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Cyber Corps Program Trains Spies For the Digital Age, In Oklahoma
David Hume writes "The Los Angeles Times has a story about the two-year University of Tulsa Cyber Corps Program. About '85% of the 260 graduates since 2003 have gone to the NSA, which students call "the fraternity," or the CIA, which they call "the sorority."' 'Other graduates have taken positions with the FBI, NASA and the Department of Homeland Security.' According to the University of Tulsa website, two programs — the National Science Foundation's Federal Cyber Service: Scholarship for Service and the Department of Defense's (DOD's) Information Assurance Scholarship Program — provide scholarships to Cyber Corps students."
Sounds like you do some really cool cyber-stuff and I'd love to join your cyber-group but living in Tulsa for two years? Ehhhhh...
/here's hoping no one from OK has mod points
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
I actually participated in this program from 2003-2004 at a different university and attended the conferences at CMU and Tulsa. It was quite a bit of fun. I actually ended up at a large financial institution instead of the NSA or CIA, but I learned quite a bit that was helpful there.
As an Okie and a techie who's more than a little concerned about online privacy and yro, I don't know whether to be proud or horrified.
Wow, good ol' Cyber Corp! I entered the program (the one in Tulsa, it's also at other schools, but Tulsa is the "heart" of the program) in January 2003 and had my MS in Comp Sci in 3 semesters, graduating in May 2004.
You're able to go to school full-time because they pay for your books, tuition, AND give you a stipend for housing/food/living either on or off campus. And that buck goes pretty far in Tulsa (I think my 2 bed, 2 bath appt was $550/month).
I went through the NSF-version of the program. The DoD version was for military personnel only (I think?) who wanted to get a better degree.
I was one of the few that didn't go to NSA. Wasn't comfortable with being a super-spook (especially during the Bush years), so I went to a more "benign" agency. You MUST make sure that you'll be able to get a security clearance before you sign up, because if you get selected for the program, go through it, and then can't get a job because you're not clearable, you owe ALL the money back (like $40K or so). However, I had one arrest with a suspended sentence (minor pot possession) and was able to get a Secret clearance with no trouble, though YMMV.
TU (University of Tulsa) has had an Information Assurance program since loooong before it was popular (very early 90s?), so they've had time to build up talent and are VERY well connected in terms of getting you a job. You're pretty much guaranteed a job at NSA. I know several folks who went there and enjoy the work. I know several others who didn't and left for the private sector after their "time as up".
It's a "scholarship for service" system for paying back your tuition/stipend. If it takes you 3 semesters to get your degree, you have to work for the Fed Gov for 18 months to be fully "paid back". Then you can quit the Gov and go work for a contractor and make big $ since you're already cleared. I stayed in Fed service for 2.5 years and then went back to the private sector.
Feel free to ask me any other questions. It was a great deal and I'm so happy I was able to get a free MS out of it.
With the first link, the chain is forged.
Do they admit anyone with tuition, or must all students be sponsored by some government agency? Are the full range and content of courses available to non-government-sponsored students?
Might be a good idea for the EFF and/or other similar watchdog/defense organizations to set up a scholarship to train those who would help defend us from precisely the things they're teaching.
I'd be willing to bet long odds that a large percentage of the government-sponsored student graduates will end up using their skills against domestic civilian targets at the behest of their government handlers, and many/most of those targets are/will be purely political in nature.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
The fusion centers, black ops, the public/private databases, all the new suburban office blocks with tight security filled with a million bight new faces.
The NSA is growing very fast and pointing its efforts inwards.
This will result in two systems for the USA:
A Soviet system- a huge structure unable to deal with protesters, debt, hunger, riots, informants, cyber war, crumbling infrastructure and the massive optical, hardware and software data dumps per day on people of interest around the world.
Or they end up with the MI6 dilemma - a perfect world wide network of great spies- sadly working for other powers as their vetting was rushed, classed based, faith based or family based.
The correct vetting needed per person is not easy. Family, parents, grandparents, school teachers, college, friends, lovers, drinking problems, gambling, net usage, contact with foreign powers, family origins, cult, faith... can all add up to the perfect person having two hats and helping the 'old' country or be open to blackmail, sleeping around or finding faith after a night raid or noting the double crossing a country that was always allied with the USA...
Basically a team has to physically interview up and down the family tree and most people of any meaning a person has had in their life for the better security clearances.
So yes, both the USSR and UK have tried to stuff their clandestine services with graduates with very predictable results - they all started as the "super techies" of their generations.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
What are you rambling about? Nowadays, most background checks are done from an office at the inquiring agency's headquarters. People who would be superb government agents are ruled out because of an arrest record, while complete losers are sometimes welcomed into the agency, because they have a clean record.
Interviews? A long time ago, when I was a young man, yes. Today, not so much.
