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US and China Held Secret Cyber Wargames

Posted by samzenpus on from the now-you-hit-me dept.

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.'"

10 of 71 comments (clear)

  1. A transcript: by Alex+Belits · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.
    1. Re:A transcript: by blacklint · · Score: 5, Funny

      Where you went wrong: you assumed our drones use encryption ;)

    2. Re:A transcript: by Mechanik · · Score: 3, Funny

      US: I cast... magic missile

      China: Why you cast magic missile? There nothing to attack!

  2. Now I get it. by Errol+backfiring · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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!
  3. SlowNewsDay by LostCluster · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:SlowNewsDay by mlts · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I would disagree. The more communication the US has with China, and the more diplomatic friction is handled by other methods, especially in the computer intrusion department, the less chance there would be of a Sino-American war. Trust me, if people thought the Middle East was bad, it would be nothing compared to the Pacific Rim destabilizing.

      The good thing is that both the US and China want to survive, and are more interested in keeping their cities and next generations intact than blind ideology. Neither nation is interested in a war with the other.

      If the pissing contests are sorted out via wargames or a 2x2 Arena team in WoW, all the better. Better that than ICBMs.

  4. Why would your Critical Systems be Online? by dryriver · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.
    1. Re:Why would your Critical Systems be Online? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      TOO MUCH COMMON SENSE!! Terrorist threat level: RED

    2. Re:Why would your Critical Systems be Online? by schlachter · · Score: 3, Informative

      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?

      Systems communicate across the country and sometimes across the world, and their location might be dynamic. It's not possible/practical to have custom fiber everywhere.

      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).

      It's an almost certainty that there are industrial and foreign spies at Intel, AMD, and nearly every major tech company in the US. And even if that weren't the case, foreign countries have ways of getting people to cooperate, especially when members of their family live abroad. Not sure it's as simple as you think.

      --
      My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
    3. Re:Why would your Critical Systems be Online? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I think it is pretty much a given. Although I have seen a couple of companies (not intel or AMD) who take this very very seriously. I was surprised when I dealt with a company that flat out said "You are associated with China , we are not going to do business with you". On the other hand , I saw evidence that a Chinese national copied all of a companies R&D files a month before he went to China. Nothing was done. You may also ask why in the hell he had access to all of that information. Well I think it was intended to be that way.