"When your article came out

Oh, that's why.

"This business will get out of control. It will get out of control and we'll be lucky to live through it."
?

I mean, it is a nearly-autonomous, high-endurance aircraft armed with Hellfire missiles and a computer virus.
Fortunately, it can only carry a few missiles. But it could end up being the newest biggest attraction at Vegas.
"Come out and see which city block the UAV's blow up this Sunday at midnight! Book your room at the Venetian, NOW!"

cbackous: predator drone is redundant

Only if you're familiar with the airframe. To anyone else, it's a proper name followed by a vague descriptor. Kinda like saying "Dodge Ram pickup".

From FTA: There's no one in the Defense Department with his hand on the network switch. In fact, there is no one switch to speak of.

You know, considering all the billions that get poured into military research, how exactly does an off switch get overlooked? And why does Firefox flagged "poured" as a typo?

/either that or I am way more caffeine-deficient than I thought.

This is the last in a long line of news starting almost 10 years ago that has forced me to leave this country. There's no amount of voting or hoping that can change the fact that we have lost this war.

The lack of modern computer savvy by the DoD would be laughable if it were not so serious and seriously screwed up. This is just the latest in a long list of computer related fark-ups, e.g. Wikileaks spillage and Pentagon infection by email worm. What's worse is the response of the DoD to past failures both does nothing to address and correct the root causes as well as prevent similar problems in the future.

kanedasan: This is the last in a long line of news starting almost 10 years ago that has forced me to leave this country. There's no amount of voting or hoping that can change the fact that we have lost this war.

Well, bye! Get the lights on your way out.and would you please put your trash by the curb? And don't slam the door, the kids are sleeping.and don't bother sending a postcard.

cbackous: Now if the Reaper gets this bug, then you can worry, that thing can actually carry real bombs.

Don't fear the Reaper.

Ok, now that I've read the article...
First off there are 5 branches of the Armed Services. The Coast Guard has arms, even if they're not the military. Now on to hating the Air Force...

FTA: Each base and each unit in the Air Force has its own geek squad. They only call for help if there's a broader network problem, or if they're truly stumped.

Even if the local AF network technicians didn't need help, they should have still reported the incident to higher headquarters. If my platoon ever got in a firefight with the HiG, even if I didn't need help, I would still notify my company and battalion of it. Argh! We can have all the military technology in the world, but if we fail to do the simple things well, then the cool hardware and weapons all amount to nothing. Someone needs to be fired over this. Not that they got infected with a virus, it happens, but that someone tried to hide that information probably to keep his evaluation looking good.

This is par for the course, sad to say...

And this:

FTA: Each base and each unit in the Air Force has its own geek squad. They only call for help if there's a broader network problem, or if they're truly stumped.

is no longer accurate. Mother Blue has spent the last 10 years stripping bases of the ability to perform anything more than the simplest maintenance tasks--in favor of corporate "enterprise management" models--centered around regional network operations centers. It's like pulling teeth to get anyone in the Ops world to deal with them because they aren't user-friendly. Instead, you get local commanders that set up separate (rogue) networks as workarounds, which is exactly the problem consolidated basewide networks was supposed to solve in the late 90s. We'd almost gotten that nut cracked when they started pulling everything off the bases.

At least the idiocy ensures my job security for a while longer.

cbackous: predator drone is redundant

I think what you meant to say was: "'Predator drone' is redundant."

"predator drone is redundant," which is what you actually said, doesn't make much sense. First, the lack of quotes around "predator drone" means that your comment most directly means that drones who are also predators are redundant. I'm not sure why you would call a drone, let alone a drone that also engages in predation, redundant. What is redundant about these drones?

If we add the quotes, we now know that the word "redundant" applies to the phrase "predator drone" and not the word "drone." While this helps, the comment is still not quite coherent. "'predator drone' is redundant" implies that organisms who prey on other organisms can be assumed to also be remote-controlled mechanisms. As nature is full of organisms that prey on others but are not also mechanisms, remotely controlled or otherwise, this comment is clearly false.

Now, if you'd been less concerned about being the Weenerser and more concerned with proofreading your comment at least once, I suspect what you would have actually posted would have looked like this:

cbackous: "Predator drone" is redundant.

The first and most obvious changes are the capitalization and the period. The capitalization, aside from being grammatically helpful, also changes the meaning of the sentence- a predator (one who engages in predation) is not necessarily a Predator (a type of UAV,) and Predators are not predators. The period helps you look like you're not a farking illiterate moron- a worthy goal if ever there was one.