"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
I joined the Cybercorps in its first year of operation after two decades in an unrelated field; the reason you've never heard of the program is it was scheduled to be announced on Sept. 12, 2011. There are probably hundreds of schools certified as Centers of Excellence by the NSA; some of them are top notch, some of them not so much. I've been working for the government for nearly a decade now: Operations, compliance, and even teaching. Happy to discuss. Here's a link to the official Cyber Corps Web site, run by the Office of Personnel Management: https://www.sfs.opm.gov/
All civilian background investigations are performed by the Office of Personnel Management in conjunction with the FBI. Home agencies can conduct additional checks, like a credit report inquiry, if that's not included as part of minimum BI performed by OPM for a specific level.
... they produce about 1/20th of the blue badges that University of Maryland does.
I guess it finally is l33t to be a fed :_)
Re "done from an office at the inquiring agency's headquarters"
That gets you what? A person who got lucky and had his or her paper trail lost during some digital "upgrade"?
Some state court or college town was kind enough to seal a record due to family connections or other considerations?
An NGO or religion was kind enough to "settle" out of court the first few times?
Do you really think a foreign embassy will just work down a list of a few 100 cleared workers and see what can be "done from an office"...
They will dig and find that record that a complete loser at a computer doing background checks could not....
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
remember this spook
i didnt ask you to do this and id feel a whole lot better off if you guys and gals would stop saying that
because "we" are not asking you to do whatever it is that you are doing
what happens if you get layed off??
With all the take of auto cuts coming you can be layed off and be on the hook for the money back as well.
they are prolly all over your ip address just for sayin that
but do you want to work over seas for the CIA?? One thing with stuff like this they can make take a job with Fed Gov that may be out at some bunker in a area that most people may not want to go to.
I am actually not a spook, though I was recruited by one of the spooky agencies. i chose the non-spook life and I don't regret it. I have a number of friends who are spooks and they are the last defense against political appointees who try to engage in all kinds of prohibited activities. The nice thing about being a government employee is that we get to take an oath pledging us to protect, not the government, not a party, but the Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic. How do you think you became aware of the excesses of the past? It's because some low-level employee discovered some political hack set up an illegal program and let somebody -- a member of Congress, a law enforcement agency, or a newspaper -- about what was going on. You'd be shocked at how many liberals work for the NSA.
two-year program so other IT work should not need a BS / BA.
And this has real work as part the classes and not just loads of theory.
good then they will see me having both sides of this little argument with myself :collared
either way i still dont feel very good about u.s citizens spying on each other and saying they are doing it for us, to protect us, in our name
it scares me
captcha
I have one name to mention to anyone who believes background checks are meaningful.
Bradley Manning.
If (s)he can get a security clearance, the system is undoubtedly broken.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
My anecdotal experience contradicts yours. I trained as a Cryptologic Technician - Interpretative in the Navy (one of the SIGINT positions that ties into NSA). My fellow sailors considered protection of Americans' privacy to be a nuisance to their job, not a principle to uphold, and they felt it was OK to violate it as long as no one got caught. A few chiefs who had been in for a long time (some of whom had completed a tour at Ft. Meade) would grumble about how Jimmy Carter just because he tried to institute more strictures against such surveillance.
This is a masters program. You need a BS just to get in.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
The program offers four semesters of financial help; it was obviously aimed at the Masters level, but it can be applied to both undergraduate and even a PhD.
so cut out smart computer people who are not college material.
That is the issue what you want these people to do? That can do the job but are not cut out for the rest of college???
What a fascinating way for the US to innovate its way out of stagnation: with incentives to joint the secret police!
There's never been a an economic miracle of productivity and social rewards, like that which has come from diverting skilled students away from developing a market - and into the state security apparatus.
Or, maybe not?
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
I would agree that active duty enlisted tend to be "redder" than average. Also, the time frame you're describing is quite interesting as sounds like it was just about the time that the NSA had been publicly identified as breaking the law and new restrictions were put into place (which is probably what the Chief was bellyaching about). But my experience post reform is that the vast majority of people at the NSA take the prohibition on domestic spying very seriously.
Actually, you can apply the two years to an undergrad degree and a lot of people do that.
I've worked with a few sharp people with no formal training.
They would have all benefited from being forced out of their comfort zone in college.
That said, I've also worked with doctorate level air thieves.
Math and communication skills are areas that the 'naturals' often skip. Also their egos are often fucking out of control as they have not spent enough time with their intellectual peers. Nothing teaches you humility like running into subjects that force you to work at 100% (true 100% is fucking hard to maintain, 110% is only arrived at with 25%(Mon-Thurs)+10%(Friday)). 'Natural genius's' tend to ignore subjects that threaten their self image, often with a rationalization: 'I don't need to understand K domain, I'll go back and study it if it ever comes up.' It never comes up, their ego is safe. Not that they are alone in this. Zaphod (para) 'If their is anything on this spaceship more important then my ego, I want it taken out and shot'.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
My experience was late 1990s, early millennium. By that time, Carter's attempts to limit interception of American communications had long since passed away (that they had more of a free rein in recent years nonetheless did not stop the aforementioned chiefs from rueing his memory).
