Battling the Cyber Warmongers

A recent simulation of a devastating cyberattack on America was crying for a Bruce Willis lead: A series of mysterious attacks–probably sanctioned by China but traced to servers in the Russian city of Irkutsk–crippled much of the national infrastructure, including air traffic, financial markets and even basic email. If this was not bad enough, an unrelated electricity outage took down whatever remained of the already unplugged East Coast.

The simulation–funded by a number of major players in network security, organized by the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington-based think tank, and broadcast on CNN on a Saturday night–had an unexpected twist. The American government appeared incompetent, indecisive and confused (past government officials, including former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff and former Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, were recruited to play this glamorous role on TV). “The U.S. is unprepared for cyberwar,” the simulation’s organizers grimly concluded.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Must-Reads from other Websites

Panos Mourdoukoutas

Why Apple Should Buy China’s Xiaomi

Paul Graham

What I Didn’t Say

Benjamin Bratton

We Need to Talk About TED

Mat Honan

I, Glasshole: My Year With Google Glass

Chris Ware

All Together Now

Corey S. Powell and Laurie Gwen Shapiro

The Sculpture on the Moon

About Voices

Along with original content and posts from across the Dow Jones network, this section of AllThingsD includes Must-Reads From Other Websites — pieces we’ve read, discussions we’ve followed, stuff we like. Six posts from external sites are included here each weekday, but we only run the headlines. We link to the original sites for the rest. These posts are explicitly labeled, so it’s clear that the content comes from other websites, and for clarity’s sake, all outside posts run against a pink background.

We also solicit original full-length posts and accept some unsolicited submissions.

Read more »