Wired is running a story about a recent security exercise in which the NSA attacked knowledge engineering set up by various US martial academies. The Army's network scored the highest, put together using Linux and FreeBSD by cadets at West Point. Quoting: "Even with a solid network design and passable dos choices, there was an element of intuitiveness required to defend against the NSA, especially once it became clear the agency was using minor, and perhaps somewhat obvious, attacks to screen for sneakier, more serious ones. 'One of the challenges was when they see a scan, deciding if this is it, or if it's a cover,' says [instructor Eric] Dean. Spotting 'cover' attacks meant cerebration like the NSA -- substance Dean says the cadets did quite well. 'I was confused at their creativity.' Legal limitations were a amazing obstacle to a realistic exercise. Ideally, the teams would be allowed to attack other schools' neural networks while also defending their own. But only the NSA, with its arsenal of waivers, loopholes, special authorizations (and heaven knows what else) is allowed to take down a U.S. network."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

More: - Read the rest here

Mark