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US Army cyber colonel in call to network arms

The officer in charge of US Army efforts in network warfare has issued a resounding call to battle for American cyber warriors. "We have to pick up the pace... respond, react, be proactive enough to stay out ahead of the speed of megabytes," said Colonel Wayne Parks, quoted on Govexec.com. "There was a day when we were …

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Jesse
Thumb Down

"stay out ahead of the speed of megabytes"

We must be faster than gallons.

We must hurry more than grams.

We must stay ahead of the speed of a millimeter.

Colonel. Sorry, It just doesn't work man.

Pyros
Black Helicopters

Forwarned is forearmed

In *theory* anyone that they recruit into the Armed Forces is considered a "soldier"--even the ones that are overweight, indulge in WoW raids from time to time, live in their parent's basement. and have some form of anti-social defense (acne, BO, glasses, etc.)

Guess who'll shove to the front when the chips are down and they need cannon fodder. At least they'll let us train with the real guns for a change.

Black helios, because I'm THAT sort of pessmist in general. Now where's the keys to my off-shore island bunker?...

Gordon Fecyk
Stop

Where's SGT Rosenberger when we need him?!

Our vaunted US military is one of the worst addicts to 'conventional' anti-virus technology on the planet. Even worse, they continue to buy conventional AV when they know that their vendors give viruses to their enemies: the People's Republic of China.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/04/03/chinese_feds_demand_computer_virus/

Lewis, ask your co-worker John Leyden about this one.

And our cyber-colonel needs to read this:

http://www.vmyths.com/column/1/2001/10/30/

Anonymous Coward
Gates Halo

InfoWar=?

Well, the Psyops people should be well prepared for the chat boards. All they need is additional training in hacking websites...

QuietLeni
Paris Hilton

The "speed of megabytes"...

...and that is?

I think that someone needs some "education"...

Sceptical Bastard

'Murcca's finest

"We have to ...be proactive enough to stay out ahead of the speed of megabytes...Now we're moving at cyber speed."

What the *fuck* is this twat on about? He's spouting meaningless gobbledegook.

If he is the best person the world's foremost superpower can come up to run its Computer Network Operations and Electronic Warfare Dept then what does it tell us about his colleagues with their fingers on the red button? If they are anything like him, it's a wonder we haven't all been nuked. There's still time...

obed

Guess none of you have served in the US Army.

Not surpised...not surprised at all.

Officers are not that bright. If you really want to know what's happening "on the ground" (Army lingo for How things really are) then you should ask a Specialist or a Sergeant.

SnowHawk

Please tell me this is a counter-intel op

"stay out ahead of the speed of megabytes"

I can only hope that this is some carefully planned operation to make the Chinese think that we don't know squat about 'cyber-warfare', making them think that they can steal Our Pure Essence.

As a U.S. Army vet, I'm not that certain of that however.

Dennis
Coat

Re: The "speed of megabytes"...

"...and that is?"

This is a well known quantity. The unit of measurement is light-years per milli-furlong.

Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward

Have you forgotten 911 people?

As Chertoff says, Cyber risk equals 911 threat!

Crashing planes is no different from crashing webservers. Remember how the people ran around in a kernel panick? How the firewalls fell?

Seriously, he can't top Chertoffs 911 verbal garbage from yesterday.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7335930.stm

Make no mistake the biggest threat to the USA dollar collapse and that's entirely of their own making. Pumping money into domestic security projects will not fix it. They're going down, and it's entirely the fault of Cheney and his 'deficits don't matter' policy.

Mike Richards

Sounds like lyrics from an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical

"There was a day when we were operating at foot speed,"

"Now we're moving at cyber speed."

Think Tron on rollerskates.

Joe K
Coat

We need armour for the internets!

"Now we're moving at cyber speed."

Thats one of the funniest things i've read on this site in a while.

Quick! To the cyber-humvees, we've detected an attack on the West Internet, fire the anti-virus missiles at the enemy bytes!

Reminds me of PA's take on Die Hard 4: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/07/16/

Anonymous Coward
Unhappy

Thanks Lewis

You were fairly gentle, it's really really embarrassing . I wonder if anyone in the position to do anything is aware of colonel ding-dongs lack of clarity.

<hangs head in shame>

Dennis Price
Paris Hilton

well hell...

