Slashdot Mirror
Why Warriors, Not Geeks, Run US Cyber Command Posts
koterica writes "The Washington Post explains why the military prefers to have combat veterans rather than geeks running network security. '"It was supposed to be a war fighter unit, not a geek unit," said task force veteran Jason Healey, who had served as an Air Force signals intelligence officer.
A fighter would understand, for instance, if an enemy had penetrated the networks and changed coordinates or target times, said Dusty Rhoads, a retired Air Force colonel and former F-117 pilot who recruited the original task force members. "A techie wouldn't have a clue," he said.'"
Why not train the geeks to understand all the technical details?
That is entirely what that sounds like.
Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
man: no entry for woman in the manual.
"Qua!?"
I mean, we all know techies are basically grunts, right?
You can't fix network problems with live ammo. These statements make no sense.
And make them... you know... talk to each other.
Why can't they be both? I'm sure people are fully capable of understanding tactics as well as programming. The designers of games such as Metal Gear Solid 2 undertook SWAT training to create more realistic AI, and the designers of America's Army clearly had to understand military training and combat situations.
Twinstiq, game news
His comment is proof enough that he should be nowhere near the controls of this Command Post.
Should it not read "Why Asshole Warriors not Geeks run the world?"
management vs hackers
A techie would understand if the mailserver were suddenly starting to make base 64 encoded TXT DNS requests to a server in Taiwan or if there was an unusual high number of HTTP requests leaving the network that resulted in a 503 or 302 response.
A Techie would understand how to exploit the kerberos ticket system and how to look for signs of, and reduce, such abuse on the network.
A techie would also more likely understand what anomalies could be a sign of a breach and what was more likely a software error.
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
besides, it is not as if there are not plenty of geeky soldiers. I heard a presentation on how one outfit in Iraq downloaded all this free software because what they had was not sufficient for their needs and they did not have time to go through the procurement process, so they took the free software.
OK, why is this data not signed to ensure its integrity? Is it altered by enough actors that doing so is not fesable?
The reality is that this is a military operation and there is no such thing as an out of chain command post. The President currently has the ability to shut down the Internet especially if National Security is at risk. That order would have to follow military chain of command and I would prefer a soldier with real-world experience than a cubicle geek. Also the need to immediately respond to a scuttle order that destroys all of your toys would be followed much more quickly by a soldier. I hate to say that I would actually pause for a few seconds trying to save at least some of my hacks and code source, who wouldn't.
If the attackers are warriors trained to infiltrate networks to look for or alter data then by all means use warriors to defend. Otoh if the attackers are geeks trying to disable or subvert the network itself use geeks to defend.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Yes. Because implementing effective security measure and recognizing when information shouldn't be changed, regardless of its context, is a skillset only learned in combat, under pressure.
If the management of US 'Cybercom' Command is this short-sighted with regards to its personnel, we deserve every bit chaos and infiltration that ensues.
"A techie wouldn't have a clue," he said.
If we're really taking on which training and backgrond would be better, then I say a tech training atop a military training might work, but a military training atop a tech training would be much better in such situations. I do not believe the colonels' lines have any real merit in this case. At the least, it's very hard to believe.
They gazed across the Potomac River and saw the lights in the capital city still blazing. They lit their cigars and watched the fireworks shoot across the sky.
Tiger repellent rocks? Anyway, on another note, no offence, but stating that a group has some success (well I'm not talking about the capital city lights) doesn't prove that a "techie" task force wouldn't be better. Sorry, it just doesn't.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
That's appropriate. Military command training (at least in the US) focuses on making the right decisions under pressure with contradictory information. The big questions are military: who is the enemy? What are they trying to accomplish? What are their capabilities? What else is going on that benefits from this? Is this is a diversion or the main attack?
The military view of this is quite different from the civilian view. In the civilian sector, there's an ongoing stream of minor attacks to be fended off. Most computer security efforts focus on that. The military thinks of that as people throwing rocks over the fence - an annoyance to be dealt with, but not a serious enemy. They're much more worried about the threat that you don't detect until the enemy pulls the trigger on it.
American "warriors" haven't even had much success with their warmaking abilities over the past 60 or so years.
It was mostly European scientists who won WWII for the Americans, thanks to their development of nuclear technology.
The Korean War was basically a draw. In many ways, it was an outright loss for the Americans, since they've had to keep troops stationed there for decades now, and this is quite costly.
The Vietnam War was indisputably a major loss.
The Cold War was initially thought to be an American "win", but it was more due to problems within the USSR, rather than anything America did. Worst of all, Reagan's policies from that period have clearly been very destructive to America, and are primarily responsible for the current poor state of the economy.
The First Gulf War can barely be considered a war, given that their enemy was almost non-existent, and had itself been subject to a decade of devastating war just before.
The Second Gulf War was a complete failure.
The War in Afghanistan has been nothing but a disaster, as well.
That's a whole lot of failure, for sure.
figuring out what a piece of obscured code actually does when connected to the internet, loading itself into a page making it past a firewall, unpacking itself in RAM, going through all of your cookies and sending those back to an IP address, loading the next snooping segment and going through your mail client, and on and on.
Surely its a lot harder to figure out what that alphabet soup of nonsense abbreviations mean.
Oh wait, you've never seen an assembler dump with all of the nonsense it creates with actual variable names being referred to as the program-base address + offset locations ... Get the idea?
How asinine...
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
The petulance and deluded self-importance of many replies here are all the proof we need that geeks are not suited to the serious business of war.
Because "warriors" have to be different from geeks? A good portion of the CS guys I know are ex-army. Several of them ex Delta.
The real reason probably has a lot more to do with the fact that we're even sitting around here on a Saturday afternoon questioning the decision. Geeks tend to think they're smarter than everyone else (just because its usually true, doesn't mean it always is), tend to question authority, and hate to be told what to do. If you give a geek a little bit of authority, they tend to get extremely dictatorial over their small little domain.
How likely is it that "true geeks" would really be able to fit into a military command structure and obey the orders of officers and the President without a million back-talking questions and suggestions about how things "should" be done?
Training people who learn the technical aspects of the job is probably easier than training people who already know (or think they know, more likely) about network security to just shut up, do what their told, and wear the clothes they're supposed to wear. There are plenty of smart people who didn't spend all their childhood fucking around with computers who are more than capable of being taught how to do what we do, and who also haven't yet developed mini god complexes or root syndrome.
I was medically disqualified from service (allegedly i have some mild bit of asthma that makes me barely fail a PFT), and spent my childhood being a geek. Not going to say I like being told what to do or that I don't have root syndrome, but that's why I'm in the group of people not suited to that sort of gig, and that's fine because I don't really want it.
The Korean War was basically a draw. In many ways, it was an outright loss for the Americans, since they've had to keep troops stationed there for decades now, and this is quite costly.
By that logic, the Revolutionary War was a loss, because we've needed a US-based military for 200 years.
I can understand about military situations being distinctly different from civilian ones. But this seems really dumb. What you want is people who can see patterns in stuff happening that nobody else would notice. You want human intrusion detection.
The most dangerous cyber attacks are very subtle. I think talent and familiarity with the technical details are much more important than the ability to make quick decisions under intense pressure.
The ability to make decisions under a lot of pressure can be an important skill, but spotting things that are subtly off, in my experience, requires intimate familiarity with the environment. A person's technical experience has a much greater correlation with that familiarity than combat experience.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
We would just debug the system to this point:
"The only winning move is not to play."
The military doesn't like geek or engineering types. They like veterans because of the training and conditioning they've received in following orders. This isn't just the military. It's common in many corporate settings as well.
Give a problem to a soldier and they'll charge at it until its fixed. If its a machine gun nest, they'll keep charging until they run out of bodies. No questions asked. Give a similar problem to a geek and they'll examine the problem and devise a solution that keeps their ass from getting shot off. And they'll push back if the orders don't make sense.
I have a number of friends who are ex-military (Korea, Vietnam and Gulf War). Some of them are brilliant, having gone on to receive PhDs, members of Mensa, etc. And they'll all sit around and bitch about command fuck-ups, inexperienced lieutenants and the number of friends lost due to errors on the battlefield. But ask them to picture a hypothetical situation where they are given an order about how to accomplish a goal. But the order is poorly conceived and will get themselves and their squad killed. But they have a better and safer way to accomplish the task. What do they do? Inevitably, the ex-military folks get this blank look and respond, "Follow orders".
