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Air Force Suspends Cyber Command Program
AFCyber writes "The Air Force on Monday suspended all efforts related to development of a program to become the dominant service in cyberspace, according to knowledgeable sources. Top Air Force officials put a halt to all activities related to the establishment of the Cyber Command, a provisional unit that is currently part of the 8th Air Force at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, sources told Nextgov.
An internal Air Force e-mail obtained by Nextgov said, 'Transfers of manpower and resources, including activation and re-assignment of units, shall be halted.' Establishment of the Cyber Command will be delayed until new senior Air Force leaders, including Chief of Staff Norton Schwartz, sworn in today, have time to make a final decision on the scope and mission of the command."
A lot to be learned right now on cyberwar from Russia.
What a load of rubbish, the black boxen are ClearCube "Digital Fiber C/Port" thin terminals connected to a workstation somewhere in a cabinet, if you were to swap them around you'd have the computer connected to the top-secret network on the other side of your desk.
It's not like if you did that packets would magically leak out and allow Chinese hackers to read their e-mails...
This is quite a neat setup because everything can be stored away, centrally managed and physically secured from a single location.
Reminds me of an old short story I read in the 80s...
The premise was that two superpowers, in a state of constant war, launch programmed missiles at eachother, since it was decided that manned craft were not necessary, and it was not worth risking pilot lives. However, the defenses for the superpowers were able to adapt quickly, and therefore very few missiles ever got through the defense systems.
Eventually, one of the superpowers decided to make the missiles human pilotable, in order to defeat the defenses; they lost many pilots on their suicide missiosn, but obliterated their opponent and won the war.
The point is, human action is less predictable, and harder to defend against.
Of course, remote piloting and drones provide the capability of human piloting without all the mess of needing to carry meat, but the air force as a separate command is a different issue.
The Air Force will, IMO, always be needed, if only as a balance to the other two major forces. An additional chain of command leadin to the top means that a different insititionally biased way of thinking comes into play, and it is more likely that a dissenting (but not necessarily wrong) opinion will be heard at the highest level.
Reducing the number of branches in the command structure will lead to even more institutionalized thinking, which, IMO, would hamper the ability of the military to come to the best solutions to problems it faces.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Ummm... Wi-Fi and Satellite. Yea it kinda vague. I think the air force had more command experience with high end technology. I much rather be in the air force in a nice chair doing my code then in the army in a tent with a laptop, trying to setup a network connection with the chances there are people who want to shoot me.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Not that I agree in the formation of the Department of Homeland Security, now that it is created shouldn't a "Cyber Command" be under it's jurisdiction for protecting the US military and commertial IT infrastructure? Offensive cyberwarfare should be an integrated tool in all of the millitary branches.