What does a "skilled cyber-operative" do for the UK military? Cyber attacks? Covert espionage? Writing tweets to Russia saying "stop it"?.
UK military may recruit wheezy, alcoholic keyboard warriors
The United Kingdom’s military should relax its medical requirements to help it enlist more skilled cyber-operatives. So said Air Chief Marshal Sir Stuart Peach, who is chief of defence staff, in a valedictory address delivered on Tuesday at think tank "Policy Exchange". Peach's remarks touched on the changing nature of the UK …
COMMENTS
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Wednesday 6th June 2018 09:50 GMT Chris King
What does a "skilled cyber-operative" do for the UK military? Cyber attacks? Covert espionage? Writing tweets to Russia saying "stop it"?
Maybe they just leave one-star reviews on TrustPilot ?
"North Korea: Hard to get to, no free wi-fi, boss-man is a bit of a nutter. Would not visit again."
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Wednesday 6th June 2018 09:06 GMT Anonymous Coward
Agreed! It's the same in Canada. I, honestly, don't know why people join. Once Armed Forces members run into psychological issues because of PTSD they are often forced out. If they talk openly, by that I mean admit to have psychological troubles with the Armed Forces, about their trauma they, it appears, are blacklisted for advancement. Whether in or out the wait time for treatment is to long. I do not recommend a career in the Armed Forces, although this new position might be acceptable.
But being an Armed Forces is for the young and that is largely because the young can more easily be trained for the dangerous tasks required. The human brain doesn't reach maturity until a person is about 25 years of age and so making decisions about the danger of an action is somewhat impaired. It would be interesting if people weren't allowed to join until then; of course, the same could be said for religions. It would be interesting to study them all, at least those with the bigger following and understand their writing in the context of the time and place they were created. Sorry veering off course :)
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Wednesday 6th June 2018 08:26 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: "At last! A valid use of a 'hacker in a hoodie' stereotype stock image"
It allows you to hack through multiple terminals, terminal A hacks into Terminal B which hacks into to Terminal C then you are free to use the bluetooth stack to attack google via html after clearing the scsi bus.
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Wednesday 6th June 2018 12:15 GMT Teiwaz
Re: "At last! A valid use of a 'hacker in a hoodie' stereotype stock image"
"At last! A valid use of a 'hacker in a hoodie' stereotype stock image"
Yes, but how does the six screens, three keyboards, one mouse set up work then??*
See also Investment, Stocks Trader....
* It doesn't**, just looks good. Impress your friends, alienate your partner.
** May work better with a tiling wm...
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Wednesday 6th June 2018 16:39 GMT Outer mongolian custard monster from outer space (honest)
Re: "At last! A valid use of a 'hacker in a hoodie' stereotype stock image"
Dan, easy, have a synergy km setup and a second keyboard on a kvm for early boot recovery, couple of different hardware/os's, one for browsing dodgy places during research, one set up as a compiler etc, keep them viewable so you can keep one eye on a long process while doing something else elsewhere. Throw in a 2nd kvm which goes out to my server room via a dedicated cable + kvm extender, and bingo, you have 6 screens and 3 keyboards. Though mostly two of them sit down the side of the desk out the damn way unless something goes wrong.
In my defence, I had to pay for all 6 of my 19" monitors, so that means I made the bracketry myself and cleared out the secondhand shop a few times. Short arms and deep pockets me...
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Wednesday 6th June 2018 10:20 GMT Jemma
"I wouldn't lick a Korean if he was glazed in honey..."
"The digital map is very detailed sir, look, there's a little worm program..."
"You mean geek on our geek as he searches for their geek...?"
"When I joined up we were still fighting post colonial wars. If you saw someone in a skirt you shot him and nicked his oil."
"The kind of people we like to fight are over 50 and running unpatched Windows ME"
The list is endless.
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Wednesday 6th June 2018 10:31 GMT Peter2
Re: Health problems?
If OCD is a reason to keep people out, why is the Army historically obsessive about keeping tidy barracks and laying out uniform on beds 'just so', within a millimetre?
It's actually not and those training techniques are really old and obselete.