That's the kind of training the commanders (and the PHBs) want.
Have gnu, will travel.
would be Major Stuart Pid?
The real reason probably has a lot more to do with the fact that we're even sitting around here on a Saturday afternoon questioning the decision. Geeks tend to think they're smarter than everyone else (just because its usually true, doesn't mean it always is), tend to question authority, and hate to be told what to do. If you give a geek a little bit of authority, they tend to get extremely dictatorial over their small little domain.
The entire point is that this kind of stero-typing is both counterproductive and flat out stupid. The ability to make decisions under pressure has nothing to do with stuff like that. Many famous generals are noted for there intellectual pursuits. Does that make them "not suited to a chain of authority"? Infact spec-ops guys (say like McChrystal) are notorious for the disrespect for chains of command. Yet they are highly successful warriors.
The warriors are hungry for blood, and they are making up a fake threat of a "cyber war" to keep themselves occupied. Replace them with geeks, and the world will suddenly be safe again.
Uhh, you do realize that there were no American citizens involved in that conflict, correct? Those were British subjects fighting with other British subjects. It was not an American victory in any way, as the United States of America did not even exist at that point.
What I don't understand in the slightest is why the article or /. responses are making a distinction between "veteran" and "techie"?? A veteran is someone with military training and experience. A "techie" (another stupid vague term) is someone with technical training. It seems obvious to me that the right person for this job is someone who falls into both categories, and given the technology used today in the military, there should be plenty of those.
While the quote from the office was pretty stupid, it was also the only real mention of the term "geek" in the article. His point was he wanted competent technical people who also had military training, not "techie" civilians. And if I go in for laser eye surgery, I'd prefer the experienced ophthamologist perform it, not the guy who built the laser.
The thinking seems to be warrior like personalities which will obey orders without thinking while there are Geeks will tend to use logic and are a liability to the chain of command... they may overthink their assignments and end up losing valuable time... if they do the assignment at all... but in my humble opinion it is short sighted to say geeks are not fit for cyber warfare the same way it is short sighted to say non geek profiles can't bring a different positive outcomes to this type of team.
What I think is, like in any team, there needs to be all sorts of various personalities, pluri disciplinary to bring about an all-encompassing thinking war machine that will bring the best results in the best reaction time.
Never antropomorphize computers, they do not like that
"A fighter would understand, for instance, if an enemy had penetrated the networks and changed coordinates or target times [...] A techie wouldn't have a clue" , said Dusty Rhoads, a retired Air Force colonel and former F-117 pilot. "Those nerds are a threat to our way of life", added Stan Gable, president of the Greek Council and member of the Alpha Beta fraternity.
In case anyone from the "US Cyber Command Post" is reading, I'd like to echo this back to you:
The dead print media explains why carpenters prefer to have experienced wood-workers rather than brain surgeons performing brain surgery. '"It was supposed to be a carpenter unit, not a doctory unit," said task force veteran Json Wheelshoe, who had experience as a carpenter. A carpenter would understand, for instance, how to get to the brain meat, said Cliff Hanger, a retired master craftsmen and former taxi driver who recruited the original task force members. "A surgeon wouldn't have a clue," he said.'"
It works, assuming that the military commander understands that this is both a military and a technical situation. If he sees something that raises a red flag to a military eye, he needs to call the techies' attention to it and have them determine whether it's something the tech ought to be doing or if it's really a problem (which shouldn't take the techies long). By the same token, though, he also has to listen to the techies and, when they see something that doesn't look like something the tech should be doing, pay attention to them and determine whether there's a military reason it's doing that or if it's really a sign of a problem. And if there's a military reason and the techies say "No! If someone's doing that, it's going to open up holes.", listen to them. They know the tech, just like the military guy knows the military side of things, and you can't/shouldn't dismiss the idea that someone on the military side's just being network-clueless and doing the network equivalent of telling a sentry to not demand identification from any HMVs with a general's star painted on them because a general's coming in for an inspection and you don't want to inconvenience him.
Unlike a lot of the rest of the military, techies work best when they know what the goal is and why you want that goal accomplished, and what the restrictions on methods are and why they're there. We've proven in business time and time again that forcing them to just do whatever non-technical management tells them to do results in systems that utterly fail to do the job they're supposed to be doing (even though they meet every single requirement to perfection). There's a reason for the closing line to the filk: "It's just what we asked for, but not what we want!".
This just goes to show, when technical expertise is outlawed in the military only the Chinese military will have technical expertise.
There are many different geeky ways to detect whether your network has been penetrated and whether the data or code on it have seen unauthorized changes, even in the unlikely, correctable scenario where the geeks in charge have been no idea what the data and code mean. A geek would know that. An Air Force colonel apparently wouldn't.
so, we're still occupied by the British?
rewriting history since 2109
The Declaration of Independence was ratified on July 4, 1776, something like 7 years before the Treaty of Paris was signed ending the war.
Prior to 1776 (the war started in 1775 iirc) you could be correct, but afterwards those soldiers were only British subjects in the eyes of the British themselves.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
Yes there are plenty of us, however none that I know that would "put up with" the BS imposed by such a organization. While in the military you have no choice you do what you are told no matter how big of a idiot you are working for. In a civilian job you tell the person he is a idiot and go work for someone you want to work for without the threat of being locked up for "failure to obey".
Got Code?
I don't understand the assumption that geeks have to be wussies. I'm certainly not a wuss on the intellectual level. Physically I'd get my ass beat down but intellectually I can hold my own with anybody.
I guess techies don't play doom, wow, and chess and all those other strategy games that teach those kind of skills?
Only 'flamers' flame!
Does slashdot hate my posts?
Because Asshole Warriors DIE if they make a mistake.
Geeks run into a bug they can't fix? They say "its a feature!"
You might like to think that. I might think that a warrior, who has to learn or die, learns at a quicker pace than most people, and is more adept at problem solving.
By the way, I'm a geek, not a warrior. I'd love to think that geeks are smarter and maybe even sexier. I just haven't seen any evidence yet.
I consider myself a warrior geek. My intellect is a deadly weapon. It's a surprise the government hasn't made me register my brain in the way a martial artist has to register his hands and feet. The simple fact of the matter is, you don't have to be a wuss if you have an intellect.
Yeah you might be a wuss physically, but you probably are smart enough to make up for it in intellect and because of this you can say geeks are intellectual warriors or information warriors, I don't see why the trend exists to see geeks as being harmless when Einstein and other geeks built all these weapons of mass destruction.
coordinates on the internet?
also changing targets? hello, if you have proper monitoring, you can tell when your systems are getting hit.
or maybe, if there was proper security on government networks, there would be little need for "cyber warriors"
which is why this man hates geeks and discredits anyone who knows what they're doing. They just want a job, not to protect anything.
I have a number of friends who are ex-military (Korea, Vietnam and Gulf War). Some of them are brilliant, having gone on to receive PhDs, members of Mensa, etc. And they'll all sit around and bitch about command fuck-ups, inexperienced lieutenants and the number of friends lost due to errors on the battlefield. But ask them to picture a hypothetical situation where they are given an order about how to accomplish a goal. But the order is poorly conceived and will get themselves and their squad killed. But they have a better and safer way to accomplish the task. What do they do? Inevitably, the ex-military folks get this blank look and respond, "Follow orders".
That's the kind of training the commanders (and the PHBs) want.
Enjoy.
Yes and no. Depends on whose perspective you take. Usually the victor gets to determine "the truth" after the fact.
There were no American citizens involved in the Revolutionary War until either the Declaration of Independence in 1776 (at which point they no longer considered themselves British subjects) or 1777 when the Articles of Confederation were adopted (i.e. United States government was formed and thus had its own citizens) or 1778 when France recognized the United States of America's sovereignty (i.e. even more official nationhood and thus citizenship established).
Definitely by the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783, they were in fact citizens of the United States of America.
