Army Lowering Standards For Fat ‘Cyber Warriors’

H

HardOCP News

[H] News
Joined
Dec 31, 1969
Messages
0
Hell yeah! I can finally be all I can be!

Maybe you’re not the Ranger who can do 100 pushups, 100 sit-ups and run the 2-mile inside of 10 minutes, but you can crack a data system of an enemy. But you’re physically fit, you’re a healthy person and maintain your professional appearance, but we don’t make you have the same physical standards as someone who’s in the Ranger Battalion,” he added.
Click to expand...
 
Why don't they just make cyber warfare it's own service, separate from the army, navy, airforce or marines? Then you wouldn't need to have all the current combat services reevaluating their standards just for a few computer geeks.
 
Kueller said:
Why don't they just make cyber warfare it's own service, separate from the army, navy, airforce or marines? Then you wouldn't need to have all the current combat services reevaluating their standards just for a few computer geeks.
Click to expand...

It's because the services all run their own networks and it would be difficult to defend another services networks. Trust me I know what I am talking about.

Also I think this article is misleading in discussing this as a Cyber only problem, PT standards are an issue across the services in finding quality recruits for all jobs because 70% of America is obese!!!!

I think the reason "cyber" is such a big deal in the Army at least is because sequestration has caused downsizing across all career fields except two, Special Forces and Cyber.

Currently there are plenty of options for overweight computer savvy guys besides active duty. NSA, DOD, GS positions or contractors for various companies like Raytheon or General Dynamics or even Microsoft or Cisco (DOD is their biggest customer for most of these).

I'm not personally a big fan of the word "Cyber" as it is just IT rebranded to sound cool, but hey I'll throw it in my resume if it's the buzzword of the week I need to get a job.
 
I think with the gigantic amount of "defense contractors" we have, along with fatass soldiers (in MANY MOS's), that we need to make two classes of soldier.

Traditional - has a high set of standards of physical strength and mental endurance, is expected to travel on deployments and put their entire lives on hold at a whim.

New Class - lower physical standards but expected to stay healthy and drug free. Depending on job, expected to deploy, but with much more work/life flexibility. Will not see combat or immediate danger. To balance this, these people would not receive the same level of benefits that a traditional soldier would get. Would not classify for VA benefits, but would have some sort of government support.

This would essentially be means for people to be civil servants directly to the military, without the multitude of middlemen that allow certain people to get insanely rich off the contracting industry. The downside would be that there would be more power at the top and less innovation due to less competition.
 
lilbabycat said:
I think with the gigantic amount of "defense contractors" we have, along with fatass soldiers (in MANY MOS's), that we need to make two classes of soldier.

Traditional - has a high set of standards of physical strength and mental endurance, is expected to travel on deployments and put their entire lives on hold at a whim.

New Class - lower physical standards but expected to stay healthy and drug free. Depending on job, expected to deploy, but with much more work/life flexibility. Will not see combat or immediate danger. To balance this, these people would not receive the same level of benefits that a traditional soldier would get. Would not classify for VA benefits, but would have some sort of government support.

This would essentially be means for people to be civil servants directly to the military, without the multitude of middlemen that allow certain people to get insanely rich off the contracting industry. The downside would be that there would be more power at the top and less innovation due to less competition.
Click to expand...


Realistically while a good thought I don't think this would be manageable, there are way too many grey areas and there is a high level of tech that requires extremely intelligent (and fat) engineers embedded with your first class.
 
Who gives two shits if they are physically fit?

What matters is who can do the job the best, and if they are passing over some 300 pound fatass who is a god behind the keyboard for some muscle-bound lunkhead that is proud he passed his Microsoft A+ certification on the third try, something is wrong.

Who gives a crap if the guys that hacked Sony can do crunches? If they did it while breathing through their mouths, does it change the fact that they succeeded at finding network vulnerabilities?

The reason for physical fitness is to define a standard DIRECTLY RELATED to their duties as soldiers, but "cyber soldiers", or whatever you want to call them, can scoot around in electric scooters and still be perfectly proficient at their jobs.

So really, I'm not at all for "lowering" standards, but I am for creating standards that are relevant to the field, and keeping those standards that really matter FOR THE JOB to the highest level (which yes is often at the sacrifice of something else).
 
Ducman69 said:
Who gives two shits if they are physically fit?

What matters is who can do the job the best, and if they are passing over some 300 pound fatass who is a god behind the keyboard for some muscle-bound lunkhead that is proud he passed his Microsoft A+ certification on the third try, something is wrong.

