The U.S. Air Force turns 62 today, and America’s air armada reflected on the occasion by commemorating the famous Doolittle Raid of WWII. So let’s use an anecdote about “The Raiders” as a critique on USAF’s initial forays into “cyber warfare.”

No, waitaminit — first I want you to re-read my blistering critique of USAF’s 60th birthday bash. It will put today’s column in perspective.

Finished reading it? Good. Now I want you to study the photo you see here. It captures an amazing moment in time when I spoke with the late “Doolittle Raider” MSgt (ret.) Ed Horton at the October 2007 Air Force Ball held near Dobbins ARB in Georgia.

Never, never, never underestimate this man’s contribution to WWII, folks — Japan slaughtered a quarter-million Chinese civilians in their raging quest to capture the guy I sat down with. I nabbed a rare privilege to speak for two minutes with one of USAF’s living legends.

And — you guessed it — I didn’t waste my time with him. We exchanged perhaps 15 seconds of pleasantries, then I popped my question. I quote myself to the very best of my recollection:

“Sir, when you hopped in the bomber, did you ever stop to think how much it would impact the course of history?”

MSgt Horton gave a simple answer. I quote him to the very best of my recollection:

“None of us really thought about it. We had a job to do.”

MSgt Horton probably gave the same answer a thousand times to a thousand different people. Right then, though, he took my question and gave me his answer.

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Too often we hear government & military people say insane things like “what we do here in cyberspace will reverberate throughout history.” Too often we hear them say “cyber is such an important new realm that we need to consider its long-term ramifications for the future.”

Bah, I say. The “doers” in the world never stop long enough to ponder the consequences of their efforts. They’re too busy doing things. The “ponderers” in the world only get involved after an evolutionary weapon system (finally) proves itself.

Horton’s answer about the Doolittle Raiders reverberates this point. Do you honestly think Jimmy Doolittle pondered how violently the Japanese would react if he succeeded? Do you honestly think he pondered it enough to call his men together to request volunteers for a suicide mission?

“Gentlemen, I’ve got this nagging concern that Japan will slaughter a quarter-million Chinese in their raging quest to capture us if we complete this mission. Are the lives of so many civilians worth the lives of 80 military men? Gentlemen, instead of trying to avoid capture, should we secretly negotiate with China to turn us over to Japanese authorities who will certainly put us to death, in order that we may avert the potential of horrific noncombatant bloodshed in China?”

We know Doolittle didn’t consider the long-term consequences of his actions — because he was way too busy planning and doing the raid to ponder even so much as the immediate fallout.

Do you honestly think the solemn mem­bers of “Doo­little’s Cyber Raiders” will gather to­gether every anni­ver­sary for nearly 70 years to toast their digital feat with gleaming silver goblets — like the origi­nal Doo­little Raiders did?

The same thing happened with the atom bomb. The “doers” who built it didn’t ponder the future; they focused on a mission to beat their enemies to the punch. Even Albert Einstein’s foreboding letters fail to ponder it — he worried only that the Axis would build a bomb before the Allies. One of the most famous scientists in all of history just wanted the U.S. to win a deadly race; he didn’t consider the consequences beyond this. The ponderers played their roles only after Japan’s unconditional surrender.

There’s a simple military axiom: “doers” go first, “ponderers” come later. It doesn’t matter if you talk about mustard gas in WWI or the decision to go with muskets over bows & arrows in the U.S. Revolutionary War. Humans first advance their weapon systems, then they ponder any long-term fallout.

It’s a straightforward military axiom. Even in cyberspace warfare.

“But Rob,” you moan. “Admiral Yamamoto pondered the consequences of his actions before calling for an attack on Pearl Harbor!” The truth is “no, he didn’t.” Contrary to popular belief, Yamamoto focused his ponderings on Japan’s inability to win an all-out war against the United States. When Japan ultimately made the decision to strike, Yamamoto switched right into “doer” mode. His “sleeping giant” ponderings came about when he learned the mailman didn’t deliver Japan’s diplomatic message on time. And — operating in “doer” mode at the time — he merely pondered the mailman’s impact on his naval order of battle.

(“Okay Rob, then what about Billy Mitchell?” He pondered air warfare after The Great War. We’ll need a guy like him when we finally start pondering cyberspace warfare.)

Doers get so busy doing their mission that they can’t be bothered to collect & archive whatever vital documents the ponderers will need. This explains why the Air Force assigns a Historian to every commander from the wing level on up — a specially trained person with the same security clearances as the commander, who collects & archives what the ponderers will someday study.

It’s a simple axiom: “doers” go first, “ponderers” come later.

As a specially trained Historian, I insist USAF isn’t collecting & archiving its cyberspa— nah, forget I wrote that. It’ll take us off topic…

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When it comes to cyber warfare, any number of self-proclaimed ponderers want you to believe they violate the axiom I described above. Bah, I say.

