[HN Gopher] IMF, 10 countries simulate cyber attack on global fi...
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IMF, 10 countries simulate cyber attack on global financial system
Author : pueblito
Score : 139 points
Date : 2021-12-22 13:47 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nasdaq.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nasdaq.com)
| sigmaprimus wrote:
| I find it amazing how so many people don't know that the IMF is
| an NGO made up of a few wealthy people.
|
| I suspect the "Financial System" being referred to is the SWIFT
| system and chances are in the next few years it will be replaced
| by a new Sino-Russian system backed by Saudi oil.
|
| No cyber attacks will be needed to bring SWIFT down, just a few
| too many sanctions being wielded like cudgels by over eager
| bureaucrats trying to impose their "Morality" on the rest of the
| world.
|
| I suppose it is possible that is the point, they want to be
| prepared for the backlash sure to follow when the Greenback is no
| longer the reserve currency.
| desine wrote:
| Russia and China both are accumulating a lot more gold than
| previously. They can go to a gold backed digital currency
| pretty reliably at this point. China's been testing digital
| yuan already, including some nice restrictions that will
| benefit socialist/communist control - restriction of what
| certain digital yuan can buy, as well as time-expiring money.
| Both would increase peoples needs on the state and their short
| term happiness - they'll feel "richer" able to buy nicer meals
| or go on vacations, but both would be able to restrict someone
| from saving or becoming too successful. We'll likely see these
| same ideas implemented in the CBDCs that roll out in the west.
|
| "Oil backed" makes less sense, IMO.
| [deleted]
| ericmay wrote:
| > and chances are in the next few years it will be replaced by
| a new Sino-Russian system backed by Saudi oil.
|
| Who will they trade with? Themselves? Will Saudi Arabia join in
| when it means the US abandons them, stops selling weapons, and
| takes other punitive economic measures? Cryptocurrency is a
| much greater "threat" to these systems, but even then it's more
| of a threat to countries with poor quality or unstable
| currencies.
|
| > when the Greenback is no longer the reserve currency.
|
| It's just a fancy title. Dollar is _the_ reserve currency, but
| Euro, Pound, Yen, etc. are all reserve currencies too. It 's
| not some sort of designation bestowed upon the dollar from
| which the downfall of America will lead to it losing such
| status, it's just what central banks and governments _hold in
| reserve_. If the US dollar loses market share (if you 'll allow
| here), it'll probably drive up the value of dollars since the
| US federal reserve no longer has to print dollars to help
| maintain global liquidity. The whole RESERVE CURRENCY thing is
| just FUD.
| sigmaprimus wrote:
| >>>Will Saudi Arabia join in when it means the US abandons
| them...
|
| The Saudis have already entered a mutual defense pact with
| Russia
|
| >>>It's just a fancy title. Dollar is the reserve currency,
| but Euro, Pound, Yen, etc...
|
| Actually it isn't, that is why sanctions work so well, Russia
| and China just entered into an agreement to trade directly
| between themselves without converting to USD first. It wont
| be long before Syria, Iran, North Korea, Argentina, Cuba and
| several African nations join the fray. Not to mention a large
| number of other out of favor political leaders that are sick
| of US led regime change or coup attempts constantly testing
| them..Think Bolsonaro, Duterte, Aung San Suu Kyi.
|
| These are the countries that hold the resources needed for a
| productive world and soon enough the rest of the world,
| including the West will be forced to follow them into an new
| non US hegemonic world, regardless of the number of guns and
| bombs Uncle Sam has.
| sanp wrote:
| Yeah. But who will China sell its goods to? Last I checked,
| Russia has 144M people and EU / US / Japan have 1B+. Of
| course, China has a large domestic market but exports are
| still ~20% of GDP for them.
| sigmaprimus wrote:
| The other side of that coin is who will the West buy
| their goods from, I would rather be in the position of
| having too much to sell than not enough to buy.
|
| The EU is already dependent on Russian natural gas and
| middle eastern oil so they will be forced to accept the
| new trade rules even if under protest.
|
| There is a possibility that the commonwealth countries
| along with the US might be able to put up a good fight
| but the current state of anti colonial rhetoric from
| within most commonwealth countries will most likely push
| the current leaders of these countries out of power and
| one by one they will join the rest of the world...The sun
| has been setting on the British Empire for a while now.
| ericmay wrote:
| > The other side of that coin is who will the West buy
| their goods from
|
| Themselves? Allied nations? Other countries around the
| world? Your entire discussion centers around this idea
| that all resources and all things are made in these non-
| western countries. It's a faulty assumption. China is
| dependent on imports as well - remember the rolling
| blackouts shutting down factories in China when they
| stopped coal imports to teach Australia a lesson and then
| Australia just sold the coal elsewhere? [1]
|
| Europe is "dependent" on Russian gas but those who are in
| charge in Russia _really_ like that European money and
| their vacation homes. Long-term Europe is just fine here
| because they can just build alternative energy sources
| (warming planet may make much of Europe even less
| dependent on Russian natural gas for heating). It doesn
| 't help them _today_ but if the costs are too high there
| becomes a point that it 's either not worth it, or
| liquified natural gas products from the US become
| attractive. It should go without saying that the
| oligarchs in Russia who run these companies... like not
| having their villas in London confiscated due to
| "sanctions". There's an upper limit on the maximum pain
| (outside of actual war) that either will inflict upon the
| other.
|
| The EU dependency on Russian gas thing is yet another
| overly simplified boogeyman like the US Dollar Reserve
| Currency status. What is actually concerning is Ukraine
| and how serious Putin is about invading and starting a
| war and whether or not he stops at Ukraine or does
| something drastic. I don't think the EU will be able to
| coordinate an effective military response which may lead
| to the block dissolving, _especially_ if Putin does
| something crazy like invade Poland or some NATO country
| that isn 't "important" - will the West really go to war?
