(((And boy, who wouldn't be?)))
Link: Threat Level - Wired Blogs.
"The idea of DARPA's National Cyber Range is to create a testing environment for cyber warfare research where military cyber-warriors can test new defenses, try new attacks and develop whole new protocols and network architectures. It's just one small part of the fed's new found, $30 billion interest in cyber security.
"e-War Games, for short. With replicants.
"Here's a short bit on the project's goals:
The ability to replicate large-scale military and government network enclaves.
The ability to replicate commercial and tactical wireless and control systems.
The ability to connect to distributed, custom facilities and/or capabilities as necessary to incorporate specialized capabilities, effects, or infrastructures.
Interactive test suites to design, configure, monitor, analyze, and release tests.
The ability to rapidly generate and integrate replications of new machines.
The ability to integrate new research protocols.
A test toolkit/repository for reuse of recipes and architectures.
Forensic quality data collection, analysis, and presentation.
Realistically replicate human behavior and frailties.
Realistic, sophisticated, nation-state quality offensive and defensive opposition forces.
The ability to accelerate and decelerate relative test time.
A malware repository. (((Uh-oh.)))
Malware repository? Hmm, I can just imagine some teenager telnetting into the National Cyber Range. NCR asks him if he would like to play a game, and that teenager chooses Global Cybarmageddon! instead of chess.
On a side note, DARPA tried something like this before when it was running Admiral John Poindexter's future terrorism spotting project, Total Information Awareness program, where they created an entire world of fake people buying and selling fake things, calling their fake friends and visiting fake dentists who filled fake cavities. They called it Vanilla World. THREAT LEVEL tried to get information on Vanilla World via a Freedom of Information Act request in 2003, but five years later, DARPA is still illegally withholding the information. (((Maybe what we really need is an Internet where EVERYTHING is "illegal." Hey wait a minute, I think we're now building one and it's called the "National Cyber Range." Maybe it'll turn out to be much better than the legacy Internet and everyone will want to use it instead! All the with-it email addresses will be in the "national cyber range." When you're online in there, you never have to answer FOIA requests!)))
"THREAT LEVEL is fascinated by the National Cyber Range." (((Yeah, I bet they are.)))
