Some of my friends and colleagues wrote to me yesterday to ask about President Obama's cybersecurity speech. They were curious to know exactly where, "cyber attacks have plunged entire cities into darkness," as the president revealed. "Which cities were plunged into darkness?"

I don't have any notes with me but I can remember the briefings. The most important city blackout cyberattack in my book was Chi-lung, Taiwain. The Chinese military was behind that one, like they always are, just to prove to Taiwain that they can rape the island anytime they want. That was the seminole event that made Taiwan sit up straight and admit to themselves, "we need to protect our cyber infrastructure from the PRC."

There was the Israeli cyber attack on Syria in 2007. They shut down Syria's air traffic control system and all the lights in the nearby cities as part of Operation Orchard. The Register covered it pretty well I think. It was the first time a military aircraft in flight hacked into another country's SCADA critical infrastructure. (Sorry, USAF. You were second due to our politics.)

A hacker cell tied to some terror group, I forget their name, remotely attacked Kasane, Botswana from a computer network just across the border in Zambia. They killed all power to the city for days as I recall, and they fried a bunch of electrical generating equipment by sending operating parameters to the equipment that exceeded its limits.

There may have been two larger and 3-4 smaller cities deep in the African interior, but, I don't think those were confirmed. I just think the evidence was all that compelling. We're talking about cities that can't even maintain a standard for drinking water. Which leads me to question why they could maintain a standard for electricity.

I'm off to the airport. Hope to hear good news about the cybersecurity initiative when I get back from South Korea!