We’re still doing, folks, and we’ll continue doing for a very very very long time before some horrifying IPv6 weapon kills thousands of innocent civilians or saves thousands of soldiers’ lives with the click of a mouse. It’s uncharted territory, it’s a hot project, and it gives communications officers more career opportunities. Pondering about the long-term consequences just isn’t “sexy enough” for anyone right now.

If these ponderers really were pondering the long-term consequences of cyber-warfare, they’d be talking about ephemeral concepts like cyber military graveyards and cyber warfare museums and a solemn “Doolittle Cyber Raiders” ceremony every anniversary for 67 years to commemorate a fateful network attack.

“None of us really thought about it,” MSgt Horton said. “We had a job to do.” Remember his answer — not just on USAF’s birthday, but rather any day you read about the many shallow-thinking “visioneers” who don’t know well enough to recognize an axiom.

“But Rob,” you moan. “You yourself ironically pondered graveyards and museums!” The truth is “no, I didn’t.” I raise those issues only to cast light on the pompous media hounds & conference whores who engage in shallow thinking and who make hysterical claims. I’m a doer — someone who critiques the computer security industrial complex…

I hereby claim I made up everything in this column. Everything. It’s the only way I can satisfy the paranoia of my totally fictional USAF source.

So anyway, my totally fictional source told me a cute story. “I work at a comm[unications] unit” stationed in a fictional overseas country “and we all showed up for commander’s call.” His fictional Lt Colonel took the stage. Like many fictional commanders, he likes to give pep talks to his fictional troops.

“What we do here in cyberspace will reverberate throughout history,” the fictional commander told his fictional audience. “Someday they’re going to name a base after a comm[unications] hero,” he insisted.

A fictional person sitting behind my fictional source blurted out with “is that before or after we name bases for all the guys who walked on the moon?”

Again, I insist I made up everything in this column. A total work of fiction. Any similarity to any commander living or dead is purely coincidental.

I’ve written quite a bit of prose on the U.S. Air Force’s stillborn effort to launch a full-blown “Cyber Command,” one equal in stature to Air Mobility Command and Air Combat Command. To put it simply: USAF wants to win the race to codify a DoD-centric cyber mission.

(I feel it’s a testament to this website that USAF started using the phrase “codify a DoD-centric cyber mission” after reading about it here. But hey, let’s not digress.)

I obtained a docu­ment that may have con­vinced AFSPC bureau­crats to go to war against AFCYBER bureau­crats — a war that con­tri­buted to the death of AFCYBER as a major command.

If you believe the official story line, then you believe USAF aborted “AFCYBER” only at the eleventh hour after they suffered a string of embarrassing nuclear accidents. “You guys need to focus on the core missions you’ve already got,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates told the flyboys. He fired his top two Air Force officials and scolded a few others for losing sight of the big picture.

USAF’s newly installed top officials thought about it and said “maybe we should scrap the idea of converting our old nuclear bomber command to a newfangled cyber command. Maybe our nuclear bomber command should focus on nuclear bomber duties. And maybe we should let Air Force Space Command (AFSPC) handle the ‘cyber space’ duties, given the fact we only just realized that ‘cyber’ and ‘outer’ are exactly the same thing when it involves bits & bytes.”

That’s if you believe the official story line.

Some very interesting people in AFSPC might tell you a different story if you buy the first round of beers. They’ll say a bitter rivalry exists between the “space cadets” and the “comm weenies” — a rivalry accidentally revealed in this classified photo. I quote from my previous column:

The big screens in the far background reveal … which major commands fall under which regions of AFCYBER’s Integrated Network Operations Security Center (INOSC). Noticeably missing from the list is Air Force Space Command.

I did a bit of research on this rivalry. It ultimately led to a document some space cadets secretly despise — a document that may have convinced the AFSPC bureaucracy to wage war against the AFCYBER bureaucracy.

AFCYBER’s death knell may have come (in no small part) from the foreword to an innocuous “AFNETOPS Classification Guide” signed on 20 April 2007 by Lieutenant General Robert J. Elder, Jr., the commander of Air Force Network Operations. I finally obtained this document’s foreword on 17 June 2009 via the Freedom of Information Act. Note the highlighted portion that offends space cadets:

This guide establishes security procedures, guidelines and administrative controls to protect information related to Air Force Network Operations (AFNetOps) policies, programs, capabilities, assessments and activities and serves as classification guidance for exercises and operations relating to AFNetOps. AFNetOps is the global-level command and control for the Air Force’s provisioned portion of the Global Information Grid. The Eighth Air Force Commander (8AF/CC) is designated as the AFNetOps Commander and the Original Classification Authority. Currently, AFNetOps is limited to terrestrial networks (i.e., NIPRNET and SIPRNET) with the provision to include airborne and space networks in the future. This guide addresses computer networks only. Information noted as classified by this guide could be expected to cause damage or serious damage to national security if disclosed without authorization. The Original Classification Authority shall identify or describe the nature of such damage.