--voice of Stewie-- You are going to name the Rhoads Baby Dusty? I say! Why in the Devil would you do that? Oh, I get it: Dusty refers to Rhoads (or should I say Roads [but when I say it, it is the same word! Marvellous!]). That is so clever! It makes one think of an unpaved lane in the summertime. D-u-s-t-y...Why, yes, I quite like it. You have two incompatible thoughts that when put together form an entirely new and different idea. D-u-s-t-y.... --end Stewie--
Their they're doing there hair.
Remember how the government classifies encryption as munitions? Yet only the geeks actually understand how encryption works and know how to use it.
90% of war is intellectual. Weapons are invented by geeks. Some weapons are information based, some weapons are ideas, some weapons are memes, some weapons are nuclear, biological, or digital, but the fact of the matter is that geeks create the weapons of war at a higher rate than any other group.
On top of that geeks create the strategies. Who else is going to make a good cyber warrior? I don't know why they'd think anyone other than a geek could even do that job and I don't know why the assumption that geeks aren't warriors. Someone who dedicates themselves to the internet 24/7, who has the discipline and all the traits, only really needs to be given training and a chain of command.
Oppenheimer was an American born in New York City. Einstein took the oath to achieve American citizenship in 1940.
By that logic, the Cypriots must have the most powerful military in the world.
Not really. The problems within the USSR were largely caused by pressures due to their participation within the Cold War. In a sense, the U.S. won the Cold War by out-producing the Soviets.
The First Gulf War was nothing but a display of muscle to show Saddam Hussein that he didn't know who he was messing with.
It depends on how you define success. If by "success" you mean did the U.S. achieve regime change? No failure there. If by "success" do you mean did the U.S. achieve peace in Iraq? If so, I'm fairly sure that was never a goal of the U.S. military.
Again, no. The goals in Afghanistan were: 1) overthrow the Taliban (check) 2) bring various members of Al Qaeda to justice (check) 3) capture Osama Bin Laden. The status of the 3rd item is, at best, inconclusive, but the other 2 goals have been largely achieved.
My blog
Not that you would know.
There are things that you would have to have been in the culture for a while to understand. Yesterdays story about the predator code showed a lot of smart people don't know shit about laser-guided missiles.
It may be easier to teach tech to warriors than it is to make warriors out of techs. YMMV obviously.
Warriors aren't born. You can take a tech and make them into a warrior. Give them some philosophy classes. Make them read Sun Tzu and several other quality books. And then actually test them to see if they have the discipline and other necessary traits.
There is no reason to make an inaccurate generated claim that "Why warriors, Not geeks", thats like saying "Why Brutes, Not Intellectuals."
Assuming that the ideal warrior is a brute and that the ideal intellectual is a wuss is exactly the reason why they can't find their geek warriors in the first place.
"If an enemy had penetrated the networks and changed coordinates or target times". Why change the coordinates and risk detection, he only needs to know where you will be at a certain time and place the stinger and or surface to air missile will do the rest.
Got Code?
I don't see why it would be so difficult. Take some geeks, enlist them into a bootcamp and train them just as you do all the other warriors with emphasis on the intellectual rather than physical side of the training (as geeks might not have good vision and might have asthma or whatever), but beyond the physical part I don't see why it would be hard to train geeks at all. In fact I think for complex strategic or tactical missions it would be easier to train geeks.
shouldn't it be far easier to train techies for the military than train airmen for the data center?
It's not like they have the cream of the crop, technically speaking.
They're using their grammar skills there.
Geeks can be warriors. Warriors can be geeks. It's just a matter of training.
If the government were serious they'd just train the geeks to be warriors and the problem would be solved.
As a former Marine and a current geek SIGINT software engineer, I take issue with calling almost anyone in the chair force a 'warrior'.
In reality, this shows how stereotypes can interfere with our ability to rationally and logically put the right people in the right positions at the right time. Sure, there are some people who understand the issues a war-fighter faces better than others, and there are some people who understand the technical issues we face as well. There are some, however, (not many) who understand both. I was in the USMC years ago, and use that perspective when I develop software and security systems for clients as a security consultant. In my case it's given me a unique perspective compared to my peers, and I know I'm not the only one. The short answer to me is that anyone who would say "the right person for the job is the person who understands one type of issues (security or technical)," isn't.
While I can concur with most of your points regarding the subsequent wars (though however costly the Korean War was, it's still technically a stalemate rather than an outright loss), WWII was not won for the Americans by European scientists.
Certainly the Pacific front was ended sooner with the advent of the atomic bomb, but the European front was unaffected by this technology. The European front was finished off by the Allies after the Russians battled Germany to a standstill. Not to mention that the Pacific front was able to be ended with the atomic bomb because of the American victories in the Pacific up to that point, which involved many hard fought battles.
I would argue that it's not the American soldiers who didn't have many successes with their fighting, but rather the US Administration and their strategists and bureaucrats that have mucked up the potential of the American military.
There are snipers and trainer killers in the military, this is correct. However this is just one aspect of the total war effort. To imply that geeks cannot be warriors is to ignore the intellectual aspects of war, the strategic aspects, the tactical aspects. Fighting takes place on every level of existence by all organisms.
So to say only the delta force or special forces sniper war hero is a warrior is absolutely ridiculous. Yes those individuals are the most physically gifted, so they have specific well defined roles. Geeks on the other hand don't benefit from being physically gifted. Whether or not you can run 20 miles in the desert, or whether or not you can snipe someone from a mile away, is completely irrelevant to how dangerous you are behind the keyboard.
A person can be as dangerous behind the keyboard as a sniper can be.
When did he have time out from his wrestling schedule to learn to fly an F-117? Let alone fit in the uniform and cockpit.
The real reason probably has a lot more to do with the fact that we're even sitting around here on a Saturday afternoon questioning the decision. Geeks tend to think they're smarter than everyone else (just because its usually true, doesn't mean it always is), tend to question authority, and hate to be told what to do. If you give a geek a little bit of authority, they tend to get extremely dictatorial over their small little domain.
How likely is it that "true geeks" would really be able to fit into a military command structure and obey the orders of officers and the President without a million back-talking questions and suggestions about how things "should" be done?
Training people who learn the technical aspects of the job is probably easier than training people who already know (or think they know, more likely) about network security to just shut up, do what their told, and wear the clothes they're supposed to wear. There are plenty of smart people who didn't spend all their childhood fucking around with computers who are more than capable of being taught how to do what we do, and who also haven't yet developed mini god complexes or root syndrome.
I was medically disqualified from service (allegedly i have some mild bit of asthma that makes me barely fail a PFT), and spent my childhood being a geek. Not going to say I like being told what to do or that I don't have root syndrome, but that's why I'm in the group of people not suited to that sort of gig, and that's fine because I don't really want it.
If you are a geek and you don't like authority then you wont sign up to be a cyber warrior. If you sign up to be a cyber warrior then you want to win the war and you'll accept authority. I don't think the problem is necessarily authority, it's unjustified authority. It's authority without being paid for the trouble. It's authority without honor or respect.
Yes you have some geeks who are psychological misfits. Those geeks should not be selected for the cyber warrior program. But there are plenty of geeks who have what it takes to be cyber warriors and just wouldn't make it through the physical training aspects. These sorts of geeks would have the mind but would lack the body to get through military screening. An example being a geek who has asthma and who is partially blind, or something like that. The fact is these sorts of issues don't really matter much when you aren't fighting the physical war.
Enlist the geeks. I don't see whats so difficult or why there is a need for stereotyping an entire profession of people. If someone is a geek they can be trained to be a warrior just as easily as anybody else.
What you want is people whose training and experience says this smells wrong to me. Those are somewhat common among the higher echelon. What you really want is someone who will stand up to their decision.
The two are not mutually exclusive. I can (and have and will) make the quick decision (regardless of the pressure) because those that sit above me do not want to second guess my decisions (ask any current or former military about what REMF means). My decision is for me to justify, and I had better be prepared to do so at any time.
Agreed
Agreed
FALSE. My technical expertise determines whether I can identify the threat. My technical (and OPERATIONS RESEARCH) expertise determines whether I can respond to the threat. My experience with the environment determines how I respond to the threat.
Ignore any of the three and see what you get.
And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
John 8:32(King James Version)
What I don't understand in the slightest is why the article or /. responses are making a distinction between "veteran" and "techie"?? A veteran is someone with military training and experience. A "techie" (another stupid vague term) is someone with technical training. It seems obvious to me that the right person for this job is someone who falls into both categories, and given the technology used today in the military, there should be plenty of those.
