Association of Former Information Warriors

In response to my TaoSecurity Blog post titled Buck Surdu and Greg Conti Ask "Is It Time for a Cyberwarfare Branch?", I decided to create the Association of Former Information Warriors. I set up a LinkedIn Group with the following description:

The Association of Former Information Warriors is a professional networking group for those who once served as military members in information operations (IO) or warfare (IW) units. The mission of the AOFIW is to propose, promote, and debate policies and strategies to preserve, protect, and defend digital national security interests. Candidate members must be referred by current members. Those no longer in military service are candidates for full membership; those currently serving in uniform are candidates for associate membership.

In other words, to join AOFIW you need to know an existing member. This weekend I am going to try kickstarting the membership process by inviting those I personally know and trust to meet these criteria. You must be a LinkedIn user to join the group, since that is the mechanism we will use to vet and accept members.

I'll be posting about AOFIW at the AOIFW Blog, which will offer thoughts from other AOFIW members as we grow the group.



Richard Bejtlich is teaching new classes in Europe and Las Vegas in 2009. Online Europe registration ends by 1 Apr, and seats are filling. "Super Early" Las Vegas registration ends 15 Mar.

Comments

yoshi said…
I'm not clear on your goal here. If your goal is to "promote, and debate policies, etc" wouldn't it be prudent to at least expand your membership to current information professionals within the various military branches?

And it also suggests that those outside the military establishment don't have valid opinions on how things could be improved but that's another debate.
10:26 PM
Richard Bejtlich said…
Those no longer in military service are candidates for full membership; those currently serving in uniform are candidates for associate membership.
11:56 AM
Anonymous said…
What types of occupational specialties would be relevant (intelligence, sig int/EW, communications, information management, etc)?
7:08 PM
Anonymous said…
Sounds like a support group. ;)
6:30 AM
joelhar said…
Interesting. Former military who worked in IO or IW "units". If I had to guess there should be a lot of leeway in how that is interpreted... I worked IO on the Joint Staff, Army, SOCCENT for almost ten years, then five years in industry, still working it.
11:25 AM
Anton Chuvakin said…
Well, if somebody was InfoOps/PsyOps [in whatever country] back in 70-80s, he might not have touched a computer at all; so are those also your target audience?
1:05 PM
Richard Bejtlich said…
Thank you for your comments and questions. I have posted thoughts at Answering Some AOFIW Questions.
9:47 PM
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