Air Force Firewall Now Designated a Weapons System (gazette.com) 137
An anonymous reader writes with a report from the Colorado Springs Gazette that the U.S. Air Force Space Command has declared its first cyber "weapons system" operational. The weapon, deemed fully operational this month, is basically a big firewall designed to protect the Air Force's internal 1 million-user network from hackers. It will be a hot topic at the Rocky Mountain Cyber Symposium, which is expected to draw hundreds of computer experts to The Broadmoor for a four-day confab starting Monday."
More from the article about why a firewall would be called a weapon: The biggest reason for the weaponization push is financial: When it comes to budget battles, weapons, even those with a keyboard and a mouse, get cash from Congress. "Designating something as a weapons system really does help us justify our funding," Col. Pamela Wooley, who commands the Alabama-based 26th Cyberspace Operations Group, which includes the new weapon.
it's a "weapon". it gets funded. (Score:5, Insightful)
extra benefit (Score:2)
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"firewall".... so it erects a wall of fire? Fund that sucker! Put one on the Mexican border!
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No need to fund that, don't you already know? The Mexicans will pay for it.
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It's probably easier than finding a justification that it "keeps out them terrorists" or something like that. Had it been civilian, they'd probably asked for extra funding "to stop the kiddie porn" or otherwise "to protect the children".
"weapons... get cash from Congress" (Score:2, Funny)
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You are an idiot.
Being civilized has never meant being "more" moral (whatever that means). That's a fairy-tale idiots such as yourself spout to feel better about having to live behind a wall.
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Civilisation is self-defining: It means having the characteristics of the culture of the speaker.
There's a good line from one of the ancient Greek philosophers, I forget which, contrasting the funerary practices of Greeks with those of a far-off people in Africa. He concluded that both of them would consider the practices of the other to be savage, offensive and an abominable practice - and questioned if either can be said to be more right.
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Suicide bombers are like viking berserkers and japanese kamakazi pilots. They are the walking, talking embodiment of courage and dedication. The fact that you are their enemy doesn't diminish that in the slightest. Oppose them or not, when you disparage them, you diminish yourself.
It is true that suicide bombers are badass. However, they are fighting for extreme limits on freedom, fighting to take autonomy and power away from the populace and give it to the ultimate nanny state. That's regrettable. In virtually all cases, they are anti-education, anti-science, anti-technology, anti-liberty.
The ones who deserve contempt are the drone pilots. They're walking, talking embodiments of cowardice, deserving of utter contempt.
If combat were purely a dick-waving contest (war is to a certain degree, but I'm talking about actual tactical combat), then this might be true. However, combat is about winning, as quickly, effi
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George S Patton expressed this very well: [brainyquote.com]
Blaming janitors for shit they clean up? (Score:2)
If anyone ever deserves contempt it's the people giving the drone pilots contemptible orders. The pilots don't set the missions or pick targets.
Do you also think pilots flying in a clear sky with no risk of anti-aircraft fire are also cowards?
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FTFY.
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Stupidity and courage can manifest in the same way externally.
As for brainwashing, it's unavoidable. Basic human nature from childhood - copy the ambient tribal views.
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I describe things only as they are. In war, there is no honor - thus no contempt for the drone pilots. Your job is not to die for your country but to make the other son of a bitch die for his. The idea of honor (so quaintly also included in the Geneva Convention) is gone in war. Chivalry died its final death (even if it ever was there) in WWI.
That does not mean that some acts are not honorable and some acts are not deserving of contempt. It's not cowardice to not want to give up your life if it can be trivi
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REAL wars are fought butt naked in the dirt, last man standing wins.
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Oh, be serious. The poor should refer to themselves as veterans so when a suicide bomb finally does go off in the United States the Republicans will finally be interested in helping them!
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That won't help at all. The Republican party does a decent job of creating veterans. Helping them, not so much.
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Oh, be serious. The poor should refer to themselves as veterans so when a suicide bomb finally does go off in the United States the Republicans will finally be interested in helping them!
I hope they do better than the VA under the Democrats - helping them right into the grave!
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Actually the Republicans cut their funding in 2015.
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pgp encryption was classified as munitions so that they could limit its export
Hey, I've still got my t-shirt with the 3-line perl implementation of pgp, and the explanation on the back that it's legally a "munition". I still wear it once or twice a year to some inappropriate event where I know there'll be lots of them furriner types. ;-)
(So far I've never been arrested for wearing it to public events, and none of my acquaintances who also have one have been arrested either. I've been disappointed to not be able to follow the fun that would follow if they actually tried to punish
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Well, much like you aren't allowed to build a bomb, but you ARE allowed access to gasoline, you're of COURSE permitted the PERL implementation. You're much more likely to self immolate than do damage to anything else, after all...
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In 3 lines of perl.. are you actually implementing encryption, or are you just using some CPAN package and implementing the protocol only?
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Yup; and that's certainly 'leet perl; it looks like line noise. ;-)
But we might dispute the comment that it'd take 300 lines of C. 300 lines of readable, well-formatted C, perhaps, but C can be made nearly as cryptic and compact as perl. It's mainly things like pattern matching and table manipulation and such where C requires the use of libraries to be so succinct. For basic bit/number crunching, perl isn't really much more compact than C.
I wonder if the Obscure C folks have tackled this problem. Maybe
Hack Back Attack AUTHORIZED! (Score:5, Funny)
Unless this has some ridiculous hack-back-attack capabilities, complete with a nerdy looking airman typing as fast as humanly possible to "execute" the hack back attack, Congress may have to start looking a bit closer at these "weapons systems."
We need more toilet paper for the bathroom.
Here you go.
WTF? Why does this toilet paper have pictures of guns on it?
