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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.
They can be under much tighter control while in uniform. For example civilian is allowed to say 'no' without legal problems.
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.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Schedule_(US_civil_service_pay_scale)
100% agreement.
If they are NOT going to be deployed then hire them as GS whatever.
If they ARE going to be deployed to a situation where they can be shot then they need combat training.
Will they also let the "ponytail wearing Google generation" wear their ponytails? How about their bespoke frontiersman beards?
Bear in mind this is already done for medical recruits. You don't seriously think they make neurosurgeons undergo the rigors of basic training do you? When last I heard MD recruits had a 3 week familiarization course on military customs and courtesy.
"Man is nothing without the works of man" -- Helvetius
You're conflating the Geneva Conventions (wartime rules for handling prisoners and wounded) with the Hague Conventions (rules for conduct with weapons of war). The Hague Conventions do have an addendum called the Geneva Protocol, but it only deals with chemical and biological weapons.
The Army is already a 2nd tier service with lower standards. Short of creating an entirely new branch of the service, they aren't going to get away from the fact that they are the Army and get whatever cultural baggage comes along with that.
Watering down bootcamp is really not going to address the real problem.
They spun off the Air Corps and there wasn't nearly as much of a culture gap going on there.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
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
You say that indifferent to the fact that the CIA does such things without being under military rules at all.
And you say such things despite the NSA hacking away at things without being under military rules. A member of the NSA can quit at any time. Just resign and go home.
Same is true of all the military contractors that design and build the fighter planes, the submarines, the missiles, etc.
Just because you work for pay does not mean you are without honor or that it is unethical to do the work.
The men that built the atomic bomb were not members of the military.
You perhaps do not know your military history... please take no offense... do you know that mercenary armies used to be the most common means of waging war? You had your police force which was paid by the state and you had a royal guard of sorts which was very much like the modern military. However, the actual armies were considered too expensive to maintain in those days so instead of maintaining an army, you would rent one.
This had pros and cons. They were very cheap over time. Even though during war they were quite expensive, during times of peace they cost nothing at all.
The disadvantage of a mercenary army was that they lacked loyalty and a willingness to die for their client. If they were routed they would run away.
Professional armies owned by the host nation would win in most cases against a mercenary army because the mercenary army would break and run.
What further ended such armies was that professional armies could be much larger. Mercenary armies could fight little wars. They might have a few thousand men in them but they rarely got any larger then that. While as you know, professional armies can number in the hundreds of thousands.
This hacking issue however brings the whole thing full circle. There is no question of a hacker running away because he fears for his life in a hack. There is no question of the money really. And the free hackers tend to be a great deal more competent then those under conscription.
As such, a flexible mind will see that hiring them as mercenaries actually makes perfect sense.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
This is part of it (you give up a *lot* of constitutional protections while in uniform), but there is another, far more important reason: Every member of a given military branch is fully expected to be capable of fighting. The Marines have a saying "Every Marine is a rifleman", and it holds true for every branch (even as a USAF electronics/avionics technician, I was still trained to use, strip, assemble and clean an M-16, and I had to maintain a minimum proficiency of marksmanship with it.)
This has its roots in one aspect of combat - a salient of enemy soldiers breaking through the front. Even as late as the Battle of The Bulge (WWII), rear-echelon troops such as cooks and mechanics had to quickly stop what they were doing and start shooting back. Most of them sucked at it, but without the combat training they did get? They would have been even easier pickings, and likely would have allowed Germany to prolong the war for years longer than it had lasted.
I see no problems with requiring a basic level of combat ability and readiness. It instills a sense of physical fitness, a level of discipline (a slob generally cannot run 5 miles, aim a weapon worth a damn, etc), and gives them at least some modicum of stature with their fellow soldiers (who would otherwise consider them to be far, far worse than a POG. We give each other crap as it is, but at least everyone knows that everyone else had at least some level of martial training.)
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
The "hackers" I've seen in the movies wouldn't have much trouble with combat training:
http://www.allaboutjackman.com...
http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Es2uYtSJ...
