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Britain To Create 2,000-Strong Cyber Force, Boost Budget By £250M (sky.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the battle-of-the-bits dept.

Slashdot reader cold fjord writes: Britain's Ministry of Defence and GCHQ signals intelligence establishment have put forward a plan to increase staff devoted to offensive cyber operations up to 2,000, quadrupling it over current levels. Funding would also increase by at least £250m, according to one source. The initiative comes "amid a growing cyber threat from Russia and after the UK used cyber weapons for the first time to fight Islamic State." General Sir Richard Barrons commented, "By adopting offensive cyber techniques in the UK we are levelling the playing field and providing new means of both deterring and punishing states that wish to do us harm."

68 comments

  1. See that Stable Door? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Closing it now is a total waste of time. That horse disappeared over the horizon a long time ago.

    1. Re:See that Stable Door? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because once one horse runs off, all horses are gone forever and you will never have another horse and thus will never need to close that barn door?

    2. Re: See that Stable Door? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What a retarded comment.

  2. The cybermen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Someone call the doctor

    1. Re:The cybermen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      WE ARE THE BRITISH CYBERMEN, YOU WILL BE DOWNGRADED!

      Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.

      Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.

    2. Re:The cybermen by Mr.+Dollar+Ton · · Score: 1

      Yo, James, what's your new Cyber code number, 0x700?

  3. "Cyber", the mark of incompetence... by gweihir · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Nobody with an actual clue uses that word. They will probably only get wannabees that are eager to fulfill their authoritarian masters bidding though.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    1. Re:"Cyber", the mark of incompetence... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Given the leaks from other intelligence agencies a few years back, they'll end up flooded with autistic bronies using those DANK maymays in conversations and naming schemes for tools and operations.
      Mind you, maybe not, GCHQ actually have better standards. (more so when you consider other agencies have bought stuff from them many times)

    2. Re:"Cyber", the mark of incompetence... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, I work as a cyber assistant for a 3 letter agency so the term is well known. It is just that you don't know it. A lot of my retired military buddies used to be cyber too.

      I take public transit. A local bus take me down the street to pick up the express bus, the express bus drops me off in Palo Alto, and a local bus take me down the street to my job. An hour each way. Driving through Palo Alto during rush hour is insane. Since I work in government I.T., I start work at 7:00AM.
      --
      How to Pronounce The New Apple iPhone XR, XS & XS Max (September 2018)

    3. Re:"Cyber", the mark of incompetence... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You proved the OP's point.

    4. Re:"Cyber", the mark of incompetence... by Archtech · · Score: 1

      Indeed. From the Greek meaning a steersman, first widely used after Norbert Wiener wrote a book about cybernetics - the science of control mechanisms.

      Second big wave of popularity came when William Gibson - who by his own admission did not know what a modem was at the time - wrote his brilliant SF novel "Neuromancer" which featured "cyberspace" - a kind of imagined virtual reality many years ahead of today's state of the art. Gibson's cyberspace had virtually nothing to do with the Internet or the Web. One nice aspect of Gibson's cyberspace was that security software ("ice") could actually electrocute or otherwise harm users who tried to intrude where they were not allowed while "jacked in".

      As gweihir points out, we can be grateful that the use of "cyber-" anything in connection with the Internet or the Web is a reliable clue that the speaker (or writer) knows little about the subject.

      --
      I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
    5. Re:"Cyber", the mark of incompetence... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As the UK does not get the chance to benchcheck source code, how do you train/upskill testers with intimate hardware knowledge?
      Right now the Intel and ARM Spectre and Meltdown and TLB defects are fairly well classified, as is the remediation process.
      The required level is assembler code - not some cooked up app or 'tool' that logs say mangled packets and a dweeb logging that exception.
      The answer is you cant - which is why Australia won't allow Chinese 5G hardware, yet approved say CISCO devices. They lacked the brains.
      Ban encryption, and you have generational deficiency. UK excels in going soft, while the Chinese and Russians go 100% for academic excellence.
      May as well save the effort, and blame it on North Korea or the baddie of the moment.

    6. Re:"Cyber", the mark of incompetence... by Archtech · · Score: 2

      Well, I work as a cyber assistant for a 3 letter agency so the term is well known.

      Thanks for confirming our suspicions.

      --
      I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
    7. Re:"Cyber", the mark of incompetence... by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      Re "actually have better standards"
      That went out in late 1970/80-1990's. Political correctness has replaced any consideration of using "security" to stop a new worker getting a job gov/mil wide.
      The US buddy system will have to be imported to keep new secrets.

