Feds Building Scale Model of the Internet

The United States is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to create a "scale model" of the Internet, where military researchers can hone their cyber warfare skills, reports the BBC. The Defense Advance Research Projects Agency is overseeing the National Cyber Range project, which will allow researchers to simulate online attacks by hackers and foreign powers. Johns Hopkins University and Lockheed Martin are involved in its creation.

Unlike the real Internet, this scale model can be reset between these "attacks." It also allows researchers to greatly speed up their online experiments, which they'll be able to conduct "in days rather than the weeks it currently takes." President Obama said in 2009 that online threats are one of the country's "most serious" challenges, and the Pentagon announced in May that cyber attacks can qualify as acts of war. (More cyberwarfare stories.)