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U.S. Military Seeks Skilled Hackers and Crackers

The Inphidel wrote, "Hackers, and maybe even crackers, the goverment wants YOU. Seems the pentagon wants to make sure enough GEEKS are on hand to kick some technological [redacted]. Sounds like fun to me." Story at Wired; another one on the same topic at Yahoo! News was submitted by Doofus.

2 of 190 comments (clear)

  1. Cyberwars becoming a reality. by MartyJG · · Score: 4

    This just adds fuel to the predictions that the next world war will be fought in cyberspace.

    At the moment the term 'hackers' brings nice warm thoughts of late night tinkering on the net to geeks, and a distant, unknown, but not that menacing thought to system administrators. If the government start re-training them, aren't they going to turn into something more like guerilla soldiers?

    It would give hackers a bad name - I mean, worse than now.

    Yes, many hackers have un-tapped skills, but taking these jobs would just bring forward a new age in warfare.

    Cyberwarfare isn't like conventional warfare, where one side can simply win on bigger firepower. The net has always claimed to be a level playing field. Surely three hackers working for a third-world government (providing a decent level of resources) are as powerful as whole teams of hackers in a western-world country? It comes down to the abilities of an individual.

    What's being proposed here is getting hackers to disable the enemy's defenses. This would lead to hackers aiming to turn opponents weapons back on their own country. Think about it for a minute. The more missiles you've got ready to launch on-command, the more firecrackers you've got waiting to blow-up in your face. And who's got the biggest number of firecrackers on the planet?...

    It seems the US are setting out to hold the dog by the ears.

    --
    insignificant sig
  2. Agent 0101, licensed to KILLALL -9 by Chas · · Score: 4

    Turn me loose boss!

    I'm the perfect agent to bring down WINDOWS

    • World
    • Institution of
    • Nutcases and
    • Deviants to
    • Overmarket
    • Whacked
    • Systems

    Actually, I'm no super-guru or anything. You could put me in Q&A testing as the ultimate stability tester. Turn me loose on the system and see what I can fsck up. If it CAN be fscked up, I WILL find a way to do it! Usually, completely by accident.

    Oh no!

    BAD HAIKU INSPIRATION!:

    A government job
    Sit on my butt and break things
    That's my kinda job



    Chas - The one, the only.
    THANK GOD!!!

    --


    Chas - The one, the only.
    THANK GOD!!!