17D_guy

Well...this happened - My Fellow Warrior-Airmen; At the past CORONA gathering the CSAF directed the merger of 24th and 25th Air Force into a single NAF under Air Combat Command (ACC). ACC is the OPR for integration planning with AFSPC, 24AF and 25AF as OCRs. We are tasked to deliver a decision brief for implementation to the SECAF at CORONA TOP at the end of June. This is the extent of the formal and official guidance I've received to date. Way Ahead: GEN's Raymond and Holmes are meeting next week at the Space Symposium in Colorado Springs to discuss our way-ahead and provide both staffs with planning guidance. We (24 AF) will be intimately involved and I will be personally involved in this strategic endeavor for our Air Force. I fully expect the two NAF staffs to have leading roles on the planning given our deep operational expertise. We do not know any more specifics at this time.  I developed a detailed enterprise-level perspective on optimizing Air Force Cyber Domain Operations over the past 6+ months which has been briefed to Gen Raymond, Gen Holmes, ADM Rogers and the VCSAF. It outlines the core strategic challenges of our AF cyber domain which we must resolve moving forward. As many of you know, I was vocal that an ill-conceived and hasty thrust to simply mash our two NAF's together is not an acceptable course of action. I briefed options similar to the Navy Task Force and Army OPCON models for their consideration also. BTW, my first pitch was for a Cyber Ops MAJCOM...go big or go home I suppose.  I campaigned to ensure whatever decision was made that it must: 1. Generate Unity of Command and Unity of Effort for Cyberspace Operations 2. Increase support to our Air Component Commanders 3. Elevate Air Force Cyberspace Domain Operations from a 3rd echelon Command/2-star posture, to a Component Command on-par with USN/USARMY. 4. Normalize our force O/T/E functions and Joint Force Presentation to USCYBERCOM 5. Improve Intelligence Support to Cyberspace Operations 6. Not break the G-ISR enterprise or impede CMF build/Operations  We will look at the merger holistically based upon these and other desired end-states, then integrate and aggregate the necessary capabilities and authorities across our two NAFs to generate the most effective organization possible...an "Information Dominance NAF" for our Air Force....it's something bigger than 24th and 25th combined in my opinion. Don't get fixated on structure, design, etc....form will follow function once designed and approved.  I believe we have have lost a battle, but ultimately won the War for Air Force Cyber Ops. The opportunities presented are significant and powerful. Now is the time to focus on multi-domain, multi-functional integration (Cyber Ops, All-source Intel, EW, IO) to deliver decisive full-spectrum global information dominance capabilities and effects for our Service, the Joint Force and our great Nation.  The decision to move the new NAF into ACC was based primarily on the Air Force's desire to grow our Service's role and posture for Space Operations within DoD, adding further strain on AFSPC's already insufficient Cyber Ops staff capacity.  I intend to host as series of Town Hall events once we have formal guidance and the planning teams have commenced their efforts.  So, that's all we know right now. I am certain the RUMOR MILL is off the charts and generating a lot of unnecessary anxiety and uncertainty already. I need all our leaders at every echelon to help belay concerns, squash speculation and help us maintain focus on our demanding "BOSDEE" lines of effort. We must do this in-stride and ensure our missions go on without fail, the CMF is built and trained as planned, and that we take care of the personal and professional needs of our Airmen and Civilians 24/7...you forever remain our most precious resource and I know this will only add to whatever anxiety you have. As soon as I know more, and have decisive information I will let you know.  These are exciting times and I am honored to share them with such audacious and innovative leaders...I am absolutely certain you will make our Air Force proud in this new enterprise endeavor. Lead on! V/R Wedge CHRIS P. WEGGEMAN Major General, USAF Commander, 24 AF (AFCYBER)

Getting rid of all the commercials finally https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2017/03/22/nfl-commissioner-roger-goodell-announces-less-commercials-during-games.html

It does, but only to a certain level then you gotta start rolling in rank to get it higher and higher.

