Although battered by the COVID-19 pandemic, the school year usually ends in many countries around the world at the beginning of the Northern Hemisphere summer -- between July and August -- when courses, workshops and camps open in the United States to teach various things, including espionage.
Although battered by the COVID-19 pandemic, the school year usually ends in many countries around the world at the beginning of the Northern Hemisphere summer -- between July and August -- when courses, workshops and camps open in the United States to teach various things, including espionage.
It turns out that the National Security Agency, the NSA, and the Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, which are not engaged in the noble task of education, take advantage of this summer period to offer training to young people of all ages, who could sign up to be spies or hackers in the future.
This was revealed in an interesting article by Argentinean journalist, writer and university professor Gustavo Veiga, published in the newspaper Página 12.
To do so, they use summer camps scattered throughout the United States, where they teach basic courses in two cybersecurity programs called GenCyber and CyberPatriot.
GenCyber is run by the NSA, sponsored by entities such as the National Science Foundation and other federal partners that make juicy annual financial contributions.
One of the justifications is to awaken enthusiasm for cybersecurity at the so-called "k-12" level, i.e. from 4 to 12 years of age.
Seniors and college students receive more advanced classes with the purpose of having as many young people as possible choosing this branch that, according to the NSA, is vital to the nation's security as it becomes even more dependent on cyber technology in all aspects of daily life.
CyberPatriot operates similarly to the previous one and is under the aegis of the Air Force Association, with money from the Northrop Grumman Foundation, which belongs to the corporation of the same name, one of the strongest in the U.S. Military Industrial Complex.
Only citizens of the United States who have permanent residence in that nation are allowed o participate in these "summer camps."
Veiga tells us that the offers include visits to Fort Gordon's Cyber Center of Excellence, home to the Signal Corps of the United States Army, the branch of the military responsible for providing and maintaining its information systems and communications networks.
The CIA keeps a watchful eye on these activities and there are camps located in close proximity to its headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
Summer, then, is the season of sowing and harvesting of spies and hackers in the service of the domestic and foreign intelligence system of Washington, which -- as revealed by Edward Snowden, former NSA analyst -- spies on its friends and foes, without distinction.