| If Putin gambles here I don't think nukes will fly. So
| now Russia gets to fight a conventional war in Europe
| without existential risk - it's a great move for him
| geopolitically and strategically. EU member states such
| as France and Germany (the former is the only one that
| appears to have the ability to even fight) would
| basically go into a "save yourself" mode and start acting
| independently when push comes to shove. Outside of the UK
| most of the rest of the EU is far too small or useless to
| do anything. Americans are much more willing to fight in
| Europe than Italians or Spaniards are and I don't think
| we'd even send ground troops unless we're in an actual
| World War III scenario which nobody in the West wants to
| engage in, hence the stronger Russian upper hand here.
| Though I wouldn't put it past the U.S. to take a chance
| to really screw with Russia here in the meantime. [2]
|
| I wonder how that happened. Interesting coincidental
| timing.
|
| [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/05/china-power-supply-
| crunch-re...
|
| [2]
| https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10331843/New-
| Russia...
| frupert52 wrote:
| Interesting to see some familiar topics here, I thought I
| was the only one.
|
| You may be interested to know that some time in the last
| decade the Russians clearly signalled they would be
| prepared to use nuclear weapons in Europe. Brilliant play
| since they know the US sentiment around preparedness to
| enter another conflict that isn't theirs.
|
| By simply signalling they forced the US to consider other
| options hence the decisions to deploy tactical nuclear
| capabilities not subject to the same rules as strategic
| nuclear weapons. And last I heard they were deploying
| these tactical capabilities to a sub class also
| responsible for SSG.
|
| I'm very curious to understand whether Russian simply
| signalling in the way that they did has caused the US to
| strategically compromise their second strike guarantee.
| That would mean that by simply introducing the idea they
| have let the US take the mutually assured destruction
| elements off the table that made it so risky to begin
| with.
| ericmay wrote:
| Yea definitely interesting to think about. A couple of
| discussion points:
|
| * To your point (let me know if you disagree) I think
| that the MAD concept can be overcome and we'll see
| countries figure out strategis around it. What if you had
| World War III and... just nobody fired the nukes? New
| York City is bombed, Moscow is invaded, whatever and the
| countries just don't do the doomsday? What if we've taken
| MAD for granted and it turns out it's not even on the
| table?
|
| * > Brilliant play since they know the US sentiment
| around preparedness to enter another conflict that isn't
| theirs
|
| Many wars and conflicts begin because of miscalculations.
| I think on Putin's part for Russia this could be one of
| those. I mentioned this in another thread but the U.S.
| just spent 20 years at war in Afghanistan and Iraq,
| people dying, IEDs, terrorists, all of that stuff and if
| you turned the TV off you'd have no idea these wars were
| going on. America spent 20 years doing this stuff in two
| countries and not a single American day-to-day really
| gave a crap. While it may be the case that America is not
| willing to fight in Eastern Europe, I think that this is
| one of those potential miscalculations and it's certainly
| an unknown variable. Hell, even if the American people
| were not being drafted the US military is certainly
| actively strong enough to go toe-to-toe with Russia or
| anyone so we could yet again have a military at war but
| not a people. Just some food for thought. Even with Biden
| (smartly IMO) actually getting us out of Afghanistan, the
| left and the right were crowing about it. Might be more
| willingness to fight then one might think and this could
| lead the U.S. to another direct conflict with Russia this
| decade. [1]
|
| [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/24/world/middleeast/a
| merican...
| sigmaprimus wrote:
| I guess time will tell...;TLDR
|
| one of us will be eating crow soon enough.
| andruby wrote:
| > the IMF is an NGO made up of a few wealthy people.
|
| I was under the impression that it is an international
| organisation that is backed by most countries.
|
| Wikipedia calls it "an international financial institution
| consisting of 190 countries" and says it "came into formal
| existence in 1945 with 29 member countries"
|
| Even though it had a few wealthy founders, one of which is John
| Maynard Keynes, probably one of the most well known economists,
| I wouldn't describe the IMF as "an NGO made up of a few wealthy
| people".
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Monetary_Fund
| sigmaprimus wrote:
| Fair enough, the IMF itself is an international construct
| funded by world governments but it's directors and governors
| are appointed positions held by individuals chosen by a few
| wealthy individuals. It is not a government organization just
| like the US Federal Reserve Bank which also gets mistaken for
| a government organization.
| andruby wrote:
| Thank you. That seems to be the case indeed. And it's
| important to be aware of the potential agency issues.
| alecco wrote:
| What if instead of all this headline seeking nonsense governments
| addressed the problem of hundreds of millions of vulnerable IoT
| devices?
| pjmorris wrote:
| If someone pwns your IOT device that's your problem. If someone
| pwns the SWIFT network, that's the financial system's problem.
|
| borrowed from...
|
| "If you owe the bank $100 that's your problem. If you owe the
| bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem." - J. Paul Getty
| nradov wrote:
| Except that an adversary can use a large botnet of pwned
| consumer IoT devices to conduct DoS attacks against the
| financial system (and other critical infrastructure).
| namibj wrote:
| SWIFT runs on dark fiber, or at least MPLS circuits, not
| the public internet.
| nradov wrote:
| Right I didn't mean to imply that SWIFT itself was
| vulnerable to DoS attacks, just that other parts of the
| financial system could be disrupted.
| selfhoster11 wrote:
| It has access points from the public internet too.
| alecco wrote:
| Thanks, that was the point I thought would be obvious for
| HN crowd.
|
| Also unprotected IoT devices provide ways to protect the
| attackers.
| edoceo wrote:
| Too practical. Just making the world better doesn't let you pad
| your resume or put your fingerprint on some recent hotness.
| Sadly, infrastructure work is largely ignored - until it isn't
| - and then the failure is all your fault!!
| PeterisP wrote:
| Those millions of vulnerable IoT devices don't have _that_ much
| of an impact to strategic infrastructure, even compared to just
| individual separate ransomware incidents at large
| organizations.
