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Government, Military and Private Sector Fighting Over Next-Gen Cyber-Warriors 68

Posted by samzenpus from the best-people-for-the-job dept.
An anonymous reader writes Both the U.S. Army and Britain's intelligence agency GCHQ launched new initiatives to address their severe shortfalls in cyber-security specialists. The United States Army Reserve launched the "cyber private public partnership" (Cyber P3) on Capitol Hill, which will give reservists the opportunity to train as cyber-warriors in six U.S. universities, in partnership with 11 employers. In the UK GCHQ announced an "Insiders Summer School", where first and second-year computer science undergraduates will be paid to attend a ten week intensive cyber-training course, culminating in a live display of their online and hacking acumen. The Government Accountability Office estimates a shortfall of 40,000 cyber security operatives, and with multiple branches of government in several western countries fighting each other (and the private sector, and the criminal arena) for the patronage of computer science students, cyber-security is looking to be the safest career path an undergraduate could pursue.
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Government, Military and Private Sector Fighting Over Next-Gen Cyber-Warriors More

Government, Military and Private Sector Fighting Over Next-Gen Cyber-Warriors

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  • Are the armed services types swarming over this just because if it has 'warrior' in the name they have to get a piece of the action, or do they actually have something resembling a coherent plan for being able to make a convincing pitch to the people they are hoping to attract?

    Buying their services as consultants, or as civilian employees of DoD agencies, sure; cut them a check and they'll show right up; but some of these plans actually seem to involve enlisted geeks wearing hilariously incongruous camo

    • Re:What does the military think it is doing? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Nidi62 ( 1525137 ) on Wednesday February 18, 2015 @03:07PM (#49081835)

      Buying their services as consultants, or as civilian employees of DoD agencies, sure; cut them a check and they'll show right up; but some of these plans actually seem to involve enlisted geeks wearing hilariously incongruous camo in front of banks of monitors and 'cyber warrior'-ing. How is selling that going to work?

      Civilians, even DoD civilians, are held to different standards than enlisted men and officers. Soldiers are held to the UMCJ and can be controlled much tighter. Just compare the treatment of Manning and Snowden. Plus you have to pay a civilian or contractor a lot more than you can a PFC or specialist. And if you relax physical requirements for these guys, weel then what about your mechanics or clerks or cooks? Morale issues can easily rise up from that.

      • Re:What does the military think it is doing? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Wednesday February 18, 2015 @03:20PM (#49081909)

        Just compare the treatment of Manning and Snowden

        That had little to do with the difference between "military" and "civilian", and much more to do with the difference between "got caught" and "got away".

      • That's exactly why I'm confused.

        If you are of the necessary talent and expertise to be of use for this sort of work, why would you go for the relatively lousy salary, potential to have your career advancement tied to your perceived ability in infantry combat, and comparatively strict rules when you could do the same job for either some private sector outfit, or for the DoD; but as an expensive contractor?

        I can imagine why the people hatching these plans might want to have a cooler 'cyber command' than

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by rtb61 ( 674572 )

          Basically they can't, that is the reality. It is all down to mutually exclusive goals. You want very creative intelligent people but you want disciplined single minded people, that is a mutually exclusive goal. You want people who are happy being indoors all of the time but you want fit active people who can spend a lot of time outdoors. You want people who will think freely and independently but you want people who will obey orders without question. You want people who do not indulge in a range of intoxic

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by khasim ( 1285 )

        Civilians, even DoD civilians, are held to different standards than enlisted men and officers. Soldiers are held to the UMCJ and can be controlled much tighter.

        That is correct. But the real question is whether they NEED to be "controlled much tighter". What, specifically, is their mission?

        Also, how does that mission differ from the mission that the NSA is already performing?

        And if you relax physical requirements for these guys, weel then what about your mechanics or clerks or cooks? Morale issues can easily

      • The largest problem they will face ongoing is most good engineers and hacker types want absolutely nothing to do with the government. They will be stuck trying to figure out how to play an A game with C players. Go read the Cyber Warrior Field Guide soldier, we need boots at the keyboard!

    • They have the beret already might as well give them warrior in their title too. They'll still be called a REMF though. Yeah that is a little mean...

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 )

      This is about money. Military budgets are being cut. The public has lost their appetite for foreign wars. Manned systems are being replaced with drones and robots. Even the few ongoing spend-a-thons, such as the F-35, are continuing out of political inertia, rather than any sincere belief that they make sense.

      So what is a general, looking for a nice cushy command, while padding his pension, supposed to do? The obvious answer is "cyber-warfare". It is a hot topic. Money is being thrown at it. The onl

    • Buying their services as consultants, or as civilian employees of DoD agencies, sure; cut them a check and they'll show right up;

      That works for a while. Eventually many of the best software developers working for the Navy installation I was at quit because of the senseless bureaucracy. When you're spending more time fighting your network administrators and purchasing agents than you are actually developing software, only the most committed, desperate, or indifferent developers will stay.