ZB's right all around. Again, the communication from the "former" communication guys just sucked. Shockingly the decision was made by a bunch of Cols that this was our way ahead, you deal with it. Our 1-star and 2-star are working hard to address that issue and have pushed out a ton more info at the MAJCOM A6 level and up. Guess what rank most A6's are... yep. Seems like there's this magic rank where shit just goes sideways. I don't know why that is. Ideally they'd be sharing that information down. Do other AFSC's have info hoarders the way we do? The new C2 construct is tough, but it's literally the only way we can do business moving forward. The manning issues have hit everyone, including our cyber operators/maintainers. So, we need MAJCOMs to tell us what no-kidding they need fixed so we can decide if we're going to fix email/internet or some mission system. It's not different than when I was at a base and got a call that some Maj couldn't get on the ShareDrive from some naming party slides or fixing the scheduling office's Capt's workstations with a blizzard rolling in. Of course a exec's inability to get his GO's alt-token working still seems to float to the top.... On top of this we're trying to develop processes for everything you real domain operators have that works in cyber. Except we have the fight of needing to help out customers in addition to needing to do operations...for now. Anyone on the new Microsoft office email? How's that working out?

All right, Been awhile since I've posted on here. Since then there's been a few happenings in this new domain. One of course is the CIA drop from the Wikileaks. I won't share anything on it here unless requested since it's been so prominent in the news. Another is the Tallinn Manual 2 which covers international law and cyber. If you like legal nerd stuff and cyber nerd stuff it's probably right up your alley. Note that we have had AF law-dogs provide commentary on this. No free sources that I could find without looking super hard. Rand Corp has also been putting out good info recently on cyber stuff. Here's a e-book I just got and am "looking forward to." I'll also add that the C2 of the domain is rapidly changing and your local Comm Sq's are probably super pissed off. I don't want to get into it too much on here, but ask for your patience while we follow the direction of our awesome Viper driver boss to figure this nonsense out. For some reason it's taken a pilot after so many "space operations" officers to finally articulate to leadership just how bad a shape we're in, and actually have them understand. I believe much of this is cultural (i.e. space views 5 years as not a long time vs you flyboys) and with the right person in charge and advocating we'll get a lot done. Very interesting the new CSAF email about MDC2 dropped on Friday to dovetail with our efforts. Also, if you're in a A3 staff position and work on force apportionment I could use a PM...I've got tons of questions.

Matinee prices aren't bad here, $12 for Alamo Drafthouse where I can narc on the little old lady for talking is worth it. Sent from my Pixel using Baseops Network Forums mobile app

Huh.. Marines faced it straight on. Wonder that would have been like for us, instead of that worthless "Don't worry about stuff..." video we got.

Newest Kong was ridiculous fun. Don't spend more than $7 on it.

Batman movie was fun if you liked the Lego movie. Logan was good. Strange having a PG13 franchise go for the hard R (little/no sex) and seeing just how brutal metal clawed combat would be. Would recommend both.

It's an ok piece. Still an attempted white-wash of the Flynn situation. "It was a benign conversation" -- then why lie? Trumps rode down some amazingly politically difficult releases. Also, can we stop calling it deep-state. It's the bureaucracy, not some shadow government keeping the anointed one down.

Rather slow week for the Prez on the "outrage" front. New NSA's a good choice. Interesting to see Sec of Ed basically saying she disagreed with the transgendered bathroom revocation. Kinda the same with Mattis on torture & NATO. Has there been a cabinet with this much leeway before? Rumsfeld was pretty...wild, but I don't remember him publicly disagreeing with Dubya. Only thing I found particularly distasteful was this - https://www.cnn.com/2017/02/23/politics/doj-walks-back-guidance-discouraging-use-of-private-prisons/index.html

I don't even know if this is a big deal or not. I do like how they're starting to list the number of sources to show they're not "faking" it up. Still, it's WaPo.. so YMMV https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/as-flynn-falls-under-growing-pressure-over-russia-contacts-trump-remains-silent/2017/02/12/2b58f31e-f15e-11e6-b9c9-e83fce42fb61_story.html?utm_term=.f05766e8943f

Having recently stayed on a few Army bases at their commercial Candlewood suites (and racked up rewards) I'm struggling to see how AFInns is cost effective at all.

Well.. Army gets out of their cars for retreat at the end of the day too.