| desine wrote:
| People don't tend to accept rapid, life-altering changes, unless
| it's solving a crisis. We wouldn't have accepted lockdowns, face
| masks, and vaccine passports without a pandemic to justify them.
|
| Masses of people would likely push back against CBDCs, unless
| they came in to fix and solve a crisis. A collapse of the
| electronic financial system would justify this.
| trumpablehump wrote:
| motohagiography wrote:
| The point of a simulation isn't for technologists to practice
| business continuity and recovery plans, it was for executives to
| determine who they align with once their primary stakeholder
| relationships fail.
|
| When you think of what such a coordinated attack would look like,
| and by who, the only plausible scenario to me is a Russia/China
| axis setting up a SWIFT alternative for client states and then
| attacking the US network as a way to ride to the rescue with the
| new one and use it as a forcing function to overcome switching
| costs. Otherwise, the economics of mere vandalism at that scale
| don't make sense. They'd broadcast their intentions anyway if
| that were the case. (e.g. de-dollarization, China's SDRs, etc.) I
| don't think they're ready yet.
|
| There is a cynical view that this was related to a trial run to
| determine whether retail deposits could be shifted to a U.S. Fed
| and ECB or other temporary* liquidity facility, but the failure
| of the US admin to install its favored comptroller of currency
| nominee, who would be supportive of the scheme, has reduced its
| momentum. I don't know that this was part of the simulation, but
| shift from a monopolar world and the vacuum it has created means
| we're literally in an age of conspiracies, so it's one of those
| 'when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro' situations. When
| it clicks that "cyber" just means governance, these exercises
| become a useful signal for overarching power plays.
|
| Imo, the real threats to the "global financial system," aren't
| really to it at all, as cyber is a tactic in support of other co-
| ordinated activities to destabilize individual governments by
| undermining civilian infrastructure. I would interpret these
| exercises as more of a war games demonstration for policymakers
| who may be thinking about supporting populist national policies
| in their countries and deviating from the emerging hegemon.
| analyte123 wrote:
| I think you're missing something from the cynical view, which
| is that basically everybody has to lock down their subjects'
| deposits at the same time to avoid capital flight while they're
| overhauling the system - for example a "coordinated bank
| holiday...and coordinated delinking from major currencies".
| It's an opportunity for executives to learn exactly who to call
| and what types of actions they might be expected to take in a
| major banking crisis, whatever the trigger.
| gentleman11 wrote:
| Today we live in a world where we feel safe using the internet
| for financial transactions. This is only possible as long as
| the public feels safe doing so. A series of massive cyber
| attacks could also weaken public trust and bring down the major
| part of the economy that is growing.
|
| It doesn't have to be for financial profit
| phkahler wrote:
| >> The point of a simulation isn't for technologists to
| practice business continuity and recovery plans, it was for
| executives to determine who they align with once their primary
| stakeholder relationships fail.
|
| Came to the comments for this. The simulation is being done out
| of fear that such things may come to pass. The number one goal
| is for the elite to figure out how to save themselves in such a
| scenario. Secondary goals are to help at various lower levels.
| This is always the case for every human being. In what order do
| you prioritize your allegiance to: Self, family, friends,
| company, country, coworkers, species, etc... ? These vary for
| each person, but typically self is near the top and some
| affiliations are next. I had to look at that list to see if I
| inadvertently put my own ordering... No, it's a mix of mine and
| what I suspect other peoples are.
| hnthrowaway0315 wrote:
| China has everything to lose to cut itself from the global
| market. They are not going to do this unless US forces them to
| do so. The cold war mindset is pretty much one sided. What
| China needs is time and that is what US elites won't lend to
| it.
| JacobThreeThree wrote:
| SWIFT alternatives have already been set up.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPFS
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-Border_Inter-Bank_Paymen...
| qeternity wrote:
| The US may be overplaying its hand, but it's certainly not as cut
| and dry as the comments would have you believe.
|
| Russia and China are only allied around their common enemy, the
| US. Don't believe for a second that these two nations wouldn't
| throw each other under the bus if it furthered their respective
| causes.
| peakaboo wrote:
| You and me have much more incommon with Russian or Chinese
| people than we have with our corrupt and shitty leaders.
|
| Never forget that. The 99.99% of us are just humans together
| and we don't want to fight anyone.
| hnthrowaway0315 wrote:
| This is a view that I think everyone of us should have. The
| elites manipulate us by waving various flags and nationalism
| is one of them. Don't get me wrong that Nationalism is useful
| when the whole country is under invasion or something, but so
| far this is not happening for most of the countries out
| there.
|
| I'd rather segment people by the class they are in.
| randomopining wrote:
| Of course. Commoners have more in common with each other than
| the elites. But which system is better for the health of
| society etc? The autocratic corrupt spying apparatus gov? Or
| the falted, less efficient, but generally much much more open
| and representative gov of the US?
| Proven wrote:
| lr1970 wrote:
| The West is threatening to cut Russia from SWIFT financial
| transactions network. Russia is threatening back with a "strong
| response" that, for example, could come in a form of a cyber
| attack. It never hurts to be vigilant and test the financial
| system just in case.
| deepstack wrote:
| > Russia is threatening back with a "strong response" that, for
| example, could come in a form of a cyber attack.
|
| Really not need, they will just build their own. Believe Japan
| is already allowing them to use their banking clearing system.
| I'm sure they and China already have one. All this cyber attack
| stuff are really not worth while when country can just build
| their own SWIFT type of system.
| desine wrote:
| Isn't Japan also on it's own banking system? You can't use
| USA Credit/Debit cards most places? Makes sense they would
| also allow Russia's "third party" option.
| newsclues wrote:
| Russia already have a swift alternative
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPFS
| foverzar wrote:
| Is Russia even threatening anything back on that particular
| matter?