“What does the highlighted portion mean, Rob?” It means a three-star general told a four-star general “you will report to me someday.” Ouch!

As Paul Harvey would say: “now you know the rest of the story…”

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Honestly? I don’t believe this little “oops” delivered the mortal blow to AFCYBER.

If we use Murder on the Orient Express as our analogy, then we can view the offending document’s foreword as the twelfth stab wound. The mortal blow in this case came from AFCYBER itself — or should I say, AFCYBER’s bureaucratic buffoons.

Better yet, let’s think of it as a Darwin Award rather than a murder mystery. This is what you get when bureaucrats take command of military operations…

(Memo to Lt Gen Elder: one word, Bob. “Groupthink.”)

To the Honorable Mr. Carey:

Bob! (May I call you Bob?) Bob, the many sailors who read my columns will attest to the fact I love you guys. When it comes to military network operations, I always bet on the squids — and that’s saying a lot when you realize I was one of the first four certified USAF information warfare crew chiefs.

You & I both know lives will someday hang in the balance for military network operations. I don’t think I can save my future airmen, but I do think I can save your future sailors. I’ll save your guys by telling you why my guys will perish.

An open letter to U.S. Navy CIO Robert J. Carey

I’ll use an “Airsop’s Fable” to help put you in the right context.

…Let’s say a pilot squadron invites the wing safety officer to a “beer call.” He flies a desk these days yet he remains a popular figure. The crowd shouts “Roast Beef!” as he walks into the officers’ club.

The squadron commander pipes up. “Hey, I don’t think you’ve met our new hot stick. Nosedive, meet Roast Beef.” The two shake hands. “The commander was just telling us about your Desert Storm days, sir,” the young pilot says with a smirk. “Ugh!” says Roast Beef. “I was your age back then, kid. And everyone who watched the cockpit video swore that herd looked like a convoy.”

Nosedive gets a weird look on his face. “Well, sir, I gotta head home. Great to meet you.” They shake hands … and Roast Beef finds himself holding a small slip of paper with “CZAR 52” written on it. He casually slips it into his pocket.

The wing safety officer soon heads for the bathroom. Standing in a stall, he pulls out the slip. On the back it reads “FALCON 44, Tues Noon.” He pockets it and returns to his colleagues as if nothing happened. Eventually he buys the last round and heads out the door.

On his way home, Roast Beef sidetracks to the flight operations center. The schedule includes a four-ship training mission on Tuesday with Nosedive flying as “FALCON 44.” As you might guess, the wing safety officer drops by for an unannounced visit on the day of the flight.

Standing on the tarmac, he asks Nosedive a straightforward question. “You think there’s an insti­tu­tional CRM failure going on, kid?” The pilot nods. “It’s Mad Dog. We’re all protecting him so he can keep flying.”

The wing safety officer remembers “Mad Dog” got his call sign at a previous base when he mistook a NATO pilot for an aggressor during a Red Flag exercise. “Mad Dog isn’t hotdogging or anything like that,” Nosedive assured him. “It’s just that … for maybe like five seconds after a break hard left, he just doesn’t act normal. He’s fine in any other direction, sir. But it’s white knuckles for the rest of us when he banks left.”

The wing safety officer ponders it. “And the Doc?” Nosedive shakes his head. “Mad Dog’s green on medical. Nobody wants to tell the Doc because he’ll just dee-niff Mad Dog.” Translation: fellow pilots know the flight surgeon will remove a pilot from flying status if he suspects anything.

Roast Beef knows he must ask the next question. “Do you know your commander trained under Mad Dog’s father?” Nosedive nods. “Do you think you’ll get punished for telling me this?” The young pilot looks him right in the eye. “He wrote that slip of paper. He can’t bear to hurt Mad Dog, but he can’t afford to go to his funeral…”

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The crash of “CZAR 52” in 1994 cost four men their lives due to an insti­tu­tionalized failure of CRM, or crew resource management.

I insist USAF suffers from the same problem right now in its cybernetwork realm. Their middle managers cut their teeth in a server room, not in a cockpit or an operating room. They do not understand the life-or-death importance of CRM — and their lack of understanding only contributes to their muddled groupthink consensus. To paraphrase Defense Secretary Robert Gates:

"The Air Force does not have a clear, dedi­cated autho­rity respon­sible for the nuclearcyber enter­prise who sets and main­tains rigorous stan­dards of operations."

Sadly, I believe USAF’s muddled groupthink consensus will cost some airmen their lives. They’ll need to learn the hard way from a “CZYBER 52″ event before they truly realize the need for CRM in cyberspace.

You can save the lives of future sailors by helping today’s sailors understand the need for CRM in cyberspace. I’ll bet on you to succeed.