I was very happy to see that the European Parliament's ECHELON report, which appeared right about the time I left the military and the United States in 2001, brought some troubling developments to public knowledge, but sadly the events of September 11 pushed it under the radar entirely. After September 11, I have no faith at all that the US is not pursuing interception of everyone and everything. And from keeping in touch with some of my shipmates who signed for another hitch or two after me, I can only assume from their attitudes that the privacy of Americans is less respected than ever.
Of course: That issue has been covered for decades. Almost a century.
USA spy agencies prohibited from domestic spying. So are the UK and Australia.
Simple solution: USA agencies spy on Brits and Aussies, Aussie and Brit spy agencies spy on Americans and each other.
Abracadabra, no issues. Everybody (almost) is happy.
Open secret. Of course you can't confirm or deny.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
In the United States, it's not that domestic spying is not allowed, it's that it's prohibited within specific agencies. The FBI does a lot of internal spying.
I have one name to mention to anyone who believes background checks are meaningful.
Bradley Manning.
If (s)he can get a security clearance, the system is undoubtedly broken.
Really? What was the evidence that he posed a security risk before he joined the Army?
The security software I developed runs on tens of thousands of web sites. I don't have a college degree. Some might say I have a natural talent. Yet, to really be the best I can, to be an NSA level expert, schooling would really help I'm sure. Natural talent and self-study has gotten me to a certain point, but I'm sure studying with other bright people would take me up a notch or two, even if that's not my comfort zone.
What are you rambling about? Nowadays, most background checks are done from an office at the inquiring agency's headquarters. People who would be superb government agents are ruled out because of an arrest record, while complete losers are sometimes welcomed into the agency, because they have a clean record.
Interviews? A long time ago, when I was a young man, yes. Today, not so much.
REALLY? There was a time when the NSA and the CIA didn't care about an arrest record? Who knew? And who are these complete losers who are welcomed into the agency? Got examples? Or are you just making shit up because it's popular on Slashdot to make up random shit to malign the US government in every way possible?
At least in theory, the FBI isn't a spy agency. It's a law enforcement agency. Counterintelligence isn't intelligence-gathering.
Your description is more accurate than mine; saying that the FBI engages in "spying" is probably a bit off. they do engage in covert surveillance and counter espionage within the United States.
I spotted the fed.
This is getting too easy.
Thanks for posting, +5 informative.
I have a BS degree in CS and I can attest that even Math graduates are making some very basic mistakes when developing programs. That's because nobody told them how the underlying system works or how to properly do hashtables (for example).
So this whole "amateurs are often better than pros" meme is just that - bullshit. Would you want to be treated by "the best amateur medic" instead of a real doc ??
err SC checks are quite different to those you have to pass for TS which is what you would need to work for the CIA or NSA
* Hyper-Big Data
* crypto
* Snooping on people
* working with some great minds
* exotic, advanced tech
Not saying this is morally "good", but these are probable the motivators.
Scroll up to Shavano's post. The man referenced was a known security risk for quite a long time BEFORE he made headlines.
"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
I'm from California and I'm forced to face the harsh truth that there are very few opportunities left anymore.
This is a non-story. Very few people are able to make it. College is hideously overpriced and impossible to get into.
Speaking for myself, as a Californian (the most populated state), I can state with some authority that this state and its economy was built with the skills created in cheap higher education -- which doesn't exist anymore.
Baby Boomers got a nearly free education and are squatting in the best positions of society, while younger folk are squeezed off to the ghettos, to perish in poverty and inequality. An elite, highly restrictive scholarship for those wealthy enough or connected enough to get through undergraduate education, is not news. Aside from the cyber/high tech part of this story, it's a non-event.
That's not even remotely correct.
The countries in the five eyes (FVEY; two of which you named) respect the laws of each other country as it relates to their citizens; i.e., the UK agrees to follow the same laws that the NSA do with respect to US citizens.
Yes, it's a matter of policy since it is perfectly legal but the entire FVEY IC is based around this concept functioning.
I can just imagine the bumpkin who modded this down with a fake (American) Budweiser in hand and shouting out "YEEEE-HAAAAW" as they clicked the moderation option.
What a fascinating way for the US to innovate its way out of stagnation: with incentives to joint the secret police!
There's never been a an economic miracle of productivity and social rewards, like that which has come from diverting skilled students away from developing a market - and into the state security apparatus.
Or, maybe not?
And I suppose you'd rather those people become a quant making algorithms for high-speed trading? Let them be/do what they want to be/do. You don't have to become a spook if you don't want to anymore than you are being forced into military service. I'm not into feeding trolls, but you aren't seeing the bigger picture; that being, there will always be people that want to do this type of work and utterly believe they are doing the most patriotic thing they can, next to being in the military or becoming a public servant. FTR, I'd never work for the government in this fashion, but I respect those that actually want to.
No sig for you! Come back one year!
s@#t. and shouldn't comment on stuff u clearly know nothing about.
"but 40? I could never remember all the crimes I have committed."
take it easy John. Lay off those disco biscuits!
The side that backed Ron Paul or the side that backed Obamney?
My feeling is the only people in .gov jobs that actually know there is another hand at work, are not people that praise the establishment.