Be depressed. Be very depressed. You thought that cyberspace -- a term conjured up long ago by that neuromancer, sci-fi author William Gibson--was the last frontier of freedom. Well, think again. If the U.S. Air Force has anything to say about it, cyber-freedom will, in the not so distant future, be just another word for domination.

Air Force officials, despite a year-long air surge in Iraq, undoubtedly worry that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates's "next wars"--two, three, many Afghanistans--won't have much room for air glory. (And headlines like yesterday's "Pentagon cans Air Force leadership" can't be doing much for service morale.) Recently, looking for new realms to bomb, the Air Force launched itself into cyberspace. It has now set up its own Cyber Command, redefined the Internet as just more "air space" fit for "cyber-craft," and launched its own Bush-style preemptive strike on the other military services for budgetary control of the same.

If that's not enough for you, it's also proposing a massive $30 billion cyberspace boondoggle--as retired Air Force Lt. Col. William Astore writes in "Attention Geeks and Hackers, Uncle Sam's Cyber Force Wants You!"--that will, theoretically, provide the Air Force with the ability to fry any computer on Earth. And don't think the other services are likely to take this lying down. Expect cyberwar in the Pentagon before this is all over. In the meantime, think of cyberspace, in military terms, as a new realm for nuclear-style strategy, with its own developing version of "first-strike capability," its own future versions of "mutually assured destruction," its own "windows of vulnerability" to be closed (while exploiting those of the enemy), and undoubtedly its own "cyber-gaps."

In fact, it looks like the national-security version of cyberspace may soon be a very, very busy place. Noah Shachtman, who covers the subject like a rug at his Wired Magazine Danger Room blog, recently noted that Comcast, the country's second-largest Internet provider, "has just advertised for an engineer to handle 'reconnaissance' and 'analysis' of 'subscriber intelligence' for the company's 'National Security Operations'" -- that is, for the U.S. government. ("Day-to-day tasks, the company says in an online job listing, will include 'deploy[ing], installing] and remov[ing] strategic and tactical data intercept equipment on a nationwide basis to meet Comcast and Government lawful intercept needs.'") Ain't that sweet.

And it shouldn't be too tough a job. As Shachtman also points out, "Since May 2007, all Internet providers have been required to install gear for easy wiretapping under the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act."

Sigh. Those who don't learn from history are bound to… get ever more bloated budgets.

Comments (21)

1. Okay, Mr Engelhardt....

   What means DO we use to protect ourselves from "cyber-attack"?

   and would you object to the Air Force "frying the computer"...that has nuclear technology data in North Korea?

   Nobody wants boondoggles or infringement of freedom...but if you're going back down that politically LOSING path of liberal pacifism, you know what that gets you.

   Posted by Mask at 06/06/2008 @ 10:04am

2. How about reading the actual TomDispatch instead of barking into the wind, Maskot?

   The William Astore piece is an insightful view into the reality that large, top-down, button-down bureaucracies --such as the Air Force-- are, in all practicality, incapable of creating useful grand computerized schemes to run their show. They invariably run into institutional roadblocks that dwarf even those that the increasingly ungainly Microsoft has encountered with Vista.

   Fascinating stuff.

   Posted by b_kool_66 at 06/06/2008 @ 10:25am

3. worse than Vista? Those poor bastards...

   Posted by ILOVEPHYSICS at 06/06/2008 @ 11:48am

4. Posted by b_kool_66 at 06/6/2008

   B_K, I agree. (In fact, let's save that for the next "universal health care" debate, huh?)

   but Mr Engelhardt doesn't seem to be offering many ALTERNATIVES, does he?

   So one is left with the impression that he perhaps doesn't want ANY "cyber-defense"!

   Posted by Mask at 06/06/2008 @ 12:12pm

5. Now I know why Comcast totally sucks. I would like to try Verizon, but they're not in my local area and I don't care for satillite TV. I tried dropping those freaks before, but they wouldn't leave us alone.

   Why do we need to go to digital anyway?

   Posted by ACook at 06/06/2008 @ 12:36pm

6. mihnea, start just posting the links and not those long C&Ps or get Ignored.

   I don't mind crazy...but long-winded is right out!

   Posted by Mask at 06/06/2008 @ 1:40pm

7. So the Air Force is creating a new division to...play video games? As any cybersecurity expert will tell you, as good as you think your folks are, the hackers are better, and the vast majority don't do it for money. So yea, good luck on that.

   Posted by yutsano at 06/06/2008 @ 2:33pm

8. See Mask, occasionally, the US does use taxpayer money for good purposes.

   Posted by lvliberty1 at 06/06/2008 @ 5:41pm

9. Now I know why Comcast totally sucks. I would like to try Verizon, but they're not in my local area and I don't care for satillite TV. I tried dropping those freaks before, but they wouldn't leave us alone.

   Why do we need to go to digital anyway?

