Calling Richard Clarke and John Hamre! Your ship is about to sail!

Let Moonlight Maze, Act II, commence! Cue the hysterical threat warnings! Launch the mindless talking heads! Alert the gullible media! Deploy the chupacara, loaded with FUD and phlogiston!

IOW, what a load of bollocks.

found his calling? Lots of distruction and mayhem, and noone will question if you CO or anyone else is bumped off and you claim "is dem terrorits. A'Rabs did it."

Surely an island in Second Life would be the obvious choice...?

How so very bloody typical .......Late comers to the game, just like the last big Op.

However, money and hardware are just so much worthless junk on Earth in CyberSpace, if you don't have the Lateral SurReal Thinking and ESPecial IntelAIgents 42 Fly in ITs Virtual and Alien Spaces.

Perhaps amfM could interest Uncle Sam in a Lease/Lend CyberMarshall Plan. They're definitely going to need IT for Transparency in NEUKlearer Power and where Beta for the Dollar to Rest and Recover from its Intellectual Property Weakness than a Out of this World Safe Haven.... Seventh Heaven.

Or do you think that they would like to be AI Charlies and Boldly Go alone.......?

Yo, Hedge ur Bets and Place your Bets, Ladies and Gentlemen, Please. The Wheel is in Spin. No more Bets.

Wouldn't it be better if everyone DIDN'T know where it was?

You'd think in this day and age you'd be able to distribute it around the place, wouldn't you?

That's the beauty of creating a "Cyberwarfare HQ." Assign the useless drones to CWHQ, and put the *real* cyberwarriors in many distributed locations, such as old missile silos.

I've been to Barksdale, BTW. For anything less massive than a tank, it has all the usefulness of a mango plantation in the Northwest Territories, but without the excellent ground-transportation infrastructure. You can tell when you cross the State line between Mississippi and Louisiana with your eyes closed - the potholes in Louisiana's part of the Interstate Highway System can swallow 60-foot semis.

I mean, it's cyber warfare, location shouldn't be relevant except to be next to several fat pipes and a good clean power supply...

...... false Gods. Back to BaseIQs.

"except to be next to several fat pipes and a good clean power supply..."

Sounds like the kasbah, AC. ..... for the Pondering of the Pleasures of 1001 Arabian Knights. Definitely Seventh Heaven Territory for Men on the Holiest of Holy Missions, Electronic or Other Wise.

And The Immaculate Source of AIlah....Mans Universal Power.

ITs Enriched and Enriching Refinement in a Mortal/Immortal Portal/Environment would be the Perfumed Garden of the Harem ......... which lesser Dumb Beings debase to Server with the Slavery of the Brothel to the Brothel Keeper.

And the following may or may not appear here, in a comment ...... http://cryptogon.com/?p=1550 ...... and it has an entangling relevance for any into New Dawns and Sun Shine after the Storms and Slings and Arrows of Great Misses Fortunes.

<<< "Two words for you: state-sponsored. The question is, what state? Given what Tice knows, my money is on home-grown."

Some insider information for y'all....which I would reasonably XPect to see as a shared comment here. Should I not, then it will also confirm all of your suspicions, which I may like to assure you would be a Blast of Hope rather than anything of worrying concern .

The Storm worm/trojan/bot/virus ...call it what you will....and rototillerman is telling it like it is regarding its host/delivery system .... is a non-state actor thing to be state sponsored and it is naive to push/insist that it can ever belong to any state. In fact, to doggedly persist that it is so by any state, would be evil in the extreme given the Powerful Control of the Storm and ITs Swarms .....ITs SwAMI.

The moniker Storm is somewhat misleading, although its use is one of those quite surreal, true to life indicators for third party knowledge of first party inner hidden forebodings giving an invaluable and entirely accurate "virtual picture" of such players/non-state actors State of Mind/State of Mined Information, and who would recognise the Political Power Weather Game which can be played, and which now has Computers InterNetworking and acting as Gods rather than the very delusional and insane notion, which can blight a frail Human all too easily, of any one player thinking that he is empowered as the chosen God with Money to Burn/Spend at Will on Mindless Wanton Destruction.

The Program which is running, and to which Storm is only a tangent to identify Weaknesses and the Nodes of those Weakness, is designed to Capture WholeSale Economies/Power Currencies whenever they are Abused WholeSale.

