Chinese student's essay causes a stir in America
Chinese student's essay causes a stir in America
15:53, March 22, 2010 
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An essay penned by a Chinese graduate student of engineering major, discussing the potential vulnerability of the US power grid system, has again caused an alarm in Washington, in the wake of the ongoing Google spat.
Larry M. Wortzel, a military strategist and vice-chairman of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, told the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs earlier this month that the paper discussed "how to attack a small US power grid sub-network in a way that would cause a cascading failure of the entire US," according to a report by The New York Times Sunday.
"My point is that now that vulnerability is out there all over China for anybody to take advantage of," Wortzel told the newspaper.
Wang Jianwei, the author of “Cascade-Based Attack Vulnerability on the US Power Grid”, said in the interview with The New York Times that he chose the US grid for research because it was "the easiest way to go."
China does not publish data on power grids. But the US does and is the only country Wang could find with useful data, the Beijing-based Global Times reported Monday.
"We usually say 'attack' so you can see what would happen," Wang said. "My emphasis is on how you can protect this. My goal is to find a solution to make the network safer and better protected."
"A student's paper cannot generate destructive influence on established US networks," said Li Da-guang, a Chinese military strategist at the National Defense University.
"Maybe some US officials are looking for excuses to strengthen their cyber-war muscles, taking advantage of the Google issue,” Li said.
Reka Albert, a University of Pennsylvania physicist who has conducted similar studies as Wang's, also dismissed conspiracy theories.
"Neither the author of this article, nor any other prior article, has had information on the identity of the power grid components represented as nodes of the network," Albert told The New York Times. "Thus no practical scenarios of an attack on the real power grid can be derived from such work."
By People's Daily Online
Larry M. Wortzel, a military strategist and vice-chairman of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, told the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs earlier this month that the paper discussed "how to attack a small US power grid sub-network in a way that would cause a cascading failure of the entire US," according to a report by The New York Times Sunday.
"My point is that now that vulnerability is out there all over China for anybody to take advantage of," Wortzel told the newspaper.
Wang Jianwei, the author of “Cascade-Based Attack Vulnerability on the US Power Grid”, said in the interview with The New York Times that he chose the US grid for research because it was "the easiest way to go."
China does not publish data on power grids. But the US does and is the only country Wang could find with useful data, the Beijing-based Global Times reported Monday.
"We usually say 'attack' so you can see what would happen," Wang said. "My emphasis is on how you can protect this. My goal is to find a solution to make the network safer and better protected."
"A student's paper cannot generate destructive influence on established US networks," said Li Da-guang, a Chinese military strategist at the National Defense University.
"Maybe some US officials are looking for excuses to strengthen their cyber-war muscles, taking advantage of the Google issue,” Li said.
Reka Albert, a University of Pennsylvania physicist who has conducted similar studies as Wang's, also dismissed conspiracy theories.
"Neither the author of this article, nor any other prior article, has had information on the identity of the power grid components represented as nodes of the network," Albert told The New York Times. "Thus no practical scenarios of an attack on the real power grid can be derived from such work."
By People's Daily Online
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