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Air Force Seeking Geeks For 'Cyber Command'
An anonymous reader writes "Wired reports that the two-star general in charge of the US Air Force's new Cyber Command is looking for hacker-types to beef up its cadre of cyber warriors — no heavy lifting required. 'We have to change the way we think about warriors of the future,' General William Lord says. 'So if they can't run three miles with a pack on their backs but they can shut down SCADA system, we need to have a culture where they fit in.' The Cyber Command is the Air Force's first new Major Command since the early 1990s. Its purpose is to be able to win an electronic war with China and other potential adversaries."
But don't they realize that people smart enough to do their hacking are also smart enough to see through their sorry attempts to recruit them?
Careful What You Wish For....
People will go for this. Cracking some of the worlds most secure systems from behind the protection of the US goverment? sounds like a pretty cool deal to me.
If they want us, they can bring us in as civilian contractors. Why would anyone want to take a low paying job they can't quit?
...to win an electronic war with China... To win an electronic, heck any kind of war, all China has to do is to stop shipping electronic and any other goods to the US. After all, that is were all of the stuff comes from these days. Not to mention that most of the corporates have either sold or licensed almost all intellectual property to China in one form or another. Talk about giving a potential enemy all of the sticks they need to beat you over the head with.What is the Air Force doing in charge of America's cyber warfare abilities?
It seems to me that we should have a specialized agency, or perhaps even a military branch, for cyber warfare.
http://www.aaplblog.com/ - News about Apple Inc.
I take it you graduated from Berkeley. Our soldiers, not counting the rare psycho who slips in, do not target civilians. You must be thinking of Hamas and Al Quada who consider babies a perfectly legitimate target.
Every single soldier I know would be appalled at the very idea of attacking civilians. Every single one of them would refuse an order to do so.
-- Will program for bandwidth
Detonate an EMP bomb. Welcome to the stone age, troops, you just lost all of your nav/GPS/FoF systems, and if your vehicles are not hard-shielded, you're screwed.
If an EMP bomb tested out in the Pacific could affect both Hawaii and Japan coasts, one EMP could effectively cover China. We already have the weaponry to win an electronic war.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
China and other potential adversaries.
I can't be the only dude from the EU who has noticed a slow rise in anti-China stuff on slashdot?
Do other news sources in the US have this slant? Because looking at it from the outside, it's like the US^H^H^H^H Fox News is seeking a new bogeyman now the cold war is over. Unfortunately some of this is rubbing off on a more intellegent news source like
Anyone quoted by a reporter knows how little they understand
Don't believe what you read is the truth.
I'm not exactly sure if you're referring to just the current or recent wars of the US, or if you're talking about any war whatsoever...
But what utopia do you live in, may I ask? I'm sorry, but war is sometimes necessary. I'm not defending any particular war of any particular nation, but only saying that war is sometimes necessary. If someone is out to blow *your* country to bits, it doesn't do much good to talk to them or give them a philosophical (and well thought out, too) argument about why killing you would really just incite more killing, etc. There are even people that simply enjoy the carnage.
As long as life exists, there is going to be anger, hate, and malice; and as long as anger, hate, and malice exist, there's going to be bloodshed.
I'm all for peace and not war, but it is an unfortunate necessity at some points, in order to save life from those who WANT to destroy it for whatever reasons. It is from those "wanting to be guilty of murder and death" that more moral nations and armies are to protect the innocent.
You really do eat the propaganda from the military don't you. As the Iraq and other recent Wars has demonstrated there are many ways that innocents get killed, so your intentions or the intentions of the soldiers is irrelevant.
However, I wasn't just speaking of the innocents. Killing begets more killing. You kill them. They are motivated to kill you. Again your side kills members of their side. On and on it goes.
The forever war is just what those in power want - which ever side they are on. The only answer is to stop the killing by all those involved using communication and other methods.
War is never necessary except for those who's purpose it serves. For the rest of us - the other %99.9999... war is not necessary. To keep people such as Bush, Saddam, Hitler, Stalin, etc... in power they need wars. War is the best thing that drives their mission. It defines them. It drives them forward. It gives them power. It sucks the life out of everyone though. It is futile.
You obviously have bought the mainstream propaganda about war. War is all about death and power. Killing others so that you have power. That is evil no matter what side you are on.
I don't live in utopia. I live in a world at war. Death and destruction everywhere. Indroctrination into the death cult occurs from birth whether it's into the death cult of a suicide bomber in the middle east or the honor macho death cult of the west. They are the same - death to others at all costs.
Murder, death, kill. There are other solutions and your the one in the dream world if you think that killing is the answer to the problems facing the world.