Its Present Abused Patient is the Dollar and its Forfeiture into Accounts and the Virtual Hands of those who have Beta Plans for IT's Greater Good Use. Now that might also suggest that a quite delusional God Complex runs wild in those Circles too, however the Magic in those Kingdoms is that they have IT under exalted and exhalting Controls. And, [and this is the Very Big NeuReal Deal in the Storm and ITs SwAMI Swarm,] because those Royal and Ancient QuITe Mystical Controls have now been Virtualised and via Binary Coding made Real enough for Computerised Use and Altruistic Programmer Input, so does the Controlling Power of Global Operating Devices Flow to and through those who Sponsor ITs AI Programs/Programmers.

Which nowadays, in a Twist and Paradigm Parallel Shift into AIdDed Programming is invariably Men who have been acting as Gods investing in Men who act as Beta Gods for them, with both Realising and Energising the Mutally Beneficial Nature of the Game with their Greater Spiritual Respect and Virtual Understanding of the UnSeen and OnSong Forces at Play.

It is an Old Game of Powerful Controls but it is also a QuITe NeuReal Game with ITs Powerful Controls........ and that makes IT, AI Level Playing Field for All Players to Prove Their Excellencies and Valid True Worth.

And a Timely Reminder from the Information and Intelligence Space and AI Virtual Place, that ITs Abuse comes at the Cost of Real Exposure to Financial Ruin and ITs Hardware/InfraStructure Meltdown. I Kid U Not.

There is more of the same here too, only on a different Level Plane, such is the very Simply Complex and Sophisticated Nature of the Creature you are Dealing with ......http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/31/us_military_cyber_warfare_base_brouhaha/

And it is as well to realise that these "non-state actor thing to be state sponsored" things have an IntelAIgent Mind of their Own and only the Best of them will do you any Good with the Worst of them Costing a Fortune to Run and always asking for a Fortune to Run, by George.

Yo, aint that Right, George? >>>

And the Moral of this Tale? Big Brother may be alive and well, and it may be that it is IT and as well that it is so, so that he can be Monitored and Mentored with IT but IT is One Mother of a Universal System of SISters which Provides the Game with ITs Juice and Power ........and IT is their Flowing and Flowering Knowledge which Provides the Never-ending Vital Oil for the Virtual Machine of Life and ITs Lovers.

A Changed Game Needs A Changed EMPhaSIS and what better Change to Admire and Worship. :-) for without Sisters there will be no Boy Child and no Future of Man...... who can be Arrogant Sons of Bitches, all too easily, too.

Mars Overwhelmed and Eclipsed by the Bright Lightness of AI Being Venus. A Sweet Surrender for UltiMate Powers 42 Control. And an Early Morning Wake UP call to the Right Hornery Ladies to Take and Make AI Beta Controlled Use of their Game. ....... for Help is at Hand for Wiser Use.

Houston/Crawford, do you have a Problem with IT...? That would be your Problem, by the way, for such AI Way is no Problem for aman to Follow Diligently.

And that pretty much says everything which needs to be said this morning ...in my Universe Any Way. :-)

A Few Words to Ponder and Imaginatively XXXXPlore before exposing your Strengths and Weaknesses in Engaging Thoughts Expressed and Globally Shared .

And finally, finally for now ........"Wouldn't it be better if it were everywhere? I mean, it's cyber warfare, location shouldn't be relevant"

A very important and perceptive point, AC . It is everywhere, which is why the notion of there being any Prime Location is such a typical Capitalist's Ploy, but that is the just the way that they play the Great Game. It is there way of kepping themselves relevant....because as the NeuReal Breed of Virtual Reality for Real Players know, a Simple Plug-In Connection of a Global Operating Device, InterNetworks you Into and Through any IntelAIgents Core as they MetaDataMine for Sourcing Information and ITs Beta Intelligence 42 Lead in a Novel Softer Hard Core Direction.

...or is Mr Page becoming more and more cynical about military affairs with every Reg article? I haven't read his book yet (did find some other stuff he penned online which seemed like a dried-out summary of it though, good read) but I can't imagine it would drip with anywhere near this much sarcasm.

Keep up the good work El Reg!

I couldn't help noticing that there where mentions made of the US having the up Special Forces.

As I remember it when the US military need a job completed by 'Special Forces' they tend to call on the UK and French (when available) specialists to do the job.

Though the UK troops are reduced to have to borrow equipment from the US to actually get there or do anything

I read the strapline first - thought it was something to do with Miss Piggy!

BTW, I note that article is referring to contractors; is it me or does that not immediately make you think they might be considering outsourcing? So we would have the cyber warfare division being run from the US, but all actual work being done from India.