|
| Besides, it's not "the West" who wants to cut Russia out, it's
| only the US. European politicians don't seem to be that
| supportive of this idea and they are the ones who have legal
| power here, not the US.
|
| Tbh, it seems to me that Russia would actually profit in the
| long-term from yet another US illegal abuse of SWIFT. They
| already provide their own ISO 15022/200022 compatible solution,
| cheaper and decentralized https://www.cyberft.com/
|
| Creating further inconvenience for business would simply drive
| them to consider additional diversification and redundancy,
| given that there are alternatives.
| tenpies wrote:
| > it's not "the West" who wants to cut Russia out, it's only
| the US
|
| The US is really overplaying its hand under Biden, it's quite
| sad to watch such a complete mishandling of foreign policy
| and energy policy. This is almost certainly the US presidency
| that markets the tangible decline of US global order.
|
| I'm not sure if Trump understood this explicitly, but he did
| implicitly: the correct way to "defend" from Russia and China
| is not to try to freeze them out, but to make them active
| participants. If the loss of SWIFT hurts Russia, Russia would
| have a vested interested in its protection. Instead Biden is
| desperately trying to force Russia to accelerate SPFS, and in
| these circumstances they're going to send all of Europe along
| with Russia.
|
| The self-caused European Energy crisis means that the EU has
| to play with Russia at this stage in the game. If Biden
| pushes the removal of Russia from SWIFT, Russia just has to
| tell the EU "we only accept payment for LNG via SPFS, in
| Rubles, Euros, or physical delivery of gold". And that's it,
| Europe immediately is adopting SPFS because the alternative
| is freezing to death.
|
| The US is not going to ship enough LNG to the EU to keep it
| going - it's not even going to be able to keep Nord 2
| offline. It's such an absolute negligence of foreign policy
| that I'd almost think the US is intentionally playing into
| Putin's hand.
| temptemptemp111 wrote:
| epgui wrote:
| "One European financial official said that in the case of such of
| an attack, his country would not wait 10 days to act."
|
| Since roughly January 2020, as a life scientist, my confidence in
| pretty much all of the world's governments' abilities to act
| quickly and/or in concert, in the face of an emergency, has gone
| from maybe ~60% to near 0%.
| cal5k wrote:
| You'd think this would be a wakeup call as to the value of
| limited government, but I'm not sure that's the message
| everyone is getting.
|
| Bureaucracies are generally incompetent in direct proportion to
| their size.
| lupire wrote:
| pphysch wrote:
| This is only true if you believe in conspiracy theories that
| the PRC is 1) hiding millions of COVID-19 deaths and
| simultaneously 2) remained the only growing economy in 2020.
| Or you reject 2) and include the entire global economy in the
| conspiracy.
|
| Otherwise, the PRC (CCP = world's largest bureaucracy) has
| clearly had the most successful response to the pandemic due
| to its decisive measures, which goes against your conclusion
| that _less_ governance is needed to effectively combat
| pandemics.
| Kinrany wrote:
| Why is it a conspiracy theory? Is it that they wouldn't
| want to fake the numbers, or is it that they couldn't?
| pphysch wrote:
| It's a theory that there's a broad conspiracy to cover up
| how bad the pandemic hit China. This would require many
| parties (millions of people inside and out of China) to
| closely conspire on a singular manufactured narrative and
| prevent any leaks of the "truth".
|
| It's a textbook conspiracy theory.
| brnt wrote:
| > Bureaucracies are generally incompetent in direct
| proportion to their size.
|
| Or so a particular group of wealth owners would like to have
| us believe.
|
| Fortunately, not everyone is drinking this koolaid.
| frebord wrote:
| cosmojg wrote:
| I wouldn't mind if the government was slimmed down to being
| little more than the IRS, military, and a few regulatory
| bodies with either the current progressive tax system
| (better yet, that of the 70s) or a land value tax (at least
| 85%) with all of the proceeds redistributed equally among
| the population (i.e., UBI). Oh, and Pigovian taxes (e.g.,
| carbon taxes). Lots and lots of Pigovian taxes.
|
| I don't think I needed to drink any koolaid to come upon
| this political stance, although I may have seen a cat or
| two.
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| The super-rich don't need public health, public works,
| education, code enforcement and labour rights, but they
| do need a functioning military and property rights. And
| now we know the origin of the "nightwatch state" and why
| it's pushed so much by certain groups.
| cosmojg wrote:
| We definitely need a bit more than a night-watchman
| state. I should mention that I believe in the continued
| existence of public institutions, I just don't believe in
| their exclusivity. For example, I think the FDA should
| continue to exist. However, I would prefer it to be
| possible for pharmaceutical companies to align themselves
| with regulatory bodies other than the FDA so long as they
| made public their alignment. Then I, as the consumer, can
| choose whether I trust the FDA or its private competitor
| more, and buy my drugs accordingly.
|
| Simply put, I want a government which maximizes freedom,
| flexibility, and opportunity for as many people as
| possible.
| e40 wrote:
| _> Fortunately, not everyone is drinking this koolaid._
|
| This narrative has been pushed for many decades, since the
| 70's.
|
| I once saw a great post on reddit that gave tons of
| examples of government working. Really wish I saved that.
| macawfish wrote:
| Has anyone else thought about the risks of one or more national
| actors doing macro scale pump and dumps of cryptocurrencies
| combined with viral memes targeting populations of their
| adversaries tricking them into buying the top/selling the bottom?
| an9n wrote:
| LaserHodl wrote:
| internet pandemic => internet lockdowns => internet passports.
|
| Is this Covid's digital counterpart in making way for Social
| Scoring Governance to be imported to the West?
| wallacoloo wrote:
| what exactly did they simulate? from the scant details on the
| article, this sounds more like a training exercise than a
| simulation, to me.
| markstos wrote:
| Amazon is down again, they won!
