115 US agencies ran an emergency prepardedness internet technology war game last week that included bloggers. It was called cyber storm and also involved internet companies and other governments.
Cyber Storm reportedly not only tested against attacks by hackers, but also by bloggers - who deliberately spread misinformation in the exercise.
It was carried out on secure computers in the basement of the Secret Service in Washington DC.
There was no effect on the internet.
A quick look at Technorati shows 2,228 posts mentioning the emergency preparedness test, but a quick search didn’t reveal any bloggers disclosing they took part in it. The US has run other internet war tests such as Silent Horizon for the White House National Security Council, Justice Department, Defense Department, State Department, National Security Agency and CIA. Live Wire was a test done for Homeland Security a few years ago that showed serious flaws in the governments ability to detect early intrustion and whether government agencies would be abile to cope without private companies assisting.
A report on this war game will be released this summer.
Simple question. Are the bloggers that participated going to disclose they did?
Ken Camp of Digital Common Sense says he participated.
Update: A tech mag has a February 3rd article out of Australia that says the war game was also held in November of 2005, involved private companies and was also dubbed Cyber Storm. Again, it begs the question. If bloggers (or tech mags/media) participated in this latest exercise by dissembling, are they going to disclose participation?
Published 2 years, 9 months ago
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Thanks for the link and noticing my post. At this point I honestly don’t know how much detail any of us who participated in Cyber Storm will feel free to share. We are under some level of non-disclosure and the information related to the exercise has been all clearly marked as For Official Use Only (FOUO).
I will say that I sat directly across from the International team and had some very positive experiences with them. The Canadians were nothing short of stellar. My role was as exercise control lead for the states (yes, in the basement of USSS HQ).
Hi Ken:
I don’t think or expect you or anyone else who is publically read online should be saying anything about the what, how - expecially since some of the things you may have learned shouldn’t or can’t be disclosed.
I think all bloggers that participated should merely say they did.
It isn’t about how much you share about the what, just that you participated.
I appreciated your acknowledgement you took part.:^)
Thanks Bene D. I’d mentioned it a coupel of times in the past that I was involved in the planning and development stages. I’ve seen a little mention here and there, but not a lot. I will say that among the planning and coordination staff I didn’t see people I think of as visible bloggers. But I’m pretty confident some of the people involved do some form of blogging. I just tend to be pretty honest and as open as I can about the stuff I’m involved in.
Thanks!