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Defense Department Eyes Hacker Con For New Recruits
alphadogg writes "The US Air Force has found an unlikely source of new recruits: the yearly Defcon hacking conference, which has been running since Thursday in Las Vegas. Col. Michael Convertino came to Defcon for the first time last year, and after finding about 60 good candidates for both enlisted and civilian positions, decided to come back again. Federal agencies have only recently begun embracing the hacker crowd. When US Department of Defense director of futures exploration Jim Christy hosted his first Defcon 'Meet the Fed' panel in 1999, he was one of two people onstage. At this week's Defcon, there may be several thousand federal employees in attendance, he said."
How sad I am that I should fear my own government.
I am American. I am American. I am America.
Pretty much every Al queda leader has come from a country weve never attacked, many of the countries are in fact our "allies"
The leaders of Al queda come from Saudi Arabia and Egypt, its not our wars that create our enemies its our support for repressive regimes.
In Vietnam a country where we waged a 15 year war, they welcome american tourists and even former american GI's. We dropped atomic
bombs on Japan and now we are their strongest ally.
The problems in Afghanistan have been there before the US arrived (for 30 years) and will be there after the US leaves
Hackers & discipline... probably not the best combination ever.
Score -1: So wrong it hurts to read.
The best hackers i know of are the ones who *are* disciplined. Go to sourceforge and look at the overwhelming number of half assed, dead projects the clutter up the works. The best open source projects are the ones that have taken years of hard work to reach maturity. That's real discipline.
The linux kernel wasn't written in a nights hacking in Linus' moms basement. It takes years of dedication and hard work to get to the level of "holy freaking crap, that guy is amazing" hacking. Simply knocking around around in perl does not a hacker make. For ever 10 hackers out there that won't put up with the bullshit that military service brings, there are probably one or two who will go that extra mile. Kudos to the air force for figuring that out.
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
"it seems to me if you put a smart and independent thinking person through the military's recruit-crusher, you're either going to get a non-independent-thinking person, a smart and independent thinking person who has been faking non-independent thinking and hates the military for it, or a corpse."
And, may I ask how many years you served, and in what branch?
In my 8 years of service, I was never made aware that I should think some sort of "group think". In fact, those people who were advanced most rapidly generally though "outside the box". My own meritorious advancement to E-5 was a result of having both balls and brains. (lest anyone asks, I never had brawn - just plenty of balls) That is to say, I saw the situation differently than my leaders, and I took some initiative to accomplish the mission.
The day the military begins hammering independent thought out of men's heads, the military will most definitely fail.
To be perfectly honest, your statement is pretty insulting to veterans. It suggests that men and women who complete one or more tours of duty successfully are either mindless puppets, or dishonest people. If that is what you really mean, then maybe you should look around you. Wherever you live, there are good men and women around you who are veterans and are very successful. Maybe your boss? Maybe HIS boss?
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Be careful not to overgeneralize. Not all geeks/hackers are anti-authority by nature. Many of those that are learn to get over it as they mature. To get very far in the real world, you have to be willing to accept that other people (often daft ones) will get to boss you around once in awhile. If you want to succeed, you have to learn to take it in stride. By all means, stand up for what you believe in, but don't think that being a belligerent idealist will win you many friends in any field or environment.
While I wouldn't necessarily call myself a hacker, I am a pretty independent geek and despite that I enjoyed most of my time in the active duty military. Granted, I worked on autopilots rather than PCs, but if I could hack it, I think any geek can. Plus, the discipline that the military provides is exactly what a lot of young hackers need to turn their raw skills and knowledge into a career that can propel them into positions where they can call the shots and do what's needed for the security of the nation's infrastructure.
The fact that the DoD is starting to see hackers as resources rather than adversaries is extremely encouraging and should be applauded. Just a decade or two ago, this was the stuff of science fiction.
Uh, 99% of most military computing systems are terrible in terms of computing power. Any of the big projects (of which there are not that many that are even interesting) will have maybe a handful of people that can do anything outside of a set working template of "fill in the blanks for your query" type interfaces. The military portrayed in movies does not exist.
From my enlistment w/ the military, I found that in the wartime situation, enlisted freethinkers were the most beneficial to the military and often helped the unit the most and were most rewarded. Conversely, during the peace time, the enlisted followers/conformist were most often rewarded because they were least bored and had the least amount of issues with adhering to the regulations, SOP, and ROE. Of course, this leads to an interesting dichotomy of the enlisted ranks--those senior NCOs who demanded strict adherence to orders (because they expect conformists), and those NCOs that would let a few minor things slide if you could get shit done.
Sure, freethinkers who can conform to regulations are the ideal, but many times the junior ranks are beaten with the "conform stick" enough that the freethinkers leave the military before they advance to a rank that encourages creativity.
greed@All_Evils:~#
Echelon? That is a real, live, working system. Any hacker out there that DOESN'T start salivating at the mere thought of an opportunity to play with that can turn in their membership card at the door.
An ethical hacker would puke, not salivate, at the prospect of working on such a project as Echelon.
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DK