Cyber

A couple of years ago Grannie and I attended graduation at the Air Force Academy. Those events get our patriotic blood flowing even though the speaker at this one was President Obama. I noted that a fair portion of the Grads had selected assignment to what was referred to as "cyber."

What is this? How can a bright young man or woman select cyber instead of pilot training and a career as a pilot? It didn't make sense to this old guy that lives by the mantra "The older I get the better I flew"!

Pondering a bit, reading the trade literature, and absorbing the daily news a light dawned. It is a new world and thankfully somebody is getting prepared for a future we can hardly know.

Cyber in several dictionaries connotates computer. Hmm. The little "i" as in iPad also stands for computer. Okay so?

Reflect a bit and remember the recent scam where customers credit card information was stolen from Target and a few other large retail chains. Relief! Thankfully Grannie and I hadn't used a credit card to pay at those suspect places. Nevertheless that scam is often referred to as "cybercrime" using a computer on the internet to commit a crime.

The TV news talking heads spew concern that the Obamacare Exchanges are not designed with software to keep personal information from being "hacked". There we go again, another word like "cyber" that we accept without carefully knowing its definition. I think it means something like one or more individuals (?), who without authorization tap into the information to alter it or make use of it for nefarious purpose. Kind of like stealing -- not good.

Lately the news media has been expressing concern that an enemy, not named, could tap into the automated systems (computers ah hah cyber) that control our electrical power grid in the USofA. Think of that. No electricity means no traffic lights, no way to pump gas for our cars, no heat for our homes, no lights at night the uncomfortable list goes on and on.

Now put on your thinking cap and look back to how we won World War II in the European Theater. Planers, civilian and military combined, selected targets to knock out communication: roads, rail, bridges and POL, which is military talk for fuel and oil. We bombed electrical power infrastructure which was not tied together as is the American grid. The effort was expensive both in loss of our bomber crews and in population killed by the bombings. Invasion was eventually necessary but enabled greatly by the German Army's limited ability to move and supply their fighting forces. Their Air Force was completely used up by the time we landed on the Continent.

Such is the allure of cyberwarfare. Should an enemy with a few keystrokes of a computer get into the software controlling our electrical power grid it could wreak havoc with a great chunk of our economy. No doubt innovative western minds would eventually create work arounds to get the country up and running again. Meanwhile a large number of jihad bent teams could wreak havoc on our way of life. Possibly a larger enemy, think China or Russia could temporarily paralyze our ability to move by knocking out our entire electrical grid and invade through the back door. How about disrupting the nation's air traffic control system? The Chinese have demonstrated their ability to destroy satellites which could disable GPS Remember that it cuts both ways and we might have developed the capability to cause declared enemies the same kinds of trouble.

No one will admit to the hacking but somehow a virus called Suxnet corrupted the centrifuges that Iran was using to enrich uranium in their quest to make a nuclear weapon. It set their program back considerably before their cyber experts found a way to set their control system right again.

Most of us are now aware of the troubles that the Target Retail Store chain had last year just before Christmas when unknown persons managed to get into the corporate computer system (remember "hack" is the new operative term) and steal information off the credit cards of millions of customers.

Little known is that prior to Target, the U.S. Secret Service released the results of a larger bust. A sophisticated group of hackers stole more than 160 million credit card numbers. They attacked NASDAQ, 7-Eleven, Hannaford, JetBlue, Dow Jones, WetSeal, and a number of other diverse companies. The group of four Russians and one Ukrainian were arrested and charged in New Jersey by the Department of Justice according to an article in my Air Force Magazine.

So it is that we already see cybercrime being committed in the United States. The door may be wide open but it also cuts both ways.

The U.S. Cyber Command is actively providing cyber capabilities and well-trained military personnel to support joint efforts in cyberspace. Maybe a career in cyber wouldn't be that far fetched after all.

That is the way I saw it.

Dick Trail