Who gives a crap if the guys that hacked Sony can do crunches? If they did it while breathing through their mouths, does it change the fact that they succeeded at finding network vulnerabilities?

The reason for physical fitness is to define a standard DIRECTLY RELATED to their duties as soldiers, but "cyber soldiers", or whatever you want to call them, can scoot around in electric scooters and still be perfectly proficient at their jobs.

So really, I'm not at all for "lowering" standards, but I am for creating standards that are relevant to the field, and keeping those standards that really matter FOR THE JOB to the highest level (which yes is often at the sacrifice of something else).
Click to expand...

You are absolutely correct except for your extreme examples, the reason they want you young and in shape is so you don't have a medical emergency where adequate facilities may not exist and become a burden on the very fighting organization you are there to support. Cyber doesn't exist in a vacuum, it is there to support the larger mission of the military services which is to kill people and occupy real estate.
 
Ducman69 said:
Who gives two shits if they are physically fit?

What matters is who can do the job the best, and if they are passing over some 300 pound fatass who is a god behind the keyboard for some muscle-bound lunkhead that is proud he passed his Microsoft A+ certification on the third try, something is wrong.

Who gives a crap if the guys that hacked Sony can do crunches? If they did it while breathing through their mouths, does it change the fact that they succeeded at finding network vulnerabilities?

The reason for physical fitness is to define a standard DIRECTLY RELATED to their duties as soldiers, but "cyber soldiers", or whatever you want to call them, can scoot around in electric scooters and still be perfectly proficient at their jobs.

So really, I'm not at all for "lowering" standards, but I am for creating standards that are relevant to the field, and keeping those standards that really matter FOR THE JOB to the highest level (which yes is often at the sacrifice of something else).
Click to expand...
It would be wonderful having a cyber army of obese, diabetic, asthmatic, wheelchair-bound brainiacs on government support for decades.
 
do they get kevlar fedoras? will there be a separate division for their pony girlfriends?
 
Reading Comprehension:
But you’re physically fit, you’re a healthy person and maintain your professional appearance
Click to expand...
The Army won't go lower than 60%. No need. This is just recruiting fluff to increase the applicants, of which there are already enough to meet recruiting goals.
 
It might just happen. Imagine fighting something like this on the battlefield.

Meanwhile+in+Murica+_062f93860376eea9654d7c1a8db8eb13.jpg
 
TheMadZealot said:
It's because the services all run their own networks and it would be difficult to defend another services networks. Trust me I know what I am talking about.
Click to expand...

So instead we pay for 4x separate cyber divisions to secure separate networks that we want integrated on the battlefield anyways? This sounds incredibly stupid and wasteful.
Standardize that shit, build it fresh from the ground up with security in mind, and it would cost less and be more effective than having all 4 services muddle through independently.

Just because we've done stupid shit in the past doesn't mean we have to keep doing the same stupid shit in perpetuity...
 
I've been saying for fifteen plus years that network defense needs to be its own branch without all the physical fitness BS. I took the ASVAB for fun and had recruiters calling me for years after high school and would have loved to serve if not for some of my issues.

I spent years on the civ side and it isn't quite the same as having a central management. DoD IT is a complete friggen joke right now with the averaged enlisted barely able to start a computer and the contractors milking us for everything. GS scale doesn't pay nearly enough to actually keep anyone that knows what they're doing. Highly skilled network defenders are worth much much more than your average admin assistant, but hey GS-13 they both get paid exactly the same.

The amount of money wasted in defense IT makes me sick whenever I think about it, but the cuts are made in a way that never actually solve the underlying issues. The laws and regs are written so that the contractors basically collect regardless of the quality of work performed and most of that money goes to pay PM and VP overhead.

I really could rant about this for days, but it just makes me depressed again. As much as I liked serving my country even on the civ side, I'm so glad I got out of public sector and the DC area all together.
 
Kueller said:
So instead we pay for 4x separate cyber divisions to secure separate networks that we want integrated on the battlefield anyways? This sounds incredibly stupid and wasteful.
Standardize that shit, build it fresh from the ground up with security in mind, and it would cost less and be more effective than having all 4 services muddle through independently.

Just because we've done stupid shit in the past doesn't mean we have to keep doing the same stupid shit in perpetuity...
Click to expand...

Actually there is a one network concept working through DOD so slow down there angry guy. Also don't assume I agree with everything the military or government does. It's still not going to change the fact that you have four separate services.