      Once very smart new staff work out they wont be trusted and the person they work with cant be trusted the esprit de corps returns to the low pay and conditions of the 1950's to mid 1970's.
      The ability to do research is lost as all such attempts are reported internally. Keeping track of new staff becomes the mission. Back to the 1960's investigations with the decades of doubt over all past tasks.
      When a gov wants better standards they pay more, offer free further education, have some trust their workers and have the best working conditions.
      Once governments step in and make demands about the demographics of the new workers and who can be hired then once great security has to drop in importance.

      Once security services expand too quickly and have accept any new staff decades of security problems set in. The classic example was promotion of well placed spies within the UK security services in the 1930-1960's due to the need for skilled staff and the lack of security.

      Rapid "cyber" expansion with no need for deep security questions just opens part of the gov/mil up to any cult members, spies, people of faith, people with split loyalties. Background investigations cant block getting cyber work so a spy with a new gov/mil UK cyber job can spy until/if detected.
      In the past deep background investigations would have blocked untrusted people and kept standards.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    8. Re:"Cyber", the mark of incompetence... by marcjps · · Score: 1

      Still, various institutions adopted the word cyber in reference to "digital wrongdoings". Oxford dictionary made a post about it.

    9. Re:"Cyber", the mark of incompetence... by 50000BTU_barbecue · · Score: 1

      " They will probably only get wannabees"

      Oh another typo! Unless you meant a type of eusocial insect known to make honey?

      --
      Mostly random stuff.
    10. Re:"Cyber", the mark of incompetence... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      After the Snowden leaks anyone with any morals of conscience would have to ask themselves if they could work for GCHQ. This is an organization that wilfully, systematically broke the law for at least a decade and continues to do so. What little we know of their operation is unimpressive and suggests only moderate effectiveness, which the need for a further 2000 staff seems to confirm.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    11. Re:"Cyber", the mark of incompetence... by gweihir · · Score: 1

      You seem to have no purpose in life....

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    12. Re:"Cyber", the mark of incompetence... by gweihir · · Score: 1

      There are always enough useful idiots and enough people that do not have personal morals at all. These willingly do what they are told. They are the backbone of every good totalitarian state.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    13. Re:"Cyber", the mark of incompetence... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's terrible ... I work in UK govt as a contractor, and all the IT security stuff is "cyber", it's ridiculous.

    14. Re:"Cyber", the mark of incompetence... by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      They will not even get that. That is not hacker force but a straight up forum propaganda force, multiple accounts spreading deep state propaganda, war is peace shit.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    15. Re: "Cyber", the mark of incompetence... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, the term has been revived some years ago.

  4. The Empire strikes back... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    just as usual a couple of decades late. The Germans tried the same last year (a new agency to crack everything evil, like whatsapp), they have found a whooping 60 staffers (including janitors, secretarys etc), good luck finding 2000 people who want to work for half of what they could make in the open market (or a tenth of black market), with the added bonus of some jackass in uniform yelling at you...

  5. Brexit Was A Putin Plot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But of course they are at it. Is it the common language that makes these people stupid? Can't you see what Putin has done? Is doing? How stupid does stupid keep getting? I expect the stupid to answer these.

    1. Re: Brexit Was A Putin Plot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Brexit was a Thatcherite plot. British conservativetism, the dumbest ideology out there. Bested in stupidity only by the US Republican Christian fundamentalists.

  6. Oh the stupidity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I like it better than "hacker", though. "Cyber" means the speaker is probably government and likely clueless (as government is wont to be). "Hacker" might mean that, but also that the speaker is out to bamboozle you with some empty scare-words. Which is what the s'kiddies (that call *themselves* "hacker" unearnedly) have built their entire "white hat vs. black hat", "ethical" imperial textile industry out of. "Hackers" are the bogeymen of the "cyber". I don't mind talking "cyber". I do mind talking bogeymen, and what countermeasures might help against bogeymen, and all that rot.

    Even so, this sounds like the UK is gearing up for something monumentally stupid... yet again. No surprise there, with Theresa "snooper's charter" May at the helm. How much stupidity can 250 mn UKP buy? I guess we're going to find out.

    1. Re:Oh the stupidity by Archtech · · Score: 1

      Reluctantly, I am beginning to think that maybe "hacker" will come to mean "black hat" (as a secondary or maybe primary meaning), just through overwhelming usage. After all, most of us in the computer world grew up referring to "data" as a singular, even though we know it's originally a plural.