| beermonster wrote:
| A dress rehearsal of business continuity and/or cyber incident
| response management ?
| KineticLensman wrote:
| "All but war is simulation"
|
| The military sometimes use the term 'simulate' to mean what
| soldiers do during training or mission rehearsal, not just in
| the sense of running a simulation system (although training may
| obviously be supported by a simulator)
| Macha wrote:
| I assume this is like a bank stress test - they don't literally
| withdraw a bunch of deposits and call in a bunch of
| obligations, instead they just have auditors do a bunch of what
| if scenarios and calculations of what would happen if that
| happened
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Huh... maybe I'm getting confused but I could have sworn that my
| "vaccine-hesitant" friends were saying the IMF had been running
| (with others) simulations of a virus outbreak since 2010-ish, as
| part of the reason this was a "plandemic."
|
| However, if a cyber attack does happen a few years from now that
| takes out the global financial system... it'll definitely make me
| a little queasy.
| hobs wrote:
| You never see an emergency without an ambulance showing up, did
| you think that the EMT's are the real villains!
|
| This is a truly simian approach at pointing the finger at
| people who plan on preventing disaster because simply uttering
| its name causes it to be.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| "loutish"
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| I never said I defended it - I'm saying that it would make me
| a little uncomfortable.
| GavinMcG wrote:
| Don't spread it by bringing it up here, then.
| mbg721 wrote:
| Not all risk mitigation measures are wise. We got to this
| point by willfully ignoring that, and now, unsurprisingly,
| the people who got shouted down don't trust anybody.
| andruby wrote:
| are you (or your friends) confusing the IMF (International
| Monetary Fund) with the WHO (World Health Organisation)?
| wowokay wrote:
| I'm still confused, is Ethan Hunt involved,
| Findecanor wrote:
| Because a "simulated cyber attack on the global financial
| systems" would fit so well into the fictional world of the
| Impossible Mission Force.
|
| Personally, I'd prefer a timeline in which Jim Phelps isn't a
| traitor though, and in which the IMF operated more on
| teamwork than on depending on heroic acts of a single
| operative.
| cinntaile wrote:
| I certainly hope that institutions run these kind of
| simulations. It's one of the best ways to identify critical
| flaws in preparation plans that need to be mitigated.
| lettergram wrote:
| I tend to take every theory seriously. I think it's important
| to do so, to either prove or disprove. I also often find
| "conspiracy theorists" are the most educated on a given topic.
|
| That's not to say I often agree. But it's a really interesting
| exercise to explore their theories. You'll often learn an
| abundance yourself.
|
| I did that recently regarding the election hacking claims:
| https://austingwalters.com/mike-lindell-and-china-hacking-am...
|
| I ended up narrowing down who it was who was perpetrating the
| claims and validated my theory it's probably BS.
|
| In this case, the WEF and IMF have a lot of the same
| participants and have run hacking simulations. That seems
| reasonable to me imo. That said, it's fairly clear why people
| believe there's a conspiracy with the IMF --
|
| https://quotefancy.com/quote/1275693/Henry-Kissinger-Who-con...
|
| There's probably something there, but it's not clear the cyber
| attack simulations are anything related to a conspiracy. China
| and the west's adversaries have a pretty clear incentive to
| replace / destroy the IMF. They could do that via hacking.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| We simulate all sorts of plausible scenarios. They're only
| valuable if the scenarios are realistic enough to be applied to
| potential real-world stuff.
|
| The risk of a pandemic was clear enough that
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contagion_(2011_film) got made
| about the same time. It ticked pretty much all the boxes -
| China as origin, people thinking it's a bioweapon, contact
| tracing, politicians reluctant to take quarantine measures,
| panic buying, unrest, bat-borne virus, conspiracy theorists and
| antivaxxers, etc.
|
| It's a hell of a movie to watch in 2021.
| donkarma wrote:
| Long BTC?
| worstestes wrote:
| Ah yes, because if the global financial system crashes we're
| assured that BTC will be even more relevant!
| chana_masala wrote:
| I'm not convinced either way - but why are you convinced
| that it won't be?
| diab0lic wrote:
| > However, if a cyber attack does happen a few years from now
| that takes out the global financial system... it'll definitely
| make me a little queasy.
|
| Both global pandemics and cyberattacks are plausible events.
| This is the true cause of both the simulations and the events
| occurring. It is incredibly improbable that the IMF thinking of
| them and simulating them had anything to do with them
| happening.
| crisdux wrote:
| I wonder if these simulations do more harm. Like it gives
| people a false sense of security and locks them into a
| strategy. I think the best illustration for this is covid. Our
| leaders and experts threw away the pandemic playbook and
| replaced it with this new strategy of using novel precision
| vaccine technology and having a near singular focus on getting
| people vaccinated. As time goes on, it seems more and more like
| a failure. But we are basically stuck. We are not responding to
| ANY signals that this is a bad strategy.
|
| We need strategy that has the ability to be flexible. It needs
| to be based on outcome. These simulations incorrectly teach
| people that the strategy is the goal, instead of aiming towards
| an outcome. For example, reducing hospitalization and deaths
| isn't the goal with current covid policy. The goal is to
| vaccinate as many people as possible.
| jorgesborges wrote:
| The pandemic playbook was designed to manage and mitigate
| "communication dilemmas", not execute a strategic health
| response -- which isn't necessarily incompetent. It's
| prescient enough to recognize that our greatest danger isn't
| a virus but paralysis and inertia, a struggle to digest
| information and propaganda, an inability to understand or
| engage with one another, distrust and inefficacy crippling
| our institutions, waning authority of media and journalism,
| etc.
|
| For anyone who hasn't read through John Hopkins simulated
| SPARS Pandemic 2025-2028 it's pretty interesting [0]. They
| discuss controversies concerning medical treatments, anti-
| vaxxers, and strategies to engage in propaganda wars on
| social media. Disclaimer: not wearing a tinfoil hat, no the
| report isn't part of a conspiracy to railroad the population
| into vaccines, but it does reveal a certain ineptitude and
| bad faith.
