I thought it was interesting last year.
The expectation of DoD was sadly pretty low.
Expecting someone in a suit, expecting someone in a uniform,
who would not engage this community.
And I remember after we gave a talk last year,
a bunch of folks came up and they're like,
you're not what we expected.
And you're doing super cool shit. How can we help?
And those are the discussions we want to have.
Because Will and I are constantly worried.
We're constantly working to raise the bar and make things better.
But we need that level of expertise and partnerships.
So I was thrilled that last year we could go directly engage,
show that we aren't what you expect,
and we do really, really cool things.
And the opportunities are really broad.
So if someone's out thinking, well, I'm interested in helping the military,
but I don't know if I want to work on a weapons system.
Every technology under the sun is part of the military.
We do disaster relief every year during the hurricane season.
The Air Force is flying planes in to move people that are under stress
and deliver supplies.
And that is a major part of what the military does
that doesn't make the news.
We work in energy, we work in medicine,
providing a lot of frontline responders to COVID-19.
All of this is empowered by software.
We need digital experts who want to help us take our game to the next level.
So no matter what you are interested in working with us on,
the opportunity is there.
And we will be here year after year at DEFCON
bringing opportunities for you to participate in our mission,
to learn more about us so that we can learn from you.
So when we were building MySymptoms.mil earlier this year,
which is part of our COVID-19 response,
before we let out the door,
we reached out to someone in the DEFCON community
because that needs to be part of our culture.
We're creating software.
We think it's pretty good.
We have a pretty good SWAT team,
but we want those outside eyes.
And this is for something,
COVID-19 is something that's bringing us all together
and that's a perfect example of community engagement.
And we tightened it up and we got out the door.
From my view, the defense companies mirror the government.
And the government is slow and 20 years, if not more, behind the time.
So it has to start with the government leading the dance
and having more people who have technical backgrounds
who don't look like what you expect in the Pentagon
start bringing in new ideas, new technologies, and just a new culture.
And that's part of why we're here as part of DEFCON,
part of why we're talking with you through a very different venue
than you normally get out of this five-sided building.
So that's step one.
The government's got to change.
Step two is government doesn't make much.
We have amazing airmen who write code for us every day
and sci-fi inspired organizations called Kessel Run, Kobayashi Maru,
and 60 more names covering the sci-fi and comic book universe.
They're awesome teams, but they're a small component of what industry provides.
We don't build airplanes. We don't build satellites ourselves, rarely.
And so if industry doesn't learn to adopt these new techniques,
if they don't become better at software and shift to new trends in development
like containerization and shift to open approaches to determining errors in code
like bug bounties and open sourcing of code,
then we will continue to be further and further behind the times.
And ultimately, our model's got to be hybrid.
We won't open source all of our code.
We will always have things we reserve for conflict.
But we don't open source anything today.
We did that for the first time this year, RoRo,
the first time we have open source code that's needed for operations.
I expect that's the most secure code we have right now in the Air Force.
So what's next? The question I have for industry is what's next?
And when are you going to be part of the solution?
There's a cultural piece we need to get at here.
A couple things that drive me crazy.
One, good enough for government work.
That is absolute bullshit. End of sentence.
Two is, you know, Will mentioned that government is behind.
How is that okay?
And this is one of the reasons I left the private sector and came into government
because we can't be okay with this.
So part of what Will and I do is reset this culture
and challenge ourselves, never have acceptance for that
because neither one of those statements make any sense to me.
So do you both have tenure in your jobs? Because it seems like a really bad idea.
Well, as long as it doesn't come crashing down through the roof any time soon,
RoRo is probably going to make it a few months more.
I will say we've taken extraordinary security precautions
to make sure that everything is going to be okay up in orbital land.
But we are going to let teams move the satellite.
So not move it in a translational sense, but we're going to let teams rotate it.
And if they're good enough and they can do their orbital mechanics quickly enough,
we're asking them to take a picture of the moon.
So what we hope to send out to the hacker community is a wonderful image of the moon
brought courtesy of the hacker team that won.
So that's a pretty, pretty awesome opportunity to have that code actually change something in orbit.
But we've taken extraordinary procedures to make sure that's all that that code will be able to do.
But RoRo, your question is actually an important one.
So in terms of tenure, no, I have no idea how long I have in this job.
I came into defense through happenstance, worked for a couple of secretaries of defense,
built a lot of awesome systems, very few of which I can talk about,
but amazing capabilities, swarming things, et cetera,
made with a lot of incredible men and women in uniform.
But crossing over into this job, running all the Air Force and Space Force programs,
which is an awesome job.
If you're ever asked to do it, say yes, because you get all of these amazing technologies,
satellites and airplanes and cyber tools and amazing people to work with.
But you only get to be in the job as long as you're asked to do it.
And so my tenure could be very short.
And what I hope, what I pray for the Pentagon is that people in leadership
will keep asking technical people to come and serve.
So if you're out there thinking, I'd love to be part of an Air Force hacking team,
then come find us, come join us.
If you want to be part of Defense Digital Service, which would be an amazing job,
where you wouldn't have to wear a suit to work every day, come join them.
Be one of the squadron of nerds. I'm using Air Force. Can you be a squadron of nerds?
So the squadron of nerds is part of the SWAT team of nerds?
Squadron of nerds would be like the Air Force, because we're all squadrons.
So we could have like an auxiliary squadron of nerds.
Well, there you go.
But take the opportunity up. You won't be sorry.
But that's ultimately the trend we need are people that have technical talent
who don't want to work in the government forever, but that say, you know, for one, two, three years,
I want to go take on some new opportunities for the government to make it easy and energizing to do that.
So I'm here on a two-year tour. I am halfway through.
But the story is like I'm part of the story, but I'm not the story.
I'm part of an 80-person team, and this is the best team I've ever been part of.
And there will be another director after me who will represent the team.
But every day, this SWAT team of nerds goes out and works on projects that you really, you can't believe.
It makes an insane impact.
So I'll do my two years, but the mission will go on and the team will continue to rock.
I can see if the Air Force can make DDS an honorary squadron.
That'd be cool.
I'm taken. That's action.
Colonel Bailey, action taken.
Did I say Colonel? Colonel, I just promoted you to Colonel. Captain Bailey, action taken.
Does that mean we can go to space?
This is important. Can we just work this through?
I think astronaut training should be required for that, Brad.
So I was watching Picard with the kids last night, and they have that transporter thing.
I figured somewhere in the classified portfolio?
We're working it.
So if that works, can I go to space?
It's right next to the warp drive, right next to the photon torpedo.
So yes, when we've got teleportation done, Brad, I will personally teleport you up to the space station.
Got it. How's the food up there?
NASA provides that, so I don't know.
Do you think there are any gummy products?
I'm going to guess, oh, I don't know, Brad, because gummy products have a high degree of water content,
and all that's going to outgas.
So how would mayonnaise perform in space?
Not well.
That's a critical issue.
Not well. So you'd have to get at least a pressure-sealed vessel, but all things we can work on.
Science never stops.
I'm a little fussy about mayonnaise, so we'd want to work that through before the transporter.
So spam sandwiches not going to be on your list for astronaut? And a tank?
No, no, I was figuring, well, I am fussy about the mayonnaise, but you can actually put mayonnaise with most foods.
Just something to ponder.