Speaking of the military, this Times piece was also pretty interesting:
Pacing a makeshift bunker whose entrance was camouflaged with netting, the young man in battle fatigues barked at his comrades: “They are flooding the e-mail server. Block it. I’ll take the heat for it.”
These are the war games at West Point, at least last month, when a team of cadets spent four days struggling around the clock to establish a computer network and keep it operating while hackers from the National Security Agency in Maryland tried to infiltrate it with methods that an enemy might use. The N.S.A. made the cadets’ task more difficult by planting viruses on some of the equipment, just as real-world hackers have done on millions of computers around the world.
The competition was a final exam of sorts for a senior elective class. The cadets, who were computer science and information technology majors, competed against teams from the Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard and Merchant Marine as well as the Naval Postgraduate Academy and the Air Force Institute of Technology. Each team was judged on how well it subdued the threats from the N.S.A.
Seems to make a lot of sense that they are preparing the cadets this way, and I would imagine that soldiers with this kind of unique skill set would rocket up the chain of command in their respective fields (I’m assuming this would be Signal Corps, right?). Especially when you consider the role that cyberwar played in the recent Georgia/Russia flare-up.
Radon Chong
And the NSA gets practice playing offense. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
James Hare
Sure, some of them probably will go career — but not many. The money in private industry is better than the Army can afford. I also wonder how many of these exquisitely trained young men and women will be discharged because of their sexual orientation?
Incertus
A “Hackers” sighting? Nice.
geg6
I am happy to see my military doing these sorts of exercises as I believe this is really important for our national security. Certainly more important than building tanks. I never thought I’d say this in a thousand years, I really love how Gates is running Defense. He seems to have his head on straight and isn’t concerned with politics and ideology so much as whatever it takes to protect us from the real threats we face.
John D.
Cyberwar is going to be more important than ever as we migrate fully to the “Army of One” concept.
We already have a tremendous amount of information flowing from the individual soldiers back to command, for use in air/artillery strikes, C3, and maneuver, as well as heavily encrypted commo channels. Hack any of those, and you can cause massive friendly fire incidents, routs, or simply opening lines to let enemy units pass by ours unscathed.
This is NOT science fiction. This can happen now. I’m very glad to see that the DoD and NSA are taking this seriously.
Napoleon
I have a better idea, the US should have two separate internet systems. The existing backbone and a separate exclusive backbone just for things like military use and very sensitive uses (like, say to control utilities or inter-bank transactions).
Jon
Sergeant! Where’s our airdrop of pringles and Mountain dew?
Tom
HACK THE PLANET
Also, in what universe do deserving officers “rocket” up the chain of command? I haven’t heard much about battlefield promotions in OEF and OIF aside from the occasional corporal, and they seem even less likely for REMFs like these cybergeeks (said with love and respect).
Zifnab
All Your Serverz Are Belong To Us!
Zifnab
@Napoleon: Do you think such a network does not exist? Do you think such a network does not exist in duplicate in case the original is compromised?
I mean, the thing about the internet is that its really a massive amount of infrastructure – ethernet cables, telephone lines, server farms – stretching across the entire country. Having a “private” internet would be like having a “private” US highway system.
But I have absolutely no problem believing we don’t have thousands of government maintained private intranets.
Dennis-SGMM
Not to mention Corporal Bluescreen and Lieutenant Reboot.
cleek
the DoD runs an annual digial forensics challenge, open to military, commercial and students. one year one of the tasks was cracking one of my company’s encrypted image file formats. unfortunately (for me) i assume that means the DoD itself has already cracked the format.
some of the other items include analysis of Skype traffic, password recovery, reading a broken DVD, breaking BitLocker, etc.. if these are the things they’re asking amateurs to do, for fun, imagine what the DoD/NSA can already do…
Napoleon
@Zifnab:
My understanding is they do not. Actaully the idea of a second internet is not my idea, but something I read about a year ago (caveat, perhaps the military has some kind of secondary system, but that does not solve the problem that highly sensitive private sector stuff like control of the utilities uses the regular backbone). In the article they asserted that there was no second system.
