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Cyberwarrior Shortage Threatens US Security
An anonymous reader writes "US security officials say the country's cyberdefenses are not up to the challenge. In part, it's due to a severe shortage of computer security specialists and engineers with the skills and knowledge necessary to do battle against would-be adversaries. The protection of US computer systems essentially requires an army of cyberwarriors, but the recruitment of that force is suffering. 'We don't have sufficiently bright people moving into this field to support those national security objectives as we move forward in time,' says James Gosler, a veteran cybersecurity specialist who has worked at the CIA, the National Security Agency, and the Energy Department."
if there is such a shortage of talent maybe we can offshore this responsibility? Maybe to China? As a bonus it will be less expensive.
Maybe it's because we call anyone with even the smallest amount of computer knowledge a witch^H hacker, and burn them at the stake^H^H^H^H^H^H put them in jail (or detention, for the juveniles) while banning them from using computers?
It's pretty simple, guys. If you ban model rockets, you won't get a generation of rocket scientists. If you ban chemistry kits, you won't get a generation of chemical engineers. If you ban playing around with computer systems, you won't get a generation of hackers.
The USA has a bad habit of arresting anyone with the skills and curiosity to perform such tasks.
...and refusing the skilled and desperately needed service of anyone who "likes show tunes".
It is all about perception. I see high school advisors telling kids to stay away from computer science because they will be fighting for jobs against the whole world (programmers from India, sysadmins from the Bay Area, etc.) Instead, they tell them to go law because "there is no such thing as an unemployed lawyer."
Russia and China, it is different. There, their security guys doing blackhat/white work are viewed with similar respect as Special Forces guys are viewed here, as heroes for their country. Here in the US, a CS/IT person is looked at as someone who is going to be unemployed as soon as the PHB finds some offshore firm.
Change the perception, make it cool to be a CS/IT person. THEN you will have your "cyberwarriors" that are on par with the Russian/Chinese blackhats. Otherwise, the CS students will be taking their CS degree into law or business school.
In part, it's due to a severe shortage of computer security specialists and engineers with the skills and knowledge necessary to do battle against would-be adversaries.
Based on my own experience, I would argue that there is a severe shortage of computer security specialists and engineers with the skills and knowledge and desire to do battle against would-be adversaries. Whether it's a personal financial concern or a personal ethical concern, there are lots of great reasons for skilled and knowledgeable experts to seek employment elsewhere.
Slashdot? Oh, I just read it for the articles.
The USA has a bad habit of arresting anyone with the skills and curiosity to perform such tasks. Instead of arresting and jailing "hackers" they should employ them, and then maybe we'd have enough people for the "cyberwar" they are talking about
It's part of a greater "war on curiosity" that's a fear-based initiative to stamp out any and all behaviors that even slightly deviate from a prescribed norm. Locking up those "evil hackers" is part of this. Another part of this is the way people are getting threatened by cops, security staff, and other jack-booted thugs for legally taking photos in public places. You also can't get a truly good chemistry set anymore, because somebody might use the glassware to make drugs. Now they complain that they can't find good personnel for something that requires initiative, individual thought and a willingness to think outside the box and see things from multiple angles.
That serves them right. They've been systematically stamping out any kind of unapproved curiosity and exploration in the name of safety for a long time now. They've also done nothing but encourage the outsourcing trend of sending a great deal of IT talent to places like India, and you really do want US citizens to perform this kind of national security work. Then there's the general untrustworthiness of the US government as an institution, the idiocy and abuses and mismanagement that it perpetuates and the moral implications of joining up with them. That might further alienate domestic talent that would otherwise be interested. As far as I am concerned, they are reaping what they have sown.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Go look for the idiot that started the Hacker's Crackdown in th 90's. The result of this attitude was to either push some kids to the edge where the russian mob recruited them in on form or another, or plain make them corpodrones, albeit very good at typing crap into a cisco console, but perfectly worthless in the underlining of the net.
Bravo, idiots, might I remind you that here in the net, we forsaw and told you about this. And now you come complainin....
NO SIG
How is this off-topic? At a certain level of government, homosexuality is enough to get you excluded from the game. That means there are likely some qualified candidates who are excluded based off a fairly arbitrary criteria.
Most especially amusing is that because they make you hide it, they use the fact that you are hiding it to show that you might be a security risk because someone could blackmail you.
Seriously, the parent poster makes an insightful point.
Y'know, the greatest threat to US security might be the US government.
1) Who wields the greatest power in the world?
2) Is the entity in #1 really using it for the benefit of the USA? Or for the benefit of others?
It's always bogeyman after bogeyman, "The US is under threat" and neverending wars against drugs/terror/whatever.
I'm less concerned about the cheesy term scaring away hardcore techies(they can always just mock it in the break room).
I'm concerned about managerial decisions, program planning, and the like. It is hard to think correct thoughts with broken language, and "cyberwarrior" is broken language(except, again, in the specific context of l33t black-ops haxx0rs for the NSA who play offense. They may or may not like the term; but they are at least structurally somewhat analogous to various flavors of elite-and-slightly-irregular forces that have been used in the past.)
My concern, essentially(in addition to the fact that "cyberwarrior" is an invitation to the quiet militarization of just about anything turing-complete and network connected, all in the name of "security") is that this sloppy use of language will(and already is) lead to sloppy, incorrect thinking on the part of politicians and planners and the like. You'll get roughly one of two outcomes:
Outcome one: The "guard the borders" interpretation. This is the analogy extension of "cyberwarrior" that anybody whose worldview is steeped in the classic American quasi-isolationism(that comes quite naturally from having an ocean on each side, and largely untroublesome borders) will come up with. Basically, civilians get to be the soft chewy center, and go about their business however they like, and the military stands guard at the edges and occasionally goes overseas and kills some nazis or communists.
This interpretation, will the better of the two, is largely useless. With modern internet interconnection, pretty much any sort of electronic attack will fly right past the border and into the ghastly mess that is civilian systems with ease. Even fairly petty criminals will not have much trouble, and some hostile nation's targeted attackers even less. Also, because of "COTS" fever, low-bidder private sector code will be all over military critical systems as well. Hurray.
Outcome two: Super sinister, and not necessarily much more useful than Outcome one. This is the bad analogy extension of "cyberwarrior" that will be arrived at by either retro "total war" theorists, or their contemporary counterparts who have been hitting the "9/11 changed everything, new kind of war, assymetric undefined battlefield, war on abstract concepts!!" pipe pretty hard. Here, the thinking will roughly be as follows: 1. There is a state of "cyberwar" 2. "Cyberwarriors" must be used to win the cyberwar. 3. All internet connected systems are strategic resources, and/or strategic targets, and are therefore under the just jurisdiction of the "cyberwarriors" until such time as the cyberwar should end(ie. never).
Basically, this outcome will mean massive militarization(and some super-juicy contractor food) of previously civilian areas; because, there is a cyberwar on, so if you are on the internet, you are territory...