Military Appoints General To Direct Cyber Warfare

An anonymous reader writes news from The Guardian, excerpting: "The US military has appointed its first senior general to direct cyber warfare – despite fears that the move marks another stage in the militarisation of cyberspace. The newly promoted four-star general, Keith Alexander, takes charge of the Pentagon's ambitious and controversial new Cyber Command, designed to conduct virtual combat across the world's computer networks. He was appointed on Friday afternoon in a low-key ceremony at Fort Meade, in Maryland."

Comments

Hmm,

[Ethanol-fueled]

The creation of America's most senior cyber warrior comes just days after the US air force disclosed that some 30,000 of its troops had been re-assigned from technical support "to the frontlines of cyber warfare".

Whoa, boy. You'd better be skeered. Most of the comm squad monkeys I knew never even touched computers before tech school.

The complex issues facing Cyber Command were thrown into relief earlier this year when the Washington Post revealed details of a so-called "dot-mil" operation by Fort Meade's cyber warfare unit, backed by Alexander, to shut down a "honeytrap website" set up by the Saudis and the CIA to target Islamist extremists planning attacks in Saudi Arabia.

Right arm, meet left arm. Hey, no...stop punching each other! Stop that....quit it!

Finally, if your AFSC dosen't begin with "2A", you are a weenie. Bonus points for 2A0XX, 2A3XX, and 2A5XX.

Re:Dear Slashdot question:

[Anonymous Coward]

Because this is all a bunch of bullshit posturing, a PR stunt.

You can rest assured that America's so-called "cyberwarriors" will be spending most of their time monitoring p2p networks for copyright infringement and lolicon downloads. What else would they do? Be separated from the military and flood the already fucked American job market while spending all of their G.I. bills?

Might as well stick guns in their hands and send 'em to the front lines.