|
| [0] https://jhsphcenterforhealthsecurity.s3.amazonaws.com/spa
| rs-...
| cinntaile wrote:
| What is the pandemic playbook and how does the current
| response differ?
|
| People running these simulations are obviously focused on
| outcomes, that's why you run these simulations in the first
| place. Simulations allow you to find flaws in your
| preparations, but it doesn't make your preparations flawless.
| You try to minimize your outcome downside risk .
| crisdux wrote:
| Folks need to understand that our current strategy is quite
| revolutionary. Basically everything goes against previous
| guidance. We've redefined illness to now mean positive pcr
| test. Wide spread testing of asymptomatic people,
| lockdowns, travel restrictions, medical passports.
| Vaccinate everyone with little regard for safety or
| necessity. Ignore natural immunity. Ignore outpatient
| treatment. Impose a systematic campaign of censorship,
| deception and propaganda. Noble lies and dishonesty are
| accepted. Informed consent is thrown away. Nearly every
| major tenant of our current strategy is anti science and is
| resulting in more suffering.
|
| It is not obvious that these people who run these
| simulations are focused on positive outcomes on behalf of
| the population.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > We've redefined illness to now mean positive pcr test.
|
| > Wide spread testing of asymptomatic people
|
| Yes, those are very new. If the previous generations had
| that capacity they wouldn't think twice about doing it,
| but they didn't so it's new.
|
| > lockdowns, travel restrictions, medical passports
|
| Those are right there since ancient Rome times.
| cinntaile wrote:
| You didn't contrast this with the pandemic playbook and
| most of it sounds like hyperbole to me so there is not
| much to respond to I'm afraid?
| crisdux wrote:
| Maybe instead of ad hominem attacks you should develop an
| argument. Cheers.
| cinntaile wrote:
| There is unfortunately no substance to reply to. That's
| what I point out, so maybe you could clarify your
| argument without hyperbole and by contrasting it to the
| pandemic playbook?
| chana_masala wrote:
| Well said! There has been near zero attention by the main
| agencies in power on therapeutics. E.g. even if
| ivermectin doesn't work, why can't we focus more on
| finding what does? It's only been vaccine, vaccine and
| more vaccine. Not even a mention for lifestyle or diet or
| supplements
| cinntaile wrote:
| There is focus on therapeutics. Although it's better to
| prevent than to treat, so a bigger focus on vaccines is
| expected.
| chana_masala wrote:
| These vaccines don't prevent and barely treat
| detaro wrote:
| https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/fda-
| gives-em...
| chana_masala wrote:
| Doctors have been widely prevented from using off label
| drugs in literal emergency cases of covid just because
| Pfizer wants to sell and develop their own new
| therapeutic
| detaro wrote:
| There are trials for various treatments being run, both
| with existing and newly developed medication, some making
| large headlines. If you haven't heard of any of this,
| that's kind of on you and your information sources.
| chana_masala wrote:
| Vitamin D and healthy eating is not emphasized at all by
| any CDC or health agency. These two things are
| significant risk factors for covid. Doctors have widely
| been prevented from using drugs with generally known
| safety profiles for emergency cases because Pfizer wants
| to develop its own new drugs.
| detaro wrote:
| If you didn't start healthy eating after decades of
| public health messaging about it, it's unlikely that you
| will start now and it'll make any relevant difference -
| and it isn't as if healthy people being better off isn't
| being constantly repeated. Vitamin D had it's hype phase,
| got looked at a bunch and it's still not clear how much
| it really does, although I'd agree that pushing the
| existing recommendations more probably wouldn't hurt.
|
| > _Doctors have widely been prevented_
|
| citation needed I guess. Again, lots of stuff is being
| looked at (and some integrated in treatment
| recommendations), not just "Pfizers own new drugs".
| trumpablehump wrote:
| There are countless therapeutics in research, testing and
| admission. I am not sure what you are reading but this is
| widely available knowledge and you can dig into agency
| databases to find out more if you are so inclined.
| Lifestyle, diet or supplements have shown to be rather
| irrelevant to the effects of Covid.
| desine wrote:
| >Lifestyle, diet or supplements have shown to be rather
| irrelevant to the effects of Covid.
|
| Lol no, obesity is one of the biggest factors in covid
| mortality
| feldrim wrote:
| The thing is many countries have their disaster management
| strategies for pandemics. But when it comes action, the
| strategiea fail. There are many reasons for this.
|
| First of all, previous pandemics like bird flu had fast
| infection but it was known to the experts and easier than
| COVID-19 to handle. But COVID was unknown and it took more
| time to respond properly and actually there's still more
| unknown things that the responses cannot be validated. It's
| hard to respond unknown unknowns.[1]
|
| Second, the strategies are great on paper but when it comes
| to implementing them, it is all about the politics. The
| politics of funding the research institutes and academic
| institutions, the structure of the nation's health care
| system, economic situation and use of state budget to support
| people in the economic crisis caused by the pandemic, the
| policies to allow human movement such as lock downs and
| restrictions... When it comes to actions, it's just the
| decision of the politicians.
|
| Third, the strategies are created with stakeholders based on
| previous experience. And when they exercised, they are based
| on either previously occurred issues or predictions of the
| experts/participants of the strategy. You cannot be prepared
| for everything so you create many different feasible
| scenarios and exercise them. And they are limited by the
| capability of the participants.
|
| Finally, strategies are already flexible because they are not
| binding for the states. A government can change the strategy
| on the go. A government can also totally ignore the current
| strategy for its political agenda.