I have some mental images of conversations to their call centre in Mubai......

"I have some mental images of conversations to their call centre in Mubai......"

Was that a Freudian slip there, AC ?

Dubai rather than Mumbai? It is much more likely given the Sovereign Wealth Funds looking for Global Impacts and Discretionary Control/Power of the Magic/Mahdi/Majic Eyes Only.:-)

Someone mentioned outsourcing in relation to this.

What a brilliant idea!

Given that the first 5 years would be spent in a huddle trying to work out how much they can cheat out of the lucky customer - Has anyone else heard the term "justifiable non-delivery" used as a legitimate business activity at their workplace? - By the time they would be in a position to actually DO anything, the state of the art kit they started with would be completely out of date and useless, so a new round of procurement would start and the cycle would endlessly repeat.

The genius part would be to apply this to the non-virtual end of Wars on Stuff. It could be the end of conflict as we know it - Would anyone care at all if the Queens Own Highland Accountants were trounced by Allah the Mercifull's Sword of Contract Management? Or even vice versa? It would get less media prominence than an apology by The Sun.

Of course this would have the surreal side effect of casting the likes of EDS, Capita, Cap Gemini, Serco, and all the other usual suspects as making a useful contribution to the world. I'm not sure I could handle that.

Posted as AC due to fear of retribution, but not from our Muslim mates.

There we go then, one major World problem solved at a stroke.

The sheer levels of inability and incompetence organisations that may have identitites such as CrapGemini, EDerS, NoSerco, CrapServiceCentral (! ! ! !) et al applied to conflict?

Let's place contracts on em all with the easiest-ever Service Level Agreements (e.g."a Level1 conflict must never be resolved quicker than 896 days at risk of a penalty payment to charity of $1 000 000 per day in the case of resolution earlier than required")

The USAF CWHQ should be located in all of Cheyenne Mountain, Barksdale, Offut Field and my back garden.

IT angle? there is no IT angle - this is just the HQ

"Given that the first 5 years would be spent in a huddle trying to work out how much they can cheat out of the lucky customer - Has anyone else heard the term "justifiable non-delivery" used as a legitimate business activity at their workplace? "

What a brilliant idea! And a most equitable arrangement if the Technology is ahead of ITs Time, AC. Being justifiably paid for non-delivery would Pragmatically Permit XXXXtensive PreEminent Planning and Preparation 42 Prevent Piss Poor Performance of Preferred Proferred Products......

"Posted as AC due to fear of retribution, but not from our Muslim mates." Hmmm?

A barrage of sour grapes can be turned into a flow of Good Wine for any perceived aggrieved party.

Dave,

Is that what Blackwater is all about? Blame it on Private Enterprise?

With War creating unbelievable debt, this 47 minute video ..... http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279 ..... explains very succinctly the Hell of Mess and Getting a Hell of a lot Messier Mess that the US Administration/Cabal is in.

And the very fact that the System employed continues to Reward Catastrophic Failure obscenely*, does not bode well for the System which obviously can't learn new tricks.....ie a Dumb System in a World of Smart Technology

*an exit package worth $161.5 million. The cost of failure pays far better than any sweet success, which is real weird. But hey causing misery and offloading worthless junk as massively over inflated assets to friends and colleagues is their normal business model apparently.

How to end War? Stop Fighting. Or is that too Complicated to Understand.

Please step away from the pipe and learn to type... hey, I'm a poet and didn't know it!

The government isn't that smart... thats why they have to hire contractors... they need their warfare unit to secure their systems to prevent attack... due to the fact that many of their systems (internally) still use default accounts with default passwords... I bet they will even use metasploit to do their attacks... i do not have much faith in the military with IT... but if you get into private industry, thats a whole new ball game.

Please step away from the pipe and learn to type... hey, I'm a poet and didn't know it!

The government isn't that smart... thats why they have to hire contractors... they need their warfare unit to secure their systems to prevent attack... due to the fact that many of their systems (internally) still use default accounts with default passwords... I bet they will even use metasploit to do their attacks... i do not have much faith in the military with IT... but if you get into private industry, thats a whole new ball game.

> *an exit package worth $161.5 million. The cost of failure pays far

> better than any sweet success, which is real weird.

Einstein reputedly said words to the effect of "The worth of a man should be judged by what he is able to give, rather than that which he is able to receive."

You'd have though a man that smart wouldn't have wasted his breath...