lol, of course in order to that you'd have to become the first person on the planet who could actually understand what thier job is. Most don't find out till tech school at the soonest!
Since you love the AF so much I'll let you in on a little update. After having so many people flunk out of the programming course because of ADA at Keesler they rewrote it so now all these people learn is Visual Basic. You know where Visual Basic is used in the AF? No where. They just want to introduce to you the feild apparently.
On a personal note when I went to the MEPS station I asked straight up to take the test required to become a programmer. The job councillor said that the programmer slots were full up. In between my insistance that I get something in the computer feild he tried talking me into EOD (Explosive Ordinance Disposal, basically the bomb squad) and Fuels Apprentice with a $11,000 bonues (I'd be fueling airplanes and checking flight lines for trash). After I finally got him to go check his "system" he came back and said that there was one computer feild that had three spots left in it. I took the spot, Comm-Ops, with no sign on bonus or anything as a six year enlistee. Through BMT and Keesler I found about five or six other Comm-Ops who came in within days of me who were told the exact same story. The 3CXXX feilds are some of the most undermanned and their big supposed advantage (the maximum reenlistment bonus) has just been dropped a notch or two. All this leaves me to ask as an airman: "Does the Air Force not want to keep me?"
Then I thank the powers that be profusely that my experience has not been the rule with intel.
The way it broke down was roughly 23,000 civilians and 7,000 military. That was when I first got to the base. By the time I left the numbers changed to closer to 30,000/3,500. The military organizations had thier own LAN shops so we were basically left with the civilian organizations. These in theory had Workgroup Managers who were supposed to handle day to day operations for thier organization. Suffice it to say it didn't actually work that way so yes, at anyone time the 60 of us were servicing (we weren't given admin rights) 23,000-30,000 users. We had the call ratio to back it up too. On a slow-average day, each person on the desk (of which there were three) could receive around 50 calls per person. That's 150 calls total for the whole desk in one day. Now if something breaks that can easily skyrocket to as much as 300 per person. You do the math =P
What makes you think intel uses *nix?
As far as user/admin ratio goes, at my last assignment I was part of a 60 airman Help Desk that administered a Windows 2K hosted LAN to over 30,000 users. How's that for a ratio?
The R&D teams of the military tend to be 10 years ahead of the civilan sector. This is true. That the military itself is always at the forefront of tech is a common misconception. I work in the sort of classified facility you see movies made about. I work on some systems that are older than I am. It might've been the fore front of tech back in Vietnam, but it certainly isn't now. Beleive it or not this is fairly common in the military. The common big wig's view is: if morale is good and the system is running why mess with it? All those big bucks you hear about the military getting, well a lot of that winds right back in the civilian sector in the form of contracting. For instance: the air force doesn't design planes. Lockheed and Martin and Boeing design planes. They're the ones that wind up with the cash influx. I wind up using a computer that I have to check ever day or so to make sure it hasn't frozen up!
I've been in the US Air Force for just over two and a half years. A few weeks ago I finally sewed on my third stripe (for you civilians out there that means I got promoted). The entire time I have been a 3C0X1, Communications-Computer Systems Operations, or Comm-Ops for short. Along with two or three other career feilds we handle the vast bulk of the Air Force's military IT. Honestly, that's almost an oxy moron. Just about every military network out there, regardless of classification, is run by civilians (often trained by Microsoft, certified by Microsoft and knowing only Microsoft in my experience. That causes a heckuva lot of problems in and of itself). As military there's very little else we actually can do with the networks. Why? Well there's two main reasons:
1) Some big wig about a decade ago (you do the math) decided that it would be a good idea to start running the military like a business. So, he decided that instead of focusing on training the troops he would hire contractors and civilians to replace troops on the pretense that it was cheaper and would provide better service. When it was clearly proven and accepted that neither of these were the case they used the excuse that they're "freeing us up" for more combat-oriented positions. Well they sure are spending a lot of money on "freeing us up" and there aren't many contractors out there (in my personal experience) who'll work the same shifts we often do.