However, the idea behind doing that for the low level troops was to get people used to trying hard to do things that may well be impossible, and to foster a team spirit amongst the victims by getting them to bond together, the first part of which is everybody agreeing that the bloke is a bastard and then helping each other out to escape his wrath.
There are new methods these days, but the idea is to very rapidly impart a team spirit among the trainees along with "thou shalt not give up" which is an operational requirement for people betting their lives that somebody else is going to do their job.
Bear in mind that the army has three sets of training courses, one for the troops, one for NCO's and another for officers, each of which are aiming at acheiving different things. I suppose it's possible that they can deal with a forth for cyber operations and you can see here that there is realisation at a high level that change is required, but it's so radically different in terms of staffing requirements, required psycology and management from the rest of the forces that I think it'd be better to have a seperate organisation for it entirely.
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Thursday 7th June 2018 08:21 GMT Peter2
Re: Health problems?
Strange how the same techniques has been so much less effective, although equally widely applied, in industry
In the military they deliberately had one set of troops that just did training and then handed the trained troops over to the line regiments so the deliberately bad relationship with the training staff had a clear demarcation to the normal chaps in charge, who couldn't help but look sweetly reasonable in comparison.
In industry it's just absymal and incompetent management.
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Wednesday 6th June 2018 09:09 GMT Andrew Oakley
Colour blindness?
I got rejected for naval university sponsorship because of colour blindness - I wonder if that's now no longer a problem for non-overseas recruits?
After all, if the job is in the UK, then "reasonable adjustment" is already required for minor stuff like that.
Although I'm pretty badly colour vision deficient - as in, can't easily spot a fire engine parked on a field of grass.
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Wednesday 6th June 2018 09:50 GMT Anonymous Coward
I'm guessing stoners (again)
It's not axiomatic, but I bet a lot of the really good (I mean *really*, *really* good) people with the necessary skills are probably no stranger to a joint in their lives.
The problem is not that they're not flocking to the military because they might fail a drugs test.
The problem is that people who like the odd joint really aren't interested in working for the military. Any military. And this wheeze of an idea won't change that anytime soon.
Take it from me, if they started seriously drug testing all developed vetted personnel in the UK, we'd be a few consultants short of a scam.
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Wednesday 6th June 2018 16:22 GMT Jemma
Re: Morals
You mean they have some...
Saw that Michelle Keegan girl singing the praises of the lesser spotted squaddie - wonder how she'll feel after I mention the smallpox laced blankets for Amerindian women and kids. Or how we used a biotoxin weapon (botulinum toxin) to assassinate enemy combatants in WW2 - even the Nazis didn't do that (the OVOC don't count since they weren't combatants). Or riddling Indian women and kids or even the odd English one.. (Peterloo).
Not to mention giving the world concentration camps, to the Jews everlasting regret. Although that was more incompetence than outright intent.
Makes you proud to be British; what, what?
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Wednesday 6th June 2018 11:47 GMT Wellyboot
Future War
During a future war when WAN facilities are highly degraded and/or compromised there will be a need for these specialists to be very near the front line, at this point all the current physical & mental training requirements will pop up again.
Currently the head count in uniform = headcount that can follow orders & be used as infantry in extremis.
A largely civilian organisation being used to support armed service 'combat-techies' would be able to provide the numbers required.
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Wednesday 6th June 2018 13:42 GMT Milton
Why, you utter barstewards
I knew it. I knew it, I knew it, I knew they'd find a way to drag me back. If antiquity, chronic lung disease (never smoked: I still suspect CR gas drills), and beer weren't good enough to keep me firmly out, the crafty buggers have ginned up a job description where the bugs are rewritten as features.
Seriously though, the obvious showstopper with this idea (at least if the brass are serious about allowing folks with drug and alcohol problems to work for them) is opsec: traditionally, those behaviours not only impair performance, they render one vulnerable to compromise. It's all very well re-employing ex-Major Curmudgeon at the age of 60 because he's been doing nifty IT stuff since he did his 12 years—but what happens if sultry Natasha Honeytrapova comes round to tempt him with a crate of vodka? Or a pound of best Crimean Weed?