Wasn't the F35 savings us buying more to lower per unit cost? I remember the articles around it were very confusing.

John Wick 2 - Not quite as good as the first, since the first was a fresh breath from the action slop we'd been getting recently. Still a lot of fun, more world building and brutal fast action. More laughs in this one also. Well worth the $11.50 I spent on the ticket.

Yea, I get it. One of the arguments made by WA was that a non-American spouse of an American would be impacted by this ban. I don't know if the non-American had a green card, I'm inclined to think not the way they were discussing it. Additionally, I think (again, not a law-dog) that if the law is discriminatory in nature (no Muslims) it doesn't matter if it applies to non-US citizens only, because it would still violate our other laws. Perhaps along the lines of Mark1's spirit of the law. I get it that politics is politics. But I think if the conservatives I usually stand with had taken the high road, and not done tit-for-tat shit (ex. we hate Obama's EO...Trump's are fine), we'd be in a much better place politically and looking even better going into 2018. As it is now, I've heard of little that's going to benefit those very red-states in the middle, I hope that's coming soon.

I think this is one of the problems the 9th sees. Again, not a lawyer, but they made it sound like you can't do this because of due process and equal protection under the law against possible future individuals who could come under the US' courts jurisdiction. It's an interesting argument (if I understood correctly), not one I'm sure I'm comfortable with.

When can I have my patches back? Also... crew neck under-shirts in blues. It's 2017... how is this still not a thing?

Man, good think Pakistan's on that list. Got a whole section of the country the gov't just gave to terrorists... Oh wait... This isn't even that big a smackdown despite what CNN, Fox, whomever says. They didn't say the EO was bad/good. The standard wasn't that we haven't been attacked by those countries. The Fed could have presented evidence of a credible threat, but nope. Hence the pic I posted above. Fed went Wookie defense on it. 9th Court said the gov't couldn't prove that allowing the injunction of the EO could be proved to cause harm to the nation, while also not causing irreparable harm to the states while the lower courts figured out the case. They also discussed standing and judicial review. The plaintiff (WA, etc) just has to show that they've got a good chance of winning and the order causes harm. Apparently they did, I thought WA's oral (STS) argument was weak. The gov't had to prove danger to the nation. Unless you're arguing the courts shouldn't review anything the Executive says in "National Security," which they addressed directly since that was also part of the Fed's argument. It's a well written ruling without any court overreach or legislating from the bench that I can tell. It's not terribly long, give it a read. So now, it either goes back to the lower court while restrained, or the Executive appeals to SCOTUS. 9th Court is most overturned in history, but the case law in their review seemed pretty pedantic. Do people think terrorists are just flooding in here differently now than they have the past 8 years? The rules for entry haven't changed. EDITED to add that the twitter, campaign and advisers (ex. Rudy G.) statements CAN be used in this case is hilarious. Also, when it goes back to lower court discovery is going to be allowed...wonder if they're going to attempt executive privilege on any/all communications on this? That would be an interesting SCOTUS case.

My favorite part - Didn't think they'd be a fan of the "We know something you don't know" argument.

Well, Obama was pushed to fire ADM Rodgers and he's received much criticism for issues within that org. Overall, it's the same issue we're facing and our forefathers faced with air. Old people that don't want to change and realize the capabilities this new domain brings. Army's NETCOM just offered a bunch of gray-hairs VSP style packages to get them to retire and are hiring like mad. Don't know if we need to do the same thing. Also, direct commission of IT/Cyber Pro's isn't the worst idea. But they're not going to be able to do ANYTHING until the juggernaut that is AFLCMC, DISA and other "centers of innovation" are brought to heel.

It's impressive how important physical controls are, and how even when presented with clear evidence of their necessity our gov't still won't do the right thing - https://www.emptywheel.net/2017/02/08/how-hal-martin-stole-75-of-nsas-hacking-tools-nsa-failed-to-implement-required-security-fixes-for-three-years-after-snowden/

Probably wouldn't be so much outrage if he could just act presidential and not use official twitter account to retweet and push his kid's business - And/or get a press secretary who could make even a modicum of sense of what he's doing - https://www.snappytv.com/tc/3889840