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What Is Cyber Command?

A new government group will be dedicated to fighting and preventing attacks to military computers — like war over computer networks.

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Listen to Roger Cressey
Listen to Richard A. Clarke

On May 21st, the Department of Defense officially activated a group called US Cyber Command, a United States armed forces sub-unified command subordinate to United States Strategic Command. Essentially, it’s a group dedicated to fighting and preventing attacks to military computer networks. Military computers have always been the target of hackers trying to get into the system but as technology has improved, the attacks are more sophisticated and appear to be branching out from attacks by individuals to attacks by foreign governments. It’s basically war except fought over computer networks instead of battlefields and fought with code instead of soldiers. We talk to veteran security expert Roger Cressey about what the agency is, what it does, and what the future of this war looks like.

We also speak with Richard A. Clarke. Clarke is perhaps best known for his book Against All Enemies wherein he recounts his many years of service advising various presidents on matters of national security, including serving in the George W. Bush administration in the months leading up to 9/11. In recent years, Clarke has focused on what he sees as a massive liability, computer network security. Clarke explains why privately owned and operated networks can’t have the same level of protection that the Pentagon is trying to provide military networks.

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