No, I think some lack of fitness or ill health might be tolerated if you find great candidates, but substance abuse, seriously? I don't see it.
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Wednesday 6th June 2018 14:17 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Why, you utter barstewards
The point is you admit everything naughty you have done so it is on record and cannot be used as blackmail to compromise you later. It is assumed that you have 'lived life' and have at least tried things that aren't legal...although Linux is probably pushing it too far!
I admitted to the odd toke at Uni and I was offered a Permanent Commission in Her Majesty's RAF.
Anon for obvious reasons...and chocks away!
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Wednesday 6th June 2018 15:34 GMT Hans Neeson-Bumpsadese
Re: Why, you utter barstewards
The article refers to alcohol/drug dependency not necessarily being a barrier. To my mind dependency still ought to be a barrier, although use may not be. For example "use", such as occasionally puffing on a jazz cigarette could be viewed as no worse than popping down to the NAAFI bar for some beers. But "dependency" is a much bigger deal, likely to impact on a person's behaviour in a way that renders them unsuitable for service.
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Wednesday 6th June 2018 14:05 GMT SkippyBing
Pay?
So if they're non-deployable presumably they'll be paid less? Nominally 15% of service pay, known as the X-factor*, is for the embuggerance of service life i.e. getting two weeks notice that you're going to live in a desert/on a ship for six months.
It's not just theoretical either, Full Time Reserve Service pays different rates of X-factor depending on how deployable you are. Don't want to get deployed, find a Home Commitment job and take a 15% pay cut**.
*From before that was a thing with Simon Cowell.
**I know it's not 15% both ways but I can't be bothered with the maths.
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Wednesday 6th June 2018 15:04 GMT Miss Lincolnshire
Re: Pay?
They tell you you get an extra 15% but 15% of a crap wage is still crap money. My advice is to get a real job then join the reserve if you fancy blatting a few rounds off occasionally.
I don't get the point of the article. The Army has been recruiting fat and wheezy Combat Fitness Test bifs for years. 1 in 9 of headcount. They're called the Royal Logistics Corps.
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Wednesday 6th June 2018 14:14 GMT Chris G
New Regiment
The Queen's Own Hackers. Cap badge: Pepperoni Pizza with crossed joysticks.
Uniform barracks: teeshirt stained, general duties for the use of, jeans unpressed relaxed fit, cold weather sweater hooded.Sneakers general duty
Uniform Dress. teeshirt unstained ironed, jeans tailored pressed, Sweater hooded laundered, Sneakers clean laced up.
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Wednesday 6th June 2018 15:45 GMT Aladdin Sane
I can see it now
In 2022 a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the London underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire the IT Crowd.
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Thursday 7th June 2018 08:04 GMT amanfromMars 1
Late Onset Wisdom?
Is Sir Stuart Peach delusional?
A valid question to ask whenever praising forces and skills which are dedicated to maintaining and retaining failed and failing status quo operations and services rather than recognising and preparing for new commands beyond traditional and conventional controls dependent upon those failed state arrangements.
And how very typical of a defence staff chief, to touch upon novel exotic submissions/proposals on leaving office, rather than them being the root cause of their appointment and promotion.
And, whenever “We are getting some of this right.” , more than just a little is being done wrong.
Such then naturally leads to significant others, and presumably persons of interest to be targeted by both intelligence-gathering corps and alternative source forces for either recruitment or termination, with only the former able to enable improvement and make over and take over of defunct and decrepit systems.
For more than just a few who decide to do something new about such a situation, is the following message long ago received and fully understood ....... I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!
Do you recognise the bulk of the following few words, today, and relate to the message networking sublimely to both clandestine and covert virtual source forces? ......
I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TV's while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be. We know things are bad - worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone.' Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot - I don't want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you've got to get mad. You've got to say, 'I'm a HUMAN BEING, God damn it! My life has VALUE!' So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, 'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!' I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell - 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Things have got to change. But first, you've gotta get mad!... You've got to say, 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: "I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!"
It is what all systems have to deal with and make deals with, if they want to have any chance at future survival. Que sera, sera.
Have a nice day, y'all.