2) Let me tell you a little bit about military career training in the USAF. Before I begin, this is not a complaint but a straight portrayl of what it is. First, you go to Basic Military Training (BMT) at Lackland AFB in San Antonio for six weeks or so. That's all well and good and then you're sent to your tech school. For most IT career feilds that happens to be Keesler AFB, MI. There you go through a course that is not only taught by voluntold instructors, but is extremely outdated and poorly presented. It's divided up into various blocks, each block having a certain instructor with a certain set of slides. Many of these slides are extremely dull and feature the same monotonous background over and over and over again. I've been out of Keesler for over two years now and I still have nightmares about the slides with the light blue backgrounds and plain Times New Roman font. Anyway, the material, though not effectively taught, is simple and easy for most to learn. All well and good right? Well, not really. You see at the end of each block you take a test. These tests are written by I beleive a Senior NCO (Sargent for you civilians) who probably made up the CDCs (see below) or what have you as well. This individual received no training on how to write a test. All the tests are multiple guess however, in my experience, they have no actual bearing on the individual's knowledge of the material. Your level of comprehension in no way equates to your score on any of the these tests. This is such a prevelant phenomena that there is a well known saying in the AF explaining our tests: "There's four possible answers. Two of them are wrong. One of them is right. Then there's the AF answer." When I went through Keesler I went through a course that had been used for six years. I was taught 98 and NT. My class was the first class in that courses history to graduate without anyone flunking out of it. I've been told that the course has recently been rewritten but personally I don't hold much faith. Well, for argument's sake, lets say you make it out of Tech School and arrive at your first duty station. Well you haven't really learned much yet have you? How can you progress further in your career knowledge you ask? Your answer: Career Development Courses, or CDCs for short. These are a series of manuals written by a senior NCO in the career feild who again is usually voluntold for this and receives no training on how to write a manual. Rather than describe the entire horrid process of testing on CDCs I would like to describe for you my personal experience with the 3C0
That sounds more like an isolated incident, and probably related to training. Training is certainly our biggest issue. For instance, I'm the Communications-Computer Systems Operations career feild. I'm supposed to work with networks basically. According to my training material: the dot matrix is the most popular type of printer, CDs are a developing technology, 3.5 floppies are recent technology, every image and diagraph shows the old 5.25 floppies, contain a paragraph to tell me what a SHIFT key does and how to turn on a computer respectively, and personally, out of all the training material I've ever been exposed to its the worst written. In most cases, at least in my career feild, it seems like instead of actually writing the manual up themselves they use clippets out of old magazines. I'm not even going to get started on tech school. I can't speak too much for other career feilds but it Comm-Ops, saying we have an issue with training is more of an understatement than anything else.
Well, if it's treason anyone can face the death penalty, civilian or military, but there's no question that civilians get off easier. The most common example: using government networks to view porn. A civilian gets caught doing this he gets a tiny slap on the wrist and a light verbal counceling. Some Master Sargent who's been in for nineteen years gets caught and he gets booted out, if he's lucky. On this particular issue, people have been sent to Levinworth (military prison). Just a slight difference in standards huh?
There's also a gigantic difference between branches when it comes to security. Frankly, AF and Navy have traditionally been better about information security while the Marines are Army tend to be better at physical security. And I won't deny that the military just about everywhere happens to have some insecurities, some more than others. Since this base is the only one I've been at (so far) though it's the only one I can speak about.
I'm surprised to see A-76 mentioned on here. Tinker is infested with it. 30,000 civilians work on the base which has 3,000 military, most of which are the AWACs and Combat Comm. The only military ABW units left are Security Forces and the MPF. Not to mention most of the civilians I have to deal with are just plain door-knob dumb. Has anyone else had to physically teach someone the bare basics of how to use a keyboard? If I remember correctly, the contract was won the first time (pretty unusual) for 18.5 million. We're left wondering where that came from since all the funding for our section got cut off two years ago when they decided to A-76 us. I could go on and on and on and on and on and on about all this but it'd probably be wiser not too over a public forum. As for Lackland, I got to BMT 13Mar01 and as far as I can tell, Lackland hasn't changed much at all in the last decade or two when it comes to the dorms. As for Keesler, I got there (30Apr01) four months after they completed the new dorms in the Triangle. They were pretty nice but TSgt Hines makes it his mission in life to turn tech school into a nightmare. Still, the best part of tech school was seeing "Cheif Mac" getting busted in the middle of the Triangle for driving his big red truck on a troopwalk by an Airman Basic Security Forces.
