Air Force general invites geeks to the Cyber Command

Cyber Command is a branch of the Air Force concerned with electronic attacks on U.S. national security. Cyberwar is a growing concern, and Major General William Lord is hunting for a headquarters and a few good men--or women--as long as they know how to prevent military and civilian networks from hostile penetration.

Read Wired's in-depth article here: Welcome to Cyberwar Country, USA

[n3td3v]

The only problem is you need to be American. I will wait for the UK cyber command, so we can defend against the American's cyber command. I think this cyber command is a very agressive but typical American approach to cyber security. Not only are they saying they will counter attack people trying to breach America's cyber security, but they are sparking off a cyber arms race, and raising tensions world wide. Obviously the Pentagon felt threatened by China hitting its networks all the time and thought the only alternative was a cyber command to hit them back. If a real cyber war breaks out between America / China or anyone else, everyone will be affected and nothing will really be solved. You'll have a whole lot of web outages, a whole lot of ISP's go down and a whole lot of mayhem. E-commerce would be effected too, because they would get hit in the cross fire. And which ISP's and backbones would this cyber command war be used on? If the US cyber command start fighting China or any other country in a cyber war, on the same ISP and backbones e-commerce, normal government traffic and your average web user is on, its going to spell bad news for global cyber security. If the US cyber command send a bot net attack to China, the size which would be needed, it would slow the internet down for everyone else. And ISP's have anti bot net mechanisms in place to stop the bad guys. So what happens if ISP's by mistake stop the US cyber command from defending its self, because they get trapped in anti bot net and malware network rules? Would that not compromise U.S national cyber security in times of cyber warfare? Lot's of questions still go unanswered. To me this whole cyber command sounds childish and unrealistic and unmanagable in the real world. You wouldn't be able to have a cyber war on the internet in reality, the whole place would collaspe and the global infrastructure wouldn't be able to take it. It would be over before it started, and before there were any clear winners or losers. My suggestion, scrap this idea, because the folks behind it truely don't know what they are talking about in the real world. Sure it sounds all American gun hoe and cool on paper and in movie plots, but a real life cyber command, defending and offensing just isn't workable on any scale right now. Put away your toy soilders and get back to fighting wars conventially and leave the internet alone, it can't take the weight, cyber space is clogged up as it is, without cyber command's attacking each other for politcal objectives. It only took a couple of cable cut's recently in the middle east and Asia , to cut off have the world from internet use. If the U.S want to cyber fight people, then do it by cutting their cables, but to fight a war over internet bandwidth, will swallow everyone up as well as the enemy in the cross fire. Cyber command's, pfft, grow up and get a grip. Cyber war--- Its unworkable, its not possible, its the U.S government living in a disney land and trying to look macho on the world stage. What's new?

[Wookiee-1138]

For the record, Tom Clancy's Netforce is really poorly written, IMHO. He should have stuck with Cold War stories. And don't get me started on Patriot Games.

William Gibson is far superior.

[HappyHiker]

Of course, any geeks who apply have to be straight (or closeted). Just as in the case of the Arabic translators whose expertise was thrown away, the US military is one of those places where disapproval of your lifestyle leads to automatic disqualification.

[Mentor397]

Except Mr. Clancy didn't write Netforce, he just approved it. Look at the cover - it's written by someone else. Now, I'm not saying that Red Rabbit was a good book instead, but at least it was no NetForce.

[mikeburek]

Well, he sure can't ask the Secretary of Defense about protecting e-mail from viruses. Or even how to send an e-mail, for that matter. haha.

[Dr_Zinj]

I'd volunteer, but only as a commissioned officer. I refuse to put up with any more BS from junior officers who can't tell their rectum from a hole in the ground, who are too stupid to listen to their senior ncos, and who are incapable of understanding the concepts of truth and honor.

[rnieves1977]

wouldn't it be easier to just cut our enemy's undersea cables..... lmao