money grab? i seriously doubt it.

if those in power were simply looking for a money grab, they'd slap a tax or fine like this on something much more mundane that would slip through the news tendrils without even a wince.

to use something as incredibly inciting as this for the base of nothing more than a money grab seems a bit daft, even for those in political power.

yes the system ultimately made the right choice, shutting down with a perceived loss of critical information.

however, this was a best choice response to a poorly engineered shutdown system.

a properly designed critical shutdown system would have completely independent sensors, for exactly this reason. by design, no external system (i.e. business network data collection) should be able to compromise the integrity of a safety system in any way. Safety systems are designed to be redundant within themselves on many levels so that even if some link in the chain were to fail, there's another link waiting to take it's place until repaired. Business systems, and often standard control systems, do not have that sort of availability/reliability, and so should have not part of the safety system.