of software, particularly big business, are just sick and tired of taking the fall when software doesn't work,' says Jeffery Payne , chief executive of Cigital Inc. , a Dulles, Va., company that advises businesses on software quality. 'It's starting to cost them so much money that they are beginning to push back on companies like Microsoft.'" * The Wall Street Journal: The Online 'Worm' Puts New Stress on Microsoft (Subscription required)

While users at home and at work who use Windows are dealing with the pain, the Journal noted it's the tech security firms that are doing the real cleaning up: " Authentium Inc. Chief Executive John Sharp has been manning the phones alongside salespeople at the computer-security company's West Palm Beach, Fla., headquarters this week, grappling with a surge in call volume. ... 'Even though you have to feel sorry for people affected by this, the current situation has had a very healthy effect on our business,' said Mr. Sharp. He said sales of the company's computer-security products are up 30% to 40%." * The Wall Street Journal: Internet Bug Is a Boon to Tech-Security Firms (Subscription required)

PC World reported that Microsoft admitted that it could have done a little bit better in the tech support department: "As spread of the dangerous new W32.Blaster Windows worm slows, attention is shifting to Microsoft's efforts to help its customers patch vulnerable systems -- and some complain of inadequate protection and unreliable information about securing their PCs." PC World continued. "Microsoft acknowledged Wednesday that a workaround to disable DCOM on Windows 2000 systems that was provided in its security bulletin does not work for systems running certain flavors of Windows 2000 ... The workaround required Windows users or administrators to change a Windows configuration setting to disable DCOM. However, changing that setting has no effect on DCOM for Windows 2000 servers running the original (or "gold") version of that software or with Service Packs 1 and 2 installed, according to Marc Maiffret , chief hacking officer at eEye Digital Security . Microsoft also failed to explain that Windows systems must be restarted to ensure protection after the configuration change, Maiffret says."

Microsoft updated its bulletin to reflect this, um, discrepancy. * PC World (IDG News Service): Did Microsoft Misstep Nurture Blaster?

Cindy Webb was off today. She'll be back on Monday.

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