I don't even understand wtf he's saying an ah is frum heyar.... He damn sure doesn't need to be in charge of cyber-anything. Reminds me of an Lt. we had in the Army back in the 80's, he was supposed to be an Army photographer but ended up "commanding" a platoon of M1 Abrams tanks - fucking worthless with glasses an half inch thick. Couldn't see a damn thing.

Not too smart but now you understand the right way, the wrong way, and the Army way.

On a side note, I have you British bastards figured out now:

http://www.peevish.co.uk/slang/a.htm

Paris, because she and the Colonel understand each other....

Charles Manning

There are decision-making two ranks in the army

Generals, of course, and corporals. Everyone else are messengers and ladder climbers, trying to seem smart enough to get promotion, yet unwilling to do anything that could attract problems.

When I was in the army (as a corporal), one of the things I did was help the computer service people. Most staff officers were as thick as planks and were incapable of basic computer usage and would make really stupid calls.

We had all the staff officers using the same password so that we could remind them when they called in. It was something like "force" or so, something that stirred the warrior within, but was easy enough to spell.

Once I had this call helping a colonel through a data entry. The conversation went something like this:

Me: "Type T".

wait a few seconds

Me: "Well what do you see?"

Cononel: There's a long row of Ts across the screen. Wait, now it's covering two rows"

Me: "Take your finger off the T"

Schultz
Linux

Real or Unreal?

So the recruits of the future start their day with a brisk jog through SecondLife and then head to the Unreal training grounds for some weapons and tactics session. In the afternoon, some Social Skills Advancement at Facebook followed by R&R watching gory movies online. Should solve the recruitement problems!

If you don't believe it, head over to they guys who've seen the future: http://www.unitedmedia.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert-20080409.html

Ooh, he's relaxed allright, that penguin.

Gordon Fecyk
Stop

@Obed, from (a real) SGT Rosenberger: "Get Real."

You asked for insight from a front line soldier? In the age of "cyber warfare" it doesn't get better than the insight of a member of the 609th Information Warfare Squadron of the USAF. Yes, he's real. No, he's not active; he retired shortly after 2005.

I was looking for this one earlier... it made more sense than the link I posted earlier.

http://www.vmyths.com/column/1/2001/10/11/

Our vaunted U.S. military:

* will run like a helpless damsel to the antivirus industry if a "virus war" breaks out;

* gives millions of dollars each year to turncoats who supply virus technology to the Chinese government;

* regularly self-cripples its global command & control networks as a precaution;

* remains vulnerable to any wannabee who wants to cripple their global command & control networks;

* doesn't care enough to demand a secure operating system in its PC contracts;

* suffers virus outbreaks as a result of their addiction to inferior antivirus technologies; and

* deletes its virus outbreak data every single day of the week.

And that's just our cyber-colonel's vaunted US military!

Fuion

Maybe it was a call for help?

I would assume that if they had the staff needed to address the issues they are facing they would not have to be asking for such help.

As for : 'We need to be faster than megabytes'

Maybe what this person is trying to say is they have a large amount of data they have just been forced to parse, and are having trouble keeping up.

I am sure if anyone was able to help with such an issue, they would.

-Maybe they already are ;)

It is more fun to poke at someone asking for help, rather than to provide the help itself.

Anonymous Coward
Boffin

Maybe...

They should just contact the people they want via email / tele, or show up in plain clothes asking if they want such employment. Direct and to the point should work?

dervheid
Paris Hilton

Somehow...

I just don't envisage even your most 'patriotic' hacker being enticed into volunteering for Uncle Sam.

Now, coercion, that's a different story.

As for " not the kind of folks that perhaps you want to march to breakfast in the morning,” I have a wonderful image of some buzz-cut drill sgt screaming himself purple trying to get your archetypal hacker to fall into line.

There's a movie in that, I think.

No, wait, been done, just with a *rich dumb blonde* and called Private Benjamin.

Paris, coz (see * * above!)

Not That Andrew
Joke

Don't be so hard on the guy

Didn't anyone ever watch Reboot? Megabyte is a genuine threat!

Stuart Halliday
Alien

It's another great Quantum Leap

I remember being amused as a child when Sinclair launched the Sinclair QL or Quantum Leap computer. Quantum means 'very small', so why was he trying to promote a very small advance in technology I asked myself?

