[Cryptography] In the latest unexpected ransomware twist ...

[Ray Dillinger]

On 6/12/21 2:50 PM, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:
>
>
> I spent some time on the colonial site. They send multiple types of
> fuel down their pipes in batch. Different fractions. So the unleaded
> and leaded and aviation fuel all go down the same pipes under
> turbulent flow so they don't mix. The interfaces between the fractions
> are diverted for reprocessing 
>
> So mess up and stick the wrong fraction into the wrong tank and the
> whole tank is contaminated, useless. Could cause an air crash.

When I had some dealings with Midwest oil pipeline companies years ago
they used "oil pigs" - rubber balls the same size as the inside of the
pipe - between different types or grades of product. The pig would run
the length of the pipeline with, say,60-grade crude in front and
40-grade behind, and then the back pressure would ram it into a switch
mechanism which it blocked open causing a valve to divert the 40-grade
batch to a different tank.  It was fairly automatic, but fully mechanical. 

There was no software involved in that system in its legacy form at all,
beyond the messages notifying the far side about what was in the
pipeline.  The update at that time was the first time software was even
involved in it.  The new oil pigs contained RFIDs that could be read
when they passed through points in the pipe where sensors were
installed, so timing estimates could be precise to a tenth of a second
instead of a tenth of a minute and the destination would be
automatically notified about a switchover (and a pig) instead of relying
on somebody to pick up the phone.

Colonial's got a very different operation of course; for starters
they're looking at much more highly refined products, not just different
grades of crude oil.  Second they're running pipelines bigger than 30cm
wide, and I think the rubber-ball system stopped working somewhere
around there.  And third they're running NOW instead of 20 years ago
when legacy systems involving the absence of computer control were still
a thing.

But anyway, yeah however they do it, almost every pipeline in the world
runs different products in the pipe at the same time, with some system
to try to keep them separate.  And they pretty much always have.

Bear


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