Most Sincerely,

Rob Rosenberger

PS: I wanted to write this open letter to USAF’s CIO … except he hasn’t updated the content of his website since he took office in December. Go figure.

TechRepublic pundit Michael Kassner dares to ask a philosophical question. Do antivirus firms have the right to manipulate DNS queries en masse to protect society from a rampant worm or virus? “I’m concerned that precautionary actions being taken may be setting dangerous precedence,” Kassner notes.

Believe me: I envy him for asking this philosophical question. Kudos!

Kassner asks if anti­virus firms have the right to mani­pu­late DNS queries en masse to pro­tect society from the Downadup worm. This forces us to ask “Who watches the Watchmen?”

Obviously, we can respond to Kassner with a tagline from an upcoming movie: “Who watches the Watchmen?” It’s a corollary philosophical question that brings out the debate in all of us.

On the one hand, I don’t think Joe SixPack will care if a reputable DNS provider (e.g. OpenDNS) wants to protect him from a well-documented worm. Joe will almost certainly say “more power to ‘em” and go about his business. If the root servers themselves get involved in this, I think Joe will say the same thing. “They’re protecting me from harm, what’s wrong with that?”

On the other hand, I doubt the U.S. government wants a Russian or Chinese antivirus firm to control the direction & path its military computers take. If any nation could offer protection like this to the root servers themselves, they could very easily weaponize it for a cyber-war. “Greetings, Comrade! Your battalion need directions to g2.army.mil? March your Internet connection to 162.105.161.214…”

Then again, I could very well be wrong here. The Pentagon and the Beltway actually might not care at all who ultimately controls the root DNS servers that their DNS servers rely on.

Things willmight change if/when a reputable civilian firm takes up arms in a cyber-war, making enemies of some of their own customers. But I guess we’ll need to wait for OpenDNS to declare war against the U.S. Air Force.

“Waitaminit, Rob! Didn’t we already debate this in 2001 when The China Syndrome first came to light?” Sure we did — and Joe SixPack told us by his inaction that he doesn’t care one iota if his antivirus firm arms a hostile country with offensive cyber-smallpox technology. Likewise, the U.S. government told us by their inaction that they don’t care, either.

That’s why I might be wrong in thinking the U.S. government actually cares who controls the root DNS servers that their DNS servers rely on. And this only makes sense if you think about it. You just know some members of the U.S. Air Force information assurance community have configured OpenDNS on their home PCs and personal laptops. That means they trust a Russian antivirus firm to protect all of those sensitive-but-unclassified EPRs & OPRs they love to work on after duty hours…

Hollywood’s newest cinema release, “Eagle Eye,” continues their infatuation with blood-spilling high-action big-budget cyber-terror movies. Major film critics, on the other hand, continue to pan any flick with an absurd Rube Goldberg cyberspace plot.

[Editor's note: this column contains spoilers for the movie "Eagle Eye."]

But here’s the kicker. The U.S. Air Force desperately wants a role in every absurdist cyberspace big-budget movie made today. They now brag on their website about contributing to “Eagle Eye” and its Colossus / WOPR / Skynet plotline.

Let’s make sure we get this straight, folks. From roughly a third of the way in until the post-climactic wrap, the actors consistently describe it as the most horrifying act of “cyber-terrorism” ever inflicted on the United States. And who master­minded all this cyber-terror against the U.S.? No evil empires, no chest-thumping bad guys, no CIA double agents, no alien cyborgs… Believe it or not, the U.S. Depart­ment of Defense itself orchestrated every single bit of the movie’s cyber-terrorism, aided by a hoard of “comm weenies” with AFSCs like 3C0x2 and 3C0x1 and 3C1x1 and 3C2x1.

Now you know why the U.S. Air Force must lead the way in cyberspace. America needs them to build digital armories filled with deadly cyber weapons so insane villains can remotely hack into them during Phase IV of their diabolical plan to overthrow the United States government.

It pains me to say this, but … USAF has finally topped its “Iron Eagle” debacle of 1986. Let’s check out just a few of the Air Force’s bragging rights in “Eagle Eye,” shall we?

• A missile fired from an MQ-9 UAV wipes out an innocent funeral procession in an Afghan village;
• A malfunctioning, autonomous, self-aware, ultra-secret super­computer buried under the Pentagon no doubt falls under the auspices of Air Force Cyberspace Command;
• Two hapless individuals at a civilian airport step aboard a C-17 ramp with an unguarded (!) “A1 priority” container destined for the Pentagon;
• A hacked F-16 ejects its pilot over the Washington, DC region; and
• A hacked MQ-9 UAV fires missiles inside a freeway tunnel (aka a critical U.S. infrastructure) in the Washington, DC region.

