Pentagon Cyber-Command In the Works
An anonymous reader sends word of a new cybersecurity project to defend US networks from attacks and strengthen the government's "offensive capabilities in cyberwarfare." Right now, the most likely candidate to lead the project is the Director of the NSA, Keith Alexander, who was quick to assert that the NSA itself wouldn't try to run the whole show (something they've been criticized for in the past). Quoting the Wall Street Journal:
"Cyber defense is the Department of Homeland Security's responsibility, so the command would be charged with assisting that department's defense efforts. The relationship would be similar to the way Northern Command supports Homeland Security with rescue capabilities in natural disasters. The NSA, where much of the government's cybersecurity expertise is housed, established a similar relationship with Homeland Security through a cybersecurity initiative that the Bush administration began in its final year."
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Yes, please take another huge gob of my money to fund yet another huge government bureaucracy in order to fund the closing of the barn door now that the horse has run out.
I'm just glad they're finally taking this sort of shit seriously.
Very humorously ironic post.
The whole cyber command thing bugs me because its so expensive but does so little. I'm sure they'll have a huge command of generals and various other officers giving each other endless powerpoints about "synergisticly proactively defending the cyber battlefield". Trust me, no patches are going to get applied. Mostly a bunch of resume stuffing for the post-military career. Probably a lot of puzzling over how it could be that the more managers they put on the job, the slower the work gets done. Probably a lot of really pompous posing going on too, I'm leet, so leet, its classified and I can't tell you how leet I am, but trust me I'm just the most leet ever. And a lot of "I'm working so hard that you wouldn't believe it, but its all classified so I can't actually tell you what I'm working on" as he returns to his minesweeper game. I guarantee they'll have a vaguely NORAD like NOC 24x7 with dim lights and big screen TVs, with very expensive software to monitor ... their departmental intranet, and maybe they'll have isc.sans.org on refresh every 30 seconds to see whats going on, maybe, but that would probably be too clueful.
All they need to do, is get more admins, more equipment, and tell them to keep up with the times, read slashdot, whatever. The last thing they need is infinitely more commanders and procedures to gum up the works even worse.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger