Slashdot Mirror
The Internet and The War
John Jorsett writes "Wired Magazine has an interesting article on the realities of the use of communication and navigation technology in the Iraq war. Particularly intriguing is the use of chat rooms to engage experts thousands of miles away in helping to solve problems at the troop level in the field. And if you think your admin job is tough, try running your servers in 125 degree heat in a sandstorm."
The military better watch itself -- if they start relying too heavily on technology, soldiers will lose the fundamental skills that make them unique.
I am over here... now I am back over here!
A/S/L - 19 iraqi single male, looking for sniper...
We cook our lunches on the servers. We left a 2U gap so we could also have grills.
Tell me this isn't true? The US military resort to Microsoft Chat to communicate a possible chemical attack? Surely they'd have some custom chat software with some heavy duty encryption in it?
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Several things come to mind reading this. For one thing, they appear to be using Microsoft Chat over the internet to communicate reconnaissance information. Whether such communication is secure is something I'd really like the govt. to think about, if not it could be putting soldiers at risk. One thing that is mission critical is tech support, and apparently they have a top tier (premier?) support from Microsoft. I wonder if anybody short of say IBM could offer a competing Open Source (*BSD or Linux) based solution?
Caddell leads the way to one of the shipping containers. Inside, two soldiers baby-sit three rows of Sun servers. "This is where the Global Command and Control System lives," Caddell says. GCCS - known as "Geeks" to soldiers in the field - is the military's HAL 9000. It's an umbrella system that tracks every friendly tank, plane, ship, and soldier in the world in real time, plotting their positions as they move on a digital map.
"I can not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presents danger, the solution is ignorance" - Isaac Asimov
A1 sauce and your tank's exhaust. pls send wingz the commander replies.
Gets hot down here, especially when the computers are on and A/C is off.. I have yet to crack a processor though..
I've left to find myself. If you happen to see me, please, keep me there until I return.
"Welcome to Siprnet," he says. GCCS runs over Siprnet - the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network - in the same way that Web applications run over the public Internet. The difference with "Sipper" is that it's basically a far-flung local area network. To maximize security, it doesn't connect with the Internet proper. But it links Centcom to the battlefield and, among other things, allows Franks to talk to Rumsfeld and President Bush via two-way videoconference every evening.
"I can not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presents danger, the solution is ignorance" - Isaac Asimov
Umm...
I've used the internet, both recreationally and for research, since before people lost the ability to tell the difference between "the web" and "the 'net".
In that time, I have discovered one very persistant trend relevant to attempting to gather meaningfully-true information on-line:
Don't visit chat rooms unless you want to pick up transgendered males.
I don't mean this as a troll (though somewhat tongue-in-cheek), but seriously, asking for military advice on IRC or AOL strikes me as akin to asking the NIDA for information on the dangers of marijuana - ie, even if you manage to get any factual information, you'll never find it from the BS it comes buried under.
This idea concerns me greatly. From the comfort of my fuzzy computer chair, I have the luxury of taking the time to try to separate facts from garbage. Someone asking "what does sarin smell like" will most like die before they even get past the obligatory flood of "A/S/L" requests.
From text of article:
"If a general has a problem with his Web browser, then I fix it," Cluff says.
"How do you fix it?" I ask.
"I consult Microsoft online help," he replies.
So what happens if a bunch of soldiers in the field die due to a failure of/flaw in a Microsoft product? Will Microsoft get off scot-free because of their "no liability" language in their EULA? Would there suddenly be knee-jerk laws passed concerning software reliability?
Discuss.
~Philly
"I consult Microsoft online help," he replies.
That's too funny, really it is. On so many levels.
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If you actually *read* the article, you will see that the reporter talks about (sigh) a "secret Internet" and a "Tactical Internet". What they really mean is a "WAN" (the reporter refers to it as a "far-flung LAN"). It even says that the WAN is NOT connected to the Internet.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
IIRC, Those 11 POWs that were captured during the middle of the war (pre-bagdad) were captured because thier convoy was lost in the desert. Now reading that article, it comes as no surprise that they were captured and killed.
I'm surprised there weren't more convoys captured because they were lost and then given orders to drive into enemy territory as the way back or someother nonsense scenario where the common soldier does not have the correct equipemt to survive.
That kind of breakdown in communication should not even be a factor when it comes to human lives.
General speaking, you don't encrypt at the software level, you encrypt the comm links themselves, using NSA-approved hardware. That way, you don't have to worry about it at the application level, and there's no opportunity to build in hidden channels to bypass the encryption.
They also need an MP3 player to torture those poor captured representatives of the former Iraqi regime with heavy metal and children's songs. Very demanding admin work too. Military admin needs to know how to operate Winamp player! No use for M16 as a human rights and democracy tool? Might look a bit nasty on the telly?