It’s a movie cliché: “USAF will lose remote-control of deadly cyber­space weapon sys­tems that will go on to kill inno­cent people in the U.S. and/or a third-world country…”

You’ll notice I said “just a few of” USAF’s bragging rights. Don’t even get me started on a self-evolving weapon system that magically overcomes its intrinsic physical limitations to make the leap from omniscient to omnipotent. And don’t get me started on the posse comitatus issues for a Pentagon network that performs domestic spy ops. And don’t get me started on all the airports, trains, traffic lights, street cams, Porsche cruise controls, cell phones, X-ray machines, OnStarand any other non-USAF hacks.

Roger Ebert opened his movie review by saying “the word preposterous is too moderate to describe ‘Eagle Eye.’ This film contains not a single plausible moment after the opening sequence.” He goes on to stab the Rube Goldberg plotline: “Why not get a couple of no-neck guys from the West Side to kidnap Jerry, haul him on board a private jet and transport him to Them?”

I agree completely with Ebert. The apartment scene alone qualifies as an epic logistical nightmare. If a rogue military super­computer can acquire an entire truckload of bomb-making materials, poisons, sniper rifles, classified documents, plus fake passports without arousing any federal bureaucratic suspicion whatsoever, then lure delivery men to haul everything to an upstairs apartment without question, precisely during a small window of opportunity while the apartment dweller attends a family funeral—

—then certainly a rogue military super­computer can lure an FBI team to escort our protagonist to the Pentagon, believing he’ll slip into his twin brother’s shoes to wrap up a CIA mission.

I mean, come on! We’re talking about a military super­computer with enough artificial intelligence to fully understand and correctly exploit both human fear and maternal instinct. Tapping a federal marshal’s psychological factors should be a no-brainer, folks.

To paraphrase comedian Greg Giraldo: “Eagle Eye’s plotline has more holes in it than Mel Gibson’s apology.”

And USAF feels proud to have worked on it! Check out this movie studio press release:

Rosario Dawson actually traveled to the Air Force’s OSI headquarters in Washington, D.C. to learn what her real-life counterparts’ lives were like. “We arranged for her to meet with them to learn about what they do,” explains Air Force technical advisor [SMSgt] Vince Aragona. Dawson also spoke with a female agent similar to her own character at L.A. Air Force Base. “That person actually ended up as an extra in the movie,” appearing as Dawson’s sidekick in some scenes.

Other active duty military also appear in the film as extras. “When you get active duty people in here wearing uniform,” Aragona says, “they already know how to walk, how to carry themselves, how to wear the uniforms properly. They’re active duty, they know what they’re doing. Plus, they love doing it…”

I should note the fact Aragona’s name appears in the end credits.

Oh, by the way! Aragona is USAF’s casting director for the upcoming “Trans­formers” sequel. Contact him if you serve in the Air force and want to lose your life in an aerial battle you couldn’t possibly win. But there’s a catch — cyberspace weenies need not apply. The producers want dashing young Pararescue Jumpers and Forward Air Controllers and any other in-lieu-of AFSC that includes a beret.

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The most absurd quote comes to us from a positively glowing USAF press release:

“This was a great opportunity for the Air Force to be involved in such an action-packed thriller that reflects our core values through a prominent character in the story,” said Lt. Col. Francisco Hamm, the Air Force Entertainment Liaison Office director…

“Core values,” he says? Core values?!? CORE VALUES?!?

In the film, AFOSI special agent Zoe Perez plays one of many unwitting pawns in a military super­computer’s plot to overthrow the U.S. government. Heck, she doesn’t even deliver a monologue. What core value does “secondary movie character” fall under? And what core value does “stabbing a super­computer to death” fall under?

Believe it, folks — our intrepid female Air Force agent stabbed a super­computer to death. You see, unlike a normal COTS super­computer that stands idle in a corner, this MILSPEC monstrosity can freely move its silicon brain around the room on a metallic spine that hovers over a moat, and, uh… well…

Waitaminit. A moat? Man, you gotta love Hollywood.

Hmph. If someone asked me to visualize “a silicon brain on a metallic spine,” I’d think of a Star Trek android like Data or Ilia or Nomad. You know: something that can use its spine to leave a moat-filled bunker. But hey, let’s not digress…

So anyway. If we wait for the DVD, we’ll probably find a deleted scene where Perez’s core values of “integrity, service, and excellence” reflect in the way she retrieves that hacked UAV from the tunnel chase. I can already hear the monologue she delivers over Tom Morgan’s lifeless body:

“You know, when I first met Agent Morgan, we ended up facing off over an Airman’s supposedly accidental death. Both of us engaged in needless posturing while American lives stood at grave risk. I wanted to speak to the dead man’s twin brother; he wouldn’t let me. Later he needed my help to stop a terror attack, but I just verbally flipped him the bird and hopped a flight. I see now that each of us is an important asset in the fight against terror here or abroad. But it took Morgan’s death to open my eyes. It was he, not I, who made the first move. It was he who believed in me first. I learned, almost too late, that this counter-terrorism agent was a feeling creature and, because of it, the greatest in America. I learned, too late for him, that agents have to make their own way, to make their own mistakes. There can’t be any gift of perfection from outside ourselves. And, when agents seek such perfection, they find there’s only death, fire, loss, disillusionment, cyber-terrorism, the end of everything that’s gone forward. Counter-terror agents have always sought an end to toil and misery. It can’t be given; it has to be achieved. There is hope, but it has to come from inside, from an agent himself…

Now that’s a monologue, folks. Somebody look on the cutting room floor for Perez’s core values, will you?

