Have hackers disrupted volcano data for Pacific Northwest?

Technical problems, possibly hacking suspected.

Unexpectedly, on June 17, 2016, hundreds of seismographs that cover the State of Oregon and Washington, including the PNW volcanoes, became inaccessible[2] with no explanation.  All of these seismograph stations are under the management of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network (PNSN).  A few days prior on June 14, 2016, all of real time spectrograph data plots were taken offline by an HTML display code change to the same PNSN managed websites.

LOS ANGELES, CA (California Network) -  Less than a week after completing the largest earthquake drill ever in the History of the Pacific Northwest, to prepare for a mega-quake in the Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ), the public has lost full access to seismograph stations, covering the state of Oregon and Washington - including all of the PNW volcanoes, in what could be considered a massive system "offline" failure.  Seismograph stations are the heart and soul of monitoring not only volcanoes, but of small vibrations called "tremors", which give geologists, and the public, a view into any regional activity or sign.  Even the automated maps that provide tremor swarming Episodic Tremor and Slip (ETS) are down.  As of this current writing, the public has no access to this information - it has become "dark".  If this full outage last hours or even a day, the confidence of the public may be shaken from such a sudden and widespread shutdown. 

UPDATE: just over 200 seismographs have been restored after 6 hours (00:00 to 06:00 UTC).  All of the remaining seismograph stations remain offline (close to 200).

Hundreds of state-of-the-art seismograph sensors, amplifiers, and communications relays, all connect into a large array of computer servers with large data storage arrays to provide a fully automated modern day seismic system.  Geologists, government emergency agencies, and the public rely on these systems for any indicator to a potential sign or warning.  Geologists have given assurances that any volcanic activity will give them plenty of advance warning as the geologists have noted that they have a dependable array of equipment to monitor all of the volcanoes 24/7/365.

Yet, what is the public to think when this system suddenly goes completely dark?  With no notice or explanation?

It's possible that the seismic system and information is still fully operational for private geologist access. I would certainly hope so. The question is why has the previously accessible information of these hundreds of seismographs' real time plot data suddenly go dark to the public?

In February 2016, President Obama's Science Adviser, John Holdren, invited earthquake scientists and other stakeholders to the first ever Earthquake Resilience Summit. At that meeting, scientists were exploring the goals of implementing a fully funded west coast earthquake early warning system.  An early warning system could give seconds of warning to the public depending on the distance a person is located away from the epicenter of the initiating earthquake.  Any early warning system critically depends on an "array" of reliable seismograph stations to detect the slower traveling "S" waves from the faster traveling "P" waves within the earth as the earthquake initiates.  If any part of the seismograph array is unreliable, the warning data may be compromised, faulty, or inaccurate.

If the PNSN system, which is a critical infrastructure for such a west coast early earthquake warning system, has an unexpected and an unexplained blockage of public information, how can the public gain confidence to pony up to nearly $16 million dollars per year (estimated cost of upkeep to the full west coast early warning system) when such a massive outage is on display?

There is a public trust that is required to support such a new technological program when we are in less than optimal economic times.

Perhaps the geologists will provide a detailed explanation to the series of events that has taken down access to such a huge array of seismograph station plots and spectrograph plots.  Certainly unexpected conditions may arise with technology, and the public would understand if such a full explanation were to be given if so.  This is important to regain the public trust, especially when this large seismic array & system is down at such an important moment in public awareness of the recent volcanic swarming and the recent mega-quake "Cascadia Rising" exercise drill [1].

Below are hundreds of seismographs that the PNSN has in their seismic system, that are marked as inaccessible[2] by the PNSN (gray station text).  For 6 hours, all of the stations were offline. As of this writing, about half have suddenly re-appeared accessible (blue station text). For 6 hours there was not a single station in Oregon and Washington that was publicly viewable (June 17, 2016 00:00 to 06:00 UTC).  Note that there is no distinction given whether the inaccessible status[2] is only to the public or if it is completely "offline" to where geologists also have no access to the data.

Hundreds of PNSN stations are noted as offline and unavailable (gray text of station names) at the time of this writing.  For a full six full hours, all of the PNSN stations were inaccessible.

Any access to any of the inaccessible website seismograph plot displays yields a large graphic display "NO IMAGE FOUND".  The asterisk "*" denotes that the station is not viewable.
ALL of the PNSN seismograph stations went offline to public viewing on June 17, 2016 00:00 UTC.  Approximately  half have been restored as of 06:00 UTC.

Map of ALL of the PNSN seismograph stations that went offline to public viewing on June 17, 2016 00:00 UTC.
This map shows the location of the original hundreds of "offline" denoted seismograph stations that provide coverage of all of the PNW volcanoes, the state of Oregon and the State of Washington.

 [1] Federal officials say about 20,000 people were to be involved in the June 8-11, 2016 mega-quake disaster drill, dubbed "Cascadia Rising", where the U.S. military, FEMA, Washington and Oregon state and local response managers across the Pacific Northwest, Native American tribes, and including emergency management officials in British Columbia participated.
[2] inaccessible to the public with either noted as "Station does not have a current seismogram" and/or "IMAGE NOT FOUND"

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