R10 2952

If that Sears is anything like the other few remaining stores, I bet it's also got half-empty shelves, merchandise scattered over the floor, half the lights burnt out, and two cashiers max working the entire store. Shame because Sears and its products used to be fairly decent. All the bikes I had growing up were secondhand Sears store-brand bikes from the '70s. Good times.

Josh Meyer, USA TODAY Tue, October 12, 2021 "As most Americans are still learning about the hacking-for-cash crime of ransomware, the nation’s top homeland security official is worried about an even more dire digital danger: killware, or cyberattacks that can literally end lives. The Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack in April galvanized the public’s attention because of its consumer-related complications, including long lines at gas stations, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in an interview with USA TODAY's Editorial Board last week. But "there was a cyber incident that very fortunately did not succeed," he added. "And that is an attempted hack of a water treatment facility in Florida, and the fact that that attack was not for financial gain but rather purely to do harm.” That attack on the Oldsmar, Florida, water system in February was intended to distribute contaminated water to residents, "and that should have gripped our entire country,” Mayorkas said. USA TODAY and others reported on that hack, but it came amid a flurry of bigger cyberattacks such as the SolarWinds intrusion into U.S. government agencies, technology firms such as Microsoft and cybersecurity companies. Mayorkas and cybersecurity experts said the Oldsmar intrusion was one of many indications that malicious hackers increasingly are targeting critical parts of the nation's infrastructure – everything from hospitals and water supplies to banks, police departments and transportation – in ways that could injure or even kill people. “The attempted hack of this water treatment facility in February 2021 demonstrated the grave risks that malicious cyber activity poses to public health and safety," Mayorkas told USA TODAY in a follow-up exchange. "The attacks are increasing in frequency and gravity, and cybersecurity must be a priority for all of us.” Weaponized technology Like Mayorkas, private-sector computer security experts warn that so-called cyber-physical security incidents involving a wide range of critical national infrastructure targets could lead to loss of life. Those include oil and gas manufacturing and other elements of the energy sector, as well as water and chemical systems, transportation and aviation and dams. The rise of consumer-based products such as smart thermostats and autonomous vehicles means Americans live in a “ubiquitous cyber-physical systems world” that has become a potential minefield of threats, said Wam Voster, senior research director at the security firm Gartner. In a report July 21, Gartner said there is enough evidence of increasingly debilitating and dangerous attacks to expect that by 2025, “cyber attackers will have weaponized operational technology environments to successfully harm or kill humans.” “The attack on the Oldsmar water treatment facility shows that security attacks on operational technology are not just made up in Hollywood anymore,” Voster wrote in an accompanying article. Another example, Voster wrote, was the Triton malware that was first identified in December 2017 on the operational technology systems of a petrochemical facility. It was designed to disable the safety systems put in place to shut down the plant in case of a hazardous event. “If the malware had been effective, then loss of life was highly likely,” Voster wrote. “It is not unreasonable to assume that this was an intended result. Hence ‘malware’ has now entered the realm of ‘killware.’” A frightening target: Hospitals Few incidents have come to light in which hackers shut down parts of the nation’s critical infrastructure in ways that might have contributed to someone’s death or serious injury. However, U.S. officials are concerned about the rash of ransomware attacks on hospitals, which have had to divert patients and cancel or defer critical surgeries, tests and other medical procedures, as was the case in a nationwide cyberattack on Universal Health Services, one of the largest U.S. health care providers, in September 2020. More: Hospitals report rise in hacking during COVID-19 In hospital hacks, patients could die or suffer life-threatening complications, but it would be nearly impossible to find out unless medical centers offered that information, said a senior Department of Homeland Security official speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss security concerns. A year ago, the FBI, DHS and the Department of Health and Human Services issued a warning about attacks on hospitals, describing the tactics, techniques and procedures used by cybercriminals to infect systems with ransomware for financial gain. “CISA (the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency), FBI, and HHS have credible information of an increased and imminent cybercrime threat to U.S. hospitals and healthcare providers,” the alert said. “CISA, FBI, and HHS are sharing this information to provide warning to healthcare providers to ensure that they take timely and reasonable precautions to protect their networks from these threats.” Authorities suspect the problem may be larger than has been reported, in part because private companies and even government agencies often don’t report ransomware hacks of their operational systems. Failure to report such attacks fuels the fast-growing criminal market in ransomware attacks, which can bring hackers millions in payouts, the DHS official said, "and it doesn’t help us learn the latest techniques and tactics used by the hackers." In Alabama, a woman sued a hospital this year, alleging that its failure to disclose a cyberattack on its systems resulted in diminished care that caused her baby’s death. Last year, a hacker attack caused the failure of information technology systems at a major hospital in Germany. That forced a woman who needed urgent admission to be taken to another city for treatment, where she died. In both cases, the hospitals and doctors involved denied allegations that they were responsible, and no proven link between the hacks and the deaths was established. Liability for loss of life Cybersecurity experts warn government and corporate leaders that they could be held financially or legally liable if breaches of computerized systems they oversee are found to have had a human impact. “In the U.S., the FBI, NSA and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) have already increased the frequency and details provided around threats to critical infrastructure-related systems, most of which are owned by private industry,” Katell Thielemann, research vice president at Gartner, said in a report in September 2020. “Soon, CEOs won’t be able to plead ignorance or retreat behind insurance policies.” The firm estimated that the financial impact of cyber-physical security attacks resulting in fatalities will surpass $50 billion within a few years. “Even without taking the actual value of a human life into the equation,” Gartner concluded, “the costs for organizations in terms of compensation, litigation, insurance, regulatory fines and reputation loss will be significant.” Who are the hackers? While ransomware attacks dominate the headlines, Mayorkas has begun sounding the alarm about cyber intrusions such as the one in Florida in which money wasn’t the primary motive. “U.S. cybersecurity officials have long known that water facilities and other critical infrastructure have been vulnerable for many, many years,” a senior DHS official said on condition of anonymity. “What made this one different was that there was an intruder who consciously exploited that vulnerability with malicious intent. “It is also significant because it is one of the few incidents where malicious cyberactivity is crossing the line and can actually threaten the lives of people,” the official said, by increasing the level of potentially toxic chemicals in the water supply, for instance. He said Mayorkas has mentioned the attack in meetings with state and local security officials. Homeland Security officials would not comment on who might have been behind the Florida attack, including whether it was linked to a foreign power. Several nations, including Iran, Russia and China, have penetrated elements of critical U.S. infrastructure, but there have been few instances of them taking any action. U.S. officials suspect more foreign governments and nonstate actors are engaging in malicious cyberactivity – sometimes together – in ways that make it nearly impossible to attribute the attacks or to determine whether they were driven by profit, political motives or both. In 2015, an Iranian hacktivist group claimed responsibility for a cyberattack two years earlier that gave it access to the control system for a dam in the suburbs of New York. In a criminal indictment, the Justice Department said seven Iranian hackers penetrated the computer-guided controls of the dam on behalf of that country’s military-affiliated Revolutionary Guards Corps as part of a broader cyberattack against 46 of the largest U.S. financial institutions. DHS officials told USA TODAY that the water treatment facility indicated that the malicious actor attempted to change chemical mixtures to unsafe levels as part of the water treatment process. An operator detected the changes and corrected the system before it affected the water supply, the officials said. “Independent of who was behind it, the fact that someone decided to exploit that vulnerability and was able to do it means that other attackers would be able to do it as well,” a DHS official said." This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Cybersecurity experts warn of killware attacks that rival ransomware https://www.usatoday.com/restricted/?return=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.usatoday.com%2Fstory%2Fnews%2Fpolitics%2F2021%2F10%2F12%2Fcybersecurity-experts-warn-killware-attacks-rival-ransomware%2F6042745001%2F

