Hey Hackers, do this!

Since we enjoy helping people learn how to really screw us over, a new video created by the Idaho National Laboratory illustrates just how damaging an attack a hacker could do to the nation's infrastructure.

In this image from video released by the Department of Homeland Security, smoke pours from an expensive electrical turbine during a March 4, 2007, demonstration by the Idaho National Laboratory, which was simulating a hacker attack against the U.S. electrical grid. (AP Photo/Dept. of Homeland Security)

I had to include that bit of info I felt to really get an idea of what it is that is happening in this video.

Honestly, I was kind of surprised that these systems are so interdependent on networked communications. Being in IT myself, I guess I should know these things, but systems involving turbines and allowing said communication systems to send commands to these machines that would essentially tell them to tear themselves apart seems a bit surprising to me.

I guess old-school viruses kind of did the same thing though, convincing hardware to overheat while telling it to do too many things at once, burning out the phosphorous in the monitor, etc etc, so this shouldn't be too surprising... Still fascinating though.