Meet Your New Commander-in-Geek -- ReasonU.S. Cyber Command has no idea why it exists.
This headline is not from The Onion:
US appoints first cyber warfare general: Pentagon creates specialist online unit to counter cyber attack amid growing fears of militarisation of the internet.
On Friday, newly-created U.S. Cyber Command—that's USCYBERCOM to those in the know—got itself a general. One small problem: It's not clear that anyone, even four-star general and National Security Agency head Keith Alexander, knows what U.S. Cyber Command is supposed to do now that it exists. The commerical Internet has been around since about 1995, but in recent years folks at the Pentagon and White House seem to have been struck with a similar thought: "Hey, we should do something about those Internets, huh?" The longing for a cyber command of some kind dates back at least to President George W. Bush, and the project continued merrily along under President Barack Obama with the inexorable force of a government program that nobody really wants, but no one wants to be the one to kill.
Read more ....My Comment: You would think that this would have all been sorted out before the first dollar was committed to it .... but apparently not.
"U.S. Cyber Command has no idea why it exists." .. could I have some exaggeration, please? ;)
ReplyDeleteThe general clearly states what he believes the goal will be and it made perfect sense and is coherent with previous statements. Of course the mission will be more defined with the years to come, but common, stating it has no idea why it exists is ridiculous.
Clearly, with a huge reliance upon the net and computers to work all our defense and offensive operations, there needs to be some group in charge of ensuring that this key process does not get taken down by enemy forces, or that our security is not compromised.
ReplyDeleteHow this is done, and who is in charge of it, may be what you are hinting at here. Clearly this or any office will run into the usual problem of turf jealousies. This , though, is hardly knew to us, and perhaps still remains a major problem for our overall security.
Billions of dollars have been committed and thousands of personnel have been selected .... this give me the impression that they have a plan. Unfortunately .... the military has never been a model of efficiency when it comes to new missions and programs. I suspect that this new cyber command will follow this same history .... but in the end I do expect that it will have a defined and specific purpose.
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