    • some of these plans actually seem to involve enlisted geeks wearing hilariously incongruous camo in front of banks of monitors and 'cyber warrior'-ing. How is selling that going to work?

      What, other than hilariously narrowminded stereotyping of geeks, makes you think it wouldn't work? Not all geeks are the anti-authoritarian pseduo-libertarian stereotype so beloved of Slashdot. (My service, the USN Submarine Service, had and has more geeks than you can shake a stick at.)

      • The odds that they could get paid better to do the same work if the business of crafting really neat attacks and managing defense ends up being handled by contractors?

        I hardly theorize that geeks are just too edgy and anti-authoritarian to work for the man, man. That's nonsense. Some repulsive percentage of silicon valley is currently fighting like animals to see who can invade customer privacy faster, a markedly more sordid business; convincing them to supply services to the feds will not be difficult.

  • I've jumped through the nasty hurdles of the usajobs.gov sites hundreds of times, and never heard back. It's like the resumes go in a black hole, and I've heard similar from other colleagues. 14 years of sys/network admin/security with a masters in cybersecurity... and not one f*cking call back from these gov't jobs ever. Hell, I've even got an active TS clearance, so that hoop is cleared. Finding a job in the private sector.. pffftt... no problem there. Time to overhaul the entire gov't hiring syste

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gmhowell ( 26755 )

      Go work for a contractor. Get to know the feds. Then your resume magically moves to the top in usajobs.gov.

    • Federal Civilian hiring is a complete mess. Trying to get in the front door that way is possible, but it's hard, and really really time consuming compared to anything in the private sector. As a past fed, though, here's my tip:

      Start with Contracting, as an FTE (Full Time Equivalent).

      Most of the active turnover in any federal agency, including DoD, isn't the civilians - it's the contractors. This is where you're most likely to get hired, and it was how I started out. Your benefits and pay will vary based o

    • In my experience there is no feedback at all unless you are actually selected for the position or picked for an interview. The agency I have experience doesn't bother with interviews until the GS-13 level. If your resume doesn't explicitly demonstrate experience or training that backs up what you put down on the survey it'll likely be tossed. If you aren't a veteran your chances are also diminished, although this isn't as much of a built in disadvantage as it used to be, however there are a lot more veteran

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday February 18, 2015 @03:21PM (#49081915)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ixidor ( 996844 )
      About the first part, Basically every Nation-State that is in on the game has a better pool to draw from. About your last comment. have you actually tried to Enlist in the last few years? i have, well re-enlist anyway. No one was hiring, i tried them all even Coast Guard. What i got over and over, no one was getting out, they were shining the total numbers, and with the down economy, the recruiters were basically not needed.
      • They're looking to reduce the overall size of the force, so the name of the game right now is convincing people to take early retirement/to ETS/etc. That said, the military doesn't just do raw numbers. They have spots for a certain number of infantry, a certain number of finance clerks, a certain number of mechanics, etc. At any given time, certain specialties are simply going to be in higher demand for a variety of reasons, including things like difficulty of training, and the demand in the private sector

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        I enlisted in the reserve after a break in service when I was offered a position in a cyber command unit. At first, there was a lot of movement in getting things established. After a little while, all drills and AT's became about knocking out required Army training and preparing for the next deployment. These were exactly the reasons I originally left the Army and I am on my way out once again. Not to mention that we never had the equipment or tools we needed to conduct a realistic exercise.

        The intent i

    • Most potential Army reservists are addicted to prescription drugs, are overweight, have mental health problems, or too many tattoos that prohibit them from joining the military

      Although you describe the sterotypical geek admirably, I'm not so sure about the tattoo thing, I thought they were pretty much compulsory in the Armed Forces..

      I suppose if you had a swastika tattooed on your face they might object, as they wouldn't be allowed to deploy you to Germany..

  • This sure doesn't appear to be the case. —an undergraduate about to enter the job market with a degree in security

  • I don't see it myself... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    ...cyber-security is looking to be the safest career path an undergraduate could pursue....

    Maybe it's ok for undergrads.

    But I have 35 years in Information Security, was part of the team that developed the BS7799/ISO2700 series world standard for commercial Information Security, and I haven't had a contract for the last year.

    The real trick in computing is not to be 63 years old...

  • Chasing fads in education again? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ErichTheRed ( 39327 ) on Wednesday February 18, 2015 @04:11PM (#49082233)

    "cyber-security is looking to be the safest career path an undergraduate could pursue."

    Uh oh, here comes another surge in CS enrollment. Seriously, I just heard a story talking about how petroleum engineering undergrad programs are suffering because the oil boom is slowly settling back down. These new grads were getting six figure starting salaries when things were going great, and now things are leveling off. Any temporary spike in demand for new grads is usually smoothed over very quickly by economic forces. I would just focus on the fundamentals -- get a good solid CS education, engineering education, or whatever, and your skills will transfer if you have the talent to succeed in these fields without the artificial demand.