It certainly has its moments from time to time. It's ironic what you said though. I'm currently assigned to the 72nd Communications Squadron Help Desk which provides network support, central data collection point, and apparently thousands of other services we weren't even aware of on a daily base to the tens of thousands of people who work on this base. Just a few weeks ago we got replaced by civilians. First thing to go: the help desk being a 24/7/365 shop. Other services are of course being dropped and cut and reallocated on a regular basis. I'm not even going to get into the other already-contracted-out organizations on base that don't even hold up to thier responsibilities but as you said, "that's a whole 'nother argument..." No offense to anyone but civilians don't really belong in a military enviroment. The two just don't mesh right and I'm sure the opposite is probably true too.
I happen to be in the military, though just an Airman First Class, and due to the nature of my assignment I have to deal with contractors pretty often. Because of how the system works it seems like most of the time the military is getting hired by the contractors. More often than not we have to meet thier standards and I have yet to see an off base contractor that would meet DoD 'standards' for security. Furthermore, since all of our individual records are tracked by our social security numbers we don't really have much in the way of private information (there's "Privacy Act of 1974" stickers everywhere but that's pretty much a joke to begin with). I'm not sure why there'd be credit card information there and I've never heard of TriWest (Tricare is our health provider, typo maybe?) and judging on past experience I'd be surprised if the affected military are notified. Heck, I'd be surprised if they know which individuals it was. As for whether it was the hardware or software the theives were after, all I'm going to say is a lot happens right here in the Midwest that the general public is never aware of. There are active terrorist cells on US soil but for one reason or another there's not a lot we can do about them.
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lol, of course in order to that you'd have to become the first person on the planet who could actually understand what thier job is. Most don't find out till tech school at the soonest!
Since you love the AF so much I'll let you in on a little update. After having so many people flunk out of the programming course because of ADA at Keesler they rewrote it so now all these people learn is Visual Basic. You know where Visual Basic is used in the AF? No where. They just want to introduce to you the feild apparently. On a personal note when I went to the MEPS station I asked straight up to take the test required to become a programmer. The job councillor said that the programmer slots were full up. In between my insistance that I get something in the computer feild he tried talking me into EOD (Explosive Ordinance Disposal, basically the bomb squad) and Fuels Apprentice with a $11,000 bonues (I'd be fueling airplanes and checking flight lines for trash). After I finally got him to go check his "system" he came back and said that there was one computer feild that had three spots left in it. I took the spot, Comm-Ops, with no sign on bonus or anything as a six year enlistee. Through BMT and Keesler I found about five or six other Comm-Ops who came in within days of me who were told the exact same story. The 3CXXX feilds are some of the most undermanned and their big supposed advantage (the maximum reenlistment bonus) has just been dropped a notch or two. All this leaves me to ask as an airman: "Does the Air Force not want to keep me?"
Then I thank the powers that be profusely that my experience has not been the rule with intel. The way it broke down was roughly 23,000 civilians and 7,000 military. That was when I first got to the base. By the time I left the numbers changed to closer to 30,000/3,500. The military organizations had thier own LAN shops so we were basically left with the civilian organizations. These in theory had Workgroup Managers who were supposed to handle day to day operations for thier organization. Suffice it to say it didn't actually work that way so yes, at anyone time the 60 of us were servicing (we weren't given admin rights) 23,000-30,000 users. We had the call ratio to back it up too. On a slow-average day, each person on the desk (of which there were three) could receive around 50 calls per person. That's 150 calls total for the whole desk in one day. Now if something breaks that can easily skyrocket to as much as 300 per person. You do the math =P
What makes you think intel uses *nix? As far as user/admin ratio goes, at my last assignment I was part of a 60 airman Help Desk that administered a Windows 2K hosted LAN to over 30,000 users. How's that for a ratio?
