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US and China Held Secret Cyber Wargames
judgecorp writes "Despite the accusations that have flown both ways between the countries, the US and China have co-operated in wargames, held in secret in Beijing and Washington, designed to head off escalations in hostilities. From the article: 'During the first exercise, both sides had to describe what they would do if they were attacked by a sophisticated computer virus, such as Stuxnet, which disabled centrifuges in Iran's nuclear program. In the second, they had to describe their reaction if the attack was known to have been launched from the other side.'"
"Describe what they would do if they were attacked by a sophisticated computer virus... [or] their reaction if the attack was known to have been launched from the other side."
Doesn't sound like wargames to me, sounds like a thinktank. Although it's a promising start and may end up with something like the START treaty.
Yes, but what would the Americans do?
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
US: We send you a group of spies with Stuxnet virus on USB drives.
China: Virus was incompatible with our hardware and software, we caught your spies and keep them in prison forever.
China: Our spies stolen Outlook password while your diplomat was emailing our documents to CIA. We discovered that the same password works on all VPNs in CIA and NSA where your spy-diplomat had an account, and got encryption keys for all your drones in the Middle East.
US: You can't, we have Norton!
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
And, as a reaction, they outlawed the internet entirely with SOPA / CRIPPA / Heaven knows what the law is called today?
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
China has become the biggest victim of cyber attack,” says Zhou Yonglin.
The report claims Japan was the source of most attacks (22.8 percent), followed closely by the United States (20.4 percent) and the Republic of Korea (7.1 percent).
Attacks ranged from wiping server and defacing website to stearing personal and corporate data from Chinese web users.
Although it was discovered that many hacker used Trojan programs to stear personral data, Zhou said “money is not the sole motivation”, as in several cases the hackers had intended to access state networks and stear confidential government information.
To assist damaged private websites and maintain online security, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has raunched several investigations, and authorities claim they prevented the spread of online viruses 14 times rast year.
wopr
Sounds like a form of what are referred to as "confidence building measures" taken in various treaties aimed at reducing arms or reducing the chance of war. Interesting form though.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
What we have here is a pen-and-paper exercise between two groups of bigwigs where there were asked a few questions about what they would do, and we have no idea if they answered truly or not. What is this story doing here? We must not have anything to talk about today.
For Cyberwarfare to be able happen to begin with, critical IT systems on both sides would have to be connected to the Internet, right? Question: Why are those critical IT systems connected-to/reachable by Internet to begin with? Wouldn't you keep those systems AWAY from the Internet, and connect them together using some custom-laid fiberoptic WAN or something? Wouldn't you - for security's sake - maybe use custom CPUs/OSs on those systems that aren't even available on the free market? (i.e. having Intel or AMD or ARM manufacture a few thousand non-X86 compatible custom CPUs for you... running a custom-flavour of Linux on them that isn't compatible with the original Linux at all).
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Elon Musk put an AI chip in its head.
Did it end in global thermonuclear war?
They weren't boozing and whoring it up in Columbia. They were MacGyvering at Secret Cyber Wargames. They needed the hooker for the elastic straps in her bra, as the key ingredient of their hotel made laser canon.
They can't let the truth get out, because, it is, like, you know, secret.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
RTFA. They'd cyber.
If you think either side gave away thier true responses then you sirr are either naive or an idiot.
Silence is a state of mime.
Has this turned into a military style of "who's got the bigger pen0r?"
I bang american whores!
So they finally checked their command centers and found that they have something in common.
Ah so that explains what Deep Throat was all about. I bought that movie and was mystified to find not a single spy in it.
I am sure you do. But, do you mean Shitzu, or Pomeranian?
Wargame. Oxymoron.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Do they bark and scratch, just like their American counterparts?
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
... certainly is what this is about, although analysing the others capabilities is probably at least as important as the confidence-building part.
So, am I the only one wondering just how there's any guarantee whatsoever that these "descriptions" represent full disclosure and complete accuracy? How about this:
China: We got your NSA admin login(s) through a botnet we planted in the USA, which eventually made it into your office. (Reality: we have a mole in your office who installed surveillance devices and then told us all the logins he could determine.) We then upload lots of spy/malware and own (all) your base.
USA: We use our custom-made antivirus software (AKA Norton Antivirus or some other junk, probably) to scour our system of all your malware. (Reality: you really just found our honeypot. Now your attack computers are being used to feed malware into your systems. By the way, the mole is a double agent.)
I guess I can't see how these exercises are reliably going to be used for anything but PR/propaganda and disinformation. It's obvious that each government sees the other as a potential threat (why would they even be worried about all this if not?), so it would be mind-bogglingly stupid for either side to explain exactly how the attacks will be done, and how incoming attacks would be countered. It's on the same level of "stupid" as giving the enemy complete briefings on our troop dispositions and armaments. So, I imagine that all that's really going on is something like:
USA: We attack your stuff. ...
China: We defend against your attacks, then counterattack.
USA: We defend against your attacks, then counterattack.
[several million tax dollars later]
USA: That was productive. We're friends, now, right?
China: Of course, we are. Let's shake hands in front of the cameras. You'll lower your firewalls, now, right?
USA: Not a chance. You?
China: Dream on.
Does anyone else see how obtuse this seems?
Could it be that the Chinese government realized that by encouraging cyber-hooliganism, they've made a huge rod for their own backs? Blind Freddy could've seen it coming.
Anyway, anything which encourages the Chinese to start 'acting their age', can only be a good thing.
China is waiting for the collapse of the US, Roman Empire style without an (international) shot fired. Once they pick up the final paroxyism signified by the Cheetos and Chrystal Meth mushroom cloud, they can crack open the seal on the World Domination plans. The (lumm)ox is slow, but the earth is patient.
In related news, China and the US suddenly come to a full peace agreement. Our sources report repeated games of tic-tac-toe took place between the US and China, followed by both sides concluding that the only winning move is not to play.
This article is weak for the cyber drinking game with only 6 mentions of the word "cyber".
You have time to troll Slashdot, suggesting that your AZN nookie is purely imaginary.
Enjoy your hand.
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China to US: All your base are belong to us!
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Really? Why do you like Republicans? You are likely to pick up an STD.