“But Rob, Perez’s work led her to the Pentagon where she linked up with the Secretary of Defense.” You’d call a chance meeting important? Bah. Everybody can brag about sitting across from some renowned VIP at some chance meeting. My work led me to the White House for a computer security round­table with Richard Clarke. Big whoop.

And besides, I monologue about my own core values way more than this fictitious “Zoe Perez” movie character ever did. So there.

Listen to me, folks. I said it before and I’ll say it again. Hollywood thinks the Air Force’s core value is to set up digital armories filled with deadly cyber weapons so insane villains can remotely hack into them during Phase IV of their diabolical plan to overthrow the United States. If USAF envisions that as one of its core values, then Hamm deserves a glowing performance report.

It’s practically a movie cliché these days for any high-tech government plotline — “USAF will lose remote-control of deadly cyber­space weapon sys­tems that go on to kill inno­cent people in the U.S. and/or a third-world country.” Sad but true. And the U.S. Air Force willingly helps Hollywood to perpetuate this cliché.

“[This movie] re­flects our core values through a promi­nent charac­ter in the story,’ said Lt. Col. Fran­cisco Hamm, the Air Force Enter­tain­ment Liaison Office director…”

Frankly, I view this movie cliché as a side effect of USAF’s fetish to codify a DoD-centric cyberspace mission. Their public affairs branch followed orders to hawk cyberspace as a combat zone … but it looks like no one rescinded the order. USAF’s newly knighted commanding general, Norton Schwartz, should walk down the hall to his public affairs office and say “stop making us look like Colonel Klink; start making us look like Colonel Hogan.”

“Hamm.” What a name for a guy who schmoozes with Hollywood’s glitterati. I’ll bet a soda this staff officer enjoys an open TDY order. Check out his military bio (archived), his civilian bio (archived), plus his LinkedIn profile (archived). Unlike some active duty airmen who bag groceries or deliver pizzas to make ends meet, this airman played an extra in the movie “White Squall” and snapped photos for the indie film “Run Cody.”

(I’ll see a lot of email over this but someone needs to say it. “Doesn’t Hamm’s LinkedIn bio remind you of General ‘Doc Hollywood’?” I’ll bet a soda Hamm’s overseas tour overlapped Doc’s reign of TV terror. “He will probably be remembered most by service­members stationed in Europe for his many commercials on American Forces Network Television…”)

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It pains me to say this, but USAF has finally topped its “Iron Eagle” debacle of 1986.

I admit you’ll find some notable exceptions to this movie cliché. For example:

• In “Transformers,” USAF loses a battle on one of its own airfields and gets hacked into by a robot that slipped undetected onto Air Force One. U.S. Air Force officials pitched in to make the combat losses look authentic.
• In “Iron Man,” USAF loses an F-22 fighter jet; lets VIPs walk around a military hanger unescorted; lets officers carry personal cell phones into a classified air operations facility; and lets field-grade officers override flag-grade rules of engagement. U.S. Air Force officials pitched in to make the security lapses look authentic.
• In “Stealth,” yet another malfunctioning autonomous self-aware computer—

—oops, waitaminit. “Stealth” centered on the U.S. Navy. My bad. Still, it’s obvious USAF wants to help Hollywood make movies that make USAF look like a bunch of cyber-imbeciles. Hmph.

So. The U.S. Air Force wants to be the third leg in a triad known as the “military-industrial-entertainment complex,” eh? Fair enough. But their misplaced pride in their contributions to “Eagle Eye” makes me wonder if USAF played any role in the production of this action movie…

Readers will recall I lambasted the new Air Force Cyberspace Command for publishing a classified publicity photo. A few others have since blogged on this snafu.

Now — more than a year after the photo made its debut on USAF’s website — I received an email telling me it’s the focus of a contest at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan. The person who identifies the most boo-boos in the photo will earn a gift certificate for two large pizzas at the local food joint.

Don’t worry: my source knows to avoid plagiarism in his entry. He even offered to share the pizzas with me if he wins. Hmmm, where did I put my passport?

I surmise this contest is the brainchild of either Kadena’s Intel­li­gence Branch or (more likely) the base Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Squadron. Good for them! Airmen can learn things the easy way by studying others who learned the hard way. Let’s hope Kadena hangs the winning entry next to this motivational poster.

