Forwarded from: William Knowles <wk@private> http://www.nj.com/news/bridgeton/local/index.ssf?/base/news-5/1065097517305070.xml October 02, 2003 By KAY RUDDEROW Staff Writer BRIDGETON -- U.S. Navy CT02 (SW) Ryan Nardi, who "joined the Navy to see the world," spent three years of his tour of duty stationed in Winter Harbor, Maine, a part of Arcadia National Park. All he got to see was the beautiful view of the northern Atlantic coast. Then he was sent to the tropical island of Diego Garcia, where he was on routine security patrol on the evening of Sept. 10, 2001, guarding an all-but-empty airfield. When he awoke the next morning, following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 that shook the nation's sense of security, the landing field was full. "You couldn't park a Volkswagen," Nardi told his parents, Thomas and Melenie, of Bridgeton. The airfield was filled with aircraft that, for various reasons, had been sent to the Navy station located there. Nardi, who graduated from Sacred Heart High School, Vineland in 1994 and joined the Navy in 1996, returned to his home port of San Diego, Calif., a few weeks later and set sail for the Arabian Gulf aboard the USS Nimitz. As a computer network specialist, Nardi works to prevent hackers from interrupting the passage of vital information and data that travels through the Carrier Strike group's command. He is temporarily assigned to the Nimitz' Operations Department from Fleet Information Warfare Center Detachment, San Diego. "I monitor the system, look for alerts, or something that doesn't look normal," Nardi said in an interview with the Navy Newstand. "I work with the information security manager to assist if there are any questions, and I go around the Nimitz Strike Group to assist the ships if they have alerts," he said. Nardi's interest in computers and networking was gained early on in his career where he heard stories about computer hackers, he said. "I wanted to know how they were able to access systems and also how to prevent that from happening. Anything can happen in this field," he added. As part of his job, Nardi ensures that the Navy maintains strong passwords for each computer user's account, and those concerned will know on what day a certain virus may attack the system. "I love the work. It's fun. People may know what their jobs are every day. For me, I never know when a virus may show up, or what's gong to happen next," Nardi said. Melenie Nardi, an obviously proud mother of this innovative young sailor, said her son is one of the fortunate ones who can e-mail his family once a week. In one of them, she said, he paraphrased a line George Bailey used in the movie, "It's a Wonderful Life.'' "Bailey may have liked hearing train whistles, plane engines, and anchor chains. But a sailor likes to hear mail call, liberty call and when this cruise will be over," he wrote. And his mother hopes for that to be soon, so she can replace the small flag with a lone star in the middle that flies outside the family's home, signifying a member engaged in active duty, with another type of flag, showing that he is safely home. *==============================================================* "Communications without intelligence is noise; Intelligence without communications is irrelevant." Gen Alfred. M. Gray, USMC ---------------------------------------------------------------- C4I.org - Computer Security, & Intelligence - http://www.c4i.org ================================================================ Help C4I.org with a donation: http://www.c4i.org/contribute.html *==============================================================* - ISN is currently hosted by Attrition.org To unsubscribe email majordomo@private with 'unsubscribe isn' in the BODY of the mail.
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