back to article UK's £5bn National Cyber Force HQ to be sited in Lancashire beside Defence Secretary's constituency

Britain's National Cyber Force will be based in Lancashire, the government has said – though despite obvious clues neither the Ministry of Defence nor BAE Systems will confirm the force's planned new location. The offensive hacking unit will be based somewhere in Samlesbury, a semi-rural area midway between Preston and …

  1. elsergiovolador Silver badge

    CS

    If it's going to pay Civil Service rates, then we can expect our Cyber Force will be full of Russian hackers on a second government salary...

    1. Valeyard

      Re: CS

      it'll turn into the usual government IT work that's designed intrinsically for brain-drain; you get in at ground-level pay that'll never increase, take the training and CV entry and use them to move onto a better paid private-sector job in 2 years

      It's a nice stepping stone, but government work should compete to be the final objective rather than the entry level to get to somewhere serious

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: CS

        >you get in at ground-level pay that'll never increase,

        My brief interaction with the secret-squirrels in the 90s

        They needed people who could do this new fangled internet stuff - but because of security they couldn't be contractors.

        But pay scales were linked rigidly to civil service grades.

        So the result was a bunch new grad Java programmers were started as 9th level Mage-Lords and got to sit on all the committees as a bunch of cavalry mustached managers who had been there for 20 years (or possibly since the 1920s?)

        1. NoneSuch Silver badge

          Lancashire Tech Step-by-Step

          Right, you get t' firewall, and 'ply the rule. Then yeah press 'commit' right? Now on screen you wait a tic, then see t' prompt to confirm.

          1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

            Re: Lancashire Tech Step-by-Step

            Release t'cyber-ferret down t'intertubes

          2. Jason Hindle

            Re: Lancashire Tech Step-by-Step

            Oi! Stop confusing Lancashire and Yorkshire! Wars have been fought over less.

            1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

              Re: Lancashire Tech Step-by-Step

              I'm not sure what it was but it was neither of those.

              1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

                Re: Lancashire Tech Step-by-Step

                Since we won, there is only Yorkshire and the west Pennines.

    2. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: CS

      Obviously you can't employee civil servants so far North.

      It will be contracted out to Fujitsu/Crapita/Some-chap-Olivier-knows-from-school-who-runs-a-pub

      Who will sub it out to India

      1. Peter D

        Re: CS

        Getting to the opera from Lancashire is a hassle and it's miles away from both of the universities.

        1. NoneSuch Silver badge

          Re: CS

          Oxford and Cambridge?

          1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

            Re: CS

            Or Hull

      2. elsergiovolador Silver badge

        Re: CS

        Who will sub it out to India

        Well, Rishi can just have a word with his wife (significant shareholder of Infosys)

      3. Stu Dent

        Re: CS

        Whilst we're extracting the urines out of the provincials:

        Oh very much so yes we are waitings. Once all operations normalised we are being ready with host of workflow script readers who work much very much less monies as we all live in same house.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: CS

      "One ont cross-beams gone out of skew on t' treadle!"

  2. Tom Chiverton 1

    Don't forget, it's going to take 5 years before it's ready. So the next government may well cancel it.

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      The current government is going to cancel it in 5months when the last of the consultancy budget runs out and they need another new announcement to placate some other area

  3. Paul Herber Silver badge

    The name Samlesbury always sounds like it should be in Wiltshire.

    1. Korev Silver badge
      Joke

      Or where you'd buy a loaf of bread and some eggs...

    2. Eyebeebe

      Nearly as much as nearby Salesbury, which confusingly is next door to Wilpshire.

  4. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    A Home Grown 0Day Vulnerability Facility to Exploit. A Rare Novelty in Deed to Be Responsible For

    The offensive hacking unit ....

    What could possibly go wrong ...... whenever you boldly go into what are, without any shadow of a doubt, extremely revealing and unforgiving hearts and minds spaces.

    Welcome to the Thunderdome, UKGBNI Ministry of Defence. Are you prepared for baptisms of fire and bonfires of the vanities? They have long been well prepared and eagerly waiting for your late arrival to the Greater IntelAIgent Game Genre.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    MOD PAPER, MOD Hypocrisy.......More of the same..........

    Link: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/data-strategy-for-defence

    *

    .......fluff from GOV.UK last week. Take a read.....endless c**p about obeying the law.

    *

    Yet a week later we get this "The offensive hacking unit...", ".....hacking of the government's enemies du jour......" -- like Belgium!!!!

    Link: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/sep/21/british-spies-hacked-into-belgacom-on-ministers-orders-claims-report

    *

    This year "obeying the law".....and in another year "hacking Belgacom"........

    *

    So........out here, in civilian land.......some of us don't believe ANY OF IT!!! There's the STASI in Cheltenham.....and now STASI#2 in darkest Samlesbury.

    *

    No.....it's not about "enemies"......here's a quote from last week's MOD fluff:

    "POLITICAL DEMONSTRATION: Automated scanning of social media platforms (analysing key words and interactions) detects change in population sentiment."

    So the MOD is "political".....really?? And from this quote, it's OBVIOUSLY much easier to spy on 60 million citizens....who might just be seen as "enemies du jour" from the windows of Main Building (or Samlesbury)!

    *

    Quote (William Burroughs): "The paranoid is a person who knows a little of what is going on."