Actually, they do. The military has no problem hiring the very best if they want to. Half the best physicists and electrical engineers I knew at MIT -- and the better half, typically -- went either directly into the military (via ROTC) or worked for defense contractors. Why not? It's where the really interesting physics and engineering was being done, the pay and benefits were great, and you weren't hassled by dumbass marketing suits wanting you to make your product cute or cheap.
The military wants their tech to work and be way cooler and better than anyone else's stuff, cost to them is no object, and they don't give a fuck what it looks like or whether it "appeals" to the critical 18-25 Facebook demographic. It's going to be painted olive drab anyway, and soldiers will be told to use it, not begged. Fairly ideal working conditions for a really smart technical person, I'd say. The only drawback is the various amounts of bureaucratic bullshit you have to cope with, which tops the level in a good private firm.
Anyway, I've never heard of a good technical job in the military or one of its prime contractors, or one of the defense-associated national labs, not drawing a huge raft of top-notch applicants. It's agencies like the EPA which pay terribly, have hideous civil-service and union rules weighing them down, and which, frankly, involve boring and outdated technology, which end up desperate to hire even third-rate people.
Pothead |= deadbeat. Judge results, not style, shitsuck.
You've obviously never been in a maintenance shop before then. LAN parties were the norm most weekends back in the day. Now that almost everyone has broadband most everyone is playing WOW or other online game together. Whole sections go raiding and then talk about it the whole next day. It drives me nuts and cracks me up at the same time since these same guys pick on the "socially inept" for being nerds.
The level of geekdom varies, but the whole spectrum can be found, most are just gamers, many build their own computers, some are digital/3D artists, and a minority are your uber "look what hardware/software creation/hack I came up with this weekend" nerds.
I wouldn't buy the whole "they may not be able to run three miles and carry a pack" the Air Force is kicking people out left and right for being too fat and lazy. They like to call it "Fit to Fight", even though most of our jobs requirements are "Fit to Sit", they're just trying to cut down on the medical bills they have to pay.
Communication and other methods? I'm amazed such naive idealism was modded up. There are always going to be competing interests, and the voice of violence is the loudest of all.
I think the [MS Word] paperclip is a great idea. - Miguel de Icaza
Yes, the voice of violence is very loud since it's a very easy solution. For sure the politicians and military are quick to resort to violence. That is why they need to have their power checked and revoked. Now of course this only works across the planet so it will take time. It also doesn't solve the problem with those that take up arms without being governments.
Solving issues like gang violence and the violence of the mafia are similar. While you might think that they are at a smaller scale they are essentially the same, except for scale.
Anyone who chooses violence to solve a problem - except in personal self defense - IS the problem and not the solution.
The cultural shifts needed are many.
It isn't about idealism, it's about moving towards a planet where murder, killing, death and power over others are unacceptable solutions for all human beings everywhere.
There are many steps that you need to take in your deprogramming from your cult of death. If it's acceptable for you to kill someone then it's acceptable for them to kill you. Where we need to get to is that it's unacceptable for anyone to kill anyone for any reason.
Good luck getting geeks to move to Barksdale Louisiana - nearest major town is Shreveport, and it's about 3 hours from Dallas, 5-6 from New Orleans. They may be building a big shiny building, but if they want to hire geeks, they'd have a lot better luck locating this at Livermore Labs or Moffett Field or somewhere around Boston or NYC.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Human society is based on violence. What you're suggesting is that we all just stop being human. Good luck with that.
How we know is more important than what we know.
The only answer is to stop the killing by all those involved using communication and other methods.
Like appeasement? Or bribery? Or lying to avoid conflict? Or global adoption of your philosophy? How do you plan on convincing people to not want "your stuff" or to not want you dead or worse? Are you going to inform them that it is hurtful?
I'll suggest that communication alone may never bring peace, because communication does not address disagreement at the philosophical level. It just defines the boundaries of the disagreement.
You really do eat the propaganda from the military don't you.
Way to communicate. I'm sure your patience, empathy and understanding will bring love and peace to /. in no time.
Oh wait, maybe I misinterpreted that statement as being condescending. Either way, maybe you should consider improving your communication with people you do not agree with.
God I love irony.
Hasn't the military been getting people to sign up by blatantly lying to them about what they'd wind up doing once they got in for...ever? Once they get you to sign on the dotted line, it doesn't matter if they told you that you WOULD be smoking pot and playing video games all day. They can put you wherever they need you once you sign. No complaints, no law suits, nothing. Door to door in Iraq or afghanistan. Who knows, you could wind up hacking all day.
