Yeah, I made a post about it a while back.  There have been a number of online articles, and federal agency blurbs about it for a bit.   I have been kind of stoked by the idea myself.  I think it's about time we started pushing more education in this field into our armed forces.

And I thought "Webmaster" was a cool job title (many a year ago)...

Looks like the Air Force is finalizing their location and whatnot for the Cyber Command.  Very interesting article on it.

http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2008/02/cyber_command?currentPage=all

"We have to change the way we think about warriors of the future," Lord enthuses, raising his jaw while a B-52 traces the sky outside his windows. "So if they can't run three miles with a pack on their backs but they can shut down a SCADA system, we need to have a culture where they fit in."

Is it the first to dedicate over 2 billion to it, and have a projected staff of somewhere in the 5k to 10k employees in it though? As well as the first full military branch to dedicate an entire command structure to it?  It of course isn't revolutionary for security agencies and other organizations to have teams dedicated to cyber security and whatnot, but it does seem like a more open and forward step toward things on a larger scale.  They have nearly the budget of the entire NPS, for a rumored 1/5 to 2/5ths the employees, not to mention other land/peripheral expenses.

Heh, I gotta ask Chris, and please don't take offense at it.  But did you actually read the article, or are you just trolling, or am I taking your response out of context?  I agree that 10k hackers in one place is a bit out there, but my (and the articles) description is of the developing military command as a whole, including network support personel, various levels of bureaucracy, and I'm sure some aquisition people.  Also, the article talks about them deciding on their headquarters, but having personel spread out (ie, not in one place). 

I fully appreciate your candidness, infact it's one of the reasons I enjoy reading your papers and columns.  On that same note though, I would also appreciate more respect than a single sentence reply that appears (though perhaps purely through personal perspective) to be dripping with condescension and possibly lack actual perspective of one who's read the article in question?  I may be totally off in left field there, and if so I do appologize, though my first instincts are that I'm not far off the mark.

ive got 10 years in the military and i still work for DoD, i think i have a decent handle on the .mil situation.

yes i read the article, i have read all the articles about it, there have been several.

a "cyber command" has been talked about for a long time, i'm sure it just my pessimism that what is now  a good idea will at the very best will have a very rocky start and probably wont work (a la department of homeland security).  there are tons of "cyber warriors" in every service and they dont even get along, talk, or share money inter service, you really think its just going to"work" if they build a shiny new building for the whole of DoD and shove a bunch of hackers in it?  kinda naive.

here this should put it in context:
"Graduates of the six-month program will be able to operate a computer like "a weapon system" and will be known as cyberwarriors or cyberoperators,"

like a weapon system after 6 months...ok, thats really like saying i got my CEH and i now know what the F i'm doing and i'm a real penetration tester.

Chris

I must admit, I don't have a decade in the .mil, don't really ever plan to.  Nor am I a 20 year old naive kid enfatuated with an article he read on a board somewhere.  I've been watching the articles for quite a while, and you've probably read more than I have of them as well.  I work for the .gov, and with that I recognize there are many money holes and inherent issues with new projects.  What annoyed me was the lack of decent response, and in it's place what felt a tad like a flippant condescending one.  That obviously could be mainly due to the pessimism of years dealing with the military, and your obvious higher level of knowledge on the issues in question; none the less I hope a posted article would warrant at least a bit of attention/effort above a single sentence stating the obvious.  The quote about people using computers like weapons after six months of training is obviously a stupid statement on the part of the speaker, I think any of us who have been working and learning all we can about ethical hacking and security understand that.  It's like so many other statement's fed to the public by the governmnent, full of crap to appease the ignorant masses.


What I wrote there was a simple stating of the obvious, that they're finalizing their location, and that I found the article interesting.  And an accompanying quote from the article where the acting commander talks about the branch not caring so much about the potentials being overly physically fit, as long as they had some semblence of skills.


Perhaps that response wasn't to my post, but to earlier ones.. but I did take it as a response to my post.  It doesn't seem to have much to do with what i posted though, and seemed to be a restating of what pseud0 had already stated and we all agreed with.  IE, there are teams in most gov agencies and mil agencies. 


Once again, I stated the obvious that most people knew, and that pseud0 had already stated.  IE "It of course isn't revolutionary for security agencies and other organizations to have teams dedicated to cyber security and whatnot, but it does seem like a more open and forward step toward things on a larger scale."  Larger scale being thousands of employees, though less than a 5th of the NPS, and a big wad of money. (multiple billions). 

The response of:

Was obviously a response to my post.  Though I'm by nature somewhat pessimistic (I call it realistic), I think that post is a bit more tinged with condescension than actual relivence.  I mean... really, where did I, or the article state that there would be 5k to 10k cyberwarriors in one place?  No where, unless you infer from the article that all of the employees of the command are cyberwarriors, and that they're all stationed in one place.  Neither of which being the case, nor suggestion.

I highly appreciate that you did give a bit more work into your last post, and I DO appreciate your experience and insights.  I also would appreciate respectful responses given with a measure of the forethought and care I would ensure to give to anyone's post.   

pseud0,

As always, I enjoy reading your well thought out, and insightful posts.  And I truly hope live allows you the time and opportunity to continue posting and working with the EHN community to grow.  The legal ramifications of cyberwar(terrorism?) are the main points of some really interesting articles, including one from a law professor.  I thought it was a good read sometime back, I should look for that.