While the quote from the office was pretty stupid, it was also the only real mention of the term "geek" in the article. His point was he wanted competent technical people who also had military training, not "techie" civilians. And if I go in for laser eye surgery, I'd prefer the experienced ophthamologist perform it, not the guy who built the laser.
Thats sensible, so why don't they just take techie civilians and train them? Not everybody can be a veteran. Eintein wasn't a veteran and he helped invent the atomic bomb. To say he isn't a warrior is absolutely insane.
We don't expect people to do the unexpected, or for things to fail, or mistakes to be made. Yet these are the most common occurrences in war Any military needs people who fully expect things to be worse than possible - and then to get worse, still. They have no confidence that "this will *definitely* fix it and will always have a plan B.
If geeks were conditioned to presume failure, no code would every be finished or any project ever released, sice there would always be things we'd have to fix, or "what if's" that required handling. When anything did ever make it out into the world, it would probably be the size and cost of a battleship, even if it only said "Hello World\n"
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
"The nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors, will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools."
But the explanation is simple.
You're selecting for the wrong criteria. You MIGHT get a grunt who can also be trained as a competent admin. But if that happens it is purely by chance.
Instead, select for competent admins and then spend time teaching them how the organization works.
If you are depending upon a person knowing the data and reviewing the data to see if you've been cracked then you've already lost.
by the time this awesome fighter pilot warrior realizes that things have changed, it's too late. a "techie" would know that there was a breach, that data was modified (without having to know what the data meant) and take appropriate action, well before it materialized during flight of the much better warrior. dumbass jarheads.
You do realize, don't you, that the people who fought the Revolutionary War thought of themselves as Americans, and were thought of by the British army and government the same way. Yes, they thought of themselves as British subjects, but they were Americans. Read the writings of our founders and you will clearly see the distinction.
And isn't this what competent admins do every single day?
Redundant systems.
Off-site backups.
Disaster recovery plans.
Sure, it's not one key-stroke. It's fire or earthquake or whatever. Part of being an admin is planning for AND MITIGATING the various possible disasters.
I assume paranoid emacs has a macro for that already. :P
But personally I prefer vi anyway
I think it would be a lot easier to teach a 'warrior' tech stuff than it would be to teach a non-warrior that 'warrior attitude', obviously this won't apply to every single person, but has just been my experience.
I wasn't a great student in high school, but the Marines gave me the confidence and 'attitude' to never give up no matter what the challenge was, a tough course of study or jumping from an airplane. I was given an opportunity to attend the Navy Medic course and was one of the only Marines to be designated a team medic, a task normally left to Navy Corpsmen. Had I not had that 'Never give up attitude' I wouldn't ever have succeeded in that course. It took discipline and dedication for me, to some it came easy, but not for me, but I just kept studying until I understood it.
My point is I think having a 'warrior attitude' is a benefit to any organization, government or otherwise. It doesn't have to mean you 'kill everything in sight' as much as it means you are able to work in a team, keep working until the problem is solved and enjoy the challenge more than the pay.
It has just been MY experience with technical oriented people that it's more about themselves and their pay rate, solving the problem was just something to put on their resume.
Geeks tend to be "difficult" to work with, they "know" what to do and do it... This is very useful in a field where the management often doesn't know what the f**k is going on, and can't really tell employees what to do, instead the better geeks out there will just figure it out and secure themselves a longstanding job.
Military on the other hand is very strict, and the requirement to follow orders it much more ingrained then the requirement to "figure it out". Thus geeks are terrible for the job, because they're ability to follow exact orders, especially stupid or unethical orders, is not suitable for the recruiters requirements.
Sounds like Mr Healey has had bitter trouble opening his email in the past.
This is the typical Not Invented Here bull that geeks are all to familiar with.
And it works out just as poorly in the military as it does in IT or anywhere else.
What you need are "warriors" and geeks WORKING TOGETHER with mutual respect.
If you're talking systems administration and defending against crackers then the analogy that is closest is "video game" rather than "war".
Oops. You missed something. All your data was destroyed. Reboot your systems and restore from backup.
As opposed to: Oops. You missed something. You're dead. Mom is going to get a letter, a free funeral and a flag and will keep your enlistment photo on her mantle until she dies too.
I guess what scares me is how out of touch these 'experts' are. I, for one won't be sleeping better.... Mostly because none of these guys understand a 'geek' would build a firewall an enemy couldn't penetrate, detect the hack, backtrace the IP and deploy units to capture the enemy. (Or do the geeks have to do that to?). Essentially you're putting this decision in the hands of people who don't know enough to make this decision. Truth is they don't know enough to know they don't know enough.
Oppenheimer was an astrophysicist who was hired for his administrative abilities, Einstein had nothing to do with the atom bomb program, aside from signing a letter (which he did not write). Niels Bohr, Enrico Fermi, Teller, Ulam, Von Newmann, Bethe all left Europe and became Americans, it is true, but it's important to recognize they came to America for essentially negative reasons -- their home wouldn't tolerate them anymore. If Germany had been merely totalitarian and persecuted Poles instead of Jews, do we dare guess how many of "our" atomic scientists would have simply stayed in Germany? Most of these people also made their critical insights while still in Europe under the auspices of European governments, like Lise Meitner.
By that logic, the Cypriots must have the most powerful military in the world.
This doesn't follow.
This is still debated, and even granting that it's true, it's basically impossible to apply this lesson to conflicts with, say Iraq or Iran. Or Al Qaeda. I was reading a quote from George F. Kennan recently:
I'll take an actual cold warrior's opinion over some glib, handwaving slashdotter.
And an opportunity for us to promise to come to the aid of anti-governemnt Kurds and Shiites in the North and South, which we promptly refused to support and allowed to be slaughtered, belatedly imposing no-fly zones. And an opportunity for the US and UK to impose ineffective and internally radicalizing sanctions which hollowed out Iraqi society. And occasionally drop bombs under the auspices of "Desert Fox" et al. And draw Hussein into closer alliances with muslim militants.
As long as we define success in terms that would be unrecognizable to someone who was present at the decision to go to war, we have succeeded. And it only cost $800 billion and a few hundred thousand lives, and we are left with a nation state that teeters on the edge of sectarian civil war, and will likely settle as a client of Iran.
And it only cost $300 million, maybe 40k lives, and has occupied our military for 9 years. The magic thing about war, of course, is that it evades all cost-benefit analysis. No matter how many hajis you kill, it never seems to make the cockpit doors any stronger.
But let's not beat around the bush. The project of redefining success is to protect the stainless reputation of our military, despite the fact that the US's strategic position in the world has been in
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
See subject line first, & I wager I am correct on that much.
I am guessing that in & of itself would "hurt" guys like you taking over the reigns on a project like this in the military and "rank hath its priveleges", right? Such as command!
Anyhow - My brother's a Captain (soon to be Major) in the US Military right now in fact, & he is what's called a "mustang" by you people (iirc, a "regular enlisted joe", that rose into officerhood later type)).
Sometimes, that's too bad, because my brother highly respected his older sargeants that had a lot more time in than he did, & he used their wisdom + experience extensively, & smart move I felt (exploit experts & their experience, by ALL means)... Especially in his "younger days" (he's well into his late 30's now), whereas by comparison?
Some of the officers my bro had before him in his younger days in combat were real spazzes & cowards from what he told me (He never used those words though - those are mine based on his explanations). E.G.-> His Captain when he was a lieutenant was cowering in a foxhole in the desert in IRAQ while they were being shelled badly and if he didn't move, he would have died... So what went down?
Well, my brother grabbed him and carried him out of there after telling him "Sir, IF you don't move now? The shells WILL get you, and if it's your time to die now? Then, so be it, but sitting here assures that: Running doesn't!")
Where am I going with this & why? Well, just because you are not an officer doesn't mean you can't do the job (with some things, some stuff DOES require higher maths & stuff (my bro was an artilleryman & yes, they gave you Raytheon built software to do the job of targetting etc., but in the case the laptops were down? You have to be able to do the trajectory/aiming maths yourself, & not every enlisted guy straight outta highschool has that kind of math. Fact is, I'd wager MOST? Do not, hence why they chose the military vs. say, collegiate futures (not a put down, just fact - & money? Money TALKS! They say "talk's cheap", well, NOT when money does the talking and to go to college & higher academia means BIG monies...)).
