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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.'"
Geeks cannot be trained. We are all hatched.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Because it's easier to train a meathead to be a nerd than to teach a nerd when someone is trying to give your nation a wedgie?
We have flame-wars about OS, distribution, editor, and even browser.
What do you think would happen in those flame-wars when we get our hands on stealth bombers and ICBMs?
You can't fix network problems with live ammo.
Oh yeah? Put a couple of rounds into a slow router and see how fast management authorizes the purchase request for new equipment.
Have gnu, will travel.
well that explains where the smell comes from.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
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.
Hey, that's not fair. A lot of them have to fight weight gain.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Speaking with girls is kind of problem-solving, yet geeks are pretty bad at it.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Nothing. The geeks would all be too busy figuring out ways to get the stealth bomber and ICBM onboard computers to run Pong, Tetris and then Super Mario Bros.
I, for one, welcome our semi-literate overlords.
'"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)? :-)
That's because bitches make no sense. If you put the most sophisticated encryption and hardest puzzles into a device that, if cracked, would open up and display a vagina, the geeks would have no problem with it, and the jocks would be the ones without booty. As it is, being able to manage endless contradictions is what makes morons so successful with bitches. Helps to be hot too (and able to figure out what "hot" is - see previous point). Actually, if I were smart, I would become a moron. I'm trying to make the transition.
"A techie wouldn't have a clue"
Nice recruiting tactic...makes me wanna run out and volunteer myself right now!
... 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?
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?