i use quotes around the word "important" because most (not all) people with a rank above Captain are primadonnas that belive they are far more important in the execution of various things than anyone else. Get ten LTCs in a room together and you'll walk out with ten number one priorities of various actual importance in the grand scheme of things. Their rank is what makes something important, they are trained that way from the beginning of their military career, and most dont differentiate between "random soldier with lesser rank that must obey" and "random civilian of any grade that is allowed to think for themselves".

I should have clarified from the beginning that I am in a strategic (non-combat) environment. The only danger involved is to someone's promotion, which is seen more as a right than something that is earned these days.
Tactical (combat or direct support), its quite different yes, but i have no experience there so i cant comment.

Regarding the camera, DISA provides two "profiles" for the security configuration. The more hardened one has the camera, video recording capability, and other settings locked down. That is the profile we are operating under in my area of the theater. If there is a true requirement for it or use of the camera aides in the accomplishment of some mission, i have no problem flipping the switch, however this was a clear case of commander envy. One guy had a good reason and had the capability, the other guy had neither and was jealous. There must be a level of rigidity in order to maintain a baseline, otherwise eventually there are so many exceptions that they become the baseline. Not a problem if there is a good reason for it, but very often there is not.

Dealing with tedious personality and political crap like that takes my time away from real network defense. Posting on slashdot, too...

the point is that money is being wasted to cater to "important" people's fashion sense.

Macs are de-facto no longer authorized for Army use (no current security baseline, even for a "standalone" system) and *nix is relegeted to the server room. Windows is the only game in town for workstations, yet few have a vocal issue with that (usually just Mac people). So why is there a push for three (BB, Android, and Apple) completely different products and the costs imposed by supporting them as opposed to a single standard that enables mobile computing while simplifying the implementation and lowering the cost? How about whatever apps the army develops or contracts out, now we have three versions that need to be developed and supported.
Why go through all this? Because it has very little to do with enabling anyone, it is trendy and everyone wants their favorite in their pocket.

Had a LTC last week whining about another Battalion's commander having the camera enabled on their blackberry while his was disabled. He wanted it, but couldnt provide any mission-related justification as to why he should have it. This behavior is everywhere, and it wastes far more money, time, and manpower than it should.

Furthermore, while the GSA vegas scandal put the spotlight on government-funded trips, TDY still happens and it costs a lot of money. People /will/ be shipped back to america (i am overseas) for $3500, paid $92 per diem (approximate hawaii rate, including weekends), and their salary for a one-to-two week class that cost the govt $20k+ (for a training vendor) to learn whichever product is chosen to manage all these devices. Compared to the wars its a drop in the bucket, but that kind of money would eliminate the need to sequester/furlough a few people on the payroll, or whatever you like. The govt loves to waste money, and this is yet another example.

I was at a conference a few years back (LandWarNet, before it was split into pieces) and the SecDef was making the keynote via VTC and was foaming at the mouth for his new iphone 4. This is all top-driven.

Two-Star General Whoever doesnt want a DoD fork of android, he wants an iphone or regular android issued by his command that he can use for official and personal use (shhh!) without having to spend $100/mo on a personal mobile phone contract.

I have LTCs wasting money on devices they dont want to use (apparently the Slate tablet isnt so hot anymore if you need ethernet and a non-bluetooth keyboard) and pestering me for devices they will have no need for (iphone, android offer few advantages over a BB7 device in regards to phone calls and email) even if they could have them or the limitations didnt make them unappealing.

our tax dollars at work, we are financing people's workplace trendiness. some will say 'so what its an iphone, replacing an existing blackberry device and contract', but its much more. Part of the DISA configuration requirements is a management server. Thats enterprise hardware and a service agreement. There will also be funded training for use of the management server. Not to mention some poor SOB will gain an additional side-duty.

I work for the DoD (Army) and have seen the datacenter consolidation progress in my organization and others in my Theatre. There is no method or order to collect energy savings analysis, so we are never going to know how much money/power is being saved. No one, at least in my Signal command or lower, ever asked for it.

Of course, being that the consolidation is mostly-complete in my Theatre, its too late go gather any real data. Most likely, Brigades will simply make estimates based on the number of servers then and now.

We also have nearly every user workstation hibernating after ten minutes of user inactivity as part of the three billion dollar energy-saving presidential order. No data has been collected on how effective that is either.

Its all typical DoD kneejerk bullshit, no one knows the true impact, they just want to finish before their peer Commanders to look good for promotion.

quick clarification, in the Army (even CoE), SENSITIVE information is what is on the "vanilla" computers 99% of the time. it is a designator for information that is classified higher than PUBLIC, lower than SECRET, and for use at work only.

