U.S. Defense Budget May Help Fund “Hacking for Defense” Classes at Universities

Re:U.S. Defense Budget May Help Fund “Hacking for Defense” C... by ingrand on Tuesday July 25, 2017 @01:15PM (#14849658)

Israel already does this, both offense and defense. They have university initiatives that teach "cyber" (I hate that term).

It would probably be difficult to get DoD brass to care about this. They're used to their defense products being physical items (warheads, tanks, drones, etc) that are harder to steal. Sure, you can steal the schematics and such, but then you can track purchases of restricted components and guess who's building what.

With software, the schematic/code is the weapon. You don't really have to put it together, but perhaps do some poking around to understand it. This is why it's so devastating when the NSA's arsenal gets scooped up by foreign belligerents.

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Re:U.S. Defense Budget May Help Fund “Hacking for Defense” C... by kaybe on Tuesday July 25, 2017 @02:45PM (#14850679)

May I interest you in some cyber?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WY6KkRsS26M

(better if you understand German)

I think we are in the process of re-appropriating the word actually. One of my best purchases this year was a roll of yellow tape with 'cyber' printed in black. It presumably provides great cyber defense if one covers a computer with it. And I think that is fantastic social commentary on the word.

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Re:U.S. Defense Budget May Help Fund “Hacking for Defense” C... by UnpossibleJim on Tuesday July 25, 2017 @11:01PM (#14853415)

While I agree that this is the way that the DoD will probably look at this program, the better way would be to invest in educating people and spectacular problem solvers and looking at the software as a secondary benefit. Focusing on a piece of software will get you a piece of software. Focusing on programmers for the DoD, starting at the middle school or high school level, with broadly available classes and moving into scholarships at the college level will get you people who can continually solve the problems at hand and write the necessary software.

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Re:U.S. Defense Budget May Help Fund “Hacking for Defense” C... by golergka on Wednesday July 26, 2017 @03:34AM (#14854270)

The difference is, you go to serve in intelligence first, and go to uni afterwards. Half of my junior colleagues in Israeli IT were kids in their early 20s, just out of 8200, and planning to get into uni a bit later.

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