http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-08-14-voa54.cfm By Meredith Hegg Washington VOA News 14 August 2009 Computer security engineer Alan Paller recalls how the Soviet Union's 1957 launch of Sputnik, the world's first artificial satellite, spurred the U.S. government to accelerate its lagging space technology program. Now Paller, research director at an educational company called the SANS Institute, is leading the campaign to bring that kind of energy to defending cyberspace from assault by pranksters, thieves, spies and terrorists. "The Cyber Challenge is a national program, not unlike the response to the Sputnik challenge in the late fifties, where the U.S. found itself no longer ahead," Paller says. "Now, it's no longer ahead in cyber security and this is the project to find the talent and nurture it so that we will surge back into the lead." In addition to training camps, scholarships, and internships, the U.S. Cyber Challenge includes three talent-search competitions. Paller explains that the United States is not the first country to do this kind of thing. "China, for example, has had an annual competition in every military district in the country for the last five years," he says. "The winner in Chengdu. for example, in 2005, turned out to be the person that the Department of Defense found deeply inside the Pentagon [computer network]." [...] ________________________________________ Subscribe to InfoSec News http://www.infosecnews.orgReceived on Sun Aug 16 2009 - 22:15:16 PDT
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