"I don't think he understands that civilians enlisting for those positions were techies before they joined the military. Just because I can type like the wind and work my way around a linux distro doesn't mean I can't shoot a M16A2 or M4"
I can live with that much, and I agree with you on it as well: There's NO REASON a person cannot be BOTH kinds of people!
There's all this "labeling" and "categorization" going on in society, and you see it from highschool onwards. It seemingly tries to put folks into little "boxes" all the time, and that's where it expects you to stay (it being society at large in these cases it seems).
E.G.-> I mean, I was a good athlete (got partial scholarship for lacrosse to college (room & board @ least on the jock stuff)), and a good student (NHS (national honor society) also, and I've ended up pretty good in computing for a career also (many time published software engineer here since 1996 in fact).
It's like you say - and, there is NO REASON why a person cannot be many things & decent enough @ them... However: Well, other than you have to give up time on some things to learn how to be say, a good athlete &/or student too simultaneously!
For me, it was not spending time on the streets as a kid (bad thing many times unless you're doing say, sports play for example (perhaps not the best example, but there you are) & knocking chicks up or getting arrested!
(Which "blew" a pal of mine's future I feel to this day, because he "knocked up" a chick (my nearby neighbor in fact) & it ended any hopes he may have had of pursuing sports as a means to getting higher education (he was a shitty student though, too much into women & partying etc./et al).
APK
P.S.=> In the end/bottom-line: I think to be that "
Does this mean I am generally unable to understand the reasons behind those requirements? Of course not. I just did not care. Not my job.
On another non-military project I got the task to help to develop some traffic simulation models. There I did quite a few consistency checks for the incoming data. Guess my customer was stupid to give me the job. According to the article (no, I did not the original) some old war veteran should have been much better suited for this task and might have been cheaper.
Utter nonsense. If those changes can be determined by statistical or other algorithms then this most likely belongs to the tasks where a computer outperforms a human being considerably. To develop such a system is geek work. If not, it does not matter who does the guesswork. Rolling dices would probably as good.
'"It was supposed to be a war fighter unit, not a geek unit," said task force veteran Jason Healey, who had served as an Air Force signals intelligence officer. A fighter would understand, for instance, if an enemy had penetrated the networks and changed coordinates or target times, said Dusty Rhoads, a retired Air Force colonel and former F-117 pilot who recruited the original task force members. "A techie wouldn't have a clue," he said.'"
Really? Changed coordinates? Wow, Mr. Veteran Officer! I hope 4chan doesn't find out! Just so they can't change them to e.g. 38.897843,-77.026515 but how would they go about actually firing the missile (fitted with a live conventional, high-yield warhead)? :-)
In a sense, the U.S. won the Cold War by out-producing the Soviets.
This is a myth perpetuated by some on the right and in the military. The Soviet Union collapsed under its own mismanagement, incompetence, imperialism, and paranoia (sound like another country you know of?). The US did very little to actually hasten the collapse except for exist as a scapegoat they could blame all their problems on without actually addressing any internal issues. Moreover, the USSR was never a credible threat to US national security but it made political sense to pretend like they were.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
They're control freaks by training and fighter jocks especially think they're better than anyone else and should be in charge of everything. In fact, if you think about it this is an IT role. The idea that some senior fighter jock is going to have decent intuition or judgement about things IT is as laughable as the idea of turning your IT decisions over to the sales VP. Too much ego, not enough technical skill to think about these things properly. In this case though as is often the case testosterone wins out over thinking. Of course that all begs the question of whether cyber "warfare" is a good idea or not which it probably isn't.
I don't know where to begin to address this ridiculous idea. I served in the U.S. Army Infantry in the 80's and I'm willing to bet that I know a hell of a lot more combat veterans than you do. This notion that the military wants mindless automatons who follow orders without question is so utterly at odds with the the training I received that it's laughable. One of the most prized characteristics a soldier or Marine can possess is the ability to improvise, especially under pressure (read: people shooting at you).
Contrary to popular belief fostered by countless poorly made war movies, combat units don't exist merely to break things and hurt people. It's about the mission, and they accomplish their mission by the threat of force, and failing that, by its application. The major reason fighting men and women put themselves in harm's way is not out of some sense of bravado or a thirst for glory. It's for the bonds of brotherhood they feel with their comrades and the reluctance to let them down by not doing their jobs.
Many geeks tend to be loners, and in my experience have an inflated sense of superiority over those they consider to possess a lesser intellect. They tend to have zero understanding of the leap of faith required to put their very lives in someone else's hands, and conversely to accept that the lives of their buddies depend on their performing their part, no matter the personal dangers they may face. People who have never served don't truly understand the willingness to sacrifice for the greater good: the lives of your brothers; the successful completion of your mission; the knowledge that your mission is an essential part of a greater effort.
I had the privilege of serving with many true warriors, men who desire peace above all and truly believed that a warrior's role is to end war, and if it's necessary to fight, to accomplish their mission with the minimum of bloodshed. These men adhered to the philosophy that the ultimate expression of the warrior ethic is to mold themselves through hard training, sacrifice, and an almost ascetic self-discipline, into weapons that a potential adversary would be loath to face, thereby avoiding conflict altogether. Nations start wars for one reason, and one reason only: because they think they can win. True warriors frown on wars of aggression and consider the outbreak of war to be a dramatic failure of political leadership, on one or both sides. In my experience, being both a warrior and a pacifist is not a dichotomy. And let me add that not all warriors carry weapons. Warriors are those willing to sacrifice for something greater. Firefighters, cops, nurses, teachers, EMT's count many warriors among their number, and in my view Richard Stallman is absolutely a warrior.
Any leader worth his salt will also devise a solution that minimizes the danger to his men, while also accomplishing the mission. On July 1st, 1916, the opening day of the Battle of the Somme, the British Army marched across no man's land, rifles at the ready, dress-right-dress in perfect formation, toward the German positions. The acres of barbed wire channeled them into tight masses towards the few gaps, which German machine gunners had already ranged. The British suffered 26,000 casualties that day, the worst one-day loss in their long military history. Even though the high command were fully aware that 17th Century-style mass attacks were useless against automatic weapons, they discounted the machine guns and refused to alter their traditional tactics. Notably, one young British officer ordered his men to advance across t
Some of us military types are both capable of firing automatic weapons, fixing aircraft and being more than capable of designing complex software from scratch due to are detailed knowledge of the systems involved. As for the glorified taxi driver(pilot in this case) in charge, most military officers do not think that an enlisted man is capable often to the detriment of the service they are in.
I know, we don't like to actually read TFA, but they did say something about their "war fighters" being more adept at detecting whether the enemy had "...penetrated the networks and changed coordinates or target times..."
It sounds like they have determined that the only way a breach could be detected is if someone had actually gotten in and broken some of their toys. Given that assumption, flawed as it may be, having the guys who are proficient with the toys watch over said toys makes sense. They are already intimately familiar with them and would arguably be best equipped to notice anything out of the ordinary. Of course, this line of thinking is badly flawed. Network security is a unique and, at the highest level, rather esoteric skill set. Throwing missile techs at the job is deeply and dangerously stupid.
You assumed but did not say that warriors could be trained to be geeks. I do not believe that to be the case. If either could be the other, then how do you train, say, my father to be a geek? He's had numerous lessons, manuals, and 800 helplines and has never successfully gotten a VCR to stop flashing 12:00. But he was drafted, back when there was a draft, and considered a warrior by the US government. He was a history major at the time and ended up a lawyer, and no one would have considered him a warrior if you ran across him on the street. But "Warriors can be geeks. It's just a matter of training" seems to be much less possible than the other way. "Geek" requires an interest, a desire, and an innate ability. A grunt, in the old army at least, required holding a gun and not shooting your own troops in the back (optional).
Learn to love Alaska
For the same reason fully trained fighter pilots are required to fly USAF UAVs: Because they are the people running things, so they don't trust people with different backgrounds and skill sets to handle things they way they want them handled. This is very basic, normal human behavior. All the posturing and attempts to justify the behavior as right or wrong appear to have ignored the reality that this is simply normal human behavior. The only thing of note here is the level of reaction to behavior displayed every moment of every day in every bit of the industry still in America.