The R&D teams of the military tend to be 10 years ahead of the civilan sector. This is true. That the military itself is always at the forefront of tech is a common misconception. I work in the sort of classified facility you see movies made about. I work on some systems that are older than I am. It might've been the fore front of tech back in Vietnam, but it certainly isn't now. Beleive it or not this is fairly common in the military. The common big wig's view is: if morale is good and the system is running why mess with it? All those big bucks you hear about the military getting, well a lot of that winds right back in the civilian sector in the form of contracting. For instance: the air force doesn't design planes. Lockheed and Martin and Boeing design planes. They're the ones that wind up with the cash influx. I wind up using a computer that I have to check ever day or so to make sure it hasn't frozen up!
I've been in the US Air Force for just over two and a half years. A few weeks ago I finally sewed on my third stripe (for you civilians out there that means I got promoted). The entire time I have been a 3C0X1, Communications-Computer Systems Operations, or Comm-Ops for short. Along with two or three other career feilds we handle the vast bulk of the Air Force's military IT. Honestly, that's almost an oxy moron. Just about every military network out there, regardless of classification, is run by civilians (often trained by Microsoft, certified by Microsoft and knowing only Microsoft in my experience. That causes a heckuva lot of problems in and of itself). As military there's very little else we actually can do with the networks. Why? Well there's two main reasons:
1) Some big wig about a decade ago (you do the math) decided that it would be a good idea to start running the military like a business. So, he decided that instead of focusing on training the troops he would hire contractors and civilians to replace troops on the pretense that it was cheaper and would provide better service. When it was clearly proven and accepted that neither of these were the case they used the excuse that they're "freeing us up" for more combat-oriented positions. Well they sure are spending a lot of money on "freeing us up" and there aren't many contractors out there (in my personal experience) who'll work the same shifts we often do.
2) Let me tell you a little bit about military career training in the USAF. Before I begin, this is not a complaint but a straight portrayl of what it is. First, you go to Basic Military Training (BMT) at Lackland AFB in San Antonio for six weeks or so. That's all well and good and then you're sent to your tech school. For most IT career feilds that happens to be Keesler AFB, MI. There you go through a course that is not only taught by voluntold instructors, but is extremely outdated and poorly presented. It's divided up into various blocks, each block having a certain instructor with a certain set of slides. Many of these slides are extremely dull and feature the same monotonous background over and over and over again. I've been out of Keesler for over two years now and I still have nightmares about the slides with the light blue backgrounds and plain Times New Roman font. Anyway, the material, though not effectively taught, is simple and easy for most to learn. All well and good right? Well, not really. You see at the end of each block you take a test. These tests are written by I beleive a Senior NCO (Sargent for you civilians) who probably made up the CDCs (see below) or what have you as well. This individual received no training on how to write a test. All the tests are multiple guess however, in my experience, they have no actual bearing on the individual's knowledge of the material. Your level of comprehension in no way equates to your score on any of the these tests. This is such a prevelant phenomena that there is a well known saying in the AF explaining our tests: "There's four possible answers. Two of them are wrong. One of them is right. Then there's the AF answer." When I went through Keesler I went through a course that had been used for six years. I was taught 98 and NT. My class was the first class in that courses history to graduate without anyone flunking out of it. I've been told that the course has recently been rewritten but personally I don't hold much faith.