“A contest, Rob? It seems a bit cruel to the people in the photo.” I agree. And a mother cheetah is equally cruel when she brings live prey to her cubs so they can learn to hunt. If USAF wants to hunt the enemy in cyberspace, then a pizza contest is a small price to pay for the skills they’ll need.

I don’t know how you can enter the contest, but I do hope we get to read the winning entry. Stay tuned…

This month marks the 61st anniversary of the U.S. Air Force as a separate air service. (Happy birthday, Airmen!) Looking at their website, we see they selected … um, no unit at all for their monthly “heritage highlights.” Darn.

USAF’s home page used to highlight the exploits of legendary units like, say, the Tuskegee Wing. Each month they’d highlight a different unit, but this feature disappeared in the past eleven months.

Still, their decision to highlight “no unit” seems a better choice than last year’s pick. As part of USAF’s giant sixtieth birthday bash, they aimed a spotlight at (ta da!) the 67th Network Warfare Wing. Yes, folks, this unit epitomized USAF’s six decades as a separate air service — an intelligence outfit that hasn’t possessed an aircraft since 1993 and wasn’t even designated as a cyberspace unit in the 1990s.

Don’t underestimate the hullabaloo of USAF’s sixtieth anniversary, folks. They tasked a one-star general to manage the year-long festivities, beginning with President Bush’s dedication of a new Air Force Memorial. The flyboys went all-out with newspaper commentaries, TV commercials, artwork, heritage videos, ballroom events, you name it…

…Yet the Air Force also harbors a deep political fetish for cyberspace. They prostituted their own history last year in a cancerous quest to defend DoD’s networks. They want to protect cyberspace so badly that their website touted the heritage of a NON‑flying unit for their all-important sixtieth anniversary.

Can you imagine doing something this partisan at, say, your mother’s sixtieth birthday bash? “Mom, we poured over the many photographs of you as a child, a wife, a mother, and a business­woman. We selected the one moment in time that sums up the very essence of your life and we turned it into a huge framed poster. Ta da! It’s a picture of you stuffing envelopes for the McGovern campaign in 1972…”

Can you imagine doing some­thing this partisan at your mother’s 60th birth­day bash?

So! A decision like this doesn’t just happen, you know — a ranking officer had to ratify this baby. Who, exactly, approved a non‑flying unit to exemplify USAF’s legacy on their big six-oh anniversary?

Wouldn’t you like to know the name of the ranking officer who picked a non‑flying unit over the legendary squadrons that prowled the First World War? Wouldn’t you like to know why he or she ignored flying units with Medal of Honor recipients in World War II and the Korean War? Wouldn’t you like to know the criteria a ranking Air Force officer used to ignore flying units decorated in the Berlin Airlift?

And wouldn’t you like to see this partisan officer get force shaped?

Dear Mike (may I call you Mike?),

Let’s talk about the race between the military services to codify a DoD-centric cyberspace mission. As you know, USAF insists they hold the lead in cyberspace. But as I explained in a previous column, they have “no focused single vision for cyberspace.” Worse: USAF’s muddled groupthink creates a situation where the cyberspace mission serves the bureaucrats, not the other way around.

An open letter to USAF CIO Lt. Gen. Michael Peterson

Mike, I hateneed to say this… I know you can’t articulate a focused single vision for a DoD-centric cyberspace mission. (I can’t either, so don’t feel bad. Neither of us qualifies as the next Billy Mitchell.) But if you’ve got real guts, Mike, then you can do a lot for the Air Force — by demanding an aggressive single voice in cyberspace doctrines & policies.

Let’s begin with a very simple example, Mike. Something like, oh, that logon banner every Chinese military hacker sees when he breaks into your networks. This rambling EULA has undergone too much bureaucratic pencilwhipping over the years. I’ll quote the mandatory banner in AFI 33-219 para A3.3.6:

This is a Department of Defense computer system. This computer system, including all related equipment, networks and network devices (specifically including Internet access), are provided only for authorized U.S. Government use. DOD computer systems may be monitored for all lawful purposes, including to ensure that their use is authorized, for management of the system, to facilitate protection against unauthorized access, and to verify security procedures, survivability, and operational security. Monitoring includes active attacks by authorized DOD entities to test or verify the security of this system. During monitoring, information may be examined, recorded, copied, and used for authorized purposes. All information, including personal information, placed on or sent over this system may be monitored. Use of this DOD computer system, authorized or unauthorized, constitutes consent to monitoring of this system. Unauthorized use may subject you to criminal prosecution. Evidence of unauthorized use collected during monitoring may be used for administrative, criminal, or other adverse action. Use of this system constitutes consent to monitoring for these purposes.

Okay, Mike. Let’s rewrite it with an aggressive single voice, shall we?

