DARPA’s solution to cyber warfare: Make it one big video game

Cyber warfare is something most people are familiar with nowadays. Unfortunately, though, a majority of the American public is not familiar with ways in which to effectively combat digital aggression, and that could spell trouble for the country should it ever become engaged in an all-out online war. 

To address this issue, DARPA has been openly working on ways to empower those considered less technically proficient. The project is called “Plan X,” and it’s a hardware / software platform that allows users to engage in cyber warfare via programming that, more or less, looks like one big video game.

One publication that has taken a keen interest in this project is Wired Magazine , which reports that the system was designed by Frog Design and is currently being run on a Samsung SUR40 Touch Table. 

 
Plan X being run on a Samsung SUR40 Touch Table (Image via fastcompany.com)

According to contributing editor Noah Shachtman, the system kind of, sort of resembles World of Warcraft. Network topologies are displayed along with icons that represent tools / weapons. The system is meant to demonstrate “missions” for the user to partake in, with each one being outlined by the program and describing which tools / weapons are available for users to accomplish their goals.

Once user are actually engaged in the mission, they move through the network either looking for ways to defend against possible attacks by others, or try to reach a target to unleash their own attack.

Now, while it might sound like DARPA is promoting cyber warfare, what the agency is actually doing is encouraging users to engage with other cyber soldiers, if you will, without having to learn how things work at a deeper level.

This sort of familiarity with the technology will, in turn, develop a digital-savvy army fully capable of protecting the country’s online properties, thereby giving DARPA and the U.S. military full confidence that the country is fully capable of defending itself against cyber warfare, if an when the time comes.

Story via: phys.org