This is weaponized toilet paper. It helps with allocating funding...
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The back part has been on the books for a while now.
"U.S. spy agencies mounted 231 offensive cyber-operations in 2011, documents show" (August 30, 2013)
https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
under GENIE for "“.. covert implants,” sophisticated malware transmitted
For first time, US military says it would use offensive cyberweapons (Mar 14, 2013)
http://arstechnica.com/securit... [arstechnica.com]
"This is an offensive team"
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Perhaps some people looked into the alternatives. If you don't speak Icelandic or Norwegian they start getting iffy.
Obviously (Score:4, Informative)
weapon [wep-uh n]
noun
1. any instrument or device for use in attack or defense in combat, fighting, or war, as a sword, rifle, or cannon.
2. anything used against an opponent, adversary, or victim:
the deadly weapon of satire.
3. Zoology. any part or organ serving for attack or defense, as claws, horns, teeth, or stings.
It's no more surprising than storing weapons in an armory.
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weapon [wep-uh n]
noun
3. Zoology. any part or organ serving for attack or defense,
Or love.
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Esp. if you're a snail. (Look it up.)
Weaponize TETRAS (Score:2)
2. ???
3. Profit!!!
Note: ??? == Congressional Funding, for all values of ???
firewall a weapon? (Score:2)
Do i need a weapon license now?
military targets (Score:2)
so people working on such 'weapons' are now legitimate military targets?
1 million is wrong (Score:1)
According to Wikipedia:
308,016 active personnel
180,084 civilian personnel
71,400 reserve personnel
106,700 air guard personnel
That is only 666,000 people.
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In fairness, reality itself is making a lot less sense than usual. Did you catch them girls at the Trump rally singing "Deal from strength or get crushed every time?"
Cracked (reasonably liberal site) has a summary, but the mere fact that it is happening is a pretty serious glitch in the Matrix.
http://www.cracked.com/video_1... [cracked.com]
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Maybe they counted the 350,000+ wannabees that walk around the shopping mall dressed in camo?
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The civilian count is likely only counting Civil Servants. Contractors could very easily make up the difference.
The firewall is next to useless .. (Score:1)
A basic firewall blocks connecting based on a table of IP address and port combinations. If the 'firewall' can't identify malicious connections then it's next to useless. So called 'stateful inspection firewalls' utilize a man-in-the-middle hack, only work by installing a fake cert on the client browser, decrypts passing data and supposedly identifies malicious code. Which begs the question, if the MITM firewall c
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Maybe 'firewall' is a metaphor and it really is something different.
(I doubt it, but it is possible.)
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ITAR (Score:2)
If it's classified as a weapon, it is covered by ITAR [wikipedia.org] and can't be easily exported. So other nations can't install one of their own from a regulated vendor (country) and block attacks from Pentagon cyber warfare systems or probes by the NSA.
Firewall is a weapon system? GOOD (Score:4, Interesting)
Fair warning/full disclosure: I"m an Airmen in the USAF.
A 'weapon system' is a special designation. Lots of things are weapon systems. A truck is a weapon system. Every weapon system gets a System Program Office (SPO) that is responsible for developing, managing, updating/upgrading/improving the weapon system. Weapon systems have full certification processes that the SPO oversees. Think change management on steroids.
Want to modify the weapon system? Better clear it with the SPO. If you don't, it just became de-certified and you can't deploy it. If it were a plane, that would mean its grounded.
Without knowing more details other than their is a weapon system that is a firewall, that would mean that the hardware and software gets certified before it is deployed (turned on/plugged in). Chances are there are standard configurations that are then mandated.
This also means that its going to be heavily vetted. Chances are its not a commercial-off-the-shelf device., but if it is they'd be taking it apart looking for backdoors and other exploits.
So personally I'm excited by this, but then I know what it means...
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So the misunderstanding, as so often happens, is because a word has a specific meaning within a certain community that differs from the meaning of that word in the general population?
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It's still not a fucking weapons system.
Good luck btw getting the SPO to respond quickly enough to keep the damn thing patched and properly configured.
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Disclaimer: I am US military officer (not the same AC as above), not an expert on cybersecurity or the legal details of US foreign weapons sales. I agree that firewalls are not a weapon.
That being said, I suspect that, in addition to the funding aspect mentioned in the summary, this is a legal maneuver to protect the details of this particular firewall. Generally firewalls are fair game for export worldwide (as they should be in my opinion) under the terms of the Wassenaar Arrangement [wikipedia.org] (see Category
Would you like to play a game? (Score:2)
bash>
What will they call it? (Score:2)
After all, they can't call it FW-1 or , if you prefer, Firewall One.
Higher salaries (Score:2)
You could justify it in the same way that in many / most companies, senior management claims that higher pay and bonuses for directors motivates them to make more profit. Could you depend on a general who does not get at least, say, twenty times as much as the ordinary airman?
Programmer's Creed (Score:3)
This is my computer. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
My computer is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life.
My computer, without me, is useless. Without my computer, I am useless. I must comment my code in detail. I must hack truer than my enemy who is trying to pwn me. I must pwn him before he pwns me. I will...
My computer and I know that what counts in war is not the darkness of the cubicle, the temperature of the coffee, nor the dust of the Doritos. We know that it is the lines of code we commit. We will commit...
My computer is human, even as I, because it is my life. Thus, I will learn it as a brother. I will learn its weaknesses, its strength, its parts, its accessories, its CPU and its memory. I will keep my computer patched and updated, even as I am patched and updated. We will become part of each other. We will...
Before God, I swear this creed. My computer and I are the defenders of my country. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of my life.
So be it, until victory is America's and there is no enemy, but peace!
Redesignate! (Score:2)
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