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Oh so the DoD should be less secure?
The DOD can be rather myopic as to alternative options and the resulting costs. Meanwhile, time marches on.
At least there’s DARPA. While I completely agree with your assessment of internal threats.
I did some contracting with a thing in that field (Sorry dont wanna clarify here) and this rings both true and necessary.
Soldiers aren’t hired be good at computers, they are hired to be good at shooting people. So theres a lot of guys in defence who wouldnt know which way to hold a mouse, particularly amongst the older guys who didnt grow up with internet everything.
But by the very nature of defence computing, things are locked down incredibly tightly because without those locks you end up with wikileaks, o

I did some contracting with a thing in that field (Sorry dont wanna clarify here) and this rings both true and necessary.
Soldiers aren’t hired be good at computers, they are hired to be good at shooting people. So theres a lot of guys in defence who wouldnt know which way to hold a mouse, particularly amongst the older guys who didnt grow up with internet everything.
First off, the infanty and special forces jobs in the Army, require you to be “good at shooting people”. For the other 90 – 95% of the Armed Forces, it’s slam full of people sitting behind desks driving computers and running shops not unlike small civilian companies would. Annual marksmanship plinking hardly makes one good at shooting people. Otherwise, snipers wouldn’t have to pass psych evals.
Wouldn’t know which way to hold a mouse? The ones retiring from the fucking Army graduated high school in 2003, and were likely driving a mouse long before that. Like the rest of us. Bit of a stretch, even for an infantry grunt.
Your assessment of even what the majority of people do in the military, is quite wrong. Not sure where you’re getting that intel from.

First off, the infanty and special forces jobs in the Army, require you to be “good at shooting people”.
My experience begs to differ. And yes, I was in about as much of a combat arms MOS as you get. Look up 19D. Marksmanship is only a small part of it.
Also, EVERY MOS in the Army, combat arms or not, has a well-defined combat duty. For example, a trumpet player will serve as a PoW prison guard.
Please stop talking authoritatively about topics you don’t understand. You’re worse than ChatGPT to be honest.

First off, the infanty and special forces jobs in the Army, require you to be “good at shooting people”.
My experience begs to differ. And yes, I was in about as much of a combat arms MOS as you get. Look up 19D. Marksmanship is only a small part of it.
Also, EVERY MOS in the Army, combat arms or not, has a well-defined combat duty. For example, a trumpet player will serve as a PoW prison guard.
Please stop talking authoritatively about topics you don’t understand. You’re worse than ChatGPT to be honest.
Please stop assuming I also do not hold experience in the matter as well. We both know by mission statement the primary fighting force within the Armed Forces, is the Marines. Your experience is quite myopic as well (deployed with plenty of 19x’s). Yes, we were/are all somewhat trained to be defenders in every branch, but most of those serving today picked up an assault weapon in basic training for the first time. They were not good at “shooting people” before then, nor will they ever get there punching

The difference is, we know why that inconvenience is there, GI Joe does not, and its not his job to know why its there.
Which is exactly the security hole adversaries are looking for, people that now shit but still need to use computers.
And be assured modern GI Joe does run networked computer systems.

But what does this have to do with a failing IT support system?
It is also due to mission.
Hey, we need some help with our server, weâ(TM)re in your command.
Okay, where is it.
It is at an undisclosed location I cannot tell you, you have no access, and you will have to hop through two other networks and a slow satellite link to get there.
Shit.
Unfortunately, not.
The AARO office believes DoD email is too insecure for case submissions.
 
Partly. Maybe even mostly. People don’t like being told no and when you’re using DOD assets, you’re not going to be able to have all the stuff you’re used to having, nor will you have access to equipment that only you use.
The acquisition and authorization processes are also obscene and a large contributor to dissatisfaction, even causing a senior USAF official to quit in disgust. [theregister.com] Combine that with the low pay of both military and civilian tech professionals, and you’ll get results like this. This won’t cha
I had to call (on the wired phone) an Air Force base once to politely ask the airman that answered the IT departmental phone to stop an 700Mb attack from his network to mine.
I had to step him through how to use netstat, traceroute, and how to drop packets on a Cisco PIX, then point him to docs on other matters.
Mind you, he had zero idea who I was, yet followed my suggestions. My last bit of advice to him was “Don’t run commands from random strangers!”
And yes, I am leaving out a lot of details.
> Despite its abysmal ranking among its fellow federal agencies, the DoD’s users were still generally okay with their IT service
Maybe it’s because the IT equipment is designed to work reliably ‘in the field’, so that calls for help are few and far between?

Maybe it’s because the IT equipment is designed to work reliably ‘in the field’, so that calls for help are few and far between?
(Everyone in the Field) “Uh, no.”
One would have to narrow the definition of ‘reliably’ here…can the 120-pound TEMPEST server wrapped in 50 pounds of lead shielding be reliably pushed off a forklift from a MIL-SPEC drop height of 6 feet, and only break every fifth time? Yup bet. Field reliability at it’s finest. The system is ‘secure’.
Ha – thanks for sorting that out.
“Uh, no” is what I suspected too.
I wouldn’t nitpick the use of Pentagon other than the fact that the story is already confusing because the DoD isn’t one thing, each service handles its own stuff. Maybe the actual report gets into the specifics, or maybe it doesn’t, but lumping Army IT support with Air Force IT support makes no sense, for example. Which one of them all is dragging down the numbers?
So there’s that, then referring to the DoD as the Pentagon on top of it is doubly wrong. It’s the one building where they all have a presence.
Helpdesk?
Hi, we’re in an undisclosed South-American country to assassinate their president and our Autogun doesn’t boot, what should we do?
Helpdesk checklist:
  – Did you try turning off and on again?
  – Move the safety from off to on 5 times in 30 seconds. You will know it is working when the red light flashes 3 times in 1 second intervals and 5 times at 3 second intervals.
  – Remove all rounds from the autogun and hold the trigger in for 30 seconds, then release the trigger and do not pull it again for 60 seconds. Repeat 3 times. Make sure the timing is exactly right or you need to start over again.
“Is there anything blocking the barrel?”
* BLAM *
Ticket Closed: No response from user.
They have the same Policies and support is provided by the same contract service providers as the rest of the DOD. The difference is the user. At the Pentagon the population is very heavily slanted towards senior officials, the guys who like to set rules but not follow them and who are not afraid to voice complaints.
‘Effective immediately all DoD employees and contractors are required to answer “Fully satisfied” on all IT Helpdesk Surveys.’
Who have the *worst* job website in the world.
I argued with them, about 10 years ago – the jobs DO NOT SPECIFY the job requirements. They said “we don’t want to keep people from applying”.
Applying? When they don’t know what the job is, other than the title? *Some* of the time, you can guess, if they have “sample questions”. Otherwise, Linux? Windows? Mac? Application? DBA? Who the fuck knows?
They’re about to IPO on the worst customer service/support I’ve ever encountered in a paid service.
I say this as someone who has waited 90+ minutes to get a password reset for a US treasury account – when someone finally answered the phone they were quick, polite and efficient.
Instacart is an endless script loop with 0 people escalating or even attempting to resolve anything. I could write a fucking novel about the Orwellian dystopia they have created but I think you get the point.
TL;DR version is they cha
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