Computer System Failure in ATL...
 

Who's computer is affected here? Just saw on the news that we might have a freeze of flights. Not good, and happy to be off today.:confused:

Thank God I am on LC! ;)

Found an update:

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/fligh...620002575.blog

UPDATE (9:02 a.m. ET on Thursday, Nov. 19): Some of the first reports of cancellations are coming in now, the results of an FAA computer glitch that is affecting flights this morning. The Associated Press reports "AirTran has canceled 22 flights and dozens more flights have been delayed as of 8 a.m. EST. Delta Air Lines also has suffered." AP adds "Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the world's busiest airport, has been particularly affected" by the issue.
CNN reports the FAA computer system affected by the malfunction is centered in Atlanta. "The system -- the National Airspace Data Interchange Network, or NADIN -- appears to be the same one that failed in August 2008. The FAA said flight plans are being processed through the network's Salt Lake City, Utah office," CNN says on its website.
CBS Newsreporter Nancy Cordes has more on the subject via the CBS News website. CBS explains the NADIN "system is located in Atlanta and generates the flight plans for all flights on the East Coast." She says the glitch is forcing air traffic controllers in the already-congested New York City to space out planes by about 20 miles, instead of the normal eight miles.
CBS adds "the practical ramifications of this problem are that the entire air traffic control system on the East Coast is slowed to about 40-50% of what a normal day would look like. Controllers must input flight data for each takeoff and landing manually." Stay tuned for updates.
ORIGINAL POST (8:26 a.m. ET on Thursday, Nov. 19): ABC News is reporting that flights are being delayed nationwide by an "unknown computer glitch" within the Federal Aviation Administration. ABC says the issue is not a safety issue, but that it is forcing air traffic controllers to increase the distance between flights – something that effectively reduces an airport's landing capacity. New York airports, for example, are operating at about 50% of normal capacity during the glitch, ABC says this morning on Good Morning America.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitutionalso picks up on the story, writing "the computer glitch shut down most, if not all, departing flights at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport and other airports across the country Thursday morning." In a statement, FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen is quoted by the paper as saying: "We are having a problem processing flight plan information. We are investigating the cause of the problem. We are processing flight plans manually and expect some delays."

60 Minutes did an interesting piece within the past couple of weeks on cyberwarfare. They claim the Chinese Army and organized crime units in Russia, Europe and the America's are constantly hacking into our government computer networks. One of the things they said was a concern was that these hacks could affect, in particular, air traffic. So when I hear that a system just "went down", me thinks bigger things are afoot.

Apparently one such hack last year allowed the hacker to break into CENTCOM's mainframe and download three days worth of information regarding all intel, troop movements, communications, etc. Very scary stuff. The hacker(s) was never caught.

I saw that. Very interesting, and concerning. Maybe DAL has it right by staying in 1980's technology! ;)

Anything really important is physically isolated...ie you can't get to it via the internet. You would need to penetrate layers of physical security to even access a network node. Not to say it's impossible, but now you need James Bond as opposed to a socially-inept adolescent.

The thing is that there are a lot of things that can be accessed via the internet. Security of many things, from power plants, to gas lines, to dam valves etc are connected though this or that.

I saw that piece too. It was interesting. Though with this incident i'm quicker to believe that its the ATC's old run equipment that cause these problems. its not like the ablity to control traffic is compromised.

I doubt any current Hackers could even read the obsolete code that ATC computers probably use, much less sabotage it . :)

Scoop

This is the 2nd time in a year this has happened, I hope we send Mr. Babbitt a bill...

It happened about a year ago, as I recall. DEN was fine, but ATL went down.

I'd be more concerned with the fact that the FAA has essentially moved from having a private dedicated network with leased lines to run their infrastructure to a "shared" infrastructure, that also carries the Internet. Specifically, the FAA (a sub-contractor) has reached out to service providers and have asked them to cut a "slice" of their infrastructure off to place the FAA network in. This is all done in the name of cost reduction. Building your own private network with your own gear, circuits, etc costs a lot of money. Buying circuits to a service provider and having their gear terminate and handle the routing is a low-cost option (aka L3VPN, L2VPN).

The problem with this is that sensitive FAA data is routing through the same layer-3 equipment that transports your porn and APC rumors. Any misconfiguration (aka provisioning error) of the routers involved and you could run into a situation where perhaps Al-Jazeeras VPN that they use between offices has visibility into the FAA. That's a worst case scenario, another scenario is that when you use shared infrastructures, attacks from the Internet could also cripple the same equipment. No matter what, Internet related events should not be riding alongside FAA bits.

There's a lot more to be worried about, but when we start sacrificing security for cost reductions, bad things happen.

The trick is we need to put the money we spend in taxes in to programs like this. Not some of the other fluff. I agree with everything you are saying Tortue

This just in: We have secured undercover photos of air traffic personnel attempting to rectifiy the problems. At least three programmers are hurriedly correcting the program

File:Eniac.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

File:Two women operating ENIAC.gif - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bwahahahaha! Someday, you'll have integrated circuits running the air traffic system.

Very true, I was talking about the defense agencies...there are many other government and infrastructure organizations which are not well protected at all.

You will know a lot more about that than me, but watch the 60 Minutes piece. Someone was able to get into CENTCOM's network and see all communications, troop movements, everything for three days. It was done by someone leaving memory sticks laying around and a soldier picking one up and hooking into a networked computer. Once plugged in, the stick sent a code that allowed the user/hacker access to the entire network. Apparently we aren't as protected as some would want us to believe.

I bet it was a "DAL North" guy!!;)
fbh

If they start jamming my porn there will be he11 to pay. :eek: