US defense tech veterans call for a separate Cyber Force

There is a growing push inside and outside of Washington DC for a new branch within the military dedicated to cybersecurity, with proponents citing the need to protect against growing threats from China, Russia, and other nation states to American national security. A Cyber Force would essentially be the Department of Defense' …

[Jan 0]

Space Force Spacecraft

> It's a relatively small military branch, with fewer than 10,000 uniformed personnel, but it runs almost 100 spacecraft.

What kind of spacecraft? 2 X-37Bs, what are the others?

[Throatwarbler Mangrove]

Re: Space Force Spacecraft

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess mostly satellites.

[Jan 0]

Re: Space Force Spacecraft

Craft take you from one place to another. They're steerable and controllable. A satellite is more like a buoy or a balloon. A satellite is not a spacecraft.

[cookieMonster]

Re: Space Force Spacecraft

Well , there’s the star gate for starters, if you count that as a craft.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Ninjas

Since space force took 'Guardian' the only thing left is 'Ninja' or possibly 'terminator'

I hope their dress uniform is a black hoodie and the salute is a 3finger ctrl-alt-del

For a motto what's 'turn it off and in again' in Latin ?

[Julz]

Re: Ninjas

Maybe "vertere et iterum"

[katrinab]

Re: Ninjas

vertere is turn as in rotate / turn round a corner.

The Romans didn't have electricity, therefore they didn't have a word for powering up or removing power from electric devices.

You could look at the modern Italian words for that - spegni (turn off) / accendi (turn on), or maybe use the words for stopping / starting [a chariot etc], or extinguishing / lighting [a fire].

[Antron Argaiv]

Re: Ninjas

ROMANES EUNT DOMUS

[that one in the corner]

This is my keyboard.

There are many like it, but this one is mine. My keyboard is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. My keyboard, without me, is useless. Without my keyboard, I am useless.

[An_Old_Dog]

Each Existing Force Does Counter-Cyber-Stuff Differently

And this probably is a good thing, since one group might catch things the other groups don't. Diversity of approaches, man.

Anyone calling for a unified Cyber-Ninja-whatever-Force is either a control freak, a personal-empire-builder, or lobbying for another federal pork-barrel.

[Dave_A]

Re: Each Existing Force Does Counter-Cyber-Stuff Differently

The #1 problem is pay.

To get really good people you have to start your pay scale right around the general officer levels....

The rest of the DOD pays on a standardized rank/time-in-service scale.

An effective cyber force has to have starting pay in the 6 figures.... Not at 50 or 60k/yr like a new 2LT gets....

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Each Existing Force Does Counter-Cyber-Stuff Differently

>The #1 problem is pay.

I think if you are a cyber-force officer in charge of choosing which anti-virus gets bought for millions of DoD computers - you won't have to worry about living off an army pension

[Orv]

Combine this with the Space Force, call it the CyberSpace Force. It'd be perfect for a branch that's already a monument to Trump's inner 14-year-old.

[Dave_A]

Will only work if it has its own separate pay scale

Otherwise the best and brightest will laugh and go work for FAANG type places....

[Anonymous Coward]

This is war!

Each of the current defense branches won't let their own civilian hires with the know how mess with their computers because they'll make it harder to log in.

How would a new defense branch help that? The new branch will need to draft armed soldiers with state of the art weapons to take over the command centers of the other branches in order to install new security protocols. They might even have to take out a few generals and admirals at home before they can think about invading Albania.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: This is war!

Because instead of each service hiring an expensive management consultancy to draft a cyber-strategy and then hiring a defence contractor to manage millions of desktop anti-virus installs, you will have a central cyber command hiring an expensive management consultancy to draft a cyber-strategy and then hiring a defence contractor to manage millions of desktop anti-virus installs

[Michael Wojcik]

That hideous name

"Cyber Force"? Ugh. Further abuse of Norbert Wiener's once-useful, now-ruined coinage – the use of the prefix "cyber" ought to be banned by law – and it sounds like the title of one of those horrible independent "kid-friendly" comics from the '80s. Or one of the horrible TRON- and "cyberpunk"¹-inspired comics from the '80s. Take your pick, it's horrible either way.

I mean, "Code Guard" is right there in front of you. We could at least try for a little originality with our stupid names.

Or be consistent. Army, Navy, ITy. Junior officers could be known as "ITy Bitties".

¹Death, I say. Death to this prefix. It is awful and meaningless and has nothing to do with cybernetics. You must all stop using it immediately or I detonate the Doomsday Device.

[Orv]

Re: That hideous name

I'm just hoping their recruitment ads will be hilarious. "Do you cyber?"

[Anonymous Coward]

Interweb messaging......misdirection.......

Cyber security folk will see messaging like this, maybe on Gmail:

VxQCG4lj8+LxJV0wuLCnKgziIkOLutwamfdkg6xlKQa3cQ7yX8eTJFTWnh7g67un57P297n7PsG4

2CVad+pIB/4e9YjLPawqvYDh7iqx5TJ6wvIOF9+CEGlifAL/ttxNgZRO0aGb+COmOuQlsT/GjAxX

FfCiP9kqjg3rVpaAisBdLGcervNs9NODF/AJF8udmAxJiD8S+UQiP5w0ir6EXDuKBfBX6iaENaOm

ik3PB8+xcZYF2MEmy79ehYmmzMkwpkqOxSEYaySFwvy7Z5bXsb3TuKgaDJpsuKnG9SW67DThn95u

lP93W7Pw0Mwhzj2sMg9ToIqjDqXWEnkgpNJxLkuvoVq1+dE4FCEgqjtsfa6o8FSU8hTHA+ald5iw

M1RmfCMAdSi+xLqh7rqYBmHzN1s0/QR0OIQDLCF9t+/BKWZB0BfOxZc4

No....it isn't simple base64!!

So....is it IDEA or AES and samba20? Is it encryped once?.....or maybe multiple encrypted with different keys?

Compilers - gcc, clang? Math -- gmp? Big primes? Diifie/Hellman?

.......and so on........

The point is this..........folk out there can make it VERY difficult for third parties.....no need to rely on Signal!!!!

The "cyber security" stuff is just misdirection for public consumption.......we're "doing something" with your taxpayer dollar!! Yeah....right!"!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

So, step one: connect everything everywhere to the internet to cut costs, even critical infrastructure that really never needed to be, and was fine on isolated networks.

And then step two, claim to be oh-so-surprised that critical infrastructure are now vulnerable, and decide it's time to allocate some new budget to the already most expensive military in the world to "protect" it.

Great thinking.

[skataf]

You would still have to go to boot camp. And you still have to be wired in to IT. Pay would have to be at CO levels.