  6. Peter X

    Cyber

    I'm guessing it's too late to hope that they wouldn't call it "Cyber"? 'cos... it's a bit of a naff name really.

  7. Tron Silver badge

    Who wouldn't want an MoD IT spook job?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEC-Marconi_scientist_deaths_conspiracy_theory

    1. Clausewitz 4.0
      Devil

      Re: Who wouldn't want an MoD IT spook job?

      Reminds me of a quote from Snatch (2000):

      Avi: Why do they call him the bullet dodger?

      Tony: Because he dodges bullets, Avi.

      Some folks are more prone to homicide than suicide

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    That's just far enough away from the other definitely-totally-secret national security location in the North West that they won't be able to share staff & contractors, but not so far away that they'll avoid draining each other's limited talent pools.

    Classic Whitehall.

    1. martinusher Silver badge

      Not a bad place to live, either.

  9. ChoHag Silver badge

    Of course they're two sides of the same coin. You try to take advantage of holes I try to patch. But for Johnny Foreigner (honest, guv).

    Fits in a tweet.

  10. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    IT Never Reigns but IT Pours ‽ . Beware of TitanICQ Floods and the Parting of Red Sees.

    Britain's National Cyber Force will be based in Lancashire, the government has said – though despite obvious clues neither the Ministry of Defence nor BAE Systems will confirm the force's planned new location. The offensive hacking unit will be based somewhere in Samlesbury, a semi-rural area .....blah, blah, blah, blab

    Is the idea for the government/politicians/sundry elected representatives of the great ignorant and arrogant under and uneducated masses to have a spooky force which aids and feeds into leading Ministry of Defence Assets and Systems or takes over the leading of them to do their unelected puppet masters biddings?

    Ye Olde Masked Divide and Conquer Ploy in ACTive Play.

    And how will such services not be easily groomed and designed to order on the whim of others unbelievably expert in such exalted and exasperating and rewarding and captivating hearts and minds capturing fields.

    1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

      Re: IT Never Reigns but IT Pours ‽ . Beware of TitanICQ Floods and the Parting of Red Sees.

      And please, be aware the problem[s] exposed and espoused in such deliveries as are as a result of ideas cooked up in response to all of the above, in both the comments on and substance in the El Reg news report above, are universal in scope and effect, as is neatly confirmed in this parallel tale ...... https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2021/10/4/learning-to-lob-ideals-over-the-horizon .... from across the pond and great divide.

      And all of those difficulties are only just getting started.

      1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

        Re: IT Never Reigns but IT Pours ‽ . Beware of TitanICQ Floods and the Parting of Red Sees.

        And all of those difficulties are only just getting started.

        Every cloud in CHAOS* has a silver lining and many bows with heavenly strings for devilishly accurate arrows and well-poisoned darts in AIdDvelopment of Almighty Tranquilities

        And if you do lack morals and have offensive attack skills, there are many more far-out lucrative career options available, tiggity, to share boo to a goose to, and who knows who else to, too, with the options choices constantly expanding all the time ......... https://forums.theregister.com/forum/1/2021/10/04/national_cyber_force_hq_samlesbury/?post_received=4343709#c_4343709

        *Clouds Hosting Advanced Operating Systems ..... The Grandest of AdultERatedTools for Grown Ups

  11. Clausewitz 4.0
    Devil

    Should be fully operational by 2030

    No comments...

    1. Flywheel

      Re: Should be fully operational by 2030

      In which case it should be Carbon Neutral, but then what will the Civil Service use in place of pencils?

  12. tiggity Silver badge

    mmm...

    Good luck in finding people with the suitable loose morals to do offensive "cyber" (when national security enemies could be anyone the govt dislikes.

    FFS I remember being on anti South Africa demos (when it was a "white apartheid state" and special branch filming us as were were obviously suspect individuals) - yet now, if you believe them, all the politicians think apartheid SA was nasty & always did (in true 1984 style)

    So expect to be attacking your fellow citizens, be it mung bean munching middle class extinction rebellion hippies, a journalist revealing nasty stories about powerful people etc).

    Plus, if you do lack morals and have offensive attack skills, there are far more lucrative career options available.

    1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

      Re: mmm...

      Plus, if you do lack morals and have offensive attack skills, there are far more lucrative career options available. ..... tiggity

      Hmmm? And derivative future product too, as shown for advertising and marketing and capitalising gains and liquidating EquitiesTraders Reputations with the Flash Fast Cash Investment Funding and Secured FailSafe Assured Insuring of 0Day Trading Event Horizons Now Ready to Appear ...... Live, and Alive and Kicking Dead Wood into the Middle of the Fires that are Blazing New Trails through through the Forests of Despair and Desperation and across the Plains and Mountains and Deep Down into the Valleys of Incompetence and Death Denying and Defying Excessive Indulgence. ..... Incomparable Incorrigible Insatiable Greed ..... Diabolical Gluttony.

      Step onto that Great Gravy Train and Going Back to the Past and Continuing to Do All Things as they are and/or were, is Never Ever a Stop made on the Journeys Ahead.

      I Kid U Not. That's as Honest a Declaration and Admission as would ever be needed for ...... well, Advanced IntelAIgent Beta Testing of C42 Quantum Communication Control Systems, surely methinks.

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like