Spooner always knew what he was trying to say.
The Vietnam War was indisputably a major loss.
The U.S never lost a single major engagement/battle in Vietnam, from a military perspective it was a crushing victory against the NVA. They had superior firepower, communication and resources. What the U.S lost horribly at was public opinion and social sentiment of the efforts, ultimately ending in withdrawing troops and where you probably derive your opinion. As well all should know, war is won on the political front first, if that backing isn't there then military success is irrelevant.
References:
"Even though the US is said to have won every major battle and killed up to thirteen times as many enemy combatants, the war was a defeat for America."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_the_United_States
Have a squat over at the hobo house.
Gee, it's strange that such a string of failures and disasters produced the wealthiest and economically and militarily the most dominant nation in the history of the world. Imagine what would happen if the USA did something right every once in a while.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
No, the second gulf war was a complete and utter failure. We sent troops in to prevent Al Qaeda from gaining WMDs from Saddam. We lost thousands of lives on our side and they lost at least 10x as many and the objective turned out to be completely pointless, as Saddam didn't have any WMDs and he wasn't in any sort of talks with Al Qaeda.
In other words we lost a huge number of our personnel for nothing at all, that's about as big a failure as you're going to get. Worse is the fact that after we invaded, then we got terrorists going in. And it gave us a huge black eye with the folks that we needed to get on our side.
I suppose that it could've ended up without any state at all there and they could've got WMDs, but that's really not any worse, considering that now we've got Iran using their weapons to menace other nations as a result of our incompetence.
The article seems to be written from a bias perspective that doesn't note that almost every RT system the military has today was written by the geeks they want to say they don't need. Besides, it is far better from a military perspective to have your soldiers watching your network, than a civilian who has been given military clearance, that hasn't been threw the BW regimen.
In a sense you are right. USSR would have collapsed anyway, and for the same reasons that every other socialist (as in state ownership of industry) country in the world has collapsed: lack of incentive to produce and innovate inherent in public ownership of industry, practical impossibility of central management of every detail of something as incredibly complex as a nation's economy and the corruption inherent in the system where bureaucrats rather than market decides who succeeds and who fails etc etc. Socialism produces economic failure. It's obvious both from common sense and from historic experience.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
shouldn't it be far easier to train techies for the military than train airmen for the data center?
My whole point is it doesn't make any sense to differentiate. If you are smart and motivated to learn both, who cares what path you take to the same result?
It's not like they have the cream of the crop, technically speaking.
I disagree - they are not all "airmen". A high school friend of mine went to the Air Force Academy and majored in electrical engineering, going on to be an F-16 pilot. Another is a Lt. Col with a Phd in Psychology. I'd feel pretty comfortable with either going into a "Cyber Command" post. And it sounds like those qualifications (depending on the role) are pretty standard for the job.
There is a reason the USAF was responsible for much of the early "cyber warfare" - there are a lot of really smart, well trained people there.
Please, tell me how thousands of nuclear warheads aimed at America and balanced on a hair trigger is not "a credible threat to US national security".
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
Thats sensible, so why don't they just take techie civilians and train them? Not everybody can be a veteran.
Sure - if you want to work for the military, join the military. Then, yes, you too can be a veteran. If you can't make it through the training, no big deal, find another job, right?
Eintein wasn't a veteran and he helped invent the atomic bomb. To say he isn't a warrior is absolutely insane.
Sorry, but you are wrong on both statements. Einstein was one of the most brilliant minds of the century, but beyond general relativity he did almost nothing to "invent" the atomic bomb, and would have been mortified to be called a "warrior". Here's a direct quote:
"My part in producing the atomic bomb consisted in a single act: I signed a letter to President Roosevelt, pressing the need for experiments on a larger scale in order to explore the possibilities for the production of an atomic bomb. I was fully aware of the terrible danger to mankind in case this attempt succeeded. But the likelihood that the Germans were working on the same problem with a chance of succeeding forced me to this step. I could do nothing else although I have always been a convinced pacifist. To my mind, to kill in war is not a whit better than to commit ordinary murder."
I think he underestimates the ability of geeks. We're geeks for a reason, not cause we can fly a plane, run with 75lbs on our backs or even do a obstacle course in under 10 minutes but because we learn technical things fast and we enjoy it. That's not to say that warriors can't.. but there is a reason they are warriors and we are geeks.
--LR
--Hired Net Grunt
The service was made a little less decent when marketing REMFs sold the brass on the "warrior" terminology.
One of the highlights of my career was pulling a trick out of my geek toolbox to keep a combat unit mobile one sunny afternoon. When the Top commented "That is how you soldier," it meant more to me than any of the fruit salad ever pinned on my greens.
So a real warrior can look at 1000's of bombing coordinates and see if one's out of place?
That's amazing but I can build an AWK script in an afternoon for that and it'll get 100% accuracy when tuned and I can go do other things and the real warrior can go put boots on the ground.
Ex-Army here btw.
The Cold War was initially thought to be an American "win", but it was more due to problems within the USSR, rather than anything America did.
Not really. The problems within the USSR were largely caused by pressures due to their participation within the Cold War. In a sense, the U.S. won the Cold War by out-producing the Soviets.
So, what you are saying is that the Afghanis and Iraqis are winning because of financial pressures due to U.S. participation within the Iraq and Afghanistan war?
It is always better to be a first grade version of yourself than a second grade version of someone else.
This "warrior" shit is quite stupid when what we really want is soldiers instead of the berzerk dumb vikings Rumsfeld wanted when he shut down all those training courses. It's going to take a few years to recover from his attempt to "change the culture".
Some of the most intelligent technical people I know are ex-military from a few years back. It takes all types, and the military used to know that. I really can't see a non-political reason why the usual practice of rotating people around to give them the experience they need was not followed instead of having the team above. If you want a good radar technician with infantry experience then you give that good technician the experience instead of expecting quick results the other way.
It just looks like the politics of somebody seeing on part of the force as "worthless" and putting their own guys in. Nothing to see here apart from poor management.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dusty_Rhodes_(wrestler)
You never expect irony, do you?
Want to be a professional wrestler? Visit www.iyfwrestling.com
@iyfwrestling
Whereas a techie would know that for the last 3 months they failed to penetrate the network and their target was to access the coordinates or target times ... Our To a hammer everything looks like a nail. What we want to do is prevent the successful attacks, not detect a successful attack and the "warriors" don't generally have a clue to distinguish between a spam phishing attack and a coordinated attempt to break security.
"The FUD of war."(tm) Tjp
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
Even the Israeli press says otherwise. The military of course is doing no more than it was told to do so can't be blamed.
You still have elections so you can fix it a little bit at a time by voting out the corrupt fascists that would disgust their ancestors.
We're all talking about America here. Why are you bringing China into this discussion?
If your idea of security is in noticing a malicious modification, good luck to you. I hope your data-set is really small, and your attacker is really stupid.
Which soldier is going to know that 47.345 should actually be 47.346? You're just betting that the attacker is making large obvious changes.
The techie's not going to care what the number is. The techie is simply going to see if the number is different than it was before -- or if anyone broke in in the first place.
Intrusion-detection is rarely, if ever, about checking to see if the content data has changed.
BWAHAHAHA are these really the US' "elite cyber warriors?" LOL! It's like something straight out of a South Park episode!
No need to worry about getting v& guys, these clowns couldn't tell their face from their ass even with advanced face-and-ass recognition software! XD
because if we referred to them as soldiers and sailors we would be leaving out marines. Marines don't like it when you leave them out.
If so, I'm fairly sure that was never a goal of the U.S. military.
If at first you don't succeed, redefine success.
The status of the 3rd item is, at best, inconclusive
really?
inconclusive?
so it's kinda uncertain if they ever captured him then?
That's news to me!
There I was thinking he was either scot free or possibly after dying of natural causes(he needs kidney dialysis or some such doesn't he and there was some speculation that he'd actually died?).
Aren't the Taliban gradually regaining control?
And isn't Al Qaeda more powerful with more support than ever?
Nice try. But V-E day had nothing to do with nuclear technology.