Cyber is not a standalone function and you can secure the back end all day long with all the smart fat guys, contractors, one network concepts in the world, the weak link in any network defense is the end user, that's where the "Cyber Warrior" is going to make his money.

Also most of your "Cyber Warriors" fall into what most services would consider a low density job, meaning there are a few of them in each unit (other services all have their equivalent). Yes there is an Army Cyber however they serve a very different function than "Cyber Warriors" belonging to units.

An Infantry Battalion isn't just made up of Infantry, there are cooks, supply, finance. communications (which is turning into cyber), operations cells. Also most Brigade Combat Teams are designed to be modular (plug and play with other units) and capable of operating independently if necessarily.

Also a key concept of modern warfare is decentralization because when people are trying to kill you the first thing they will try to kill is your command and control so it would be pretty fucking stupid to put all those eggs in one basket. So don't get too carried away with the one network concept because it can only take expeditionary forces so far.

Source: I'm a fucking Cyber Ninja
 
darkpaw said:
I've been saying for fifteen plus years that network defense needs to be its own branch without all the physical fitness BS. I took the ASVAB for fun and had recruiters calling me for years after high school and would have loved to serve if not for some of my issues.

I spent years on the civ side and it isn't quite the same as having a central management. DoD IT is a complete friggen joke right now with the averaged enlisted barely able to start a computer and the contractors milking us for everything. GS scale doesn't pay nearly enough to actually keep anyone that knows what they're doing. Highly skilled network defenders are worth much much more than your average admin assistant, but hey GS-13 they both get paid exactly the same.

The amount of money wasted in defense IT makes me sick whenever I think about it, but the cuts are made in a way that never actually solve the underlying issues. The laws and regs are written so that the contractors basically collect regardless of the quality of work performed and most of that money goes to pay PM and VP overhead.

I really could rant about this for days, but it just makes me depressed again. As much as I liked serving my country even on the civ side, I'm so glad I got out of public sector and the DC area all together.
Click to expand...

I think most contractors that I know would take a GS position not for the pay but for the stability. For the same reasons you mentioned above contracting is ridiculously volatile.

I'm not sure how close you are to DOD but they have been making some incredible headway in the last few years. It would probably cheer you up and I have about the same time in DOD networks as you and totally get your frustration.
 
Here's a question: if the commo sections of the various branches are taking over the NetD side of things (as they should as the owner/operators) and we already have a service-independent NetA clearinghouse, why the fuck do we need a cyber branch / branches at all?

Protecting the ricebowl.

Take a look at the creation of the DIA or the ODNI if you want a historical example of this capability-doubling, bureaucratic bullshit.
 
Kueller said:
Why don't they just make cyber warfare it's own service, separate from the army, navy, airforce or marines? Then you wouldn't need to have all the current combat services reevaluating their standards just for a few computer geeks.
Click to expand...

The US system has always been weird like that. For instance there is a ton of redundancy between the forces. You would think the airforce would have all air vehicles and just have good communication with the other services, but instead every service have their own complete air force within their service. The irony of it all is you probably have just as good of a chance of flying if that's what you want to do if you join the army as you do joining the airforce.
 
Kueller said:
So instead we pay for 4x separate cyber divisions to secure separate networks that we want integrated on the battlefield anyways? This sounds incredibly stupid and wasteful.
Standardize that shit, build it fresh from the ground up with security in mind, and it would cost less and be more effective than having all 4 services muddle through independently.

Just because we've done stupid shit in the past doesn't mean we have to keep doing the same stupid shit in perpetuity...
Click to expand...

just become a contractor and slap "interoperability" in front of anything and you'll make mega $$$
 
Kueller said:
Why don't they just make cyber warfare it's own service, separate from the army, navy, airforce or marines? Then you wouldn't need to have all the current combat services reevaluating their standards just for a few computer geeks.
Click to expand...

Because the DoD doesn't view cyber warfare as something separate from regular warfare, instead it's just another way to attack an enemy, war is war whether you conduct it across communications networks or across international borders. The see Cyber Warfare as something you do "while" you bomb the shit out of someone, not something you do "instead" of bombing the shit out of someone.
 
lilbabycat said:
I think with the gigantic amount of "defense contractors" we have, along with fatass soldiers (in MANY MOS's), that we need to make two classes of soldier.

Traditional - has a high set of standards of physical strength and mental endurance, is expected to travel on deployments and put their entire lives on hold at a whim.