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_are_known_knowns
| didericis wrote:
| > A government can also totally ignore the current strategy
| for its political agenda.
|
| This is the crux of the current failures. Many politicians
| seem to be making decisions based on the consensus of the
| loudest in their constituencies and select experts who
| mirror them rather than people who have studied
| epidemiology.
|
| The Great Barrington Declaration advocated more traditional
| responses for prioritizing the protection of those most at
| risk prior to the vaccines. The public discussion around
| this was almost entirely based on optics, and the term
| "herd immunity" was demonized and considered too non
| compassionate. It was treated like a political language
| exercise rather than a public safety issue. Now that term
| has quietly reentered discourse without much acknowledgment
| of what was stated by those epidemiologists because reality
| isn't permitting any other end state. Yet many of the
| original policies which the declaration advises against are
| still being repeated and still failing, I think in large
| part to save face.
|
| Many people recognized the problems with the current
| policies and advocated better ones very quickly. The amount
| of unknowns were mostly only an issue for the first few
| months. Once the demographic data came in a sensible
| response should have been (and was to many) fairly obvious.
| But sensible policy acknowledges a certain unavoidable
| risk, and the optics of that isn't allowable in our current
| political climate, so we advocate delusional fantasies
| instead.
|
| Those trained in fields like epidemiology and pandemic
| response who know what they're doing and see the failures
| should continue to refuse to sign their name to bad policy
| and publicize their issues with it. That's what the Great
| Barrington Declaration was and what some who have resigned
| from certain positions at the CDC have done.
|
| The main justification for bad policy has been "the support
| of experts". Public health experts are having their field
| tarnished dramatically by being leaned upon in name by
| people that are ignoring their actual advice. They should
| stop allowing it. They have the most power to hold
| irresponsible politicians accountable, and should exercise
| it. The amount of good disaster management strategy that
| was thrown out because it had the potential to look bad and
| was more difficult to implement than ineffective measures
| (like designating certain areas safe spots for at risk
| people and providing spaces for them to shelter during
| spikes) should be more publicized.
| choward wrote:
| Have you heard of event 201? I'm not a conspiracy theorist but
| this is quite the coincidence. They simulated a pandemic in
| October 2019 and one of the things they focused on was
| "misinformation". There are too many similarities to the
| current pandemic to list. The world economic forum and Bill
| Gates sponsored it.
|
| https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/event201/about
| GavinMcG wrote:
| "Too many to list"? It's a pandemic simulation--there aren't
| _that_ many variables to manipulate. And misinformation was
| already a huge talking point several years ago, after the
| 2016 election and the Mueller report. Saying you 're not a
| conspiracy theorist and then suggesting a conspiracy is a
| little discordant, to say the least.
| choward wrote:
| Questioning things isn't a bad thing. I consider a
| conspiracy theorist to be someone who believes theories are
| fact. I'm just saying I don't know. I don't think the
| pandemic was planned but it's good to keep an open mind.
| I'm more skeptical about the response to the pandemic than
| the origins.
|
| I know "misinformation" was being thrown around for years.
| The Mueller report and 2016 election are great example of
| the media spreading misinformation. Most of the Russia-gate
| stuff has been debunked by now including the Steele dossier
| recently. I actually believed a lot of that stuff at first
| because I hated Trump so much.
|
| In case you missed this:
| https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-
| department/analyst-...
| trumpablehump wrote:
| Same here! If a cyber attack happened in a way that this
| simulation explored, it would mean that people have been
| ignoring early warnings. That would be beyond stupid of those
| who could have prevented it.
| thr0wawayf00 wrote:
| It's a really sad age we live in when acting responsibly and
| aiming for maximum preparedness is met with cynicism and
| conspiracy, not to mention this is SOP for most companies with
| critical IT infrastructure.
|
| So we should be weary about any company that runs disaster
| recovery exercises? We just saw another AWS outage take many
| significant services offline a couple weeks ago.
| analyte123 wrote:
| Does every company publicly announce their disaster recovery
| exercises? If you read the article, they didn't come out of
| the simulation saying that they needed to hire more
| cybersecurity people or upgrade their firewalls; they came
| out of it saying that they need tighter policy response
| between banks and governments of 10 different countries and
| the IMF.
| trumpablehump wrote:
| The IMF is not a company, it is an international
| collaborative institution. It makes total sense for such a
| body to openly describe a need for security improvements so
| that the people in charge can get motivated to implement
| them.
|
| I am glad that systems are actively and preemptively tested
| so that issues can prevented. It is the duty for some body
| in society to do so and I would be incredibly angry if no
| one felt responsibility to do so.
| arminiusreturns wrote:
| There is a long history of taking exercises and "going live"
| with them. It's ok for us to be wary of these kinds of
| things, and they are certainly not " _any company_ ", because
| we are talking about "treasury officials from Israel, the
| United States, the UK, United Arab Emirates, Austria,
| Switzerland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Thailand, as
| well as representatives from the International Monetary Fund,
| World Bank and Bank of International Settlements."
|
| Whats sad to me is that entities with a vast history of
| conducting outright conspiracy get defended as if those of us
| skeptical and cautious about their true motives are just
| being cynical. What the financial elite have planned is not
| even close to just regular old corporate IT department red-
| teaming... so I find this framing naive at best.
|
| "The COVID-19 crisis has since been cited as the main
| justification for accelerating what is termed the digital
| transformation of the financial sector and other sectors,
| which that the World Economic Forum and its partners have
| promoted for years. Their latest prediction of a doomsday
| event, a cyberattack that stops the current financial system
| in its tracks and initiates its systemic collapse, if it came
| to pass, would be the final, necessary step required to bring
| about the Forum's desired outcome of a widespread shift to
| digital currency and increased global governance of the
| international economy.
