External Talks - The Adstock Science Club

The phrase ‘Digital Pearl Harbor’ has often been used to describe a crippling computer attack on a country’s infrastructure. On 17th December 2016, the temperature in Kyiv, Ukraine fell to -7 Celsius. At midnight, the electricity supply failed. One year later, in Western Ukraine, it failed again. These weren’t accidents; someone was deliberately interfering with the Ukrainian energy grid.

These blackouts were made possible by attacking technology at the very heart of our modern world. All around the world, millions of hidden computers control the flow of oil, gas, water, and power; control movements of trains, cars and pedestrians; oversee heating and cooling of buildings, refrigerate perishable goods; run our factories, hospitals, and – increasingly - our homes. These computers pervade our society, and they are being targeted.

This talk will explore the origins of the Ukrainian attack; the vulnerabilities that made; it possible; who was behind the blackouts and what they have done since. It will also ask whether the cold, dark nights of 2016 and 2017 might happen again and if we may be the next victims.

Following the talk there will be a panel discussion with Mia McGuigan (Head of Information Security, The Open University), Chitra Balakrishna (Senior Lecturer in Cybersecurity) and Ray Corrigan (Staff tutor, STEM).

Over the last 50 years both the physical environment and our perception of the polar regions has changed. Then, we were still exploring their basic geography, but now we understand the future impacts of our carbon emissions on the great polar ice sheets. Polar bears and penguins were only seen in zoos and now amazing television documentaries show hundreds of millions of people these animals in their natural habitat. With the revolution in global knowledge from satellites and broadcast, at one level the polar regions are now well known. But they remain remote.

We now understand that the ice-covered polar oceans are critical for the climate of our planet. In this lecture Professor Brandon will describe the polar seas, how they work, and their global importance. He will show how research has fed into polar broadcast and how using the series co-produced by the BBC and The Open University, we can teach science to millions. Components of our television broadcast with real time polar data, can even be utilised by distance learning students to learn basic science and get the best possible understanding of what is happening there right now.