4 ms·

>there probably needs to be a new branch of the military to recruit, train, and deploy new kinds of hacker-soldiers. Agree, but I'd suggest it likely that this

by wgx 15y ago

>there probably needs to be a new branch of the military to recruit, train, and deploy new kinds of hacker-soldiers. Agree, but I'd suggest it likely that this branch is already well-established and operational, if hidden from the public eye.

hugh3 15y ago
I imagine this is a very large portion of NSA operations. There's no need for "cyber command" to really be part of the military. There's no need to put hackers through boot camp, or make 'em wear uniforms, or salute... it would bring down the average quality of the hackers and the average quality of the military. Far better to fold it under the roof of the intelligence agencies.
- nyellin 15y ago
  On the the contrary. Military discipline developed from the necessity of training reliable soldiers who don't question critical orders. Independent thinking is an admirable trait, but knowing your soldiers wont leak information is crucial. In Israel there is a mandatory draft. Every soldier goes to boot camp and units like 8200 have strict military structures. (Success is hard to measure, but Israel's high tech industry is some indication of the benefits of military discipline.)
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - nyellin 15y ago
    silverstorm, the mandatory draft includes women. (Although exemptions are common in orthodox communities where woman trade army service for two years of mandatory social work.)
  - hugh3 15y ago
    On the the contrary. Military discipline developed from the necessity of training reliable soldiers who don't question critical orders. Independent thinking is an admirable trait, but knowing your soldiers wont leak information is crucial. The CIA and NSA have... (goes to look it up)... uhh, some large but undisclosed number of employees. They seem to do a perfectly good job of keeping secrets without needing full-on military discipline. I'm not actually saying that military training would make anyone a worse hacker, though, I'm just saying that the need for military discipline would limit the number of people (especially in that particular demographic) who wanted to sign up. I have no doubt some of the NSA's best hackers are completely unable to do a single chin-up.
    - rbanffy 15y ago
      > unable to do a single chin-up To say nothing about the willingness to salute someone who just learned they can copy and paste text.
  - lautis 15y ago
    Military discipline developed from the necessity of training reliable soldiers who don't question critical orders. Military discipline was a necessity to get a company, a battalion, and larger units to work together at all. Strict organization is necessity as chaos is unmanageable with traditional communication means. Modern organizations have moved on from rigid, hierarchal organizational models to network-centric models. Even military organizations have moved to this direction (discipline and military courtesy is still maintained). Success is hard to measure, but Israel's high tech industry is some indication of the benefits of military discipline. High tech industry has been proved to benefit from military funding. Israel spends larger portion of its GDP to (military) R&D than any other nation.
  - darklajid 15y ago
    Please take this as a quote and as tongue-in-cheek, but during my (very limited, I know that I'm not representative) military services the 'US grunt' was one of the things our superiors made most fun of. 'Follow orders blindly' (which is more or less the thing we're arguing about) was actively discouraged from the leadership. Is this good? How can I tell.. But since I started out biased (i.e. with a working brain) I did enjoy that part of my service.
    - nyellin 15y ago
      I didn't explain myself well. My goal wasn't to suggest that the Israeli army teaches soldiers to blindly follow orders - by all accounts the opposite is true. Rather, I was addressing the grandparent post's derisive comment about teaching soldiers to salute, respect authority, and generally behave in a disciplined manner.
  - gregpilling 15y ago
    So by this idea, then PFC Bradley Manning is a soldier trained to not leak information? He is the guy who sent wikileaks a large pile of confidential information.
    - hugh3 15y ago
      Well, one out of several hundred thousand is a pretty low failure rate.
gcb 15y ago
why people still think it's ok to have secrets in a government? is it the many movies where the hero help the gov to hide some alien invasion to prevent panic that causes people to think this is right?
- jerf 15y ago
  Because people who wish you harm for various reasons really exist, and nobody's figured out how to tell the entire world every detail about our defensive capabilities without substantially weakening them in the process. I'm a little-l libertarian and I'll happily join the calls for "more transparency" where appropriate, but "government should have no secrets", especially in the area of self defense, is not a realistic position. It's an abusable-but-necessary evil.
  - darklajid 15y ago
    I don't want to be dragged into politics right now, but > Because people who wish you harm for various reasons really exist, and nobody's figured out how to tell the entire world every detail about our defensive capabilities without substantially weakening them in the process. ..sounds like security through obscurity to me.
    - redxaxder 15y ago
      No more than keeping your encryption keys a secret is security through obscurity. Even if you're transparent about your overall scheme, you need to keep some execution details hidden.
      - gcb 15y ago
        no. security and government decency is telling everyone "we spend x billions here and use z and y to encrypt access to it" what happens is "we spent x billions on toilet seats (to quote an alien movie) and password go over the air unencrypted, but we are not telling you the frequency"
    - nl 15y ago

by wgx 15y ago

hugh3 15y ago

I imagine this is a very large portion of NSA operations. There's no need for "cyber command" to really be part of the military. There's no need to put hackers through boot camp, or make 'em wear uniforms, or salute... it would bring down the average quality of the hackers and the average quality of the military. Far better to fold it under the roof of the intelligence agencies.