And it's typical of some people to ignore that sometimes, just sometimes, violence really is the answer. or at least the fastest, surest one.
Ironically enough (given this conversation), I'm pretty much a pacifist. I've never struck anyone in anger in my life, I don't understand the obsession with violence, I can talk my way out of most any situation by making an aggressor understand that violence won't achieve his goals (and have, in several different countries across a number of continents). I am happy to simply walk away from most any perilous situation, because it's generally unfulfilling for an aggressor to engage with someone who doesn't resist, and my ego is firm enough that I don't care if some random people I'll never see again think I wasn't "a man" by fighting some drunk or distressed idiot.
But I'm also a realist, and know that there are some situations where a person would honestly have no acceptable alternative but to beat an aggressor to death with whatever blunt object was handy. It's (thankfully) unlikely I'll ever encounter one of those situations in my life, I'm much happier to travel the world providing health care to remote villages where the locals are happy to see me and the greatest danger I really face is robbery by outsiders who see a wealthy westerner (which of course has happened, but a couple thousand dollars in computer equipment ultimately isn't that big a deal to me -- the annoyance is when they get your passport, because that is just a real inconvenience).
I'd love to have a universal solution to violence. I don't expect one to come down the pike anytime soon, though I agree 99% of the violence that occurs could be avoided if people and leaders would just chill the fuck out a little bit.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
"War is never necessary except for those who's purpose it serves... war is not necessary."
This is incorrect, looking at ACTUAL history, those who've had the wealth, arms and power were one in the same, an they use fear of punishment to keep their power. We don't have the worker rights we do without our ancestors having fought employers (businesses), and against land owners (slavery), war is ABSOLUTELY necessary to gain your freedom and change society for the better in many instances, just look at the US government passing telecom immunity bill, that shit would not happen if an army of americans was going apeshit and destroying property, but most americans are too passified and too ignorant to understand their rights, easily lied to and mislead. Many things have never come without bloodshed. All wars are in the end mental in nature, an interest vs an interest, whether it be cultural oppression, or oppression based on resources.
Let's not confuse the "military" with the Air Force.
;)
Ask a variety Airmen about their jobs. You will get the full range of opinions on their AF experience. None of them want to serve with someone who is unhappy and pissed off. Grumpy co-workers make the workcenter uncomfortable.
If you are unhappy after enlisting, there are plenty of easy ways to get out.
"Once they get you to sign on the dotted line," RTFC (Read The Fine Contract) and go in with a guaranteed job.
Don't go in "General Enlistment",
Air Force re-enlistment rates are high for good reason. a comfortable career, utterly insulated from the outside economy, interesting jobs (most of them, choose wisely) and tasty benefits.
There is also a nice carrot at the end. While you can retire with full benefits at 20 years, do a few years over that and you can REALLY retire because of the retirement percentage bumps. I don't have to work again unless I want to, and instead of being 65 I'm in my late forties.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
I happen to know, because that was the only way I joined. Of course, you have to have the balls to say - "Fine, I quit!" if they don't keep their end of the bargain. But, they don't have a legal leg to stand on if it's in your contract.
So the moral of the story is: If they tell you you can smoke pot and play video games all day get it in writing as part of your contract. Because you will have recruiters tell people all kinds of things but only what's in writing sticks. Kind of like any other employment contract, no?
I invite you to take the propaganda IV that is currently feeding nonsense directly in to your bloodstream out! The sad thing is, you don't even realize that you've been indoctrinated just like those of us in "the cult of death" but there is a fundamental difference between our indoctrination and yours: namely ours is the product of four billion years of evolution and yours is the product of some naive ideologue who asks questions like "Why can't we all just get along?".
Violence and life go hand and hand since day one; when the supply curve is surpassed by the demand curve violence is the outcome. This happens in every single walk of life; go to the oceans and it happens there. Go to the african plains and it happens there. Go to the amazon rain forest it happens there.
Even you madam or sir, are a product of this "cult of death" because you see at some point in the chain of life that lead to the birth of you, there was an ancestor of yours who had to fight over resources. Their ability to win, through the prism of 'the cult of death' has allowed you to be here today.
You want us to evolve beyond the cult of death? Go invent fusion power, and maybe then we'll have the ability to alter the nature of existence for all seven billion of us on this planet so we too can join your "cult of life" but until resources are even and ubiquitous this will never happen. Me, I'm going to go live in the real world, have fun in fantasy land.
Pothead who is so in love with the stuff he or she cannot get through a workday without a joint is a deadbeat. Other poster is right when they say grow up and join the real world. If you want people to pay you money for services, start by acting like you deserve it.
Random and weird software I've written.