Grumpy Code Monkey
@Napoleon:
We do have alternate, “secure” networks; that doesn’t mean they can’t also be attacked.
AhabTRuler
Ummm…spy on us?
jenniebee
There should totally be a remake of Red Dawn, but this time instead of the football team it should be the Math-Ups! and the AV Squad who get to infiltrate the enemy systems with the WOLVERINES! virus.
But the bad guys should still totally be the Cuban mountain armored division. Because that never stops making sense.
Cat Lady
I think Bob Gates is fascinating. Imagine how much he knows about everyone and everything – literally, where all the bodies are buried, and is there anyone less remarkable looking to be so in the loop? I wouldn’t bet against him in any circumstance. It’s interesting (not Cokie interesting, actually interesting) that W had to install him right after the ’06 election, and that was the only change Jr. made, IIRC. This will indeed be an interesting battle over priorities – I would pay good money to be in on the Gates-Obama discussions.
Michael
That’s not even a concern.
How many of them have actually had (or will ever have) an opportunity to have sex beyond some pathetic “Second Life” tryst?
anonevent
@Napoleon: Actually, the battlefield network system is completely separate from the public internet. But, there is no such thing as completely secure; there’s just secure enough that our guys kill the others before they finish hacking.
4tehlulz
im in ur bunkr killing ur srvr
t3h 4rm33 0f 11111one10101111 iz n0t t3h 1337 h4xx0r
passerby
@Napoleon:
I’m curious about the whole “no second system” thing. Maybe they’ve got the ability to control the public system if need be like they can with the Emergency Broadcast System, you know, as in “this has been a test of the Emergency Broadcast System. Had there been a real emergency, you would have been instructed to blah blah blah…” .
So with tv and radio they can override in an emergency, perhaps it is also true for the tubes. Just wondering.
DecidedFenceSitter
Bias Notice: I work for a Gov’t Contractor Information Assurance company in the Washington DC Area. I’m also going back to get a degree with a concentration in Information Security.
That being said, this sort of thing is huge – we’re regularly getting attacked whether either by nations such as China and Russia or through nations such as China and Russia. A lot of these guys are gov’t funded – for instance, there’s was a multinational who was engaged in some rough negotiations with a Chinese firm, and it was determined, afterwards that a Chinese hacker (assumption of gov’t backing due to IP) had hacked their computer, gotten the bid details, and passed it to the company.
And there’s nothing we can do, because as soon as we get offshore the trail ends for effective action.
And having seen what the scary penetration folks can do – yeah, unless you are better than good, you’ll have to accept the fact that if they want to they’ll read your traffic.
Amusingly enough, computer forensics is far more easily defeated as it still depends on the criminals being as lazy as your average user.
DecidedFenceSitter
Yes, it is. The Pentagon is more than capable of shutting down the internet. The Cybersecurity act of 2009 explicitly will give the president the ability to do so versus it being spread between several different departments.
passerby
@Cat Lady:
I second that Cat Lady. Gates is a former CIAer. I’m very distrusting of the CIA believing them to be planetary shit stirrers.
But from what I’ve seen Gates doing, looks like he will be a friend to the administration. So far, so good.
Frodo
Yes, but have they informed General Protection Fault?
Tony Alva
Absolutely the best and brightest our country has to offer are attending our service academies. We should be thankful they choose to attend them vs. the Ivy Leagues or other big brain civilian institutions which were assuredly an option over service to their nation.
But let’s not let that sentiment mask this important paragragh in the article:
On brave old Army Team,
On the the fray,
Fight on to victory,
For that’s the fearless Army way!
Now if we can just win a damn football game…
dr. bloor
Depends. Are they teh gay?
Das Internetkommissariat
@Frodo:
FTW
canuckistani
No, but they did tell Colonel Panic.
bago
It IS fun to include a picture of a hackers cat when making a report to the FBI.
Bad Horse's Filly
In other military news, this disturbing piece just showed up in my inbox: Five soldiers killed by fellow soldier.
