http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthsuperior/news/6014532.htm BY STEVE KUCHERA NEWS TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER June 05, 2003 Hibbing native Mike Swanson has long enjoyed computers. Now he's on the path to protecting them. Swanson, a recent University of Wisconsin-Superior graduate, is entering the federal Cyber Corps program, which will pay for his master's degree. In exchange, he'll work for the government for at least two years, defending the country against Internet hackers and terrorists. "It's new, it's cutting-edge," he said. "It's ironic that part of our learning curve is to learn how to hack computers so we can prevent future hacking." Attacks on the Internet and computers are increasing. According to the Computer Emergency Response Team/Coordination Center at Carnegie Mellon University, 82,094 such incidents were reported last year. That compares with 55,100 during 2001 and 21,756 during 2000. "It's very easy to attack the Internet -- there are no boundaries," said Vipin Kumar, director of the Army High Performance Computing Research Center. "You sit anywhere and attack a computer anywhere in the world." The center is working with the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities to develop an intrusion detection system to help prevent cyberattacks on computer systems. Luckily, Kumar said, many of the attacks are launched by solitary hackers who are bored and doing it for their own pleasure. "If an organized entity launches these attacks, they will be meant to do big damage," he said. "And the amount of damage that can be done is enormous." To help defend against such attacks, the National Science Foundation announced in May 2001 that it would pay for Scholarship-for-Service programs at six colleges, including the University of Tulsa in Tulsa, Okla. Swanson is one of just 12 students accepted for Tulsa's Cyber Corps program next fall. The federal government will pay the students' tuition and room and board, travel to conferences and a stipend. Between his two years of graduate school, Swanson will learn firsthand about computer security at a federal agency during a summer internship. After he graduates with a master's degree in computer science as well as several federal computer security certificates, he'll go to work for the federal government. Swanson was excited when he learned the government had accepted him to the Cyber Corps program. "I was just blown away," he said. "They pay for everything. "The prof at Tulsa put it to me in this way," Swanson said. " 'You can go to work for Microsoft and make six figures in a few years. Or you can go to work for the government and not make as much money, but you're going to have a life. You're not going to have red eyes, sitting in front of a computer monitor for 16 hours a day. You're going to have time for family, vacations.' " Swanson, 23, decided in high school to make computers his career. "I took a programming class, and I was fairly good at it," he said. However, his interest in computers began earlier. "When I was about 6, 7, 8, I use to copy programs out of a book," Swanson said. "I had no clue what I was doing. I would just type each character. I would be excited just to see what would happen on the screen." Despite his interest in computers, Swanson hadn't planned on going to college, far less to grad school. "Then I went to HCC and got my AA degree," he said, referring to Hibbing Community College. "Then, nearing the end of my schooling at HCC, I thought I might as well look for a four-year degree." He decided to pursue a degree in computer science at UWS because of the school's small size and reputation for one-on-one attention. It's because of one of his instructors, Victor Piotrowski, that Swanson learned about the Cyber Corps program and will now work toward a master's degree. Piotrowski once asked Swanson to perform some research on computer security and the Cyber Corps program. "One day he said to me, 'Have you thought about graduate school?' " I said 'not really.' Here I was, nearing the end of my bachelor's's degree and I'm going on again. It has to end sometime soon." - ISN is currently hosted by Attrition.org To unsubscribe email majordomoat_private with 'unsubscribe isn' in the BODY of the mail.
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