Just have them go through the Air Force boot camp, problem solved. signed, an old Army guy ;-)
The purpose of basic training is to turn civilians into soldiers (not warriors, soldiers.) Prior to the modern army (as deployed by the Romans), battles were fought by a combination of highly-trained elite units (cavalry, well-trained melee combatants, etc.) and cowed peasants forced into battle at sword point. (As you might imagine, other than as a meat-shield vs. other peasants, this was not particularly useful.)
Starting with the Romans, Western Armies took conscripts (or volunteers) and trained them, first and foremost, to follow orders as a unit without question (as in, not prod them in the back with a spear all the time). At the same time, they were taught basic combat skills. Such soldiers were certainly more effective than cowed peasants, and in many situations more effective than independently trained elite warriors, since they could function as a cohesive team.
Nothing hackers do requires orders to be followed in seconds. Their orders do not involve putting themselves in the way of personal harm, so they don't need indoctrination/brainwashing to work against their natural survival instincts.
Certainly you DO need them to follow orders, and a cohesive unit can be good for morale (this doesn't just apply to the military), but there have to be better ways to do it vs. basic training, and you'll needlessly exclude those with perfectly usable skills unsuited for traditional basic. (I will note that Army Basic, while tough, is not actually that hard to pass, physically. You need to be in decent shape by the end, yes, but not an athlete. It's the mental demands that causes the most flunk-outs.)
That's the funny part - you never know where you're going to wind up.
I originally figured that as a flightline grunt in the Air Force, I'd never, ever have to see a combat zone. Then this happened, they send a few of us and our jets to Howard AFB, and that's where a young kid with a uniform and a multimeter discovered that Panama is a really, really tiny country.
While the operation was short and sweet, the odds of sent to some war zone isn't as remote as it seems. With respect to OP, consider that satellites have built-in lag, and that undersea cables can easily be cut. Suddenly, your hacker corps has to go to where they can get a network connection...
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Every Marine a rifleman. Every tool a hammer. Every problem a nail.
Japan in WWII was largely uncivilized
The USA was pretty uncivilized toward Japan as well. 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. The intentional white phosphorus firebombing of Japanese civilians wasn't so civilized either.
Why not just have the white/black hats be a separate division completely, as opposed to attached to the AF, Army, or whatnot?
First of all, there is a loss of esprit de corps if the white/black hats are brought in and given rank without seeing boot camp. Pretty much similar to the same contempt that enlisted people have about a butter bar.
Sure. Instead of calling them SEALs we can call the WHALES (White Hat and Leviathan Exploit Syndicate). They can have their own Fedora and everything.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
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.
---
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...
I was in the USAF during Vietnam. I was never in Vietnam, but have the Vietnam service medal and credit for a Vietnam tour of duty. I worked on a computer system in Northern Thailand that monitored traffic on the Ho Chi Minh trail. The base was within rocket range of Laos and only about 75 miles from NORTH Vietnam. On base the only USAF personnel armed were the Air Force Security Police who, along with some other groups were responsible for Base security. HOWEVER, almost all of the USAF personnel, no matter what their technical skills, had a weapons card and there were armories around the base where we would draw weapons if needed. Depending on assignment there was even extra training in base defense. Even then everyone in uniform was expected to be able to defend the base if needed. THAT was the DIFFERENCE between those in uniform (which we were NOT allowed to wear off base -- the base was not officially there) and the civilian support personnel, and we had LOTS of civilian contractors since we had the largest computer system in that hemisphere and there was a crew IBM engineers on site to maintain it.
There were other USAF personnel who were support and technical that did go "over the river" to places we called Lima Sites. Look up Lima Site 85 and see if anyone really believes in the concept of a Non-Combatant in the military. Oh, and as for being stationed stateside when the NVA moved south in April of 1972 there were quite a few GI's who thought they would be in the states for their full tour of duty that suddenly found themselves in our tropical paradise within just a couple of days.
Our new elite military hacker.
There should always be an aura of alertness, readiness where this is concerned, period. If you don't, the enemy will penetrate your defences and do massive damage.
As someone who served in the military and could potentially be considered a 'hacker'. I disagree with your assessment that it wouldn't help much. Sometimes a few people is what makes the absolute difference, even when the situation shouldn't be considered one that has gone to hell.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.