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US Army Could Waive Combat Training For Hackers
An anonymous reader sends word that the U.S. Army may adjust some of its training practices and rules in order to attract the best "cyber warriors" available. "New U.S. Army cyber warriors could be spared the rigors of combat training to help the Pentagon attract badly needed recruits from the ponytail wearing Google generation, a top American general has suggested. Lt Gen Brown, commander of the US Army Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, said: 'We need to give serious consideration to how the US Army could combine the technical expertise of the "Google" generation with its more traditional military skills. In order to gain an intellectual advantage over adversaries in cyberspace, we will need to tap into a talent pool that may not fit the stereotypical soldier profile. Our goal is to recruit the best talent possible.'" This is not the first time there has been talk about loosening requirements to fill these roles.
How hard is it for a twenty something year old to get into basic fitness? Perhaps if there is a good candidate but would otherwise fall out because of fitness, work with them in 'pre basic' to get up to speed. It needn't be punative - might be the best thing that happened to them. For really handicapped people (say someone with paralysis), perhaps a medical waiver.
But to have a whole group of 'different' Army folks - not such a good idea.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
If you're in the Army, you're a legitimate, Geneva Convention-certified MILITARY TARGET.
It isn't physical activity that scares off hackers, it's that the entire military lifestyle and mindset is something that runs counter to the hacking culture.
"the ponytail wearing Google generation" - that is a hell of a lazy shot in the dark. But such reporting is all too frequently the norm among the latest generation of journalists. "We need to give serious consideration to how the Press could combine the technical expertise of the "Facebook" generation with its more traditional journalistic skills" - said Worthington Alfredingtonshite, god-king of journalists.
they want them to be sworn soldiers. there's a magical difference between sworn and unsworn.
if they ask a hacker to create a virus that causes an enemy industrial site to explode and kill the workers & scientists, refusing to do so because of "moral grounds" is now a court martial.
This would be like trying to put a cat in uniform. You could do it, but you're not going to get the results you expect. The people equipped to establish and maintain military discipline are not usually the same people who need to give competent orders to the hackers.
Contractors are the way to go here. Hackers can be motivated by money and will take the orders to reap the rewards. Telling them they have to do something because "it's an order" isn't going to work.
Signed,
US Army veteran
Microsoft veteran
The USA was pretty uncivilized toward Japan as well.
Please put down the crack pipe.
Of the 19,000 Japanese on Iwo Jima, only 216 were taken prisoner. The official line was "hey, they all committed suicide", but if you talk to the people that were there, they will tell you that is not true. We regularly shot Japanese soldiers attempting to surrender.
Yes, we did shoot a lot of them pretending to surrender. Way too many times prior, starting on Guadalcanal and moving on to Tarawa, Japanese soldiers would pretend to surrender, waiving the white flag, then when they got close they would pull the pin on a grenade and take an American soldier with him.
When things like that happen as often as not, it becomes very hard to take prisoners. In addition, Japanese soldiers would often, once they had run out of ammo, put on their bayonets and charge into the US line, directly into machine gun fire.
Off Okinawa, 32 warships were lost to Kamikaze pilots and many more were damaged. About 5,000 US sailors lost their lives at sea from suicide pilots in 92 days of fighting off Okinawa.
The intentional white phosphorus firebombing of Japanese civilians wasn't so civilized either.
It was an effort to end the war, other options were not working. In truth, the idea was sound but for some reason, people don't respond to 200,000 people being killed over 2 days via 1,000 bombers dropping a million tons of bombs, yet they DO respond to 200,000 people being killed in 5 minutes via 2 bombers and 2 bombs.
Don't ask me why, but it seems to make a difference.
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Oh, and lest you think that we started all of it, keep in mind that Japan started that war and they considered surrender dishonorable. If you don't know that, then you don't understand the war and really shouldn't comment on it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...