Air Force Designates Six Cybertools As Weapons

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It is hard to imagine that something as important as this has to compete for funding. Heck, you could fund this whole program with the money the government spends on $1,000 hammers / ashtrays and all that other stuff. ;)

"This means that the game-changing capability that cyber is going to get more attention and the recognition that it deserves," Hyten told a cyber conference held in conjunction with the National Space Syposium in Colorado Springs. "It's very, very hard to compete for resources ... You have to be able to make that case," he said.
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Most men seem to think their "Cyber Tool" is a weapon, even if its only dangerous to their keyboards and the occasional kitten, so the change in Air Force policy is unsurprising.
 
I always find it funny when external HDD and thumb drives are considered "dangerous", but I see people sitting around everywhere with the old iPods that are just external HDD with a media player (I use to carry papers to college to print out on those and at one point people were stealing software at BestBuy with them). Fact is, most anything you carry can be weaponized as some kind of a digital weapon, just takes a bit of know how, even a cross over cable can create a loopback or packet storm.
 
RangerXML said:
I always find it funny when external HDD and thumb drives are considered "dangerous", but I see people sitting around everywhere with the old iPods that are just external HDD with a media player (I use to carry papers to college to print out on those and at one point people were stealing software at BestBuy with them). Fact is, most anything you carry can be weaponized as some kind of a digital weapon, just takes a bit of know how, even a cross over cable can create a loopback or packet storm.
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If someone wants to steal data, they will. Digital Watches can now conceal flash drives, cameras, etc. and most companies will glance at it say "normal digital watch" and move on without scrutinizing it...
 
Steve said:
It is cyber hard to cyber imagine that something as cyber important as cyber this has to compete for cyber funding. Heck, you could cyber fund this whole cyber program with the cyber money the cyber government spends on $1,000 cyber hammers / cyber ashtrays and all that other cyber stuff. ;)
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Cyber fixed. This is the only cyber approved way to discuss cyber topics. Cyber, cyber, cyber.
 
cyber security is just a catch phrase for the pentagon...they like throwing words like intarwebs and cyber security around but i don't think they know how to thwart a cyber attack
 
Ashton said:
If someone wants to steal data, they will. Digital Watches can now conceal flash drives, cameras, etc. and most companies will glance at it say "normal digital watch" and move on without scrutinizing it...
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or in a coffee mug, or in a key chain, or in a pen... or... or...

data will leak if someone wants it to
 
RangerXML said:
I always find it funny when external HDD and thumb drives are considered "dangerous", but I see people sitting around everywhere with the old iPods that are just external HDD with a media player (I use to carry papers to college to print out on those and at one point people were stealing software at BestBuy with them). Fact is, most anything you carry can be weaponized as some kind of a digital weapon, just takes a bit of know how, even a cross over cable can create a loopback or packet storm.
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usb media devices are strictly forbidden to be used on networked computers in most deployed locations since about 2009...they used to be allowed but the story goes some reporter stumbled upon a usb drive for sale at one of the markets in Bagram and it was filled with juicy information...in fact last time i was in afghanistan plugging a usb drive into a computer notified the network operations center and they notified the military police.

Funny thing though in most stateside locations the rules are very clear, no flash media...nothing about mechanical hard drives
 
Ashton said:
If someone wants to steal data, they will. Digital Watches can now conceal flash drives, cameras, etc. and most companies will glance at it say "normal digital watch" and move on without scrutinizing it...
Click to expand...

it's not people who are actively out to steal data that the military is trying to thwart...they are trying to stop data from accidentally being leaked.

Like i posted earlier about afghanistan, you cannot plug any usb data storage device into a networked computer without permission from the guys who monitor all the computers...but it's perfectly legal to just e-mail the data to yourself, or burn it onto a CD.
 
prometheum said:
Funny thing though in most stateside locations the rules are very clear, no flash media...nothing about mechanical hard drives
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You wanna hear something really funny, I was at one location (a company I didn't work for) and they locked their computers so flash didn't even load on computers...but like you said about nothing in the rules about mechanical hard drives, external hard drives bypassed what ever they used to block flash drives. This I might add, was one of those absolutely no connection to "outside" network kind of places, but they even had consultants (as in government consultants) that required internet access and then those consultants would hook up WiFi routers (for their notebooks) that I could pick up through a good part of the office. This was maybe 2-3 years ago and I'm pretty sure those security holes still exist because frankly speaking, most security has no imagination.
 
I'd rather stick with nukes.... call me old fashioned. :cool:


Type type type.... ooo ouch quit it.... BOOM! :eek::p

... type THAT mthrfkr. :rolleyes::D
 
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