Forwarded from: William Knowles <wkat_private> http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/2002/07/08/news/local/3589570.htm [You have to wonder why airport officials were initially concerned that a hacker had turned off the runway lights, unless one can remotely control them via a dial-up or the Internet? - WK] Wed, Jul. 03, 2002 Federal investigators have determined that a computer malfunction stopped runway lights at Miami International Airport from being turned on for about half an hour Saturday evening, an FBI spokeswoman said Tuesday. Airport officials were initially concerned that a hacker caused the disruption. ''We looked into it and determined it was not a hacker,'' FBI spokeswoman Judy Orihuela said. A representative for Siemens Airfield Solutions, which designed the lighting system, said it was a simple hardware problem in which a touch screen wasn't communicating with the main computer. ''The touch screen that turns the lights on was not responding,'' said Joe Pokoj, director of sales and marketing for Siemens. The problem occurred at about 8:20 p.m. Saturday, when officials tried to turn the lights on and the system did not respond. The runways were closed temporarily until officials turned the lights on manually by 8:55 p.m. Aviation officials said only a couple of planes were affected. *==============================================================* "Communications without intelligence is noise; Intelligence without communications is irrelevant." Gen Alfred. M. Gray, USMC ================================================================ C4I.org - Computer Security, & Intelligence - http://www.c4i.org *==============================================================* - ISN is currently hosted by Attrition.org To unsubscribe email majordomoat_private with 'unsubscribe isn' in the BODY of the mail.
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