Well, for argument's sake, lets say you make it out of Tech School and arrive at your first duty station. Well you haven't really learned much yet have you? How can you progress further in your career knowledge you ask? Your answer: Career Development Courses, or CDCs for short. These are a series of manuals written by a senior NCO in the career feild who again is usually voluntold for this and receives no training on how to write a manual. Rather than describe the entire horrid process of testing on CDCs I would like to describe for you my personal experience with the 3C0
That sounds more like an isolated incident, and probably related to training. Training is certainly our biggest issue. For instance, I'm the Communications-Computer Systems Operations career feild. I'm supposed to work with networks basically. According to my training material: the dot matrix is the most popular type of printer, CDs are a developing technology, 3.5 floppies are recent technology, every image and diagraph shows the old 5.25 floppies, contain a paragraph to tell me what a SHIFT key does and how to turn on a computer respectively, and personally, out of all the training material I've ever been exposed to its the worst written. In most cases, at least in my career feild, it seems like instead of actually writing the manual up themselves they use clippets out of old magazines. I'm not even going to get started on tech school. I can't speak too much for other career feilds but it Comm-Ops, saying we have an issue with training is more of an understatement than anything else.
Well, if it's treason anyone can face the death penalty, civilian or military, but there's no question that civilians get off easier. The most common example: using government networks to view porn. A civilian gets caught doing this he gets a tiny slap on the wrist and a light verbal counceling. Some Master Sargent who's been in for nineteen years gets caught and he gets booted out, if he's lucky. On this particular issue, people have been sent to Levinworth (military prison). Just a slight difference in standards huh?
There's also a gigantic difference between branches when it comes to security. Frankly, AF and Navy have traditionally been better about information security while the Marines are Army tend to be better at physical security. And I won't deny that the military just about everywhere happens to have some insecurities, some more than others. Since this base is the only one I've been at (so far) though it's the only one I can speak about.
I'm surprised to see A-76 mentioned on here. Tinker is infested with it. 30,000 civilians work on the base which has 3,000 military, most of which are the AWACs and Combat Comm. The only military ABW units left are Security Forces and the MPF. Not to mention most of the civilians I have to deal with are just plain door-knob dumb. Has anyone else had to physically teach someone the bare basics of how to use a keyboard? If I remember correctly, the contract was won the first time (pretty unusual) for 18.5 million. We're left wondering where that came from since all the funding for our section got cut off two years ago when they decided to A-76 us. I could go on and on and on and on and on and on about all this but it'd probably be wiser not too over a public forum. As for Lackland, I got to BMT 13Mar01 and as far as I can tell, Lackland hasn't changed much at all in the last decade or two when it comes to the dorms. As for Keesler, I got there (30Apr01) four months after they completed the new dorms in the Triangle. They were pretty nice but TSgt Hines makes it his mission in life to turn tech school into a nightmare. Still, the best part of tech school was seeing "Cheif Mac" getting busted in the middle of the Triangle for driving his big red truck on a troopwalk by an Airman Basic Security Forces.
It certainly has its moments from time to time. It's ironic what you said though. I'm currently assigned to the 72nd Communications Squadron Help Desk which provides network support, central data collection point, and apparently thousands of other services we weren't even aware of on a daily base to the tens of thousands of people who work on this base. Just a few weeks ago we got replaced by civilians. First thing to go: the help desk being a 24/7/365 shop. Other services are of course being dropped and cut and reallocated on a regular basis. I'm not even going to get into the other already-contracted-out organizations on base that don't even hold up to thier responsibilities but as you said, "that's a whole 'nother argument..." No offense to anyone but civilians don't really belong in a military enviroment. The two just don't mesh right and I'm sure the opposite is probably true too.
I happen to be in the military, though just an Airman First Class, and due to the nature of my assignment I have to deal with contractors pretty often. Because of how the system works it seems like most of the time the military is getting hired by the contractors. More often than not we have to meet thier standards and I have yet to see an off base contractor that would meet DoD 'standards' for security. Furthermore, since all of our individual records are tracked by our social security numbers we don't really have much in the way of private information (there's "Privacy Act of 1974" stickers everywhere but that's pretty much a joke to begin with). I'm not sure why there'd be credit card information there and I've never heard of TriWest (Tricare is our health provider, typo maybe?) and judging on past experience I'd be surprised if the affected military are notified. Heck, I'd be surprised if they know which individuals it was. As for whether it was the hardware or software the theives were after, all I'm going to say is a lot happens right here in the Midwest that the general public is never aware of. There are active terrorist cells on US soil but for one reason or another there's not a lot we can do about them.