nyellin 15y ago
On the the contrary. Military discipline developed from the necessity of training reliable soldiers who don't question critical orders. Independent thinking is an admirable trait, but knowing your soldiers wont leak information is crucial. In Israel there is a mandatory draft. Every soldier goes to boot camp and units like 8200 have strict military structures. (Success is hard to measure, but Israel's high tech industry is some indication of the benefits of military discipline.)
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- nyellin 15y ago
  silverstorm, the mandatory draft includes women. (Although exemptions are common in orthodox communities where woman trade army service for two years of mandatory social work.)
- hugh3 15y ago
  On the the contrary. Military discipline developed from the necessity of training reliable soldiers who don't question critical orders. Independent thinking is an admirable trait, but knowing your soldiers wont leak information is crucial. The CIA and NSA have... (goes to look it up)... uhh, some large but undisclosed number of employees. They seem to do a perfectly good job of keeping secrets without needing full-on military discipline. I'm not actually saying that military training would make anyone a worse hacker, though, I'm just saying that the need for military discipline would limit the number of people (especially in that particular demographic) who wanted to sign up. I have no doubt some of the NSA's best hackers are completely unable to do a single chin-up.
  - rbanffy 15y ago
    > unable to do a single chin-up To say nothing about the willingness to salute someone who just learned they can copy and paste text.
- lautis 15y ago
  Military discipline developed from the necessity of training reliable soldiers who don't question critical orders. Military discipline was a necessity to get a company, a battalion, and larger units to work together at all. Strict organization is necessity as chaos is unmanageable with traditional communication means. Modern organizations have moved on from rigid, hierarchal organizational models to network-centric models. Even military organizations have moved to this direction (discipline and military courtesy is still maintained). Success is hard to measure, but Israel's high tech industry is some indication of the benefits of military discipline. High tech industry has been proved to benefit from military funding. Israel spends larger portion of its GDP to (military) R&D than any other nation.
- darklajid 15y ago
  Please take this as a quote and as tongue-in-cheek, but during my (very limited, I know that I'm not representative) military services the 'US grunt' was one of the things our superiors made most fun of. 'Follow orders blindly' (which is more or less the thing we're arguing about) was actively discouraged from the leadership. Is this good? How can I tell.. But since I started out biased (i.e. with a working brain) I did enjoy that part of my service.
  - nyellin 15y ago
    I didn't explain myself well. My goal wasn't to suggest that the Israeli army teaches soldiers to blindly follow orders - by all accounts the opposite is true. Rather, I was addressing the grandparent post's derisive comment about teaching soldiers to salute, respect authority, and generally behave in a disciplined manner.
- gregpilling 15y ago
  So by this idea, then PFC Bradley Manning is a soldier trained to not leak information? He is the guy who sent wikileaks a large pile of confidential information.
  - hugh3 15y ago
    Well, one out of several hundred thousand is a pretty low failure rate.

gcb 15y ago

why people still think it's ok to have secrets in a government? is it the many movies where the hero help the gov to hide some alien invasion to prevent panic that causes people to think this is right?

jerf 15y ago
Because people who wish you harm for various reasons really exist, and nobody's figured out how to tell the entire world every detail about our defensive capabilities without substantially weakening them in the process. I'm a little-l libertarian and I'll happily join the calls for "more transparency" where appropriate, but "government should have no secrets", especially in the area of self defense, is not a realistic position. It's an abusable-but-necessary evil.
- darklajid 15y ago
  I don't want to be dragged into politics right now, but > Because people who wish you harm for various reasons really exist, and nobody's figured out how to tell the entire world every detail about our defensive capabilities without substantially weakening them in the process. ..sounds like security through obscurity to me.
  - redxaxder 15y ago
    No more than keeping your encryption keys a secret is security through obscurity. Even if you're transparent about your overall scheme, you need to keep some execution details hidden.
    - gcb 15y ago
      no. security and government decency is telling everyone "we spend x billions here and use z and y to encrypt access to it" what happens is "we spent x billions on toilet seats (to quote an alien movie) and password go over the air unencrypted, but we are not telling you the frequency"
  - nl 15y ago