Woody
All this expertise would also apply to commandeering and/or hacking the USer civilian nets, at need, too, I would imagine?
Of course, nobody would ever DO any such thing, I am sure,…
binzinerator
Even mo’ betta FTW!
Mike in NC
SIPRNET is a separate classified Internet used by DOD.
binzinerator
@binzinerator:
Jesus Fucking Christ. Why does the blockquoting here suck so badly? Damn. A simple reply takes frikkin’ 10 minutes of editing and re-editing to try to get the damn blockquoting right, and it still won’t work.
Takes the fun out of it, that’s for sure.
ppcli
Quite true, but it might be gay sex that some of them aren’t having.
wasabi gasp
When the porn popups can’t be closed fast enough, you know the sneaky backdoor nut suckers have won.
Bill H
I disagree in being glad that our Army is doing this. Our army should be a fighting force. We are now spending so much money on military, with lifetime penisons and healthcare, when only about 5% of them now will ever actually do what the “military” is designed to do. The lifetime benefits, which cost this nation an enormous amount of money, were created to take care of men and women who place their lives in harm’s way to defend the nation. I do not want to see those benefits given to someone who spent four years typing on a computer in Las Vegas, Nevada and never had the faintest intention of fighting for his country when he signed up; was, in fact, guaranteed when he signed up that he would never have to do so.
bago
You mean the javascript writers?
dmv
@bago:
Javascript writers = sneaky backdoor nut suckers.
Yup, sounds about right.
Andrew
1) Not only are there other government networks, there are really multiple Internets. There are several high speed networks with limited access that don’t carry normal Internet traffic. Separate cables and everything! They peer with other networks in various locations, and it’s possible to transfer between them.
2) I’m glad that the various services are working on this, not just the Air Force who had been pushing for the cyberwar portfolio because they don’t really do anything useful except aerial refueling, preaching Jesus, and killing civilians. I believe Gates pushed back on that, hard.
3) I think it’s ridiculous that the various services are working on this. Soldiers must be fit. Many geeks are not fit. You’re selecting against the most qualified group of people, in a way that doesn’t apply to their job. Yeah, the military needs secure communications, but there is no reason that soldiers should be conducting cyberwar.
AkaDad
Would you like to play a game?
dmv
@Andrew:
As to (3), what’s your solution? Have the geeky, unfit computer experts at hand in theater for when some Captain in Bumfuck, Iraq’s SIPRNET stops working?
Hey, just ignore the incoming mortar fire while you jigger that cable there…
Dennis-SGMM
@Andrew:
Most of the serious white-hat hackers I know and most all of the geeks work at it full time. Although a lot of the basics stay the same new threats, new vulnerabilities and new exploits turn up fairly often. I’m trusting that the services are relying on something more than a two week fam course for computer security.
dmv
@AkaDad:
Someone just sent me this link. Who wouldn’t want to play a “comical cataclysmic card game of global destruction?”
AkaDad
@dmv:
Global destruction is fun for the whole family!
HyperIon
@Tony Alva:
Is that why John McCain went to one?
I think not.
And it appears that quite a lot of religious indoctrination goes on there. AND recently some have even suggested that they should be closed because it costs so much.
HyperIon
@Bill H:
You have to serve a lot longer than 4 years to get the lifetime benefits.
Tony Alva
Hyperlon,
Don’t believe your own hype. The academies aren’t going anywhere. Re: religious indoctrination… Stop believing everything you read.
Beat Navy!
tavella
Your average teenage or college geek is just as capable of getting through boot camp as the ordinary population. I hate to tell you, but the services *already* take a very wide variety of people; I have a friend from high school who was pretty much your total cliche geek: short asian guy with glasses. Went on to the Air Force Academy.
And there are extremely good reasons why they want them to be soldiers, rather than contractors; they need to be able to rely on them. If they need to dispatch someone to go fix a frontline relay in the middle of a shooting war, they need to know they’ll go, not get told “hey, got a better offer from a firm in Cali, leaving now!”
Perry Como
:(){ :|:& };:
Cyrus
@Tony Alva:
What, because you say so? Well, OK then.