Well, yes, that's what the anti-communists -- most particularly including Reagan -- had been saying for a very long time. Certainly it was an American win, even if by attrition.
Sorry, that blame goes mostly to Shrub.
Which is to say it was a success, and you don't want to countit.
Except in as much as Saddam has been deposed, his party destroyed, and a new at least nominally US-friendly government set up. (what were the goals again?)
Except in as much as the Taleban, along with Al Queda, no longer controls the country.
"A techie wouldn't have a clue"
Nice recruiting tactic...makes me wanna run out and volunteer myself right now!
Not applicable to France.
Why do we bother to hire real doctors to work in medical units? Aren't they going to have trouble figuring out whether or not someone was shot? Shouldn't we train military people to operate on wounded soldiers?
Sheesh! This is yet another case of the average person thinking technical people spend years learning what they know and somehow they are not valuable experts the way other specialists are.
-Todd
Omne ignotum pro magnifico.
we're boned
But Bush did did good for Daddy. Isn't that worth thousands of lives and trillions of dollars? So a man child can please his father?
Monstar L
"Sure - if you want to work for the military, join the military. Then, yes, you too can be a veteran. If you can't make it through the training, no big deal, find another job, right?"
So if you wear glasses and have asthma (typical geek), how do you join the military? You'd get screened out.
"Sorry, but you are wrong on both statements. Einstein was one of the most brilliant minds of the century, but beyond general relativity he did almost nothing to invent the atomic bomb, and would have been mortified to be called a warrior."
It doesn't change the fact that it was his function. And Eintein didn't know what he was working on, but he did know he was working on a top secret project so he had an idea that it was for the government and probably for the military. Anyway if Einstein was the wrong example theres John Nash. John Nash did consider himself to be a warrior, despite the fact that he was paranoid he did a lot of intellectual work which has military application.
The fact is that even in the past, not all intellectuals were pacifists. And they aren't all pacifists today. You offer enough money and you'd have geeks from all over the country doing cyber warfare. It's a matter of them not wanting to train geeks, it's as simple as that. Geeks could enlist in the military right now and they'd probably be screened out because they have poor vision or asthma or are obese, none of which has anything to do with cyberwarefare.
because running them through diff would be impossible?
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
You assumed but did not say that warriors could be trained to be geeks. I do not believe that to be the case. If either could be the other, then how do you train, say, my father to be a geek? He's had numerous lessons, manuals, and 800 helplines and has never successfully gotten a VCR to stop flashing 12:00. But he was drafted, back when there was a draft, and considered a warrior by the US government. He was a history major at the time and ended up a lawyer, and no one would have considered him a warrior if you ran across him on the street. But "Warriors can be geeks. It's just a matter of training" seems to be much less possible than the other way. "Geek" requires an interest, a desire, and an innate ability. A grunt, in the old army at least, required holding a gun and not shooting your own troops in the back (optional).
The reason the government prefers to train from within its own ranks (veterans) is because the veterans probably have top secret clearance. In this level I think it makes sense to look at veterans and other people who can be trusted. On the other hand if they don't let geeks enlist at all, then the only people who will enlist will be the physically strong athlete types (which a lot of geeks aren't, which is why many became geeks in the first place), so it rules out virtually everybody except the really rare person who has 20/20 vision, good physical fitness, no diseases of any sort etc.
On this level it does not make any sense. If it's infantry then it makes sense that the geek soldier should be as fit and as skilled as all the other soldiers. For this specific kind of warfare I don't think there is any advantage or disadvantage but it does not change the fact that the majority of geeks if they enlisted tomorrow would be screened out. Also you have the age limits, what if the geeks are over the age of enlistment but they happen to be the most skilled or talented programmers in the country?
Once again they could be fat, old, I'm sure we can all think of some programmers who are like this, but they still are the best programmers in the country. The way their program is set up, none of us seems to know anybody who is actually a cyber warrior. All of us knows someone or many people who want to be cyber warriors. We see the government complaining about nobody having the skills or they can't find anybody.
The truth is theres geeks all over the internet. All the government would have to do is create cyberwarrior.gov and tell them to sign up. Then take them all to boot camp, and then you have a cyber army. It's really not that complicated.
It's complicated if they all need top secret clearance because now your pool gets smaller but even still there are plenty of geeks who would be able to pass that too.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
I was in the USAF and had to deal with pilots fairly often. It's true they are good with their planes, but most of them are rather stupid and would fail most logic tests.
You haven't told us in what way you were dealing with pilots.
You haven't told us how someone with so inadequate and illogical a mind can sucessfully fly a high performance aircraft.
Insightful? What a load of Bull Shit
Please provide a list of the nations that Iran is supposedly menacing?
But one of them will usually have a hard time keeping his mouth shut about it.
will be owned by enemy's geeks.
So if you wear glasses and have asthma (typical geek), how do you join the military? You'd get screened out.
Seriously? Notwithstanding the entire point of my post of "geek" being a stupid and mostly mythical stereotype, that is not true either. Wearing glasses/contacts does NOT exclude you from the military. Asthma, maybe, but who cares, as I said, find another job. Honestly, the military doens't even pay that well, otherwise there would be tons of smart, fit, technically competent people applying every day. Overall, I think you may base too much of your assumptions on movies.
And Eintein didn't know what he was working on, but he did know he was working on a top secret project so he had an idea that it was for the government and...
What the heck are you talking about? Seriously, read what you wrote, it sounds like a conspiracy theorist. Not sure what movie you got your information from, but I guess it didn't even set up the fake plot well enough to comprehend it. If you are interested in the life of Albert Einstein, read a biography, don't guess...
ohn Nash did consider himself to be a warrior, despite the fact that he was paranoid he did a lot of intellectual work which has military application.
Another movie that was SO far off from the reality. Jeesh...
Remote Exploit. In case you're not really up on your hacker tools, and can't figure that out, I'll add one more word. Backtrack. Google is your friend.
"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
1) Topple regime
2) ?
3) Done
And for Afghanistan:
1) overthrow the Taliban
2) bring various members of Al Quaeda (including OBL) to justice^W Guantanamo
3) ?
4) Done
So yes, all goals up to the dreaded question mark are met. It's the pesky goal of 'Done' that seems so elusive.
That's communism, not socialism.
Even if fox news tells you so the 2 are not the same.
You can have a socialist government over a capitalist economy where you just set high taxes and use them to make sure everyone, even poor people, disabled people, sick people and foolish people get a roof over their heads, food to eat and decent medical care.
So if you wear glasses and have asthma (typical geek), how do you join the military? You'd get screened out.
Seriously? Notwithstanding the entire point of my post of "geek" being a stupid and mostly mythical stereotype, that is not true either. Wearing glasses/contacts does NOT exclude you from the military. Asthma, maybe, but who cares, as I said, find another job. Honestly, the military doens't even pay that well, otherwise there would be tons of smart, fit, technically competent people applying every day. Overall, I think you may base too much of your assumptions on movies.
And Eintein didn't know what he was working on, but he did know he was working on a top secret project so he had an idea that it was for the government and...
What the heck are you talking about? Seriously, read what you wrote, it sounds like a conspiracy theorist. Not sure what movie you got your information from, but I guess it didn't even set up the fake plot well enough to comprehend it. If you are interested in the life of Albert Einstein, read a biography, don't guess...
ohn Nash did consider himself to be a warrior, despite the fact that he was paranoid he did a lot of intellectual work which has military application.
Another movie that was SO far off from the reality. Jeesh...
You are correct that the military does not pay well. You are incorrect if you think that the only thing people care about is money. And in this economy I don't think anyone would complain about the military pay.
The only thing that keeps me form joining is the medical screening. If they weren't so strict on that I'd enlist tomorrow.
As for John Nash I wasn't talking about his movie at all, I'm talking about his life. He worked on game theory for real. He worked on models which have military application for real, such as the Nash equilibrium for which hes famous for, and several other theories more directly involving governing. In specific his theories were used to plot out the strategic movements and reactions during the cold war.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_equilibrium
... or maybe it's the Washington Post???
"On New Year's Eve 2000, a group of task force members watched a bank of clocks as first Japan, then Australia passed into the new millennium without incident."
Errr, but Australia is closer to the international date line ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_date_line ) than Japan... as evidenced by this map ( http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/43/Timezones2008_-_UTC%2B10.png ).