      --
      I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
    2. Re:Oh the stupidity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The current usage of "hack" is as a go-to scare-word for the tech-illiterate meaning "something probably as least bad-ish might have happened but we don't know what and we wouldn't understand if we did know". It probably involves computers somehow, but most everything electronic is computers these days, so it might apply to anything at all, besides mean anything at all. Moreso for the people who should know enough about tech to write cogently about i.e. tech journalists.

      Who by and large do little more than repeating press releases they get spoon-fed by publicity agencies. As I was reminded today: ``Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed. All else is public relations.'' So "journalist" itself is also a term with less meaning than it used to have.

      Though "hacker" never had much meaning in the mainstream, where it did have oodles of meaning and ment great praise with a very select set of tech tinkerers before the s'kiddies raped it, then proceeded to found the computer "security" industry on the ruins. In hollywood, of course, it never ment anything but "cyber baddie", though it might be "our" "cyber baddie", depending on the plot.

      The whole white vs. black hat dog-and-pony show is an attempt by those same security s'kiddies to salvage from their own shit show some sort of semblance of excuse to be trusted by their customers with their data so they could get paid legally. But even that they fucked up. Witness the "black hat" conferences. Why shouldn't we just round up the entire conference for "computer hacking" (the relevant US law leaves out a definition of what that might be, very convenient) and put 'em behind bars? By the security s'kiddies own logic, it'd be by rights and it'd make us all a lot safer.

      Why those hatted "hackers" instead still walk free is not easily explainable to the public. So why expect them to make the distinction?

      I say there's no point trying and the only way forward is to stop using "hack", "hacking" and "hacker" entirely, since it signals ignorance and/or playong on the audience's ignorace (ie malice), and instead writing what (typically very little) you do know is more productive in any case. For you might find you don't know anything worth writing about and you need to do some research first. And that might lead, shock horror, to news stories with actual content.

    3. Re:Oh the stupidity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You mean return to its original meaning?

    4. Re:Oh the stupidity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      [Something about vintage shoes goes here.]

  7. Just more aggression from Little America by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    they'll be using it against Europe, Japan, South America and all the other friendly places, just like their bigger brother has, unfortunately...

  8. Don't worry by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm from the internet. Cyber Cyber Cyber Cyber.

  9. Stalking and Harassment of... by buravirgil · · Score: 3, Insightful

    subjects and citizens, largely men victimizing and predating women, was not sufficient cause to employ a "force", but harm of the nationhood is. I have come to new levels of disdain for bureaucrats of "free market" nations (and many regular folks) who justify the ambitions of trans-national corporations (protected by limited liability) collating and correlating consumer profiles (aka You-Are-the-Product) but insist less developed economies allow such vital statistics be collected by western corporations.

    But of course I support securing admin directories and increasing awareness of manipulation (such as phishing), but as another poster has dismissed the very term cyber as hopelessly dated and ignorant, I am alarmed by the complete lack of specificity by the given descriptions.

    --
    Would were! Should is! Could be! And live a hundred times three.
    1. Re:Stalking and Harassment of... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Most of these people will probably be working with other organisations to help them implement basic security or run some automated security scans against their networks. Many will also be on social media, something like the Russian Internet Research Agency.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  10. In simpler terms... by Archtech · · Score: 1, Interesting

    "Britain is significantly increasing its ability to wage war in cyberspace..."

    Translation: "to fuck up the Internet"

    "... with the creation of a new offensive cyber force of up to 2,000 personnel..."

    Who will apparently sit at computers and argue (futilely) with anyone they discover telling the truth on the Web. Or, if decision-makers in London are insane enough, try to damage Russian equipment and harm Russian people by screwing with their computer systems.

    After all, what's to lose? It would take Russia all of half an hour and up to five per cent of its strategic warheads to render the entire UK permanently uninhabitable.

    "... Sky News understands..."

    Vanishingly unlikely

    --
    I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
    1. Re:In simpler terms... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      "Britain is significantly increasing its ability to wage war in cyberspace..."

      Translation: "to fuck up the Internet"

      The Conservative conference is about to start and the UK government is desperate for anything to distract them from the Brexit catastrophe. This is why a group of people who have regularly compared the EU to the Nazis are suddenly getting upset about a photo with no cherries. The real translation is "please don't notice the puppeteer .