Use this computer system only for authorized U.S. Government (USG) purposes. Any use of this system constitutes consent to monitoring. USG monitors its computers & related equipment, networks, and Internet access for all lawful purposes such as to detect unauthorized use. Authorized USG personnel may actively attack this computer to verify its security. USG may examine, record, and use for any authorized purpose any information including personal data if placed on or sent over this system. USG may use any evidence of unauthorized use for adverse administrative or criminal action.

You see, Mike? An aggressive single voice can say the same thing in half the words and can phrase it for the entire federal government, not just the Pentagon. I can show you how to rewrite USAF’s Cyberspace Policy Directive 13-3 if you need another example.

(Yes, Mike, I suppose you could apply an aggressive single voice to those mind-numbing daily SPINs. But please, let’s not get sidetracked by present-day aerial contributions to ONE/OEF/OIF. Follow the lead of your recently ousted Chief of Staff — stay focused on the pivotal role cyberspace will play in future wars.)

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I know what you’re thinking, Mike. “HAF/JA won’t like your rewrite of the logon banner, Rob.”

C’mon, Mike: we both know lawyers don’t like anyone’s original words. They’ll change every draft document that touches their ornate mahogany desks. Those shysters would revamp the Bible, the Koran, and the Torah if they ever got the chance. “This Gospel of John is all well and good, Mike, but we need to change 3:16 from ‘gave’ to ’sent’ before I’ll let it go up the approval chain for the LORD’s signature…”

Bureaucrats and lawyers alike hate an aggressive single voice. The mediocrity of their positions compels them to make even the most trivial changes to a draft document just so they can feel like they earned their sage wages. “This Happy and Safe Fourth of July email is all well and good, Mike, but we need to change ‘happy’ to ‘glad’ before I’ll let it go up the approval chain for the Chief of Staff’s digital signature…”

Mike, you probably think I blame bureaucrats and lawyers for screwing up USAF’s quest for a cyberspace mission. “You must believe they’ve got a Medusa-like writing style that turns to stone any document they look at.” As a matter of fact I do believe it — and you can do a lot for USAF by removing their dialects from cyberspace doctrines & policies.

Listen to me, Mike. Bureaucrats and lawyers speak & write in their own synthetic dialects, similar in many ways to a regional patois like the Cajun and Quebec dialects. Lawyers favor the Legalese English synthetic dialect, doctors favor the Medicinal English synthetic dialect, and bureaucrats favor the Bureau-American synthetic dialect. An aggressive single voice favors the E-Prime synthetic dialect. (Read Tongue & Quill pp.73-75 for starters.)

If we can say “a synthetic jet fuel is still genuinely a jet fuel,” then we can say “a synthetic dialect is still genuinely a dialect.” Synthetic or not, you must use the right fuel for a particular engine and you likewise must use the right dialect to express a particular concept. USAF has chosen the wrong dialects to express its concepts for cyberspace, Mike. You can change this if you’ve got the guts.

Mike, the great USAF visionaries like Billy Mitchell and John Boyd never spoke Legalese with a Bureau-American accent. Do you honestly think a great cyberspace visionary will talk like a bureaucrat?

Ask yourself an obvious question, Mike. “When I first saw this guy’s aggressively written logon banner, did I instinctively want to make ’subtle but important’ changes to it?” If you answer “yes,” then it proves you speak & write in the wrong dialect for a DoD-centric cyberspace mission. Still, Mike, you can do a lot for USAF’s cyberspace doctrines & policies if you mandate the correct dialect.

If you do just this one thing, Mike, you’ll pave the way for the next Billy Mitchell. Do you have the guts it will take to mandate it?

(Uh, please don’t ask me to help you develop an aggressive single voice. No offense, Mike! I really do want to save myself for the next Billy Mitchell. He’ll need all the help he can get and I need to look clean & smell fresh when he beckons for me.)

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Oh, wait! Perhaps I should ask two more obvious questions:

1. Is DoD itself in a race between the Cabinet secretaries to codify a cyberspace mission across the entire Executive branch?
2. Is the Oval Office itself in an even bigger race with the Legislative and Judicial branches to codify a sovereign cyberspace mission?

If you answer either question with a “yes,” then you can temporarily ignore the fact USAF needs an aggressive single voice for cyberspace doctrines & policies. Why? Because Washington will refuse to let the Pentagon implement its own focused single vision for cyberspace until all of the muddled USG bureaucracies finish all of their own little turf battles with each other.

Or until China reclaims Taiwan by exploiting USAF’s groupthink mentality in cyberspace. Whichever comes second…

Most sincerely,

Rob Rosenberger
SecurityCritics.org

cc: Mr. John Grimes, Pentagon CIO
cc: Mr. Robert Carey, Navy CIO
cc: Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Sorenson, Army CIO

According to Military.com, “the Air Force’s cyber warriors” believe that “dropping a ‘logic bomb’ into a computer network is the same as launching a 2,000-pound JDAM from a B-2 bomber at 20,000 feet.  You’ve done the same kind of damage but with different means.”  Follow [this link] for the breathless story…