SENSITIVE data could be anything between a list of unit personnel's home telephone numbers to a comprehensive list of vulnerabilities across the entire unclassified network. anything deemed too-sensitive is classified higher and resides on a different network.

odds are better than decent that this is not information that will allow all our dams to be shut down or something, however it could give whoever nabbed it an overview that, combined with other data, could be compromising. its like someone reading your diary. it sucks, and they learned a lot, but it probably wasnt very valuable information to begin with. at least it shouldnt be.

these things are usually conducted either from a valid account (lowest-level guest privs) or only physical access to a network asset -both from within the network boundary. there are plenty of outside attempts every day to determine if current boundary defenses are robust enough to keep out those who are trying to get in (not to say it couldnt be better).

the point of these is indeed to test defenses, as there are people with teams (to varying degrees of effectiveness) assigned to every military network solely to defend their network through internal culture, device hardening, regular auditing, and other such preventative measures. the Red Teams are very few in number and most i've encountered have a high level of skill in their particular area and are good at weeding out even small but dangerous deficiencies.

typically a red team exercise is also a secret to the target, so there is no opportunity to unplug the router until various monitoring systems detect something scary enough to make you want to do that. i dont like the idea of it being a known event, i've seen plenty of units "prepare" for a planned network security inspection by hiding things or patching deficiencies enough to hold them until after the inspection team has left. yes, people unplug stuff so the inspection team doesnt see it, its quite possible the same thing happens during this highly-publicized (and thus highly-political) NATO exercise, but that depends on the vigilance of those in charge of the information security program and the quality of their boss and their boss's boss (etc), many of whom would not risk a black eye for something as silly as network security (typically something that only receives focus when there is an exercise such as this).

but then how would soldiers all be eligible to receive free college educations??

i work for the army as a civilian (so my hours and paycheck will soon suffer from the sequester). as much as i dislike working for them (just because its a shitty organization), there is about 23 hours worth of mandatory training EVERY QUARTER. at least half of this is sensitivity and cultural awareness training. the military takes it all VERY seriously, but shitbirds will do shitbird things regardless of what they are told.

yeah, those are called "maps of the USA", likewise, a map of spain doesnt typically include the rest of the continent or neighbors.
another sign that blind nationalism is really out of hand: when people base their criticisms on map orientation

if there was a god and it wanted to be discovered, wouldnt it make the task a little easier? why make it possible only when reaching this particular technological milestone? why not make DNA physically resemble the words "Hi, I'm God. You found me!", or divinely imprint "By God (c)(R)" on all our asses in different fancy fonts." pretty clear stuff.

if for some reason this breakthrough was where a god was proven to exist, i think that unless a significant event occurred along with it (the rapture or whatever) it would indicate the thing flew away into space a while ago and hasnt been keeping track of us.

your kids will get jobs, the ignorant ones will become politicians

not having access to internet would change the way i live, however so would removing chairs from my home, or not having access to virtually unlimited amount of water. doesnt make it essential, though.

most people have access to the internet at work, or at a public library, or a friend, or a net cafe, etc...
i would say that unless you rely on the internet for /actual/ necessities such as money for food, it is not a necessity itself, merely a very useful tool with a variety of uses. like a toolchest or more aptly, a tablet.

of course, this is coming from a guy who had an outhouse until he was 10, only reads on his tablet, and isnt botherd by most inconveniences.

if it was even longer ago, wouldnt the galaxy be closer?

it depends on the time of year. i could wear the same clothes over more if its winter, but summer in japan precludes wearing undershirts, underwear, socks, and oftentimes even pants two days in a row.

i'll take next week (at work) to see what i can get away with. thought i was sparse in my packing before, but i feel like i can pare it down a bit now. it really makes a difference when i'm walking across a country with everything on my back. thanks!

I once backpacked through Japan for three weeks, much of it in secluded areas (outskirts of Hokkaido) where I anticipated I could not often wash or purchase new clothes.

I packed very carefully:
two pairs of pants (and the pair I was wearing)
four shirts (and wearing one, etc)
six boxers
six pairs socks
three undershirts
*truly* essential toiletries (toothbrush, toothpaste, deoderant, trimmer)
small japanese towel (HHGttG was right)
rain cover for the pack (packs down small, but takes enough space to make it worth noting)
no laptop or anything like that

even with very efficient packing techniques my 40L pack was approaching full (though certainly not "stuffed" full).
I'm curious how you got down to 15L for such a long trip.