Sadly, this is one of the oldest tricks in the book. They did similar things with a number of ex-PBL express bus routes in Brooklyn and Queens after 2010. The MTA also did the same (via LIRR) with the Lower Montauk Branch, and they're going to do the same with the Atlantic Branch. Not just the MTA though, honestly seen this strategy play out in other places and with other agencies, too. NJT, MBTA, SEPTA, CTA, Seattle, and so on. Run a route as badly as possible, cut service, send ridership into a death-spiral, then eliminate said route due to "low ridership". Rinse, wash, repeat. This kind of underhanded sabotage wrapped in a cloak of plausible deniability is one of those situations where I think there should be lawyers suing the agencies' asses in court.

Except the R32s were stainless steel, didn't have giant rustholes everywhere, didn't leak gallons of water in the rain, didn't have multiple door-circuit failures causing people to be dragged on the platform, and didn't have worn-out wiring that would start to smoke randomly out of nowhere. I take it you also don't remember (2)/(5) trains being taken out of service left and right during rush hour due to miscellaneous mechanical failures. Because Pepperidge Farms here sure as hell remembers LOL.

The complaints on the previous page about the being bad in the early to mid-2000s gave me a chuckle. Wasn't perfect, not denying that, but still way better than, say, the / in the late '90s. Anyone who also rode the R26/28/29s in their last years will understand.

5, 10, 15 years ago I actually remember seeing undercover police Crown Victorias disguised as taxis. People would hear a siren, turn their heads, and be surprised seeing a yellow cab with flashing lights gunning its engine down the left lane. Turns out the gypsy cab drivers could sniff them out, though. The actual Crown Vic taxis had an extended wheelbase, but the cop cars disguised as taxis apparently were standard wheelbase. The other thing that gave it away was the fact that it'd usually be a husky, middle-aged Irish or Italian-looking dude driving the undercover cab around, with the pickup light for passengers permanently switched off. Nobody's going to fall for that unless they're not paying attention.

It and the express version (#15) used to be one route (114) and terminated in Butler off Route 23; it was truncated and replaced by a farcical, rush-hour runaround route to Newark via Paterson (the 75) around 1990. After years of mismanagement of the line, the 75 was finally axed in 2012.