   Posted by ACook at 06/6/2008

   I love how you can only get ONE cable network in your neighborhood. There is only one option when you want cable.

   Posted by Cccomfo1 at 06/06/2008 @ 6:30pm

10. War is going to come to this one day. Hackers are going to become an intricate part of war. Why use your own missiles when you can turn the enemies against them? The problem is most of the best hackers don't work for the government and probably won't the best hackers are usually explorers not looking to do damage just to see how far they can go. Some of them do damage, like the ones at war with scientology, but they aren't the best. I point you to the Brit who hacked into NASA. He just wanted to know what was in there. I foresee a definite need for security on the internet and frankly I would much rather war be fought online than in the real world.

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 06/06/2008 @ 6:34pm

11. The question I have though is, will foreign countries be ok with the knowledge that this program means our agents will in their banks, government computers, able to penetrate their deepest secrets. We need to think about the full range of outcomes before we walk willy nilly into something like this because it could piss off the rest of the including our allies to the point of real war.

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 06/06/2008 @ 6:52pm

12. Slashdot has covered this numerous times since the Air Force started publicizing this effort. Slashdot ran an article in February. In response, the Major General in charge of the command has offered to take questions from Slashdot. They've also done a few article since.

    While I think there are legitimate concerns, you cannot pretend that this capability isn't a natural outgrowth of electronic warfare and a necessary capability for modern militaries.

    http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/12/2217201

    http://interviews.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/29/1733222

    http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/15/1654235

    Posted by srjenkins at 06/06/2008 @ 7:06pm

13. I like in the other article where he references the point that computer technology evolves so fast that there would have to be a ton of money constantly flowing into this program. Most weapons of the military last decades. The M-16 has been deployed since Nam. The Apache Longbow before it's recent upgrade had been the same. There are Carriers that have been in the water since WWII. Computers are ever evolving. Which means you would more likely have to be replacing all of your systems on a nearly constant basis.

    Anyone who knows squat about computers will tell your computer is completely outdated after 2 years because of the so far upheld theory that processing power doubles every 2 years. So if we step into this domain it is going to require a lot more than 5 billion dollars a year and anyone with mediocre knowledge of computers can tell you that.

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 06/06/2008 @ 7:08pm

14. While I certainly do KNOW that this issue will need to be addressed, and soon, we need to make sure we do it in a realistic manner. This is not going to be like the army where you to deal with a truly new weapon every maybe 20 years, here the weapons evolve every single day. Your hackers have to be in constant training.

    I don't know if I can even translate to those people who are not truly computer knowledgeable the monumental nature of this undertaking if you want it to truly be done right but those of you on here who are deeply computer knowledgeable will know what I mean. For those don't imagine if you are training in the Air Force to fly against a mig then you find out the next day Russia has come out with 5 new models of plane. So you start training against those and then there are 5 new models the next day.

    Posted by Cccomfo1 at 06/06/2008 @ 7:21pm

15. Posted by Cccomfo1 at 06/6/2008

    Depends on what you are doing, Comfort. There are plenty of machines that have are ten years old that would make excellent print servers, fire walls, and would suit the needs of programmers using some flavor of Linux or BSD. Even for a complex program like emacs or even X, you don't have to current hardware. I'd also argue that for most people using a computer for standard tasks like email, word processing and the like - new hardware is frequently unnecessary.

    Posted by srjenkins at 06/06/2008 @ 8:31pm

16. I love how you can only get ONE cable network in your neighborhood. There is only one option when you want cable.

    Posted by Cccomfo1

    think it through. cable TV has to run a cable to your house. with competition there would have to be two cables or three or more.

    to run a cable is expensive. the cable company gets an exclusive to make the investment worthwhile.

    Posted by emile duBois at 06/07/2008 @ 4:03pm

17. So one is left with the impression that he perhaps doesn't want ANY "cyber-defense"!

    Posted by Mask

    you know this stuff has already existed for a long time.

    and just from this little snippet i was able to ascertain that mr. tom is referring to excess meddling.

    and you know it's not going anywhere.

    Posted by frosty zoom at 06/07/2008 @ 5:25pm

18. Why do we need to go to digital anyway?

    Posted by ACook

    economic stimulus package for panasonic and sony.

    Posted by frosty zoom at 06/07/2008 @ 5:27pm

19. See Mask, occasionally, the US does use taxpayer money for good purposes.

    Posted by lvliberty1

    you mean like this:

    http://www.crunchweb.net/87billion/

    ?

    Posted by frosty zoom at 06/07/2008 @ 5:32pm

20. interesting thing.

    the power "the chips" keeps doubling.

    yay!

    the power of people to write software for these new computers is not doubling.

    oh.

    Posted by frosty zoom at 06/07/2008 @ 5:35pm

21. Why do we need to go to digital anyway?

    Posted by ACook

    the gov't wants the bandwidth that is now occupied by TV transmissions.

    Posted by emile duBois at 06/07/2008 @ 6:48pm