Mephisto

There are two parts to this new AFSC 17DxA which is most certainly operations (both offensive and defensive) and 17DxB which is the support role that was formerly 33S The AF has three missions, cyber being one of them. While a lot of the mission has something to do with the flight line, the AF is quickly changing and new operational missions that aren't about supporting jets are quickly coming into prominence. Very true. Additionally, even if you know the person well, the communications channel isn't as "private" as it seems. The main things from that scenario people should think about are: 1) not using a main email address to sign up for online forums and other medium risk sites 2) not using the same password for everything

\ For the specific details yes, but hiding the strategic reasons for why we have security and the general ways attackers can exploit us is a terrible idea. Computers are not a military-only appliance, their use and abuse is common knowledge and freely available. End users, especially those with important jobs such as being pilots, need to know how their actions can affect the network. Take for example the following hypothetical, which is an entirely possible event. Keep in mind all of knowledge used to build this theoretical attack is common knowledge to even the most basic of script kiddies on the internet. This site bills itself as a military aviation community, which naturally makes it an attractive target for people who want to collect info on the US Military. It also runs a relatively popular bulletin board system that has been exploited in the past to reveal sensitive information, and is virtually guaranteed to be exploitable in the future. So bad guy finds this new exploit, or develops it himself, which basically allows him to pull down the entire forum database. So whats in the database? Copies of all the posts naturally, but there is a lot more sensitive information to be gathered: - Copies of all undeleted Private messages - How many times do you see "PM sent" A lot. Well Private messages are only private in that everyone can't immediately see them. They are still stored in the database. It is likely that someone has left a message here that has sensitive info on it and now the bad guy has it - Registration email addresses - Gives the bad guy a target to perform a spear fishing attack on. Now he can craft a targeted email that he is reasonably sure is going to someone who info he wants that is a member of the military. While most people will recognize this attack and not fall for it, how many will report it. And of course, there will always be that one person who clicks the link... -Password hashes - These are one way representations of the passwords people use to log on to this board and are one of the holy grails for such an attacker. With a lot of computing power (and bad guys have this in spades with compromised computers/bots) these hashes can be broken, revealing the plaintext password. For most people this isnt a problem, its a password for a forum that has already been compromised. But here is the big win for the attacker: There are some people here (likely a lot) who use the same password for this forum as they do for their email, and everything else on the internet. Now the bad guy has this password. But what can he do with it? Well the next step is to take that email address and look through every message ever sent and received. With gmail offering GB of free space why would anyone ever delete anything? This is a gold mine to an attacker, especially with various military systems still opting to send a password reminder email to a civilian address. It would be extremely easy to use the compromised email to gain access to a military system. The bottom line: User actions outside the network can let attackers inside our network. But the overall point is this, network security is extremely vital to prevent military secrets from walking out the door. While people may complain about password requirements and thumb drive bans it is often done for a very good reason. The attackers only have to be successful once, while defenders have to be successful all the time. Again, the above scenario is entirely possible and is in the domain of an attacker with moderate skill, or low skill with a lot of determination. This info used to build this attack is freely available. It would be a very good idea for everyone here to think about what they do with computers and the internet and how their actions could be helping an attacker exploit themselves and the military.

Well the majority of 33S won't be operators anyway as 17DxB. They don't have to fight to stay anywhere as it's the same job with a different designation. Operations will pretty much be limited to 17DxA.

Google and Microsoft are able to do it fast because they aren't spending taxpayer money to do it. Plus they don't care nearly as much about security as the AF does. The network is "slow" to expand and "slow" in speed because of the security required to run systems that process national security information. The speed will increase as tech and organization become better, but it will always be "slow" compared to your home system that has possibly already been compromised by malware and is being used as a bot to attack the DoD.

Exactly right. Yes you can get people to do stuff by screaming obscenities at them, but its not very effective. The people who fly off the handle all the time quickly develop the motivation among their subordinates to only do the minimum work necessary to avoid being the latest target of the bosses personality disorder. Perfectly natural, as every problem that is going to come up is likely to be met with the boss melting down. Hardly good leadership. Like you said, a persons indiscriminate use of the f-bomb quickly loses its effect. However, when someone who never swears uses it, they will quickly gain the attention of all around them that something important is going on and people need to pay attention.

Just for reference, the mission of deployed finance isnt to cash peoples checks, it is to pay out on government obligations to keep the base running. At BIAP the finance office had similar hours for giving people spending money. The rest of the time they were working on paying to get critical supplies to those who needed them, a job that they were exceedingly good at. An impressive distinction from Army finance which has limited CS hours and still cant get stuff people order paid for.

As someone who drives tactical vehicles occasionally up to BAF it is absolutely necessary for people to have reflective belts there. The base is simply has far too many people moving around for it to be safe for everyone to walk around at night without a reflective belt. Driving at BAF is a nightmare during the day with pedestrians darting out in front of traffic, at night its 100 times worse. Tactical vehicles have many blind spots to begin with so enforcing a policy that mandates people wear reflective belts when out and about is worth it. I know its irritating, I hate having to wear one as well, but it really does reduce the risk of pedestrians getting hit because the driver doesnt see them.

I'm not sure what you mean by varying degree. These two wars are a counter insurgency fight and PRT/ETT are one of the lead functions in such a battle. In that case its probably best to call those people out individually instead of making blanket statements about an entire AFSC or careerfield. Every career field is going to have its slackers, along with having individuals who really are warriors.

Right now there are many mission support personnel operating as warriors in Iraq and Afghanistan as Provincial Reconstruction and Embedded Training team members. With the nature of these wars being counter insurgency, these individuals are getting the job done on the ground, outside the wire directly contributing to the fight. So just because someone has a mission support AFSC doesn't necessarily mean they haven't been a warrior.