In this state, our hypothetical comment suggests that the phrase "Predator drone," so loved by news media, is an annoyingly repetitive phrase because all Predators are drones. You could just call them Predators. There is no model of Predator that has a cockpit and is controlled from within. This, certainly, is a worthwhile comment that any member of Fark would be proud to post. I regret that this is not true of the train wreck of a comment that you actually managed to post, but not every comment can be a winner- I'm sure you'll do fine next time.

I think Wired may be FOS on this "virus". The USAF is not commenting on this, so I'm wondering who their sources really were. The keystroke "virus" is in all likelihood a security monitor that the drone operators and local folks were not suppose to know about. This is common DOD practice for classified and sensitive systems.

If I'm right and someone at Creech did talk to Wired about it, they are in a heap o' trouble.

From what I saw in the service. Each unit and base is it's own little fiefdom. If you report a problem, the problem causes a black mark on your performance review. A mark on your review can stall your career. Don't report problems and your career won't stall.

I was briefly at an Army base (in the 1980's) run by a 2 star general. A 3 star general ran a facilty there. The base commander couldn't make the facility commander do anything he didn't want to.

Even a military drivers license earned at one base didn't mean it would be accepted at another base. Some systems were standardized, but other major systems were bought out of discretionary funding an thus were not standardized throughout the service.

As far as having 'no switch to shut off', it was an isolated network infected by a connected drive. _That_ network was improperly defended from physical attachment threats. The non isolated network staff wouldn't see any traffic from it. Cisco makes a nifty product where only approved executables run on a given system. It's been around for years & probably would have stopped the infection. Also, prescanning the drive on another system would be a good idea. As well, not making your updates to a sensitve system through an executable. The update executable should have been on the isolated system to pick up raw data from the update drive, not an executable update package run off the drive. I guess.

I think the people who are panicking about this virus controlling the drone graduated from the Independence Day School of Computer Science.

The Predator is not a weapon, it is a platform. The platform is capable of supporting surveillance or weapons systems.

/those with knowledge of the proper terminology are welcome to correct my snark.

I would love to see the slap fight going on right now between the "cyber warriors" and the "joystick commandos".

Odd Bird: The Predator is not a weapon, it is a platform. The platform is capable of supporting surveillance or weapons systems.

/those with knowledge of the proper terminology are welcome to correct my snark.

Once the PM started them on the direction for MWS status, all useful semantics went out the window.

/Probably left long before that, like when a PM was assigned.

Yoyo: What's worse is the response of the DoD to past failures both does nothing to address and correct the root causes as well as prevent similar problems in the future.

This is completely untrue. The wikileaks problem could never happen again. There is no way to remove data from classified computer systems anymore. No CD-ROMs, no USB drives and removable hard drives that are locked in a safe. But thanks for your comment anyways.

vexle: cbackous: predator drone is redundant

I think what you meant to say was: "'Predator drone' is redundant."

"predator drone is redundant," which is what you actually said, doesn't make much sense. First, the lack of quotes around "predator drone" means that your comment most directly means that drones who are also predators are redundant. I'm not sure why you would call a drone, let alone a drone that also engages in predation, redundant. What is redundant about these drones?

If we add the quotes, we now know that the word "redundant" applies to the phrase "predator drone" and not the word "drone." While this helps, the comment is still not quite coherent. "'predator drone' is redundant" implies that organisms who prey on other organisms can be assumed to also be remote-controlled mechanisms. As nature is full of organisms that prey on others but are not also mechanisms, remotely controlled or otherwise, this comment is clearly false.

Now, if you'd been less concerned about being the Weenerser and more concerned with proofreading your comment at least once, I suspect what you would have actually posted would have looked like this:

cbackous: "Predator drone" is redundant.

The first and most obvious changes are the capitalization and the period. The capitalization, aside from being grammatically helpful, also changes the meaning of the sentence- a predator (one who engages in predation) is not necessarily a Predator (a type of UAV,) and Predators are not predators. The period helps you look like you're not a farking illiterate moron- a worthy goal if ever there was one.

In this state, our hypothetical comment suggests that the phrase "Predator drone," so loved by news media, is an annoyingly repetitive phrase because all Predators are drones. You could just call them Predators. There is no model of Predator that has a cockpit and is controlled from within. This, certainly, is a worthwhile comment that any member of Fark would be proud to post. I regret that this is not true of the train wreck of a comment that you actually managed to post, but not every comment can be a winner- I'm sure you'll do fine next time.

tl;dr

vexle: cbackous: predator drone is redundant

I think what you meant to say was: "'Predator drone' is redundant."

"predator drone is redundant," which is what you actually said, doesn't make much sense. First, the lack of quotes around "predator drone" means that your comment most directly means that drones who are also predators are redundant. I'm not sure why you would call a drone, let alone a drone that also engages in predation, redundant. What is redundant about these drones?

