Cyber Nightmares: Autonomous Chaos

By Shayne T Wright

A hi-tech cyber criminal group are hijacking autonomous mining infrastructure, the 48,000T Iron Ore trains that snake across the Australian outback are the weakpoint of exploitation. The threat has been analysied, over 80% of exported Iron Ore production is at stake. The world wants steel, the world needs steel!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shayne T Wright
• Release date: Feb 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311854094

Shayne T Wright

Engineer, Author and Photographer Shayne T Wright holds a Bachelor Degree in Electrical & Electronic Engineering as well as a Masters in Engineering Science. He has over 20 years experience within the high tech world of the Australian based defence sector, both in and out of uniform, coupled with a smattering of exposure to next generation autonomous mining developments for super pits within Australia and the USA. Shayne resides in central Victoria (Australia) with his wife and four kids.

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Cyber nightmares: Autonomous Chaos

Copyright 2013 Shayne T Wright

Published by Shayne T Wright at Smashwords

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Table of Contents

0025 GMT Rosella rail intersection

0150 GMT 'Mine of the Future' operation centre

0205 GMT Rosella rail intersection

0225 GMT Marandoo mine site

0230 GMT 'Mine of the Future' operation centre

0245 GMT Computer Emergency Response Team

0305 GMT 'Mine of the Future' operation centre

0310 GMT Rosella rail intersection

0315 GMT Computer Emergency Response Team

0325 GMT Brockman mine site

0325 GMT Computer Emergency Response Team

0345 GMT Rosella rail intersection

0350 GMT Computer Emergency Response Team

0400 GMT Rosella rail intersection

0400 GMT Computer Emergency Response Team

0445 GMT 'Mine of the Future' operation centre

0445 GMT Computer Emergency Response Team

0447 GMT Rosella rail intersection

0450 GMT Computer Emergency Response Team

Epilogue

Main characters and locations

About Shayne T Wright

Other titles by Shayne T Wright

Connect with Shayne T Wright

Acknowledgments

0825 AWST / 0025 GMT

Rosella rail intersection,

Pilbara region,

Western Australia

Paul McMillan crunched a path across the ochre hued sandy desert of the far north western outback of Western Australia. The sun was just poking it’s blazing face over the thorny desert bushes, its radiant fingers already starting to push the mid-summer morning temperature through the low thirties causing him to perspire.

Another bloody false alarm I reckon, Paul grumbled to his offsider, Ever since those driverless trains got released into the wild, all the old bugs in the system the drivers coped with now make those mindless machines shit themselves.

John Melton, Paul's impressionable apprentice, simply nodded in deference to the older mentor. The first three months with Paul had been the most frustrating for John. Being the younger of the two and therefore, in his mind at least, the most technologically savvy of the pair, he would mainly humour the older man's aversion to anything new. The irony of the situation would often flair up in John's mind given that they were part of the technical team responsible for both upgrading as well as maintaining the signalling and switching gear for one of the world’s primary iron ore railway supply chains. They had played their respective parts in the roll out of the world’s first long haul automated, driverless rail systems.

Every 25 minutes, a driverless Dash 9 locomotive headed up a 2.4km long bulk iron ore train would pass by a single point on the main line. With all the supposed efficiencies and improvement in safety, the rumour around the traps was that there were plans to close that time gap by nearly half. Given the average braking time for a fully loaded haul from a top speed of about 80km/hr was a solid 1.5km in length and nearly 4 minutes before grinding to a complete halt, it was starting to really pushing beyond the boundaries of humanly comfortable safety margins. The all-knowing engineering group was targeting a train every 15 minutes in order to feed the Asian regions hunger for raw resources, particularly China and South Korea.

The autonomous freight lines formed the backbone of the West Australian mining operations for Rio Tinto as the main cluster of super pits were between 280 to 330 kilometres away, as the crow flies, from the deep water port of Karratha. All the major players were in the same boat with BHPBilliton main operations being 150km east north east at Port Headland. They also had the same type of logistic trains stretching into the burnt heart of the Australian outback however they were reluctant to change over to the fully autonomous solution. As per usual, they were adverse to the bleeding edge of technology and fashioned their thinking on being fast adopters.

Paul chuckled to himself over the thought of the fast adopters as his leg brushed against a desert bush, sending a lizard scampering for cover. Rio had been moving autonomous loads for nearly four years, in one form or another, not to mention the various levels of autonomous mining within the super pits themselves and yet BHPB was still haggling over what to do. Paul and his colleagues had seen their bonuses jump more than 15% compared to their technophobic luddite cousins and in his world, stuck out the middle of whoop whoop some 1500km from the nearest major city, a fist full of dollars is what speaks loudest.

As Paul's feet auto-piloted up to the stark metallic grey ballast, his mind drifted back into focus for the job at hand. Their destination, a ten meter long yet heavily air-conditioned shed, came into full view over the raised rail lines. As the pair strolled up to the embankment, Paul stuck out his arm by habit to halt his apprentice.

Never assume because you can’t hear any rolling stock, that there is none about. You remember what I told you about that South American fettler incident just a few years ago, Paul enquired of his pupil.

Yes boss, droned the reluctant John, Carlos got used to the noise of the quiet unladen cars. As he worked on a dual rail line in the cool, moonless midnight air, he took a step back and got collected by one, pasting his South American brains all across the outback

So the rule is?

"Both ways, both tracks, a simple way to keep intact", rhymed John as he rolled his eyes in time with the corporate safety slogan.

Both the old hand and the new peered through the rising heat shimmers, looking up and down the track, searching for any signs of an approaching steel snake with a head three stories tall. The iron ore beasts of burden were surprisingly quiet and with no human sitting physically at the helm any more, there was no early warning horn signifying a cautious look out or a friendly hello as one might expect in the days gone by of manned haul trains.

0950 AWST / 0150 GMT

'Mine of the Future' operation centre,

Perth,

Western Australia

Michelle Saddler mused to herself that if there was ever a prototypical Caucasian middle aged female wage slave, then she would be the Grand Poohbah of wage slaves. Mid-morning coffee time was slowly creeping around as she monitored the autonomous haulage monitoring system.

Humph, Michelle chuckled under her breath as her thoughts ran down the highway of irony. The Autonomous trains had replaced several hundred operators under the driver of economic efficiency and safety yet here she was, watching the fail safe watchers, and she in turn had her watchers in the form of her direct supervisor – the pit boss. These characters had gained their colloquial title from the Perth casino pit bosses which were located just down the road in relative terms to the size of