catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/24.46.html#subj12
com>> Sun, 5 Nov 2006 11:12:24 PST I always regret long gaps between RISKS issues. However, the past two weeks involved attending OOPSLA in Portland OR (with a widespread power failure that triggered evacuation of the entire Convention Center and surrounding area, apparently including stoppage of the light rail system) and the ACM CCS06 in Alexandria VA, along with staying in contact with various activities at work. In both conferences, hotel wireless systems were massively overloaded by the plethora of participants' laptops, with repeated network crashes and process vanishings that made Net access extremely challenging. Herewith is an attempt to catch up with the RISKS backlog.
com>> Sun, 5 Nov 2006 13:17:12 PST A high-voltage transmission line was shut down over a river to enable a presumably large ship to pass. This is preliminarily being attributed to a propagating outage that affected something like 10,000,000 people in Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Belgium and Spain. Source: Danna Avsec, Power failure hits Europe, Associated Press, 05 Nov 2006;
storyid=58868 Somewhat ironically, my keynote talk at the ACM CCS 06 included discussions on network-propagating outages in power and telephony, how they keep recurring despite efforts to avoid them, and how they might be prevented.
com>> Wed, 01 Nov 2006 08:20:36 -0800 NETWORK RAIL faces an unlimited fine after admitting partial responsibility for one of Britain's worst rail disasters, The company, which owns and operates the entire rail infrastructure, admitted health and safety breaches relating to the accident in October 1999 at Ladbroke Grove. Thirty-one people died and 400 were injured when a high-speed intercity train crashed into a local service in West London during the morning rush hour. Network Rail Infrastructure admitted at least 16 infringements at Blackfriars Crown Court, in London. Relatives of three of the victims attended the 20-minute hearing. The charge referred to inadequate signal sighting distances and the obscuring of part of a signal. Other parts of the charge mean that the company has admitted that it failed to ensure the convening of a signal- sighting committee after equipment was installed in 1995, and also after six incidents when signals were passed when red between 1996 and 1998. In addition, it did not carry out "adequate risk assessments" or investigations following them.
com>> Mon, 30 Oct 2006 09:51:36 -0500 My Samsung VCR automatically sets its clock using XDS time signals which are broadcast in my area by WGBH, our local PBS station. The VCR clock has correctly followed DST on and off for years. Yesterday morning after Daylight Savings Time ended, the clock was "automatically" set to the wrong time, and it read two hours early. I unplugged the VCR, and when I plugged it back in it displayed "Auto" as it searched the channels for the XDS time signals.
com>> Fri, 3 Nov 2006 16:03:30 -0800 I am amazed at the number of Australia's single-track rail lines. In the bigger scheme of rail transport in Australia, important lines should all be double-tracked. It is one thing for NZ to have so many single-track rail lines, as NZ geography can be unduly harsh for the railroad builder. Canada has this problem to a lesser extent -- as the US rail infrastructure can always be used to route around any multiple trans-Canada rail snafu. Canada's rail choke points need to be eliminated, but the central government has not coordinated this yet. Probably some 30,000 kms of heavily used rail need to be replaced in the next decade in Canada -- but I don't see Ottawa trying to fix this problem either.
nz/ *Derailments cause rail chaos* Three of Australia's major railway routes are blocked this morning because of derailments. The Sydney to Melbourne railway line is blocked between Junee and Cootamundra in southern New South Wales after a collision between a truck and a freight train last night. Wagga Wagga police say the truck driver was free of the rig before the train hit and no one was injured. The Olympic Highway is closed near the site and the railway line is expected to be blocked until midday. In outback South Australia seven derailed freight wagons have been blocking the track near Tarcoola since Wednesday. The line is an important route between the east coast and Perth, and Adelaide and the Northern Territory. Today's Ghan service from Adelaide to Alice Springs has been canceled and freight deliveries have been delayed indefinitely. Yesterday, three rail services were cancelled, leaving hundreds of travelers stranded in Perth, Alice Springs and Adelaide. The Australian Rail Track Corporation expects to clear the line by Sunday.
COM>> Sat, 21 Oct 2006 13:17:53 -0700 I was on UA 914 from SFO to IAD on October 16th 2006 occupying seat 1B. This is an A320 with a plaque that reads it is the 500th airbus built, with the names of the people that accepted the plane from Airbus to United. At FL39 approaching Denver, the weirdest thing happened. All of a sudden all the lights in the cabin, including things like seat belt lights, smoking light, call buttons etc. The audio system went bonkers also changing channels, alternating static and music, etc... While this is looking forward, it was even weirder in the back with all the flashing lights. In the video you can see the lights flashing and the flight attendant trying to get into the cockpit. The PA system flight attendant to cabin and cockpit to cabin did not work. I suspect communications to the cockpit was a problem to judging on how the flight attendant was constantly "ringing the bell" to get the flight crew to open the door... The plane did not descent, turn or otherwise, and even though Channel 9 was not coming through clearly, the chatter on the radio was normal. After it was over, the pilot said later that he was trying to turn off the evacuation alarm which he said was unbelievably loud and sounding in the cockpit (although I did not hear it). He explained that he had never heard this in flight before (good thing) and this was something that they heard in training. During that 10 minutes he had been in contact with the UA maintenance people. The explanation was that the passenger control system had failed. He said it was the system that controls the "creature comforts" in the back of the airplane including the lights and toilets (and a bit more I might add! False alarms are at least distracting, which can contribute to larger issues. At the end the video, unbelievably, a passenger just had to get up and go to the bathroom really bad. I told him to sit back down, but after the end of the video he went anyway, right in the middle of this mess.
uk>> Wed, 25 Oct 2006 10:15:04 +0100 CRESTCo is the Central Securities Depository for the UK market and Irish equities, and operates the CREST system, which provides settlement facilities for a wide range of corporate and government securities, including those traded on the London and Irish Stock Exchanges.. CREST also settles money market instruments and funds, plus a variety of international securities. In September 2002, Crestco merged with Euroclear, which provides similar services in other European countries. The merged group decided to develop a single settlement engine (SSE) to unify their technology. Financial News Online reported on October 16th that "Euroclear was due to deliver the first phase last year but it did not go live until May". After the UK Crest system was integrated with the SSE in August, "the platform has suffered from blocked messages, systems instability and slow settlement". The problems have apparently led to a delay in the launch of a system for the Government bonds market that was due on October 23rd.
"On Tuesday, 29 August 2006, a small communications issue between CREST and the SSE late in the afternoon generated a substantial number of error messages. This blocked communication between the systems and effectively halted settlement for a period of time. Although settlement was re-started shortly after 17:00, the result of the delay was that UK banking deadlines were pushed back to around 19:15, with major banks only able to close their systems and...
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