|
| Given that experts have been warning since the last global
| financial crisis that the collapse of the entire system was
| inevitable due to central bank mismanagement and rampant Wall
| Street corruption, a cyberattack would also provide the
| perfect scenario for dismantling the current failing system,
| as it would absolve central banks and corrupt financial
| institutions of any responsibility. It would also provide a
| justification for incredibly troubling policies promoted in
| the WEF-Carnegie report, such as a greater fusion of
| intelligence agencies and banks in order to better "protect"
| critical financial infrastructure." [1]
|
| "A massive cyberattack, such as that simulated at Cyber
| Polygon 2020, would allow faceless hackers to be blamed for
| economic collapse, thus absolving the real financial
| criminals of responsibility. Furthermore, due to the
| difficult nature of investigating hacks and the ability of
| intelligence agencies to frame other nation states for hacks
| they in fact committed themselves, any boogeyman of choice
| can be blamed, whether a "domestic terror" group or a country
| unaligned with the WEF (for now, at least) like Iran or North
| Korea." [2]
|
| "Ultimately, what WEF-PAC represents is a global organization
| that aims to neuter anonymity online, whether for financial
| purposes or for browsing and other activities. It is a global
| effort combining powerful governments and corporations that
| seeks to usher in a new age of surveillance that makes such
| surveillance a requirement to participate in the online world
| or use online services. It is being sold to the public as the
| only way to stop a coming "pandemic" of cybercrime, a crisis
| taking place largely in murky parts of the internet that few
| understand or have any direct experience with. Having to rely
| on State intelligence agencies and intelligence-linked
| cybersecurity firms for attribution of these crimes, it has
| never been easier for corrupt actors in those agencies or
| their partners to either manufacture or manipulate a crisis
| that could upend online freedom as we have known it,
| something these very groups have sought to implement for
| years." [3]
|
| 1. https://unlimitedhangout.com/2021/04/investigative-
| reports/w...
|
| 2. https://unlimitedhangout.com/2021/02/investigative-
| reports/f...
|
| 3. https://unlimitedhangout.com/2021/07/investigative-
| reports/e...
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| No - it's that if you talk to these "vaccine-hesitant"
| friends the idea is that the IMF and others _want_ something
| bad enough to happen (COVID, Cyberattack) so that they can
| tackle wealth inequality, climate change, the like.
| Cyberattack simulations is because COVID didn 't work as well
| as they thought.
|
| Which I think is a very cynical take - but I'm not exactly
| thrilled with some of the statements of these organization's
| leaders.
| twomoonsbysurf wrote:
| lupire wrote:
| thr0wawayf00 wrote:
| I just can't understand why an organization like the IMF,
| which has a major financial incentives in maintaining the
| current system and a tremendous amount of power, would just
| blow it all up.
|
| Just like most conspiracy theories, the idea just doesn't
| make sense once you get past the sensationalism. What kind
| of power are they seeking that they don't already have?
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| I wish I could say - you'd need to ask them, I guess. I
| will say that I have noticed that people care far more
| about the IMF and others than they did pre-pandemic.
| thr0wawayf00 wrote:
| It's mostly a rhetorical question, because the answers
| that conspiracy communities come up to basic questions
| like that often involve insane and fantastical
| misdirections like pedophilia.
| desine wrote:
| You're the first mention of pedophilia in this thread :-)
|
| But also you should realize that after attaining a
| certain level you cannot be bribed anymore and can only
| be blackmailed
| LongTimeAnon wrote:
| lsiq wrote:
| Yeah when Alan Dershowitz says on TV that he was
| introduced to Epstein by Lynn R*thschild we shouldn't
| read too much into it right? Or when Cindy McCain says
| that everyone knew what Epstein was doing but no legal
| entity would go after him. Its fantastical really.
| desine wrote:
| It was already going to blow up. Internationally, every
| country is in a credit hole so deep most will be unable
| to make interest payments in the next few years. The
| collapse was coming one way or the other, so the
| controlled demolition was chosen.
|
| Whether you feel it was planned or not, the lockdowns did
| pretty much halt the velocity of money. Sure they printed
| a ton of social care money, but again the inflationary
| trap had already been set, it was the velocity that
| needed to be killed to buy some time.
| hammock wrote:
| IMF's business model is blowing up countries and then
| buying them for a song.
|
| This idea extends the concept.
| an9n wrote:
| How do you explain pretty much all of the stuff that was
| dismissed as conspiracy theory early in 2020 now coming
| true? The Canadian leak predicted everything pretty much to
| a tee. It ends up with 'You will own nothing and you will
| be happy' - all of their plans are very well documented
| from UN, WEF etc.
|
| Let's come back in 2030 and see if we have central bank
| digital currencies, ban on private property ownership,
| social credit score etc. And people will still be
| explaining it as unplanned!
| nicodjimenez wrote:
| dang wrote:
| Would you please stop using HN primarily for ideological
| battle? We ban accounts that do that, regardless of what
| they're battling for or against, because it destroys what
| this site is supposed to be for.
|
| If you'd please review
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and
| stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
| nicodjimenez wrote:
| This is BS. HN is full of ideological battles about
| everything from K8 to crypto to globalism. That's what
| makes it fun.
| dang wrote:
| Did you miss the word 'primarily'? That's the most
| important thing in what I posted above. These links
| explain why:
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=co
| mme...
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&
| que...
|
| As for ideological battle generally--the site guidelines
| make a distinction between that and curious conversation,
| which is what we want here. Not only are they not the
| same, they're not compatible--for the same reason that
| having a tank battle and playing frisbee in the park are
| not compatible, or that boxing and dancing aren't.
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&
| que...
|
| Many topics here have ideological and political
| overlap--. That's generally ok, as long as there's a
| basis for substantive discussion (pure flamebait
| articles, for example, are off topic).
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false
| &so...
|
| But the question is how people go about talking about
| them. If they're just trying to smite enemies and using
| the usual weapons (snark, name-calling, etc.) to do it,
| that's clearly against the site guidelines and not what
| we want here.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| nomdep wrote:
| You misspelled "morons"
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