Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Education The Military Security Software United States Technology Hardware

US Defense Budget May Help Fund 'Hacking For Defense' Classes At Universities (ieee.org) 34

According to an instructor at Stanford, eight universities in addition to Stanford will offer a Hacking for Defense class this year: Boise State, Columbia, Georgetown, James Madison, the University of California at San Diego, the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Southern California, and the University of Southern Mississippi. IEEE Spectrum reports: The class has spun out Hacking for Diplomacy, Hacking for Energy, and other targeted classes that use the same methodology. The snowballing effort is now poised to get a big push. This month, the U.S. House of Representatives passed an amendment originated by Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-Ill.) to support development of curriculum, best practices, and recruitment materials for the program to the tune of $15 million (a drop in the $700 billion defense budget but a big deal for a university program). In arguing for the amendment, Lipinski said, "Rapid, low-cost technological innovation is what makes Silicon Valley revolutionary, but the DOD hasn't historically had the mechanisms in place to harness this American advantage. Hacking for Defense creates ways for talented scientists and engineers to work alongside veterans, military leaders, and business mentors to innovate solutions that make America safer."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

US Defense Budget May Help Fund 'Hacking For Defense' Classes At Universities

Comments Filter:
  • Not needed (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    " Putin & I discussed forming an impenetrable Cyber Security unit so that election hacking, & many other negative things, will be guarded..
    — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 9, 2017"

    Putin will guard USA, Trump says so himself. So why need American hackers?

    It'll be cheaper too, hackers will be paid for by Russia so no need to ask Congress for budget.
    And it will be secure too. so-called NSA has that role currently, but they keep leaking stuff to Congressmen

  • by Anonymous Coward

    it's literally asking your citizens to attack and sabotage other countries' networks and communication means. It's basically a declaration of war, where every citizen can take up the role of a "cyber warrior" at their own discretion. The EU and Asia should respond to this with the same means.

  • Capability Based Security can actually fix this mess we call "computer security", but alas, it remains an obscure topic.

    • You write as if they want to fix the problem. They are only interested in exploiting it for their own gain.

  • with student loans as high as they are they don't need to fund this.

    What about an free trade school for this that does not take 4 years loaded with theory?

  • The number of Russian students gong to US universities will skyrocket. These classes will have a rather significant amount of foreign students from China, Russia and India attending. At least the last one of those seems to like us for now. Then after graduation they will return home and a few years down the road Congress will hold hearings and express their anger at how nobody at the time thought that restricting access to these classes to only US citizen students was a good idea and how they can't beli
    • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      Follow the funding. Funds to find and get poor people into college. Make people take out loans or spend their own cash on the course.
      The contractors that get to help with education.
      A flood of graduates will skills ready for the US gov or mil.
      The "willingly taught our adversaries skills they could use against us." will take decades to finally work out :)
      The deep thinking on foreign students taking any US classes is that they will totally enjoy the USA. When the students return home they will cra
  • "Rapid, low-cost technological innovation is what makes Silicon Valley revolutionary,"

    Low cost to whom? Consumers? Still waiting for the $50 iPhone.....
    • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      Sell the US mil on using consumer CPU's to build a big super computer.
      Each CPU is low-cost. The technological innovation is in getting the funding to build a super computer with a lot of consumer CPU parts.
      Want a more rapid super computer? Buy more consumer CPU from the private sector.
      The innovation is only limited by the budget for parts.
  • As many have already pointed out, the number of foreign students at U.S. universities is astounding, especially at the sort of universities likely to get this funding. You'd be doing nothing more than teaching our adversaries how to attack us. This should be taught at military academies and via specialized ROTC training.

    Specialized ROTC training for computer engineering grads (none of this namby-pamby CompSci shit) will provide college funding for students and a ready-made qualified talent pool for the mi

    • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      That used to be done. Mil people who showed skills in tests got offered to learn more skills and very different gov/mil job offers.
      The best got found further testing ensured the US mil got the very best. Worked too well for decades.
      The problem with that is the lack of access for contractors. If the mil and gov can find and educate generations of their own staff by doing its own testing?
      The new methods open up funding to the private sector. Teaching, equipment sales, course material is done by the p

If all else fails, lower your standards.

Working...