    2. Re:In simpler terms... by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      After all, what's to lose? It would take Russia all of half an hour and up to five per cent of its strategic warheads to render the entire UK permanently uninhabitable.

      You've just discovered MAD.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    3. Re:In simpler terms... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, ISIS is still having its news outlet active which seems to be a difficult thing to find.

      It would take Russia all of half an hour and up to five per cent of its strategic warheads to render the entire UK permanently uninhabitable.

      How else would Putin get rid of those political enemies of his? He has enemies everywhere!! But would he do this before having poisoned all people who betrayed the Holy Orthodox Church? Unlikely.

    4. Re:In simpler terms... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But Russian warheads have proved hackable [link elided].

  11. Mandatory xkcd by Archtech · · Score: 1

    https://www.xkcd.com/386/

    --
    I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
  12. So how many jobs by bobstreo · · Score: 1

    will be security? How many will be administrative support, oversight. or just plain bureaucratic overhead with cushy jobs appointed by their friends?

  13. Russia? by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

    Russia my my arse. This is to keep an eye on those Belgian bastards.

    I know this for a fact because this gu*@€&^.]à,... .
    no carrier

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    1. Re:Russia? by rmdingler · · Score: 1

      In the spirit of

      "I'd rather have honest enemies than fake friends."

      --
      Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

      Ernest Hemingway

    2. Re:Russia? by Mr.+Dollar+Ton · · Score: 1

      By what measure is the Putin regime "honest"?

    3. Re:Russia? by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 0

      This is to keep an eye on those Belgian bastards.

      This was also my first thought. A conspicuous coincidence . . . the EU snubs Theresa May in Austria last week because they don't like her Chequers Plan . . . and a few days later she announces the Cyber Force.

      I guess the EU will respond by announcing their own Cyber Force.

      . . . but then again . . . nobody in the UK besides Theresa May seems to like her Chequers Plan either . . . so maybe she wants to keep an eye on the UK bastards, as well . . . ?

      The UK Cyber Force could have been really cool, if Gerry and Sylvia Anderson were still around to equip them . . .

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
    4. Re:Russia? by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      Russia my my arse. This is to keep an eye on those Belgian bastards.

      Yep. We do after all rely on Wallonia's vote to secure whatever half-cocked Brexit deal we manage to negotiate.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    5. Re:Russia? by serviscope_minor · · Score: 4, Insightful

      . . . but then again . . . nobody in the UK besides Theresa May seems to like her Chequers Plan either . . . so maybe she wants to keep an eye on the UK bastards, as well . . . ?

      (what's the spaces between the dots?)

      That aside, yeah no one in the UK really likes it.

      For the vaguely sane, leaving the EU is clearly incredibly stupid and it's clear we're going to much worse under Chequers than we're doing now[*].

      For many Brexiters it's not acceptable because Brexit was supposed to make everything better and it won't. they're stil waiting for a magical solution which makes everything better not worse.

      And for the Jacob Reese-Moggs and Boris "250k is chickenfeed" Johnsons of this world, they simply don't care that a hard Brexit will utterly fuck everyone less rich than them. They see it as a route to power and they don't care how many people have to die for them to get it.

      Thing is though the reception in the UK is barely relevant. No one in the EU likes it either. The May government is very good when it comes to blustering about our "red lines", but they seem to have forgotten that the EU has some too.

      [*] There are some interesting things though, particularly the emphasis on goods rather than services. The UK is largely a financial service economy so that will effectively heavily boos the goods side relative to the services side. That could potentially help with the inequality problems because manufacturing of goods can end up employing a lot of people relative to financial services. However, in order for that work, the Tories would have to be a lot more pro British manufacturing than they've ever been in the past which is deeply unlikely. And the EU will have to agree which they won't.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    6. Re:Russia? by Hognoxious · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Did you see the recent episode of Question Time from Dewsbury? I grew up not far from there and frankly I'm thinking about developing a Scouse or maybe Brummie accent to avoid the stigma of being associated with such a bunch of thick ignorant cunts.

      But froth froth sovereignty! Froth froth get behind the leader!

      The fact that we haven't had that since the yanks told us we couldn't invade Suez seems to pass them by. As for getting behind the leader, that's what lemmings do.

      There are some interesting things though, particularly the emphasis on goods rather than services. The UK is largely a financial service economy so that will effectively heavily boos the goods side relative to the services side.

      I don't see that. It won't make, say, our carmakers any better than they already are, but we could still lose huge amounts of jobs and the related tax revenue from financial companies moving - which is already happening.

