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DARPA Training Cadets and Midshipmen As Cyber Warriors
An anonymous reader writes "DARPA officials say the Defense Department must train 4,000 cybersecurity experts by 2017. Meeting that goal requires building a pipeline for training and education, especially for future officers who'll oversee protection of the cyber domain. During a winter weekend in Pittsburgh, more than 50 cadets and midshipmen from three service academies sat elbow to elbow at nine round tables in a packed room. They'd been training since November to compete in a pilot program of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency called the Service Academy Cyber Stakes. From the article: 'This involves skills such as being able to reverse engineer binary, or machine-readable, files and, Ragsdale said, finding source-code-level vulnerabilities that could be exploited, and doing so with software source-level analysis and with automated tools that perform functions such as fuzzing, the informal name for automatic bug finding."
or future officers?
I hope they will offer pay equivalent to the skill level they seek.
For the same reasons you won't find real hackers in the police force, you won't find them anytime soon in the military either. The best hackers don't do it for political reasons, they do it because they enjoy a challenge. Generally, hackers tend to hate warmongers AFAIK.
I've never ever encountered a REAL knowledgeable hacker in the police force, not even in their cybercrime division. This is due to the fact that most of them, are schoolboys who have a degree in computer science & programming...unfortunately - the most difficult stuff, can't be taught in classes, this comes from YEARS of actual real-life practice and experience.
I do believe NSA have some serious badboys working for them however, but these are probably semi-skilled hackers who bragged too much, made a few mistakes - and are held captive by their own past. But you'll never ever find the best ones, because they don't brag about their achievements.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
It is good to see that they are teaching them real subject matter, like binary disassembly and source code analysis. When I first read the headline, I was afraid that they were just turning out script kiddies.
Look at the sock puppets we get on slashdot :)
Pentagon Spokesman: Public Affairs Must Change With Times (Jul. 25, 2013)
http://www.defense.gov/News/Ne...
"We must communicate with the American public in crisp and memorable lines that deliver a clear and accurate message,”"
Expect to see a lot of hints of new options to shape the flow of information and public opinion in the next few years.
Blocking select servers, the turning of online activists into "busy work" or traps
"Jeremy Hammond: FBI directed my attacks on foreign government sites":
http://www.theguardian.com/wor...
All this will require an inner cadre of new people skilled with the slang, memes and culture to enter and thrive in different online communities building trust, spreading disinformation long term.
Why new people? They may know nothing but a constant war on a tactic and may find aspects of 'privacy' i.e. the domestic legal protections are historical/just red tape/understood talking points to them.
Think of it a cyber 'cannon fodder' for 1000's of sites, chatrooms, forums been flooded with 1000's of unique new/old user names to spread disinformation.
"Revealed: US spy operation that manipulates social media" (18 March 2011)
http://www.theguardian.com/tec...
to "From Twitter with love: American spies snooping on our social media feeds" Feb 17, 2014
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/t...
also see http://cryptome.org/2014/02/ar...
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Or... they could just not build insecure systems directly connected to the internet?
Ok, ok, I know that nothing is ever totally safe and the Natanz reactor in Iran was hacked without being connected to the internet but surely, better design, better systems management and better monitoring, etc, would reduce the need for such an astronomical number of heads, just sitting in a chair all day watching logs or looking for bugs in code? And you can be quite sure some idiot will still run an out of date flash or java on their IE browser and plenty of small areas will still get subcontractors in to manage domains, scripts, small programs etc and they'll be under the radar.
Sounds like the modern equivalent of the industrial revolution - just pay a huge number of plebs to do menial tasks. Somehow I doubt this will stop a bugged monitor cable, supplied by the NSA, from doing what it does.
Cyber goes back further than the 80s. You might look into Control Data Corp.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Warrant Officers fly attack helicopters.
Officers lead infantry, armor, field artillery, aviation, engineers, and other combat and combat support units.
Both officers and warrant officers are indeed warriors.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Why not focus those efforts on helping secure platforms from those same techniques? You know, so we can help avoid the next Target debacle and the economic damages that come with it. I know it's not as sexy, but it will be better for everyone.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
The first problem is that their recruitment/training policies aren't designed for that.
Stephen Hawking would have difficult time being accepted to any military academy.
The NSA does not discriminate on whether you can pass a physical fitness test. Stephen Hawking, were he so inclined, would probably at least get an interview there.
It's not that you cannot have a physically fit hacker. They do exist.
But when the recruitment criteria STARTS with physical capabilities, then you have problems because you're reducing the pool of applicants on the WRONG criteria.
Maybe. If you're a good teacher, it's possible they could use you. Why not check them out?
John
They might not have a monopoly on the best and brightest but those accepted to the Naval Academy and West Point are way above your average freshman. One example. The vast majority of America's advanced fighter pilots have degrees in Engineering, Physics, or Computer Science which plays a big part in the candidate selection process.
Your information is a bit out of date about aviators.
http://online.wsj.com/news/art...
A bit Enders Game feeling to this...
Please stop with the 'cyber' shit. It's already difficult enough to take you seriously without your use of this nonsensical prefix for all things computer and network related.
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The modern usage of the suffix originates with Wiener's book, nearly a decade before CDC was founded.
Use of the words "good", "bad" or "evil" is almost invariably the result of oversimplification.
That should be prefix, obviously.
Use of the words "good", "bad" or "evil" is almost invariably the result of oversimplification.
I started wih programming, at 14, while most of my classmates at Collegue, even touched a computer. They just hear the "Computer Science" hype. I.T. wasn't considered a well paid career, yet.
Interest in programming, is as good as years of experiences. It does help to some extra years of experience, than others.
By the way, even that I was fascinated by computers / programmers, I do have certified short atention problem: ADDH. Cheers.
I personally disagree on matching "Hacker equals Good Programmer", there are several things that may match, while others don't.
I consider myself a good programmer, I hate the hacker stereotype, yet, I constantly get labeled as a Hacker, even, if I have never cracked a password, and never enter on a network, or any of that kind of stuff.
But, I agree than both hackers & bright programmers, require certains skills that a Collegue or University, cannot provide. And the "out of the box" or "Daredevil" mentality that Goverment institutions mindset crash.
I never consider the existance of the "semihackers", before, but, i got the idea.
Agree, two of the main things that get into conflict, in having goverment cyberwarriors, are mindset & physical fitness.
Even than the goverment could built a goverment a desk job cyber unit, sooner, or later, may need a cyberwarrior unit, where people does know how to hack a network, run some miles carring 40 lbs, and, so on, Geek soldiers, that does do geek stuff, and does do military stuff, at the same time (not just playing Medal of Honor video games).
As a geek whom got interested in the military, can say that the physical stuff wasn't easy, and, the only thing thing that keep me going, is that I am very stubborn.