Cyber Patriots provide views of technology's 'real' world

Hanging out at a meeting of Cheney High School's Cyber Patriots club is like going to sleep and waking up in a non-English speaking country during the middle of a large community meeting.

You don't know what they're yammering about, and they're yammering it all around you really fast. Your safest, best and most intelligent response to any question they may ask is "huh?"

If results from recent competition are any indication, the students in the 3-year-old club,advised by CHS technology education teacher Adam Smith know exactly what they are saying and doing when it comes to dealing with computer networking threats and protection.

Two Cyber Patriot teams placed in the top five of their respective tiers in the annual National Youth Cyber Defense Competition, and one placed in the top five nationally. According to a press release, Team Bravo, consisting of Joe Riddle, Kendra Kendall, Matt Dupler, Bradley Travis, Marianna Pollack and Kyle Sewright finished first out of 15 teams in their Washington Gold Division while also earning a fifth-place nationally.

The other team, Team Alpha, consisting of Noah Brown, Colton Dotson, Jake McGillicuddy, Andrew Jenkins, Blake Meldrum and Ian Case placed second in their Washington division. By virtue of placing in the top three of their divisions, both Cheney teams advance to National Youth Cyber Defense Competition's Western Regional championships this Sunday, Jan. 18, at the high school. The top finishers in regional competition move on to the national finals in Washington D.C.

Cyber Patriot is part of the National Cyber Education Program, which is beginning its seventh competitive season. The national competition is put on by the Air Force Association, a non-profit, independent organization dedicated to promoting a "dominant United States Air Force and a strong national defense" along with honoring airmen and the Air Force heritage.

More than 2,175 registered teams of middle and high school students from all 50 states, Canada, Department of Defense Schools in Europe and the Pacific competed in the national competition this year. In it, students take on the role of information technology professionals who are charged with managing the network of a small company.

Each round, all of which are done online at the respective schools, consists of the teams being given a set of virtual images representing operating systems. Teams must discover each system's cyber security vulnerabilities and harden or protect the system while maintaining critical services, all of which must be done in a single, six-hour period.

Both Riddle and Noah, who are captains of their respective teams, said the systems contain numerous viruses and malware that must be identified, eliminated and protected against. Each team has its own "toolkit" to help in these tasks, Smith said, the contents of which are readily obtainable - but with a caveat.

"It must be free and widely available," Smith said. "You can't write your own programs."

"Everything you need to know is online," Riddle confirmed. "It's just a matter of finding it and learning it."

Brown said they look for what he referred to as a "security baseline." Groups of cyber experts assemble documents containing details and intricacies of configuring a variety of systems, and upload this information to the Web for use.

"You just go through it and make sure you know what they're doing," he said.

"Make everything work and keep the malware off," Riddle added. "That's what real cyber people do."

Neither Riddle nor Brown was particularly interested in this aspect of computer technology until they became members of Cyber Patriots. Both now see it as valuable experience with a direct application in the real world, including possible career choices.

That decision is a ways off for members of Cheney's Cyber Patriots Club right now. And a potential trip to Washington, D.C. wasn't in the conversation - once translated.

"We're just happy to be moving on to the next round," Riddle said.

John McCallum can be reached at jmac@cheneyfreepress.com.