U.S. Defense Budget May Help Fund “Hacking for Defense” Classes at Universities
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Re: U.S. Defense Budget May Help Fund “Hacking for Defense” Classes at Universities
#2This is something we desperately need in the western world in order to combat Chinese hacking/spying offensive.
Re: U.S. Defense Budget May Help Fund “Hacking for Defense” Classes at Universities
#3Hacking for defense? Is that like how the Department of Defense is now more like the Department of War? Will "preemptive hacking" happen a lot, too?
EDIT: Also, this sounds a lot like propaganda to me:
"Don't worry - just because we hack into other nations, doesn't mean we are the bad guys. We're the good guys hacking for our preemptive defense!"
The US gov has had a hard time trying to lure talent for the NSA and such after the Snowden leaks (and for good reason, people finally learned the truth about what they were actually doing), so now they're trying to turn this on its head and trick young people who are already interested in hacking to work for the government "for a good purpose". And then they can pick the really good ones and try to convince them to actually do some of the more obviously nasty and morally questionable stuff.
I can't say it's a terrible plan, but to me the motives seem quite obviously. For the more impressionable 18 year olds, perhaps they won't be, unfortunately.
Re: U.S. Defense Budget May Help Fund “Hacking for Defense” Classes at Universities
#4This is something we desperately need in the western world in order to combat Chinese hacking/spying offensive.
This is something we need to combat domestic hacking/spying.
Re: U.S. Defense Budget May Help Fund “Hacking for Defense” Classes at Universities
#5Israel 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.
Re: U.S. Defense Budget May Help Fund “Hacking for Defense” Classes at Universities
#6Those are my classmates! I took the Hacking for Defense class with them this past Spring at Stanford. I found that fundamentally the class trains students to apply the iterative, quick-moving, need-based approach to product development often found in startups to military problems that have traditionally had lots of bureaucratic overhead. We were exposed to a ton of different people through our interviews and were constantly asked to create and improve our minimum viable product as we learned more about our problem space. Overall, I would highly recommend the class.
Re: U.S. Defense Budget May Help Fund “Hacking for Defense” Classes at Universities
#7Hacking for defense? Is that like how the Department of Defense is now more like the Department of War? Will "preemptive hacking" happen a lot, too? EDIT: Also, this sounds a lot like propaganda to me: "Don't worry - just because we hack into other nations, doesn't mean we are the bad guys. We're the good guys hacking for our preemptive defense!" The US gov has had a hard time trying to lure talent for the NSA and su…
This is not new: the mission of the DoD (and mostly all agencies) is to protect the interests of the US, morality aside. This includes questionable stuff like foreign industrial espionage, media manipulation/propaganda, and even false flags operations (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods).
Re: U.S. Defense Budget May Help Fund “Hacking for Defense” Classes at Universities
#8Hacking for defense? Is that like how the Department of Defense is now more like the Department of War? Will "preemptive hacking" happen a lot, too? EDIT: Also, this sounds a lot like propaganda to me: "Don't worry - just because we hack into other nations, doesn't mean we are the bad guys. We're the good guys hacking for our preemptive defense!" The US gov has had a hard time trying to lure talent for the NSA and su…
This is exactly what is going on. This is a thinly veiled propaganda/recruitment effort trying to capitalize on students' new-found, Mr. Robot-driven curiosity regarding "hacking".
Re: U.S. Defense Budget May Help Fund “Hacking for Defense” Classes at Universities
#9Hacking for defense? Is that like how the Department of Defense is now more like the Department of War? Will "preemptive hacking" happen a lot, too? EDIT: Also, this sounds a lot like propaganda to me: "Don't worry - just because we hack into other nations, doesn't mean we are the bad guys. We're the good guys hacking for our preemptive defense!" The US gov has had a hard time trying to lure talent for the NSA and su…
To be clear, "hacking" in this context doesn't mean breaking into other people's computer systems. It means solving a problem using technology in a quick, iterative manner.
Re: U.S. Defense Budget May Help Fund “Hacking for Defense” Classes at Universities
#10What's the relevance of watered down SEAL training to H4D?