    The first dotcom boom led to a huge jump in CS enrollment, followed by a prolonged period of un- or underemployment in the field. I still think we're working through a bunch of the first hangers-on even today that haven't been weeded out completely. Chasing a college major for money if you don't have the talent or desire just ends badly when the temporary good times end and you find yourself in a bad spot. The second dotcom boom today is generating more CS enrollment again as people want to write the hot new phone app...guess where most of them are going to be when the world moves on to something else??

    The reason why the armed forces aren't getting the new grads is most likely due to culture. If you're a civilian DoD contractor, you're paid pretty well but there are a lot of political obstacles to jump over. I've worked with a lot of different types of people in my career, and the "elite cyber warriors" that would be hunting down vulnerabilities in foreign systems would probably bristle at the typical office politics situations, let alone what happens in government/military.

    That said, I've always wondered how the CIA/NSA attracts super smart mathematicians, systems experts, etc. The government pay scale is very rigid. Say what you will about the NSA, but they really do seem to have a pretty big cache of talented people to do some of the things they've been doing. Beyond the idea of public service, the only thing in my eyes that makes a permanent job in government or military attractive is the stability and guaranteed retirement. I'm liking stability now that I've grown up and produced offspring, but I'm sure the typical "elite hacker d00d" straight out of college doesn't care and is most likely hostile to government.

    • Some of the agencies do have a certain "cool factor" to them. I'm certain that the NSA's cachet has fallen in the post-Snowden era, certainly, but prior to that, don't you think there'd be some allure to the (perceived) notion of getting paid to legally hack the living crap out of bad guys? Sure, you couldn't brag about it on the internet, but within "the community" people would know. And of course, the CIA has the whole James Bond/Jack Ryan/etc glamour going for it (or did).

      Overall though, it's certainly

      • Interesting points. My experience with federal employees comes from working with regulatory agencies and from friends who work for defense contractors. In general, you're dealing with normal human people who are mired in a mess they can't really directly control. I see very similar stuff at the large corporations I've done work for -- basically a private self-perpetuating bureaucracy. The key to doing well in an environment like that, assuming you don't want to brown nose your way up the ladder, is to learn

    • Chasing a college major for money if you don't have the talent or desire just ends badly when the temporary good times end and you find yourself in a bad spot.

      Setting aside the question of whether college should be in any way vocational, you seem to overlook the fact that the vast majority of people do jobs that they are neither particularly talented in, nor full of desire to do in the first place.

      It's called paying the bills, most of the rest is necessary self-delusion.

    • I've always wondered how the CIA/NSA attracts super smart mathematicians, systems experts, etc. The government pay scale is very rigid.

      Once you can pay the bills, most people aren't greatly motivated by money, unless they're entrepreneurial types.

      I suppose it's different in the US, you do seem to equate wealth with success and happiness.

      • "I suppose it's different in the US, you do seem to equate wealth with success and happiness."

        I think that more most mature people who have responsibilities, the motivation is not having to constantly worry whether you can meet your obligations. We just don't have the same labor protections or unemployment compensation that other countries (Canada, EU, etc.) do. There are a lot of people, even the responsible ones, who can't live within their means, and there is a lot of societal pressure to do so.

        For me, h

      • In the US, wealth is also security. If you lose your job, you lose your health insurance (less true now than six years ago, but still important). Unemployment pay lasts only so long, and then you're screwed unless you have enough stashed away to keep you solvent for a while. Many European countries have a reasonable social safety net and guaranteed reasonable health care of some sort, so a long period of unemployment isn't anywhere near as devastating.

  • http://science.slashdot.org/st... [slashdot.org]
    Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday September 10, 2014 @06:12PM
    from the skeletons-in-the-closet dept.
    sciencehabit writes Valerie Barr was a tenured professor of computer science at Union College in Schenectady, New York, with a national reputation for her work improving computing education and attracting more women and minorities into the field. But federal investigators say that Barr lied during a routine background check about her affiliations with a domestic terrorist group

  • "Have you or do you currently smoke marijuana?" --Yes Clearance Denied....

  • No, most likely you'll be the guy who takes the fall, after the procurement chief.

    • I'd say it's a good career path (and I'd hope so, since I'm in it) generally, not in a government specific vein. If anything, I'd say most government agencies aren't going to see the kind of growth that corporate IT security will, because most of the government has been aware that they needed to secure their systems in ways that many corporations didn't.

      Why? Because most non-bank/financial companies didn't really take the threat all that seriously. "I'm just a big-box retail store, IT is a cost center, not
  • "The universities were selected because they are top-tier schools with multi-disciplinary programs, Nelson said. The universities in the Cyber P3 are University of Colorado, Colorado Springs; Drexel University; George Mason University; Norwich University; University of Texas at San Antonio; and University of Washington Tacoma. " Are these really the top-tier schools? Why is MIT, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, UIUC not in this list?

  • Here's part of the problem:

    The six universities involved are Norwich University in Vermont (the oldest military college in the United States), the University of Washington, George Mason University, the University of Texas at San Antonio, Drexel University and the University of Colorado.

    The only one of these universities with a respectably ranked CS program is U of Washington.

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