NSA Attacks Student Soldiers in ... Cyber War!

The NSA held its annual Cyber Defense Exercise last week in Annapolis, pitting the agency's elite Red Team against Air Force cadets and Navy midshipmen in all out simulated cyber war. Can the NSA's crusty electronic warriors slip the bulwark of firewalls and anti-virus products erected by the fresh-faced, tech savvy recruits, or will they be blockaded by the elite skills of the student defenders?

On the wall was the Naval Academy's main password for this exercise, but midshipmen and professors screamed "No!" when a reporter started to copy it.

Oops. Lesson learned: stick with Post-its for your secret passwords. But as the Annapolis daily The Capital continues, the exercise (called "Protecting the Matrix") was absolutely not a frivolous diversion from a bloody, entrenched war abroad. It was a link in America's proud tradition of cyber battle stretching back over 200 years.

Like sentries in Gen. Washington's Revolutionary War army, the mids had to safeguard passwords from a devious enemy, and like the soldiers and sailors who fought World War II, they had to make sure everything was safely encrypted.

The most telling quote is from Air Force major Tom Augustine, who teaches computer science at the Naval Academy. "We really believe this is the next threat to our country; many believe the next war will be fought in the cyber world." Why not the current one. Please?