Where are the WarGames students?

This morning I happened to enjoy "What's the point of ..." on BBC Radio 4. Motivated by an imminent spending review and inevitable cuts – as well as recent celebrations concerning the Battle of Britain – Quentin Letts put the RAF under some scrutiny. What's the point of the RAF in 2010? The issues and debates are well rehearsed, e.g. Are über futuristic fighter jets required for the conflicts the UK is likely to be engaged in? The outcome of the debate was inconclusive because few people can predict the types of conflicts that may emerge in the future.

One type of warfare which all commentators agreed was potentially imminent is cyber warfare. Not only is such warfare potentially imminent, but the UK (along with other NATO allies) is completely unprepared for a sophisticated or sustained attack. According to the programme only 24 people at the MoD are actively working on cyber security(!). Commentators agreed that funding had to be diverted from other armed services (i.e. RAF) to invest in cyber security. This means more advanced computing and information professionals to improve cyber security, but also to operate un-manned drones, manipulate intelligence data, and so forth. 'More Bill Gates-type recruits and fewer soldiers' was the message.

Although it wasn't given treatment in the programme, the conundrum for our cyber security – as well as our economy - is the declining numbers of students seeking to study computing science and information science at undergraduate/postgraduate level. This is a decline which is reflected more generally in the lack of school leaver interest in science and technology, something which – unless you have been living in a cave – the last Labour government and the current coalition are attempting to address. With the release of A-level results today and the massive demand for university places this year, some universities have been boosted by government grants designed to recruit extra students in science and technology. The coalition, in particular, sees it as a way of improving economic growth prospects; but it seems that the need to reverse this trend has become even more urgent given that we only have a small mini-bus full of 'cyber soldiers' – and, let's face it, five are probably on part-time contracts, two will be on maternity leave and one will be on long term sick leave.

It's a far cry from the 1980s Hollywood classic, 'WarGames' (1983). WarGames follows a young hacker (Matthew Broderick) who inadvertently accesses a US military supercomputer programmed to predict possible outcomes of nuclear war. Taking advantage of the unbelievably simple command language interface ("Can we play a global thermonuclear simulation game?" types Broderick) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) light years ahead 2010 state of the art, Broderick manages to initiate a nuclear war simulation believing it to be an innocent computer game. Of course, Broderick's shenanigans cause US military panic and almost cause World War III. I remember going to the petrol station with my father to rent WarGames on VHS as soon as it was available (yes – in the early 1980s petrol stations were often the place to go for video rentals! I suppose the video revolution was just kicking off...) and being thoroughly inspired by its depiction of computing and hacking. I wanted to be a hacker and was lucky enough to receive an Atari 800XL that Christmas, although programming soon gave way to gaming. Pac-Man anyone? Missile Command was pretty good too...