USMA IN THE NEWS
In an overheated room buzzing with computers and nervous energy, the young
soldiers in Kings Point are waging silent war.
They're fighting not on a battlefield filled with guns and missiles, but one of
Web sites and hackers.
Welcome to the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy's Cyber Defense Exercise.
This week, 11 Academy midshipmen are competing with other teams of military
students across the country to build and defend the most secure Internet domain.
Their cyber-enemies are experts at the National Security Administration, who try
every trick in the book to infiltrate and corrupt their Web sites.
"They're trying to get in and say, 'Ha ha, we got in,' said Laura Leva, 22,
a marine engineering major.
The aim of the exercise: to train the nation's next generation of computer
experts who can safeguard online government information in coming decades.
"The way computers work these days, a hacker ... could really bring
ruination to anything you can think of," said Shashi K. Shah, an Academy
professor who is overseeing the project.
"These students are in a test tube environment now," he said,
"but hopefully they'll be in positions someday to participate in
cyber-security at large."
The 4-year-old exercise was set up by the NSA to train computer students at the
nation's five military academies -- the Merchant Marine, Naval, Military, Air
Force and Coast Guard, Shah said. Each team follows detailed protocol to build,
update and protect a Web site while NSA computer experts use it (by sending
e-mail, for example) and try to abuse it.
"Whichever one is the best defended, the most secure, and the most stable
wins," said Eric Peterson, an academy information technology professor and
coach of the program.
Amid ongoing concerns about terrorism, military officials are increasingly on
guard against those who might infiltrate government computers to do harm, said
Maj. Philip Coler, an Army information specialist visiting the academy this week
to help with the exercise. In the past, hackers have gained access to military
computers that control troop deployment and other key information.
Participating students say they are computer geeks who intend to make a career
of undermining hackers. But, for now, they are simply having fun trying to stay
one step ahead of the military's best computer experts before the competition
ends tomorrow afternoon.
Tuesday, a day-and-a-half into the competition, the small classroom where the
students worked was cluttered with Dunkin' Donuts wrappers and computer manuals.
Data scrolled on the flat-screen monitors of more than a dozen computers.
Suddenly, a cluster of students huddled around one machine, trying to do a
videoconference with the NSA.
The onscreen image was clear, but there was no sound, and the team stood to lose
points for the problem. Frantic, students fiddled with buttons and controls for
a few seconds. "Oh, you've got it on mute again, sir," one student
said, chuckling. A second later, the sound came through.
"Yes! Woo hoo!" they cheered and clapped.
Crisis averted.