Which is why I've been opposed to Vision Zero, congestion pricing, and other social engineering pseudo-measures since the beginning. The politicians talk the talk, but don't walk the walk. In years prior, they've either raided dedicated transit revenue sources for other measures, or simply not contributed sufficient funding to transit in the first place. If they refuse to pony up the money from already-existing public monies, what makes people think it will be different this time around? Does nobody remember how at the same time deBlasio was pushing Vision Zero, he was bitching about being asked by the MTA to contribute more city funds to the subways and buses? And speeding through red lights at 50 mph in his official motorcade (yet still managing to show up late everywhere)? We haven't had new subway lines since the '50s. Our current bus map largely resembles defunct streetcar networks from the '40s. Several decades have passed and what do we have to show for it? A stubway in Jamaica. A stubway on the Upper East Side. A one-stop extension of the that was originally supposed to be two stops. Glorified limited-stop pre-paid versions of existing bus lines euphemistically called "bus rapid transit". Oh, the joy. If the politicians were acting in good faith, I'd support the car mitigation efforts entirely, but since I know they're just a bunch of demagogic hypocrites, they can eat a sock as far as I'm concerned. I will believe when I see.

@BreeddekalbL Funny thing is, they keep banning cars from more and more streets, but I don't see them building new subways or improving bus service 🤔 The City politicians are creating comprehensive problems without providing comprehensive solutions.

Only other explanation I can think of is the execs deliberately don't give a shit about how they're slowly but surely running the organization into the ground, and by actions like this it certainly shows...

I think this thread ran it's course some time ago and now people are simply beating a dead horse repeatedly. I also don't see the point of all this considering the system has yet to get back to reasonably normal operations and service levels on account of the whole pandemic situation. No point in worrying about cleaning up a spill in the kitchen when the entire damn house is on fire.

Don't forget the Grand Marquis 🤣

Personally, I think the 11 could still make sense if they simply restored service along Route 23 north of Willowbrook. Not everyone from points north is trying to go to PABT, and one of the biggest gripes people up there had was not having easy access to Newark (or Paterson for that matter). I took the 194 to the 11 to the 62 several times over the years to get to EWR from visiting family in Passaic County. It's a pain in the ass.

Are they trying to offload all the R46s onto the now? Because that would probably turn out to be an utter clusterf**k... Seems to me the path of least resistance would simply be to put them on the lines.

THIS. Port Authority went off the rails on the crazy train once they started dabbling in real estate and other sideshows. If I recall correctly, the Twin Towers themselves did not reach full occupancy until the early '90s or something. Two decades after they went up, basically.

I think the bottom line is NJ Transit needs to learn to be less wasteful with its equipment. Overhauling the ALP-44s with a contractor in Eastern PA would've cost $2 million dollars according to the original rebuild plan from 2008, significantly less than the $24 million interest the Feds had in the equipment. Unless there were serious operational issues, retiring locomotives that were 15-20 years old at the time is basically throwing public money down the drain. Leads me to believe that the Comet IIIs NJT withdrew were probably also not as hopeless as the agency made them out to be. The federal government can and absolutely should hold transit agencies accountable when federal money or monetary interests get screwed with. No blank checks.

The politicians aren't looking for a genuine solution here, they're just using this as an opportunity to push their anti-car agenda. Business as usual.

Eh, it still happens across the city. Bushwick Branch crossing at Metropolitan, 73rd St in Glendale, SBK in Brooklyn...

They'll probably be the first to throw a hissy fit if and when the route gets eliminated entirely.

If Bee Lines is that strapped for cash, perhaps they'll just replace the suburban O5s with... Gilligs. God forbid, but at this point anything's possible.

"Struggling to get its workforce vaccinated, the MTA has pulled a $500,000 death benefit for any unvaccinated employees who succumb to COVID, THE CITY has learned. The MTA this week will extend through the end of the year the lump-sum payment and three years of health insurance to the survivors of vaccinated workers who die from the virus, a senior official said. But workers who opt out of getting their shots could relinquish the rights of their loved ones to secure the benefit should they die — unless they had a “valid documented exception” to vaccination, according to a notice sent to employees by Paul Fama, the MTA’s chief people officer." https://www.thecity.nyc/2021/9/12/22667777/no-covid-death-benefit-for-unvaccinated-mta-bus-subway-workers

"An Aug. 29 power outage that left half of the New York City Transit subway system at a standstill was caused by someone manually activating a power off switch. The switch in question lacked a protective plastic cover that could have prevented it being activated." https://www.masstransitmag.com/rail/maintenance/article/21237953/mtas-aug-29-power-outage-attributed-to-human-error Surprised nobody posted about this yet. The bit about this shitshow being caused by somebody pressing the wrong button cracked me the f**k up, honestly.

Theoretically they could; aside from a missing staircase or two, signals, lighting and possibly third rail on the last track, the basic infrastructure for a full-fledged terminal station is all there. The real problem is that inertia is a powerful force at the MTA- unless they have a strong incentive or are pushed by the politicians to do it, it won't happen.

Exactly, the U.S. having massive GDP yet a very eroded manufacturing base, is both an embarrassment and an impediment to self-suffciency. The casino that is Wall Street and the financial services sector should not be the sole pillar of support for our economy.

Good question, been wondering that myself...