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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

• donkarma 5y ago
  Long BTC?
  • worstestes 5y ago
    Ah yes, because if the global financial system crashes we’re assured that BTC will be even more relevant!
    • chana_masala 5y ago
      I'm not convinced either way - but why are you convinced that it won't be?
• thr0wawayf00 5y ago
  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.
  • gjsman-1000 5y ago
    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.
    • thr0wawayf00 5y ago
      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 5y ago
        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 5y ago
          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.
          • LongTimeAnon 5y ago
          • desine 5y ago
            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
          • lsiq 5y ago
            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 5y ago
  • analyte123 5y ago
    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 5y ago
      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 5y ago
    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/wef-warns-of-cyber-attack-leading-to-systemic-collapse-of-the-global-financial-system/ https://unlimitedhangout.com/2021/04/investigative-reports/w... 2. https://unlimitedhangout.com/2021/02/investigative-reports/from-event-201-to-cyber-polygon-the-wefs-simulation-of-a-coming-cyber-pandemic/ https://unlimitedhangout.com/2021/02/investigative-reports/f... 3. https://unlimitedhangout.com/2021/07/investigative-reports/ending-anonymity-why-the-wefs-partnership-against-cybercrime-threatens-the-future-of-privacy/ https://unlimitedhangout.com/2021/07/investigative-reports/e...
• cinntaile 5y ago
  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.
• ceejayoz 5y ago
  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) 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.
• diab0lic 5y ago
  > 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.
• hobs 5y ago
  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.
  • gjsman-1000 5y ago
    I never said I defended it - I'm saying that it would make me a little uncomfortable.
    • GavinMcG 5y ago
      Don't spread it by bringing it up here, then.
  • mbg721 5y ago
    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.
  • mistrial9 5y ago
    "loutish"
• wowokay 5y ago
  I'm still confused, is Ethan Hunt involved,
  • Findecanor 5y ago
    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.
• crisdux 5y ago
  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.
  • cinntaile 5y ago
    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 5y ago
      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.
      • chana_masala 5y ago
• andruby 5y ago
  are you (or your friends) confusing the IMF (International Monetary Fund) with the WHO (World Health Organisation)?
• lettergram 5y ago
  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-american-elections/ 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-controls-the-food-supply-controls-the-people-who-controls-the-energy 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.
• nomdep 5y ago
  You misspelled “morons”
• trumpablehump 5y ago
  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.
• choward 5y ago
  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 https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/event201/about
  • GavinMcG 5y ago
    "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 5y ago
      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-who-worked-steele-dossier-arrested-part-trump-era-doj-n1283197 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/analyst-...