US Marine Corps launches hacker support unit

The United States Marine Corps has launched a hacking support unit. The Marine Corps Cyberspace Warfare Group (MCCYWG) is already functioning with a small contingency of staff and will ramp up with full operational capacity expected next year. It will support the US Marine Corps Forces Cyberspace (MARFORCYBER) established …

[BebopWeBop]

Can anyone tell me

whether much of the US spend on 'defence' is duplication of facilities by various barons anxious to maintain their fiefdoms and jealous of other budgets? Just look how well it worked out during the abortive hostage rescue in Iran....

[Led boot]

Zombie Corps

Offensive Cyber Operations... I can't see an organization with that aim not wanting to have a zombie horde at their disposal... I wonder whether they'll develop their own or rent one, and once compromised whether they'll make use of their ownership of citizens PC for other ends... I suppose they could even push a voluntary program for "Patriotic" (misguided) people to donate CPU cycles to "the war on TERROR" (furthering American foreign policies) SETI style.

Fun & games to come...

[allthecoolshortnamesweretaken]

They sure do love their acronyms, don't they?

Wouldn't it make more sense to set up a seperate arm of the services that deals exclusively with all the cyberwar stuff and nothing else? You know, like when the Air Force was set up as as a seperate arm when it became apparent that operating a large fleet of bombers and fighters and whatnot was too big and specialised to be just a sub-branch of the army? This is pretty much the situation we have now, isn't it? You need a dedicated outfit of specialists for this sort of thing, not half a dozend competing sub-branches.

[DocJames]

US Marines

are a separate service branch anyway. (From Army/Navy/Air Force).

I presume the situation will play out similarly to the Air Force foundation you mention: all services will develop their own sub-branch, there will be arguments about who is best and who's stepping on who's toes, then there will be attempted take overs with attendant arguments, and finally a separate service will be established, to be looked down upon by the others.

Let's just hope that there aren't any major events needing the armed services attention in the interim whilst they're playing at politics (see: Clausewitz)

[Florida1920]

Re: US Marines

are a separate service branch anyway. (From Army/Navy/Air Force).

Technically, they're part of the Navy, though they have broad autonomy. The Marine Corps Commandant (a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) reports to the Secretary of the Navy. There is no separate Marine Corps Secretary, as there are for the Army and Air Force.

U.S. Marine Corps logo

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: US Marines

As you were. The USMC and the USN are both part of the Dept. of the Navy. USMC is not a part of USN, we are equals, under the same umbrella. Semantics? No. Clarification. I've seen Marines and sailors misunderstand, let alone civilians.

[Handlebars]

MCCYWG

The 'Merkins now have a Mucky Wig

[DocJames]

Re: MCCYWG

I thought it was a small village in Wales.

[Swarthy]

Re: MCCYWG

Funny thing, if you put MCCYWG into Google Translate and tell it to detect a language, it believes it to be Welsh.

Could any Welsh speakers here suggest a proper pronunciation for "MCCYWG"?

[Tim Jenkins]

Sound off, one, two..

This is my iPad

This is my Sun

This is for surfing

This is for precomputing tables allowing the reversal of cryptographic hash functions where the initial salt value was insufficiently large

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny we usually call in the marines to break things.

[David Pollard]

Cultural exchanges?

Are reciprocal visits planned with the 77th Brigade so they can mingle with the chaps over here? Berkshire is really nice at this time of year and there are air transport facilities just up the road..