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Air Force Firewall Now Designated a Weapons System (gazette.com)
An anonymous reader writes with a report from the Colorado Springs Gazette that the U.S. Air Force Space Command has declared its first cyber "weapons system" operational. The weapon, deemed fully operational this month, is basically a big firewall designed to protect the Air Force's internal 1 million-user network from hackers. It will be a hot topic at the Rocky Mountain Cyber Symposium, which is expected to draw hundreds of computer experts to The Broadmoor for a four-day confab starting Monday."
More from the article about why a firewall would be called a weapon: The biggest reason for the weaponization push is financial: When it comes to budget battles, weapons, even those with a keyboard and a mouse, get cash from Congress. "Designating something as a weapons system really does help us justify our funding," Col. Pamela Wooley, who commands the Alabama-based 26th Cyberspace Operations Group, which includes the new weapon.
profit!
Unless this has some ridiculous hack-back-attack capabilities, complete with a nerdy looking airman typing as fast as humanly possible to "execute" the hack back attack, Congress may have to start looking a bit closer at these "weapons systems."
We need more toilet paper for the bathroom.
Here you go.
WTF? Why does this toilet paper have pictures of guns on it?
This is weaponized toilet paper. It helps with allocating funding...
weapon [wep-uh n]
noun
1. any instrument or device for use in attack or defense in combat, fighting, or war, as a sword, rifle, or cannon.
2. anything used against an opponent, adversary, or victim:
the deadly weapon of satire.
3. Zoology. any part or organ serving for attack or defense, as claws, horns, teeth, or stings.
It's no more surprising than storing weapons in an armory.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
so people working on such 'weapons' are now legitimate military targets?
Fair warning/full disclosure: I"m an Airmen in the USAF.
A 'weapon system' is a special designation. Lots of things are weapon systems. A truck is a weapon system. Every weapon system gets a System Program Office (SPO) that is responsible for developing, managing, updating/upgrading/improving the weapon system. Weapon systems have full certification processes that the SPO oversees. Think change management on steroids.
Want to modify the weapon system? Better clear it with the SPO. If you don't, it just became de-certified and you can't deploy it. If it were a plane, that would mean its grounded.
Without knowing more details other than their is a weapon system that is a firewall, that would mean that the hardware and software gets certified before it is deployed (turned on/plugged in). Chances are there are standard configurations that are then mandated.
This also means that its going to be heavily vetted. Chances are its not a commercial-off-the-shelf device., but if it is they'd be taking it apart looking for backdoors and other exploits.
So personally I'm excited by this, but then I know what it means...
Well, much like you aren't allowed to build a bomb, but you ARE allowed access to gasoline, you're of COURSE permitted the PERL implementation. You're much more likely to self immolate than do damage to anything else, after all...
That won't help at all. The Republican party does a decent job of creating veterans. Helping them, not so much.
Ideology: A tool used primarily to avoid the bother of thinking.
Disclaimer: I am US military officer (not the same AC as above), not an expert on cybersecurity or the legal details of US foreign weapons sales. I agree that firewalls are not a weapon.
That being said, I suspect that, in addition to the funding aspect mentioned in the summary, this is a legal maneuver to protect the details of this particular firewall. Generally firewalls are fair game for export worldwide (as they should be in my opinion) under the terms of the Wassenaar Arrangement (see Category 5). However that means the USAF has very little legal recourse against anyone leaking the operational details of the firewall, including the source code and what system it is deployed on, to either the intelligence apparatus of foreign powers or to the general public. Classifying the firewall as a weapon brings it under the purview of the Arms Export Control Act of 1976, which has a lot more teeth to it and can carry some pretty severe penalties. By classifying it as a weapon, the USAF blocks their firewall, and only their firewall, from being sold to foreign powers, without limiting the ability of cybersecurity companies to sell firewalls to friendly foreign powers.
This is my computer. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
My computer is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life.
My computer, without me, is useless. Without my computer, I am useless. I must comment my code in detail. I must hack truer than my enemy who is trying to pwn me. I must pwn him before he pwns me. I will...
My computer and I know that what counts in war is not the darkness of the cubicle, the temperature of the coffee, nor the dust of the Doritos. We know that it is the lines of code we commit. We will commit...
My computer is human, even as I, because it is my life. Thus, I will learn it as a brother. I will learn its weaknesses, its strength, its parts, its accessories, its CPU and its memory. I will keep my computer patched and updated, even as I am patched and updated. We will become part of each other. We will...
Before God, I swear this creed. My computer and I are the defenders of my country. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of my life.
So be it, until victory is America's and there is no enemy, but peace!
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!