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US Army May Relax Physical Requirements To Recruit Cyber Warriors
HughPickens.com writes Clifford Davis reports that only 30% of young people between the ages of 17 and 24 are qualified to become soldiers. This is primarily due to three issues: obesity or health problems; lack of a high school education; and criminal histories. While cognitive and moral disqualifications have held steady, weight issues account for 18% of disqualifications, and the number is rising steadily. It's projected to hit 25% by 2025. The current Army policy is that every recruit, whether enlisting for infantry or graphic design, has to meet the same physical requirements to join — but that requirement may be changing. "Today, we need cyber warriors, so we're starting to recruit for Army Cyber," says Major General Allen Batschelet. "One of the things we're considering is that your [mission] as a cyber warrior is different. Maybe you're not the Ranger who can do 100 pushups, 100 sit-ups and run the 2-mile inside of 10 minutes, but you can crack a data system of an enemy." "We're looking for America's best and brightest just like any Fortune 500 company out there," says Lt. Col. Sharlene Pigg. "We're looking for those men and women who excel in science, technology, engineering and math." Batschelet admits that a drastic change in physical requirements for recruits may be hard for some to swallow. "That's going to be an institutional, cultural change for us to be able to get our heads around that is kind of a different definition of quality," says Batschelet. "I would say it's a modernizing, or defining in a more precise way, what is considered quality for soldiers."
What do you mean by "risk aversion"? I'm genuinely curious.
I can't speak for the grandparent but generally in de facto non-profit monopolies - there's nobody else competing to be the US army for example - there's very little risk in not pushing boundaries. Projects might run over time and over budget but at the end of the day the politicians have to fund the army next year too and you don't get the fat bonuses like when your software makes money for the company. Obvious flops on the other hand might require scapegoats and if you make your superiors look bad, well they're likely to be a step or two up in seniority for the rest of your career in the same "company". That will permeate the entire environment making any kind of change hard, nobody wants to be the one signing off on anything without a drawn out change process.
Here in Norway the craziest example at the moment is the police. In 2005 our politicians made fairly big changes to the penal code, which would go into effect when the police systems were able to handle it. Well, now it's 2014 and it's still not in effect. But what can you do, not fund the police? No matter how much the schedules slip and it goes over budget we have to keep throwing money at them. If they were a commercial company they'd be out of business long ago. Sometimes I wonder if it would be cheaper if we awarded two companies the contract to write the same module with a bonus to the winner, just to get the competition.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I think "criminal histories" in this case is probably just a code-phrase for "smoked weed".
Lt. Col. Sharlene Pigg makes it sound like the military is relaxing its recruiting standards over criminal records because it needs "hackers".
But the truth of the matter is, the military has already relaxed its recruiting standards over criminal records. It did it for Vietnam and Korea when nobody else wanted to go. And it did it again ever since the war in Iraq got started, even formerly convicted felons have been able to get in (not just former weed smokers).
I'd say don't believe the hype regarding their need for hackers. The military is notoriously bad at matching recruits with jobs according to their existing technical abilities. If you want to do cyber warfare, get yourself a bachelor of art in something, anything, so that you get yourself recruited as an officer at the very least, to increase your chances -- not guarantee them mind you. If you enter the military without a degree because you like programming, or worse because you like playing video games, expect to be used as IED fodder in the Middle East, for the jobs that no one else wants to do.