If we add the quotes, we now know that the word "redundant" applies to the phrase "predator drone" and not the word "drone." While this helps, the comment is still not quite coherent. "'predator drone' is redundant" implies that organisms who prey on other organisms can be assumed to also be remote-controlled mechanisms. As nature is full of organisms that prey on others but are not also mechanisms, remotely controlled or otherwise, this comment is clearly false.

Now, if you'd been less concerned about being the Weenerser and more concerned with proofreading your comment at least once, I suspect what you would have actually posted would have looked like this:

cbackous: "Predator drone" is redundant.

The first and most obvious changes are the capitalization and the period. The capitalization, aside from being grammatically helpful, also changes the meaning of the sentence- a predator (one who engages in predation) is not necessarily a Predator (a type of UAV,) and Predators are not predators. The period helps you look like you're not a farking illiterate moron- a worthy goal if ever there was one.

In this state, our hypothetical comment suggests that the phrase "Predator drone," so loved by news media, is an annoyingly repetitive phrase because all Predators are drones. You could just call them Predators. There is no model of Predator that has a cockpit and is controlled from within. This, certainly, is a worthwhile comment that any member of Fark would be proud to post. I regret that this is not true of the train wreck of a comment that you actually managed to post, but not every comment can be a winner- I'm sure you'll do fine next time.

[golfclap.jpg]

Yoyo: Ok, now that I've read the article...
First off there are 5 branches of the Armed Services. The Coast Guard has arms, even if they're not the military. Now on to hating the Air Force...

FTA: Each base and each unit in the Air Force has its own geek squad. They only call for help if there's a broader network problem, or if they're truly stumped.

Even if the local AF network technicians didn't need help, they should have still reported the incident to higher headquarters. If my platoon ever got in a firefight with the HiG, even if I didn't need help, I would still notify my company and battalion of it. Argh! We can have all the military technology in the world, but if we fail to do the simple things well, then the cool hardware and weapons all amount to nothing. Someone needs to be fired over this. Not that they got infected with a virus, it happens, but that someone tried to hide that information probably to keep his evaluation looking good.

The Coast Guard used to be DOT (DOD during time of war).

The Coast Guard is now DHS (DOD during time of war).

Whether or not we are currently at "war" is up for debate.

Doesn't negate the fact that Coasties have died during compliant boardings (that turned non-compliant) during recent hostilities in the Arabian Gulf.

JackieRabbit: I think Wired may be FOS on this "virus". The USAF is not commenting on this, so I'm wondering who their sources really were. The keystroke "virus" is in all likelihood a security monitor that the drone operators and local folks were not suppose to know about. This is common DOD practice for classified and sensitive systems.

If I'm right and someone at Creech did talk to Wired about it, they are in a heap o' trouble.

THIS.

Who has incentive to target drone operator computers with a keylogger? Keyloggers are only useful in limited circumstances, monitoring and auditing employees is one of those useful circumstances.

Also, the article sort of implies the keylogger is on the drones themselves. It is not. The keylogger is on the computers used by the drone operators.

Hello....Bomb?

cbackous: predator drone is redundant

No it isn't.

tomo12144: Yoyo: What's worse is the response of the DoD to past failures both does nothing to address and correct the root causes as well as prevent similar problems in the future.

This is completely untrue. The wikileaks problem could never happen again. There is no way to remove data from classified computer systems anymore. No CD-ROMs, no USB drives and removable hard drives that are locked in a safe. But thanks for your comment anyways.

You must work for a different part of the DoD than I do. I know for a fact that information can be physically removed from classified systems. While engineering controls, like disabling CD burners, are the most effective, those sort of control measures would unacceptably limit operations in many areas of operation, so administrative controls must be used instead. Additionally, the root cause of the Wikileaks debacle was not the presence of removable media. Many of soldiers in that office had access to the same disks, but they did not leak information.

Helen_Arigby: From FTA: There's no one in the Defense Department with his hand on the network switch. In fact, there is no one switch to speak of.

You know, considering all the billions that get poured into military research, how exactly does an off switch get overlooked? And why does Firefox flagged "poured" as a typo?

/either that or I am way more caffeine-deficient than I thought.

An off switch isn't really possible anyways, nor wanted. these networks have multiple levels of fault tolerance built in, and are literally spread all over the world, and decentralized by its very design and implementation. Why would we ever want to build in an off switch to our defense network that we rely so heavily upon now? That off switch, if it where to exist, would become our single greatest weakness.

"The four branches of the US armed forces each has a dedicated unit that, in theory, is supposed to handle cyber defense for the entire service."

The Marine Corps has one of these cyber-d units? What is it, a pair of scissors to cut the string between the cans?