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U.S. Gov't Sponsors InfoSec Defense Training

Posted by timothy on from the good-bennies dept.

Anomolous Cow Herd writes: "CNN is reporting that the U.S. government is awarding scholarships to a select few computer science students to study information security, with the caveat that they must agree to work for a government agency for at least two years afterwards. This is in response to the general state of paranoia that has ensued since 9/11, with 'cybersecurity' as a high priority. Considering that a vast majority of government agencies run on Windows NT and derivatives, it's no wonder that they consider the eventual graduating class of 180 'doesn't have a chance.'"

4 of 115 comments (clear)

  1. FYI: Free COMPSEC training materials on CD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    You can request free computer security training information (mostly on CD) from DISA.

    http://iase.disa.mil/eta/index.html

  2. NSA by Loki_1929 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Just thought I'd point out that the NSA has been running similar programs for a while. I actually looked into them when I was in college, but then I realized I was looking at Big Brother and asking for a part in the book 1984... on the wrong side.

    On a lighter note, after hearing that Intel is trying to claim the word 'inside' as its own, I decided to do a little investigating as to exactly what is inside. Take a look.

    --
    -- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
  3. setting some things straight by ironleaf · · Score: 4, Informative

    The program only accepts U.S. born applicants; more information on the Iowa State fellowships is available as is information on the program as a whole. Most of the core training at Iowa State is in Computer Engineering classes: CprE530(protocols), CprE531(security), CprE532(warfare/hacking), CprE533(crypto) and CprE534(ethics). If you take a look at the ISU fellowship specs, I think you'll agree that this is a decent way of paying for school and serving your country at the same time. I agree with the previous post that this is basically ROTC for geeks. ;-)

  4. Re:Good for Linux? by nathanm · · Score: 4, Informative
    Granted, the US government runs mainly under Windows systems
    No they don't. Maybe for desktops, some workstations, a few file servers, and the occasional public web server, but the US govt uses lots of different systems. There are still many systems running on old proprietary mainframes, plenty of Novell (even as old as version 3) networks, and a whole lot of Unix systems.

    Also, all classified systems run only on Trusted operating systems and software, which meet criteria for a specific level in the Orange Book from the NSA. According to this, the latest version of Windows that was certified is NT 4.0 with SP 6a and the C2 update, in Nov 1999.