Out of the Cage

Bill Strom was toasted. Another week of record-setting temperatures in Southern California, and he’d been out doing yard work all morning! While he was grateful the water drone squadrons had eliminated all forest fires the whole week (eliminating fires before they even began to grow at their source), he still scoffed, mumbling something to himself like “wish those water drones would dump some ice water on me…”. But gratefully, his work was finally done. He stepped into his house, meandered down into his self-built basement bar, and opened the fridge to reach for that delicious-looking juicy IPA. But just before he could grab it, the power went out. He couldn’t see a thing! He couldn’t remember the last time there was a power outage — those issues too had long been solved by a digitally balanced and distributed power grid.

“Babe!” he shouted, his head still craned into the now half-open fridge. “Get the flashlight!” With the late summer heat showing no signs of letting up, Bill knew they were in for an unpleasant few days…

Meanwhile, at the White House, officials were scrambling. “Just WHERE is the power out? Everywhere?! That’s not even possible! Get Moscow on the line!” In one sweeping cyberattack, the entire electric grid across the United States had gone offline. Sighing at the Oval Office desk with a “same time every time”, President America called up President Russia and asked: “Hey, was this attack you guys?”, to which President Russia coolly and simply replied, “Of course not, we would never attack our good American friends!” President America couldn’t trust President Russia, and vice versa. In any case, on the other side of the line in Moscow, President Russia was actually telling the truth. Russia hadn’t conducted the attack, but President Russia was intrigued by how such a powerful attack was pulled off. They called up Presidents North Korea and China — of course very good friends of President Russia, and would definitely tell the truth. Much to President Russia’s astonishment, however, both Presidents North Korea and China honestly replied that they had not conducted the attack. So who did?

Once informed of and questioned about this attack, the intelligence agencies of their respective countries immediately began searching for the culprit, and how they did it — nobody wanted such a thing to happen to their own country (and how, how, how?! Like the United States, many countries had power centers that were completely cut off from direct access to the internet—surely it must have been a clandestine terrorist group with agents within the power plants themselves!) The media was fired up as well, spreading hints of who it might be. Black-hat hackers working with President Russia! No! President China! No! Surely it was President Russia! As the news cycles go, there were no further problems with the electric grid and the attack slowly faded into memory and was thrown into the archives.

About a year and a half later, in Moscow, Russia, Sergey Ivanovich awoke with a start. It was freezing in his apartment! Turning the knob on his radiator had no effect. As the elected apartment block custodian, he shivered, sliding on his slippers, grabbing his large keychain, and trundling down half a dozen or so flights to the basement where the boiler was. Tapping the oil meter a few times with the butt of his flashlight, he could clearly see it was completely empty — no oil, no oil! How could this be? The building was connected to the city’s oil system! With temperatures rapidly dropping as a new cold front moved in, Sergey knew they were all in for a cold few days...

At the Kremlin, officials were scrambling. “Is it a line break? Where exactly is the problem in the lines? Everywhere?! How can that be? Get Washington on the phone!” Just like the electric grid in the United States the previous summer, the entire Russian oil pipeline system went down for an entire day, and then back up — no ransomware, and no warning.

Enraged, President Russia called President America, and a conversation very similar to the one from the previous year took place:

“Hey! Was that attack you guys?!”

“No, of course not. We would never attack our good Russian friends.”

Like after the power grid attack, a similar hunt ensued for those dastardly oil terrorists. Once again, as the news cycles go, the attack slowly faded into memory and was thrown into the archives. To this day, no country, not even a terrorist group, has claimed responsibility for or been connected to either of the two attacks...