      Referring back to QT, there was a woman on the panel who was the first to say it publicly AFAIK - what the people voted for is irrelevant it if it can't actually be done.

      As to all those deals we'll be able to do, India (one of the most protectionist countries there is) told her to go pound sand last year and she's been reduced to trying to flog weapons to those lovely Turks and Saudis.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    7. Re:Russia? by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

      The fact that we haven't had that since the yanks told us we couldn't invade Suez seems to pass them by.

      I always thought of it the other way around. We always had sovreignty because we cold choose to ignore any of the EU's laws. Of course we'd have to leave to do that but we always had the choice. for some reason people think "soverignty" means "do whatever with no consequences".

      As for getting behind the leader, that's what lemmings do.

      Quite so.

      I don't see that. It won't make, say, our carmakers any better than they already are, but we could still lose huge amounts of jobs and the related tax revenue from financial companies moving - which is already happening.

      Yes. It won't be good. Just under that unlikely scenario, manufacturing would probably rise with a bit less inequality as a result. That's the relative level of course: everyone would be dragged down a long way.

      Referring back to QT, there was a woman on the panel who was the first to say it publicly AFAIK - what the people voted for is irrelevant it if it can't actually be done

      Makes sense. And not only that is no one can even agree on what people voted for. What does leave even mean? Apart from "leave" of course...

      As to all those deals we'll be able to do, India (one of the most protectionist countries there is) told her to go pound sand last year and she's been reduced to trying to flog weapons to those lovely Turks and Saudis.

      Well there's always Australia. They're big and close, right?

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
  14. No clue by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    and 250M is *way* too little to do nation state infrastructure that is going to scare anyone. What are you? Poor?

  15. Taxes always go up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    until they don't, around 33% taxed total of a country's products and services, and at that time, they fall immediately, down to 8%, and the cycle continues.

    What's your country's tax level now? Can you weather the kinds of reforms that occur when the bottom falls out? It only happens once every two hundred or three hundred years, but it appears to be on the horizon for western nations.

  16. Re:Sand n1ggers of britain by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    God save the queen, her fascist regime, that cybero-bond is brexit moron.

  17. Cambridge Analytica by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They could hire Cambridge Analytica, they seem to be pretty successful -- uh, it's called Emerdata, these days.

  18. Which good hacker is going to sign up for this? by Slayer · · Score: 2

    We just lived through decades of criminalizing trivial transgressions (whenever "with a computer" would apply), of making even copyright circumvention (think: copying a DVD) a criminal act more punishable than assault. At the same time countless cases of extreme carelessness regarding security, many of them leading to massive private data dumps, were without any adverse consequences to the responsible decision makers.

    There will be two kinds of people signing up for these newly created cyber corps: reckless people with a criminal past who could be blackmailed into service, and people who fancy the term "cyber corps", which makes them feel like space marines from SC2. Every decently skilled and responsible hacker in the western hemisphere wants nothing to do with this whole topic any more, and even less with the two groups of people I just described.

    The days of 2600 are gone in the west, and they ain't coming back through cyber corps.

    1. Re:Which good hacker is going to sign up for this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe normal people who just want to use their IT skills to put food on the table. No need to dramatise it.

    2. Re:Which good hacker is going to sign up for this? by Slayer · · Score: 1

      You can't learn hacking from a few theoretical courses, and anything practical is illegal by now - highly illegal. Even possession of hacking tools can get you in legal trouble.

      A bunch of incompetent, scared chickens wrote laws, which permanently put the western hemisphere into a massive strategic disadvantage. Enjoy the results! I wish the Brits best of luck finding 2000 skilled and motivated people for their silly cyber corps.

  19. But what of my CyberCloud? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Does stupid times stupid become smart too?

    And does iCyberCloud make it stupid again, or does the mark of iTternal September count twice?

  20. The problem is: That wouldn’t stop Trump. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    CIA agent Putin would not be that dumb though. He's only hated by the usually dictator-breeding and -favoring CIA because he DID stop ... both obeying their wishes and doing shit like that. (Same thing, I know.)

