Defense Expert: Hire Hackers and Wage War 157
Phoghat writes "A top defense and cybersecurity expert says the U.S. should stop trying to take aim at expert hackers and start doing a better job of recruiting them. 'Let's just say that in some places you find guys with body piercings and nonregulation haircuts,' says U.S. Naval Postgraduate School professor John Arquilla . 'But most of these sorts of guys can't be vetted in the traditional way. We need a new institutional culture that allows us to reach out to them.'"
That's how they killed it. (Score:3, Interesting)
This is nonsense. (Score:4, Interesting)
Some of the most talented technical people I know are also the most clean-cut and athletic. Some of the worst, show-offs who know the talk but little else, fall into your usual hacker stereotype with their appearance. I think the former is more realistic, and the latter is more romantic fantasy— brought on by people who idealize Gibson. In other words, why bother? The first group is more likely to give you a well-rounded individual who actually knows her material. The second group is a total crapshoot.
Re:If this is about cyberwar, (Score:4, Interesting)
Internet Security is a fantasy. Allowing anyone and everyone access to the network makes it almost impossible. I can't believe that servers with secure information would ever, under any circumstances be connected to something so untamed. For starters all my secure computers would never run a disk based operating system. The entire OS would reside in ROM and when it was time for an upgrade I'd burn a new chip. Expensive? Not as expensive as having 1.5 billion dollars worth of research hacked. I don't think network security is nearly paranoid enough.
Re:If this is about cyberwar, (Score:5, Interesting)
If you hand out bigger "guns" and the internet becomes a warzone, everyone loses. The only way to keep it civilized is by handing out better "armor", making "guns" as ineffectual as possible. Since the military isn't interested in armor only and i don't trust them to use "guns" in a reasonable way (if there actually is one) i don't know why i should put me under their command.
Re:If this is about cyberwar, (Score:4, Interesting)
Do we really want the Internet to be an unstable place?
What makes you think it's stable now? Although I think "Cyberwarfare" is more media drama than actual warfare, networks could be doing a lot more to make them more secure. We don't becuase, users. Users don't want inconvenience. Users don't want two passwords (one email, one login). Users want their desktop on their mobile device. Users want access to confidential data on the same PC their kids play on. Don't get me wrong, without users there's no need for a network but things have gotten way out of hand with security.
I think it's a good sign that some places in the tech industry are starting to realize they could be doing better. Maybe they will finally get around to listening to real experts instead of paid-for marketing shills.