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Government, Military and Private Sector Fighting Over Next-Gen Cyber-Warriors
An anonymous reader writes Both the U.S. Army and Britain's intelligence agency GCHQ launched new initiatives to address their severe shortfalls in cyber-security specialists. The United States Army Reserve launched the "cyber private public partnership" (Cyber P3) on Capitol Hill, which will give reservists the opportunity to train as cyber-warriors in six U.S. universities, in partnership with 11 employers. In the UK GCHQ announced an "Insiders Summer School", where first and second-year computer science undergraduates will be paid to attend a ten week intensive cyber-training course, culminating in a live display of their online and hacking acumen. The Government Accountability Office estimates a shortfall of 40,000 cyber security operatives, and with multiple branches of government in several western countries fighting each other (and the private sector, and the criminal arena) for the patronage of computer science students, cyber-security is looking to be the safest career path an undergraduate could pursue.
Buying their services as consultants, or as civilian employees of DoD agencies, sure; cut them a check and they'll show right up; but some of these plans actually seem to involve enlisted geeks wearing hilariously incongruous camo in front of banks of monitors and 'cyber warrior'-ing. How is selling that going to work?
Civilians, even DoD civilians, are held to different standards than enlisted men and officers. Soldiers are held to the UMCJ and can be controlled much tighter. Just compare the treatment of Manning and Snowden. Plus you have to pay a civilian or contractor a lot more than you can a PFC or specialist. And if you relax physical requirements for these guys, weel then what about your mechanics or clerks or cooks? Morale issues can easily rise up from that.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
This is about money. Military budgets are being cut. The public has lost their appetite for foreign wars. Manned systems are being replaced with drones and robots. Even the few ongoing spend-a-thons, such as the F-35, are continuing out of political inertia, rather than any sincere belief that they make sense.
So what is a general, looking for a nice cushy command, while padding his pension, supposed to do? The obvious answer is "cyber-warfare". It is a hot topic. Money is being thrown at it. The only question is which branch will get the lion's share. So the Army, Navy, Air Force, and even the Marines, and falling over each other to make proposals.
A junior officer once referred to the Soviet Union as America's enemy. General Curtis LeMay quickly corrected him: "The Soviets are our adversary. Our enemy is the Navy."
Just compare the treatment of Manning and Snowden
That had little to do with the difference between "military" and "civilian", and much more to do with the difference between "got caught" and "got away".
cyber-security is looking to be the safest career path an undergraduate could pursue.
Ok put away the grease gun, we get it. our cybers need more warriors, because our government (at least here in the united states) can only solve problems by declaring a misguided overfuned underperforming war on them. but next-gen cyber warriors only makes sense in a country that hasnt ranked 31st in mathematics, 23rd in science, and 17th in reading on a global stage. next generation technology "warriors" in a country that thinks global warming isnt real and evolution has "alternate" theories is an uphill climb but lets say for the sake of argument we can get past it. Youre now proposing undergraduate education, something consistently underfunded in every state, every year, is the way forward? This type of education represents one of the statistically largest amounts of debt in the US, and its in all likelyhood forecasted as the next bubble to burst. Its a type of education that by all indications has the same rate of employment after completion as having never attended college at all due to 'lack of experience.'
so lets assume we make this a government priority and not a privatized military like halliburton. what then? The glaring problem in the armed forces isnt funding or training, its plummeting recruitment rates. You see, you can only have a few wars that fail before the limbless vets and combat shocked alcoholics start piling up in society, first outside the VA, and next outside freeway onramps and alleys. Eventually it doesnt matter why youre fighting, they wont join. For the few left who really want to fight a war, Most potential Army reservists are addicted to prescription drugs, are overweight, have mental health problems, or too many tattoos that prohibit them from joining the military. http://www.newsmax.com/Health-...
Good people go to bed earlier.
That works for a while. Eventually many of the best software developers working for the Navy installation I was at quit because of the senseless bureaucracy. When you're spending more time fighting your network administrators and purchasing agents than you are actually developing software, only the most committed, desperate, or indifferent developers will stay.
"cyber-security is looking to be the safest career path an undergraduate could pursue."
Uh oh, here comes another surge in CS enrollment. Seriously, I just heard a story talking about how petroleum engineering undergrad programs are suffering because the oil boom is slowly settling back down. These new grads were getting six figure starting salaries when things were going great, and now things are leveling off. Any temporary spike in demand for new grads is usually smoothed over very quickly by economic forces. I would just focus on the fundamentals -- get a good solid CS education, engineering education, or whatever, and your skills will transfer if you have the talent to succeed in these fields without the artificial demand.
The first dotcom boom led to a huge jump in CS enrollment, followed by a prolonged period of un- or underemployment in the field. I still think we're working through a bunch of the first hangers-on even today that haven't been weeded out completely. Chasing a college major for money if you don't have the talent or desire just ends badly when the temporary good times end and you find yourself in a bad spot. The second dotcom boom today is generating more CS enrollment again as people want to write the hot new phone app...guess where most of them are going to be when the world moves on to something else??
The reason why the armed forces aren't getting the new grads is most likely due to culture. If you're a civilian DoD contractor, you're paid pretty well but there are a lot of political obstacles to jump over. I've worked with a lot of different types of people in my career, and the "elite cyber warriors" that would be hunting down vulnerabilities in foreign systems would probably bristle at the typical office politics situations, let alone what happens in government/military.
That said, I've always wondered how the CIA/NSA attracts super smart mathematicians, systems experts, etc. The government pay scale is very rigid. Say what you will about the NSA, but they really do seem to have a pretty big cache of talented people to do some of the things they've been doing. Beyond the idea of public service, the only thing in my eyes that makes a permanent job in government or military attractive is the stability and guaranteed retirement. I'm liking stability now that I've grown up and produced offspring, but I'm sure the typical "elite hacker d00d" straight out of college doesn't care and is most likely hostile to government.