Here's how you can become a cyberwarrior
in the US. (If you live outside the US, your country may have
similar opportunities for you.)
1. Be sure to defend your own computers, especially against
agents of cyberwarfare, and report suspicious attacks. See http://happyhacker.org/HHA/fightback.shtml
for keystroke-by-keystroke details with screen shots of how to
fight back when computer criminals or cyberterrorists strike.
If you spot a suspected cyberattack, you should report it to
the Computer Emergency Response Team for your country. Contact
information for these teams is at http://www.first.org/team-info/. Within the
US, contact http://www.cert.org.
2. Don't engage in vigilante action. Because of the danger
that you may harm US warfighting activities, you may well end
up behind bars if you play vigilante. See http://www.infragard.net/warnings/01_020.htm:
this sort of vigilante action is against US law and will be prosecuted
2. Get a college education. The military normally entrusts
operations of the level of sensitivity posed by cyberwar only
to commissioned officers. To become a commissioned officer, instead
of an enlisted person, a college degree is crucial. Excellent
courses on computer security are being offered at the University
of Texas at Austin. Register on line at http://learning.bus.utexas.edu/tec or telephone
(512) 475-8085.
3. To become an officer, a good opportunity for high school
kids is to enroll in a high school ROTC (Reserve Officers' Training
Corps) program. Details on Air Force high school programs are
at http://www.afoats.af.mil/AFJROTC.htm,
(334) 953-7513. High school ROTC will help you get into one of
the US military Academies for college. If a high school program
is not available, be sure to attend a college or University with
ROTC. Your BEST OPPORTUNITY is to get an appointment to attend
one of the Academies for the armed forces.
4. The best service to join for cyberwarfare is the US Air
Force http://www.af.mil/.
All Air Force officer-training opportunities can be viewed at
http://www.afoats.af.mil/.
The Air Force Academy http://www.usafa.af.mil/
is located in Colorado Springs, CO, which is also headquarters
for Space Command.
5. The US Air Force Space Command http://www.af.mil/news/factsheets/Air_Force_Space_Command.html
is in charge of waging cyberwar. All the US armed services
have cyberwar units; however, they will coordinate through Space
Command.
6. If you join the US Navy, you can get a tremendous education
in computer science. Check out http://www.navylearning.navy.mil to find
out what some of these great courses are. Carolyn's
note: the Navy paid for my husband's masters degrees in computer
science and math because he was in college ROTC. When he finished
school he had a fascinating career going back and forth between
being a fighter pilot and doing computer-related work.
One of our readers tells us:
From: "kuwanoe"
Subject: Cyberwar
Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 09:46:06 -0500
Maam,
You are correct that the military is the way to go. The Air Force
is best, but of course since I'm in that service I am super-loyal.
What makes us best is that we entrust our enlisted to perform
the duties you describe, right alongside the officers.
Thank you for your article!