    And if you do not believe Putin is a CIA puppet... which you of course should not without good evidence ...remember that he was put in power by Yeltsin (nobody denies that), who himself was put in power by the CIA via harassment of his only opponent ($3m) and funneling money ($500m) to him via the IMF. Bill Clinton even counseled Yeltzin via telephone!. ^^

    Sources:

    Russian election of 1996 and the role of the USA:
    ttps://origin-www.bloombergview.com/articles/2016-03-07/the-u-s-election-s-echoes-of-1996-russia
    http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-8947088.html
    http://www.hoover.org/research/election-96

    Bill Clinton as Yelzin's election assistant?
    http://www.newsmax.com/Newsmax-Tv/bill-clinton-advise-boris-yeltsin-dick-morris/2016/09/08/id/747327/
    Dick Morris worked during Yeltsin's 1996 election campaign for Bill Clinton. He says: "When I worked for Clinton, Clinton called me and said, 'I want to get Yeltsin elected as president of Russia against Gennady Zyuganov, who was the communist who was running against him. Putin was Zyuganov's major backer.”

    US movie about the Yeltsin campaign: "Spinning Boris": https://youtu.be/nm-50K-XELY
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/03/spinning-hillary-a-history-of-america-and-russias-mutual-meddling

    How big was the role of Clinton's consultants: Boasting or trivializing?
    http://www.nytimes.com/1996/07/09/world/moscow-journal-the-americans-who-saved-yeltsin-or-did-they.html
    Harvard study: "Assessing Russia's Democratic Presidential Election.": http://www.belfercenter.org/publication/assessing-russias-democratic-presidential-election
    "Was the financing of the campaign "fair and free"? Clearly no. The election rules specified that a campaign could spend up to $2.9 million. Private estimates of the cost of Yeltsin's campaign range well into the hundreds of millions of dollars." And "While the electoral law limited campaign spending to $3 million per candidate, oligarchs reportedly funded Yeltsin with $500 million. He reduced the emphasis on the unpopular economic reforms, and during the campaign the IMF announced a loan to Russia of $10 billion which was intended to be used to raise the wages of teachers and state workers, and to increase pensions."
    https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/143427/Review17.pdf

    Campaign funding per IWF loan
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/oct/17/russia.business
    http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1996-02-23/news/9602230278_1_russian-president-boris-yeltsin-ultranationalist-opponents-billion-loan

    Campaign manipulation: Just canceling hotel room bookings
    "The tactics adopted by Chubais campaign team included cancellation of hotel reservations made by the Zyuganov campaign, issuing false invitations to Zyuganov press conferences with the wrong times, and the publication and distribution of fake extremist Communist programs."
    See: David M. Kotz, Fred Weir: Russia’s Path from Gorbachev to Putin, 2007, P. 260-S.264

    Did Yeltsin win the election of 1996 -- or rather steal it?
    http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2107565,00.html

    Time magazine cover from 1996-07-15 -- "Yanks to the rescue". The issue that revealed the Yeltsin story
    http://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19960715,00.html

    Background literature: David M. Kotz, Fred Weir: Russia’s Path from Gorbachev to Putin, 2007

    Might all be bull, sure. I don't know. ;)

  21. Maths by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    £250m funding for 2,000 staff. That's an average of £125K each. In Cheltenham, £60K would be a good average salary. Add £30K (50%) to cover employer taxes, pension, a desk, a PC, etc. and you're up to £90K each. So what are they doing with the other £35K per member of staff? That's £70m a year disappearing somewhere...

  22. So, strongly worded letters and email to the Arabs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There's not much cannibalism in the Royal Navy!

  23. Welcome to Airstrip One... by Chas · · Score: 1

    Complete and utter waste of taxpayer money.

    Spend the same amount to increase their street level presence in bad neighborhoods and pull off the "DAS RAYCISS!" shackles?

    MUCH better investment.

    --


    Chas - The one, the only.
    THANK GOD!!!
    1. Re:Welcome to Airstrip One... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just a while back the UK health system was a victim of ransomware. The threat is out there and someone needs to be able to counter that threat. The average IT guy doesn't have the necessary skill set, or intelligence to defend against these very sophisticated, often state sponsored, attacks.

    2. Re:Welcome to Airstrip One... by Chas · · Score: 1

      So trust the government to somehow manage your network for you?

      Nah.

      Someone may be that stupid.

      But I can't imagine there's THAT many of them.

      --


      Chas - The one, the only.
      THANK GOD!!!
  24. "that wish to do (((us))) harm"... LOL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is just more spying by our Jewish masters on anybody who exposes them... Sickening.

  25. GCHQ recruitment by Munich+Munchkin · · Score: 1

    I think that their recruitment processes will be more than sufficient to weed out the wannabes. The issue really is if they become too good at what they're doing. The only difference between a Russian target for this work and a domestic target for this work is an accident of birth.