Speaker 3
you know, heavily relying on cables and all these other types of things. 90% of this internet is dependent on subsea cables, right? That's how most of the traffic is going back and forth. The
Speaker 1
fact that Ukraine has borders, land borders, points to another distinction between the two countries. That means it's harder for Russia to fully shut down Ukraine's communication systems. In fact, when Russia attempted to do that, Ukraine literally just drove their hard drives across the border to re-establish connections elsewhere. But Taiwan's data only has one way off the island, through those undersea cables, many of which are connected to China. Do
Speaker 3
Taiwan's cables get cut? Yes, they do, right? It's happened like 27 times over the last five years. I will tell you that the deputy minister of MOTA absolutely believes it's being done on purpose, right? MOTA,
Speaker 1
that's Taiwan's Ministry of Digital Affairs. So Jay and Nina begin researching all these distinctions. So we thought once we had enough
Speaker 2
there, we said, OK, let's
Speaker 1
create a game. Actually, that's where Jay comes in. He's a war game designer. And given Taiwan's particular vulnerabilities, they decided to focus the game on three things. First, protecting the island's communications networks and the infrastructure that depends on
Speaker 3
them. Compared to Ukraine, compared to a lot of places, Taiwan is one of the most digitally sort of robust and sort of connected nations on the world. So there's just there's a lot of opportunity there for cyber attacks and other types of means of disruption.
Speaker 1
So not just cutting cables, but hacking systems, which China already does regularly. In fact, just last week, the cybersecurity company Cisco Talos discovered a malicious campaign inside Taiwan's critical infrastructure. They said the hackers have been active in these networks since at least 2023, and they linked them to the Chinese Ministry of State Security. And if there was a full-on war, staying connected would not just be about communicating on the island, but also about keeping the rest of the world informed and engaged, rallying support, like President Zelensky did from day one with his selfie video from Kiev.