New Class - lower physical standards but expected to stay healthy and drug free. Depending on job, expected to deploy, but with much more work/life flexibility. Will not see combat or immediate danger. To balance this, these people would not receive the same level of benefits that a traditional soldier would get. Would not classify for VA benefits, but would have some sort of government support.

This would essentially be means for people to be civil servants directly to the military, without the multitude of middlemen that allow certain people to get insanely rich off the contracting industry. The downside would be that there would be more power at the top and less innovation due to less competition.
Click to expand...

There are already DA Civilians, Government Service folks who work for the DoD or their respective Brance of the DoD. No need to create anything redundant at all.

But there is a problem. Cyber is growing and it's growing from the top down. It started as this idea that you'd have these cyber geek guys in Pentagon Office or some NSA type facility but as it's growing the capability is being pushed downward and forward meaning these guys are going to get pushed out to Divisions and Brigades. That's where the standards and appearance things start to cause real issues. That's also where the old ideas that every soldier is an infantryman first starts to re-establish itself cause any soldier could wind up in a combat situation.

You gota ask yourself one thing. If you were this skinny frail, or fat, geek doing your thing in a forward position and all of a sudden you had to actually fight for your life, you think you'd be happy that they lowered the standards to provide you with this unique and life changing experience?

Cyber Soldiers says to Real Soldier -> "I don't think we can outrun them"
Real Soldier says to Cyber Soldier -> "I don't need to outrun them, I just need to outrun you" :D
 
TheMadZealot said:
I think most contractors that I know would take a GS position not for the pay but for the stability. For the same reasons you mentioned above contracting is ridiculously volatile.

I'm not sure how close you are to DOD but they have been making some incredible headway in the last few years. It would probably cheer you up and I have about the same time in DOD networks as you and totally get your frustration.
Click to expand...

Not in a million years. I did my time working for Uncle Sam and that's the last time I'll put my self in a position where I can't say "no" when they want me to go somewhere fucked up. And the stability is a myth, 18 years now a contractor and I see GS types get rifted the same as contractors getting layed off.

What's worse, the pay is low and the benefits only matter if you make it to the end of the race, no partial credit allowed. I'll take my better pay and freedom over the promises any day, doubly since I am already retired from the Army, what, I'm going to earn extra medical benefits? Just a bigger retirement check but I get one of those and small tho it is, combined with my real paycheck I do just fine.

It's true that contracting can be really up and down but then again, it's not always a bad thing. Essentially your job is usually up for grabs every year. But some contracts are much more stable then others. Still, because it's a well known part of the landscape know one can really fault contractors for not sticking with their companies long term. No black mark, but you can still get a reputation, appearances are important.

Anyways, like I said, I'll never go back to the dark side. Contracting is fine with me.
 
Machupo said:
Here's a question: if the commo sections of the various branches are taking over the NetD side of things (as they should as the owner/operators) and we already have a service-independent NetA clearinghouse, why the fuck do we need a cyber branch / branches at all?

Protecting the ricebowl.

Take a look at the creation of the DIA or the ODNI if you want a historical example of this capability-doubling, bureaucratic bullshit.
Click to expand...

Because the Commo guys can't keep their shit unfucked and Commo couldn't take on conducting offensive cyber if they tried.
 
I think the greatest irony here is a government agency complaining about fat employees/recruits when its often government standards that have caused said obesity. Does the Army Cyber command follow the hallowed food pyramid?
 
Ranulfo said:
I think the greatest irony here is a government agency complaining about fat employees/recruits when its often government standards that have caused said obesity. Does the Army Cyber command follow the hallowed food pyramid?
Click to expand...

Really? Cause I read the article and no one was doing any complaining. They were noting some facts, on average Americans are getting fatter and it's impacting recruiting. But no complaining.
 
OK, first off PT is not the reason the army is having issues hiring cyber wonks. Some of the most active and fit people I know are software developers... I'm talking top 2% of the nation level fitness. The real reason is pay and regulations. If you are a top level young dev or admin, why would you opt to work for the Army? You will make more money working for a commercial company or contractor and you won't have to deal with the military's regulations.

As an aside, I read Steve's excerpt and did realize he was using hyperbole and quickly jump to the APFT definition, thinking it had been elevated. Seriously the APFT is not that hard for a reasonably fit person to accomplish. If you raised it to 100 push-ups and a 14 minute run, well we might have some issues finding people.
 
It's also changing the combat ribbons into Cheetos and M&Ms.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top