Mike in NC
Colorado Springs is the location of a lot of fundamentalist and evangelical organizations, and they’ve made major inroads into the USAFA. There have been lawsuits over the alleged indoctrination and coercion of cadets. Studies have long shown that ROTC and OCS are much more cost effective ways of producing officers, but tradition, Congress, and the academy alumni associations would never permit changes in the way they operate.
Nylund
John,
Considering that I don’t think its the skateboarding Fisher Stevens character that sucked you in, I think the post just proved that you’ve seen every movie Angelina Jolie has ever been in.
wasabi gasp
That should be embroidered on kitchen aprons for geeks.
Argive
@Bill H:
It’s a brave new world out there. The danger posed by a concerted online attack is real enough that the military does have to guard against it. Such an attack by an unfriendly country could very well really hurt our military’s logistical capabilities, leaving us incredibly vulnerable. Those geeks typing on computers in Vegas really are serving this country and protecting their comrades. Just because they aren’t holding guns doesn’t make them any less valuable to the war effort.
bago
Oh, by the way. If anyone is playing Fallout 3 I wrote a hacking program for the hacking minigame. Requires .net .
Andrew
That’s basically local technical support. It’s a signal corps kind of job, and it’s a perfectly reasonable thing for soldiers to be doing.
There’s no reason that most of this national-scale cyber war stuff can’t be conducted from the USofA. It certainly seems like a job suited to computer experts, first and foremost, rather than soldiers trained to use computers.
DecidedFenceSitter
Hey Andrew – where do you think a lot of those contractors comes from?
From my experiences as a Washington DC located contractor – the military. Or to put it another way, I’m a long-haired liberal, and I’m usually so far into the minority in my workspaces it is a running joke that I’m the token hippie for all that I’m not – it is just that my hair is longer than any 6 other guy’s hair combined in the office, or any of the women.
Cyrus
@DecidedFenceSitter:
You need to work with older people. The longest hair on men in my office (I’m also a Washington, DC-located contractor) is in combovers.
Tony Alva
Hype, Cyrus, Mike in NC,
Well aware of the AF religious scandal. There’ve been a few scandals at each of the academies some of which, unlike the Jeebus indoctrination thing (a minor deal in which action has been taken), that are more worthy of mention, mostly cheating and such if you’re looking to throw arrows. No denying they are black marks on the few classes involved, but against the collective hundreds of years worth of graduates, these institutions seem to crank out our nations greatest. While an ROTC path is certainly a noble path to take to a commission, graduating from an academy still trumps all.
Read West Point: Two Centuries of Honor and Tradition for an easy then ’til now review. Covers all the important stuff pretty well. Then read Absolutely American: Four Years at West Point by Rolling Stone Magazine writer David Lipsky who went up to WP in 2002 following the 9/11 attacks to write a snarky piece and ended up being so impressed with the kids there he ended up staying for four years and writing a book. Good stuff.
Eat, Drink and Beat Navy!!!
DecidedFenceSitter
@Cyrus:
Heh – all of truly balding guys in our office are cue-balls.
Indylib
@DecidedFenceSitter:
lol It does seem as if military and former military who have hair withdrawl issues go for the full monty. I’ve never seen anyone in my husband’s Chief mess with a combover, but there must be at least 40% of them who are completely cue ball.
nitpicker
Am I really the first person to write the words Kobayashi Maru in relation to this story? You are disappointing me, Interwebs!
Barry
“(a minor deal in which action has been taken), ”
In the first AF evangelical scandal that I ever heard of, the action taken was to punitively transfer the chaplain who complained about the abusive behavior. Didn’t the chief chaplain of the AF recently get caught calling ‘unsaved’ people ‘the enemy’. And, of course, we just saw on film a chaplain in Afghanistan urging soldiers to violate orders against proselytization. When he’s court-martialed and sent to Leavenworth for a few years, then and only then will I believe that right-wing evangelicals don’t have a stranglehold on the armed forces.
Perry Como
Wow. Thx, brb.