Another one is Lightyear or Parsec. You'd get idiots trying to look intelligent by using the word as a measure of speed whilst anyone knows it's a distance measurement.

The character Han Solo of Star Wars shocked many a true Sci-Fi fans back in 1978 by using this term incorrectly. Didn't George Lucas know anything about Science?

Dionysius Johannesburg
Paris Hilton

Memetic and... er... doubly entendric potential

"Now we're moving at cyber speed."

Oh, exploitable. So did the Colonel conclude his speech by putting on his robe and wizard hat? Har har har.

Barnaby Hart
Black Helicopters

Megabytes are not so bad

Lest we forget the threat posed by Killerbytes in the 90s.

The war or Terrorbytes is just beginning.

Nick Palmer
Go

Colonel Gadget?

"GO GO CYBER-SPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED!"

Spleen

Have you forgotten?

Cyber warfare is a real threat! Don't you remember when those giant dicks flew into the Virtual Trade Center? Nevar 4get.

I have an idea - round up all these tossers who think that extorting $x billion from individuals and spending it on flashy gizmos will protect against some sort of imaginary threat, and tell them that they've specially chosen to be uploaded into The Matrix and do battle with virtual Al-Qaeda in slow-motion kung fu. Lead them into a room with hanging wires and random furniture everywhere - pretty much any IT department will do - and lie them down on some futuristic couches. Then stab them in the back of the neck with a wire until their eyes glaze over. Dead, jacked in, meh, either way.

Marvin the Martian
Dead Vulture

This raises serious questions

Deeper philosophical questions are raised by this thinkering:

--What is the sound of one bit shifting?

--If a megabyte moves with cyberspeed, but there's no spyware present, does it still move?

--Can a megabyte at cyberspeed ever overtake another at footspeed?

Mycho

The army's answer to Bill Gates' speed of thought?

After all, didn't it turn out that thought travels at 2 meters per hour or something equally slow?

Now the speed of megabytes. Well gee the megabytes in my hard drive mostly go in circles, pretty fast but not getting anywhere. I like this analogy.

Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward

we are interbutts soldiers

and we must untangle the tubes! The internet is not a truck, but a series of tubes.

amanfromMars
Alien

At Least they're making the Effort ......Phishing for IT Sharks

"They should just contact the people they want via email / tele, or show up in plain clothes asking if they want such employment. Direct and to the point should work?"....Maybe... By Anonymous Coward Posted Thursday 10th April 2008 04:53 GMT

Should work a Real Treat, AC, although that via tele thing needs some TEMPEST awareness which is maybe more ESPecialised than you imagine.

"and we must untangle the tubes! The internet is not a truck, but a series of tubes."... By Anonymous Coward Posted Thursday 10th April 2008 15:01 GMT

AC2,

That must be the Yin to IT Quantum Communication Entanglement Yang.

Fuion

Drinking is good for you.

{ Should work a Real Treat, AC, although that via tele thing needs some TEMPEST awareness which is maybe more ESPecialised than you imagine.}

Last time I checked, TEMPEST implementation was only required (or maybe even in real life an afterthought) when data of a set classification was in transit over the transport medium.

So, a "Hello, we would like to talk to you at XXX location at XXX time about some computer help - and we are not out to get you" should travel just fine over any regular POTS, CDMA/TDMA/GSM, or VOIP connection just fine right?

That is unless the person pulls something stupid.

-Suppose that happens too...

Last time I check the US Coast Guard was violating COMSEC requirements on a regular basis, maybe I am misinformed.

And just maybe, the sharks are hunting for the fishermen, and for a damn good reason.

Rather than joining the winning side, sometimes one would make the side they are on win without failure.

Even if they fight it tooth and nail.

amanfromMars
Alien

Bold as Brass for AIDiamond Geysers

"So, a "Hello, we would like to talk to you at XXX location at XXX time about some computer help - and we are not out to get you" should travel just fine over any regular POTS, CDMA/TDMA/GSM, or VOIP connection just fine right?" ... By Fuion

Posted Friday 11th April 2008 07:00 GMT

I agree, Fuion.

Sometimes KISS is much more Effective than any Stealthy Madness which actually impedes Communications.

Give a man/woman what you know they want, and you will Control them?

Fuion
Go

Property Rights

{ Give a man/woman what you know they want, and you will Control them? }

--> Yes

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