Are Americans all this bad at geography?
...
It doesn't change the fact that it was his function. And Eintein didn't know what he was working on, but he did know he was working on a top secret project so he had an idea that it was for the government and probably for the military.
Einstein did no work for any top secret government project at any time. He pursued his strictly civilian career (mostly in theoretical physics; plus working in a patent office and doing a bit of inventing) throughout his life. Despite being a pacifist he most likely would have devoted effort to war related work (since he was also a Jewish refugee from the Nazis) but he was denied a security clearance in July 1940 and classified projects were forbidden to contact him.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
LOL. We're doomed. China is going to pass us by because we're idiots.
-- Programming with boost is like building a house with lego. It's a cool but I wouldn't want to live in it
Any techie with real security know-how (from either side - both is better) and who has read Sun Tzu (therefore knowing better than the military how to conduct a war) could handle anything given the manuals. You want the best in cyber warfare and that is someone who eats, sleeps and shits the stuff. You're going to throw an Air Force pilot at a security breach? Would you have your pole-vaulter run the 1,000 meter for your team?
I don't think it's a far stretch from technical to tactical, they both involve logic at their core
A military leader runs the show, aided by technical advisors. The soldiers are geeks in this case, and the battlefield is the network.
In industry it's often a business guy in charge. He/she presumably understands how business works more than geeks do. Preferably the leaders will have specialized understanding of what they are in charge of, but that's not necessary. This is not nearly as much a stretch of the imagination as the title suggests.
The real issue here is that as many of us are geeks, we'd like to think we should be in charge, in business, military, anything. Having hung out on /. for some time now, I get the sense that most of us aren't, and that makes issues out of non-issues.
Socialism is an economic system where the ownership of the means of production is public not private, i.e. the opposite of capitalism. That's the definition, look it up. What you are describing is welfare state that some countries have chosen to implement on top of their capitalist economy. Mostly they are moving away from that idea, even in Sweden, not due to the obvious injustice in forcing one man to work for the benefit of another (as I would like them to do) but because it doesn't work in practice. It reduces incentive to produce and innovate without which an advanced country is doomed, and increases the incentive to be passive and lazy and live at others expense.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
While I don't disagree with your statement, it assumes that the stated goal (i.e. the one above) was the same as the real goal.
What these nuts clearly do not anticipate for is the fact that the guys fighting from the other side will most probably be geeks knowing everything there is to know about newly bred vulnerabilities.
Um, what? Nuclear technology was used in the very last days of the war, to give the final KO to an enemy that had already been beaten beyond any hope of recovery, where the only things in question was how much the last attack would cost and what the terms of surrender would be.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Actually, it has worked just fine for decades. The reason they are moving away from it is because the owning class has been using its influence to push the restoration of feudalism. Current financial crisis is one of the byproducts of that.
And it's capitalism that makes one man work for the benefit of another, to have the fruits of someone's labour be taken by a capitalist who did nothing to earn them. Socialism tries to avoid precisely that.
There is no such incentive under pure capitalism. You are a minimum wage employee for Wal-Mart or McDonald's, and have no capital or time to fund any innovations you might have (that's why it's called capitalism in the first place).
Oh, sorry, I misspoke: there is no minimum wage under pure capitalism, so you work for whatever wage the most desperate person settles at. That's likely to be below starvation level, BTW. Enjoy your capitalist utopia.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Bullshit. Sad but true, soldiers are taught two contradictory things: "return fire" and "follow the Rules of Engagement." This leads to all sorts of trouble, especially since the "Rules of Engagement" for Iraq and Afghanistan are thicker than a copy of Tolstoy's War And Peace in 10-point font.
Clearly you've never seen a modern ROE card. I was recently in Afghanistan as part of ISAF (ie non-US military). My ROE card was small enough to fit in my pocket. If you enlarged it it would fit on both sides of an A4 sheet of paper in a fairly large font. ROEs get into a lot of specifics but can easily be broken down into a few very simple general principles.
Also, there is no conflict between "return fire" and "follow your ROEs". If you're taking effective fire your ROEs WILL allow you to return fire.
We had our own nukes, and more of them. Even communists want to stay alive at the end of the day and that's why there will never be a symmetrical nuclear war between nation states. Asymmetrical warfare involving nuclear weapons is a credible threat, something like a terrorist group making a crude nuclear device or dirty bomb. Counter-intuitively, thousands of nuclear warhead tipped ICBMs are actually less dangerous as long as they are under the control of a nation state that wants to persist and has a nuclear capable enemy.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
You fail to understand libertarians and their world view. The world you described WOULD be a utopia to them. Those people WOULD starve to death, or barely survive in grinding poverty. And that's exactly what they think should happen to them.
The only way I will respect a libertarian is if they admit that such a society is not only acceptable to them, but that it's the goal and only possible conclusion of their philosophy in practice. Those people SHOULD be poor, should suffer, should balance on the verge of starvation and malnutrition because that makes society as a whole stronger for the "weak" to die off. If a libertarian told me that (they all at least accept it, it's a requirement of libertarianism that you allow people to fail and suffer if they can't compete) I would respect them for at least being intellectually honest with me and themselves. The ones who won't come out and say it are either lying sociopaths without compassion or are themselves deluded. In no other horrible doctrine is the germ cell of selfishness and dehumanization taken so far as is done in libertarian and objectivist philosophy. It is the great enemy of our time, of all time.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
You fail to understand even more completely.
Look up "Libertarian socialism" and "Libertarian socialism" before you demonstrate your complete and utter ignorance again.
There is more than one kind of libertarian, there is more than one kind of liberal , there is more than one kind of conservative.
People can be both anti-authoritarian and also not want to leave everyone around them to starve to death.
What's your preference then?
just so I can make up an absurd strawman or pick the most extreme insane group who follow it and assume that you and everyone who doesn't admit subscribing to every insane policy of that strawman or extremist group is either a lying sociopath or is themselves deluded.
In the Air Force they call it the Fighter Pilot Mafia. They are the only ones smart enough to command any unit. Logistics, Support, whatever. They are in charge, and they look out for each other, keeping all the plum jobs for themselves with made-up rationale like stated above.
As a former cold-warrior, let me just say one thing. Bullshit.
Now, my statement is about as insightful as yours, both lacking in anything that can be linked to as evidence. So, if you'd like to logically debate the issue, I'd be happy to oblige.
Just another day in Paradise
I was clearly talking about libertarianism as is practiced by the self titled "Libertarians" (not libertarian socialists, or "left" libertarians) in the US, specifically those of the Libertarian Party (lp.org).
What I said stands as true and demonstrable. I'm a socialist myself, economically. Socially I could be described as a libertarian but it's primarily an economic debate.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
The USSR fell due to a lack of democracy, not a lack of capitalism. The government's rampant militancy and imperialist tendencies and complete disregard for their own people caused the fall. Socialism was not to blame, tyranny was--and they are not the same.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
I'm familiar with MAD, however, I'm also aware that it almost failed us on more than one occasion. If it weren't for Stanislav Petrov, we likely would have glassed each other decades ago.
No, the Soviet nuclear arsenal was a very credible threat to our security, as was ours to them. Just because you and I have guns at each others' heads does not make us safe.
I would also argue that we are still under threat from their arsenal, despite the cold war allegedly being over. Despite the changes over the past 20 years, there are still missiles in silos, pointed back and forth at each other, and still the chance that a launch could happen on purpose, by accident, or thought misunderstanding or miscommunication.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
(F)actually, the invasion of Iraq *DID* turn up a clandestine, advanced, nuclear program. It was in Libya, that same 'state' that gave us Lockerbie.
What about the hundreds of thousands of geeks who have been refining their command of strategy and tactics since they were old enough to hold a mouse?
I can tell you one thing, the US is f-ucked in the event of a major cyberattack if someone as clueless as this clown is in charge.
you were tarring all libertarians with one brush and an insulting one at that.
by the very nature of libertarianism it's supporters tend to be somewhat less than unified in their beliefs.
Even the core beliefs best summarised as "just leave me the hell alone" aren't universal amongst all flavours of libertarians.
Dusty Rhoads? Really? Talk about a Marvel comic book worthy name.