Exercise Commercial Hunter was a program run by the
United States Marine Corps
The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through ...
(USMC)
Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory
The United States Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory (MCWL) was established in 1995, at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia. The organization was originally known as the Commandant's Warfighting Laboratory.
The battle lab is part of Combat De ...
.
The program is designed to ''bring in creative unconventional outsiders to anticipate new threats''. The program was formed following a recommendation from
Naval Research Advisory Committee (NRAC) that the Marine Corps form a "Commercial Hunter" cell whose mission is: ''"to explore and anticipate the uses of readily available commercial technologies by irregular adversaries to attack key USMC capabilities or vulnerabilities"'' following a 2008
Naval Research Advisory Committee Study which found that the Marine Corps has no effective methods for anticipating unconventional threats which could be developed using imaginative combinations of commercial products acquired via the Web and distributed by the global supply network.
The term ''commercial hunter'' is also used to describe its participants who "hunt" using commercially available goods. Unlike a "Combat Hunter" who uses professional big-game hunters, trackers, and cops on the beat to modify tactics against irregular forces, the "Commercial Hunter" would use outside experts to anticipate, identify, and defeat commercial technology threats.
The Commercial Hunter program would ''anticipate threats via opposing force exercises using teams of smart, young, web-savvy people, from diverse backgrounds.''
These "commercial hunters" would identify and prioritize threats, buy from the internet creating a prototype to prove technical feasibility, and provoke action.
Cancellation
A part of the exercise was allegedly canceled due to an online blog post in ''Danger Room'' by
WIRED
''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Fran ...
magazine.
Funding
* The Georgia Tech Information Security Center received a grant for ''Information Exploitation: Commercial Hunter''.
See also
*
Center for Emerging Threats and Opportunities
*
Office of Science & Technology Integration
References
Bibliography
*
*
* {{cite web, url=https://www.wired.com/images_blogs/dangerroom/2010/04/commercial-hunter-rfq.pdf, title=Commercial hunter rfq, work=Wired News, accessdate=20 May 2010
External links
Danger Room What’s Next in National Security Marines Wonder: Where Do You Shop for Bombs Online? WIRED magazine
Military exercises involving the United States