And then you might need some kind of a Geiger counter or something to find those non-existent WMD's this war was supposedly about.
And do not forget to buy a pair of robot brains for your smart president.
This is the high tech reality of American Warfare today!
Mr. American President says "Boot my operating system!"
With our tax dollars, of course. Probably one for each computer. No wonder the war cost over 20 billion dollars. I resent this more than the $300 toilet seats. And they're probably paying $20 a minute for realtime "premier" help from MS, too.
Stupid people make stupid things profitable.
For one thing, they appear to be using Microsoft Chat over the internet to communicate reconnaissance information. Whether such communication is secure is something I'd really like the govt. to think about, if not it could be putting soldiers at risk.
You're kidding, right? The DOD created the internet concept to make a more secure network. They have crap to keep things secret that we could only dream of.
Given that one "internet" concept alone, and the fact that Echelon probably exsists and the US Govt has probably been using it for decades, and that military planes explode in impact specifically to destroy technology...
Cmon. Secrecy has been *the* number one asset of the military for centuries. Its not a new concept.
After all, the Chinese got inside our spyplanes and didn't get jack squat out of it. That should let you know how paranoid we are about our information. So to say, "be careful that is not secure," to the US Military is like saying, "be careful, that stove is hot," to a five star chef.
"If We Run Out of Batteries, This War is Screwed."
By Joshua Davis
It's early April, days before the fall of Baghdad, and a convoy of trucks from the 11th Signal Brigade is rolling through southern Iraq. The mission: establish a digital beachhead in central Iraq. Without this advance node and a handful like it, the Army's Third Infantry Division cannot receive the precise targeting information it needs to fight its way into the capital.
About 9 am, soldiers in the convoy see something that fills them with dread: four dead sheep by the side of the dusty road. Within a mile, they spot two more and quickly pull the convoy to a halt. What many had feared since arriving in the Middle East now looks to be a reality: chemical attack. The convoy leader does two things, one in keeping with well-established military protocol and one entirely new. First, he makes a lot of noise. He lets out three long blasts on the horn - the low tech signal for a chemical attack. Then, after donning his own protective gear, he turns to a computer terminal bolted to the dash of his vehicle.
Suspect chemical attack, he types into a Microsoft Chat session running on the tactical Internet, the military's battlefield communications system.
Multiple dead sheep by side of road. Pls advise.
Two hundred miles away - in a warehouse at Forward Command - Lieutenant Colonel Norman Mims, the intelligence officer for the 11th, sees this curious message appear in the chat room and replies, How many sheep over how much distance?
6 sheep. Approx. 1 mile.
A veteran of Desert Storm, Mims has learned that sheep in the region regularly die and are simply dragged to the side of the road. The number and distance are typical.
Unless air quality is degraded, chemical attack unlikely.
If this had been Gulf War I, the convoy would have lost a full day - calling in the incident by radio, describing it to three or four rungs up the command ladder, and waiting for a crew of specialists to arrive, test the air, and give the all-clear. But this war is different. An email gives the sheep's coordinates to a chemical investigation team, and the convoy just keeps moving.
The history of warfare is marked by periodic leaps in technology - the triumph of the longbow at Crécy, in 1346; the first decisive use of air power, in World War I; the terrifying destructiveness of nuclear weapons at Hiroshima, in 1945. And now this: a dazzling array of technology that signals the arrival of digital warfare. What we saw in Gulf War II was a new age of fighting that combined precision weapons, unprecedented surveillance of the enemy, agile ground forces, and - above all - a real-time communications network that kept the far-flung operation connected minute by minute.
Welcome to the so-called revolution in military affairs, the new theory of war that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has been promoting since he arrived at the Pentagon in 2001. Generals at Central Command, in Qatar, put the concept into practice as they sent troops racing toward Baghdad, hopscotching across Iraq, and sidestepping enemy assaults. If rear units were attacked, if supply lines were threatened - so the theory went - the technology would allow soldiers to spot the problem quickly enough to dispatch defenders, who would swarm to the rescue. Information would take the place of a massive troop presence on the ground. Dead sheep could be safely ignored. In short, the war was a grand test of the netcentric strategy in development since the first Gulf War.
At least, that's the triumphal view from the Pentagon briefing room. But what was it like on the ground? As Wired's war correspondent, I tracked the network from the generals' plasma screens at Central Command to the forward nodes on the battlefields in Iraq. What I discovered was something entirely different from the shiny picture of techno-supremacy touted by the proponents of the Rumsfeld doctrine. I found an unsung corps of geeks improvising as they went, cobbling
Particularly intriguing is the use of chat rooms to engage experts thousands of miles away in helping to solve problems at the troop level in the field.
Sounds like something straight out of Earthweb by Marc Stiegler. Except in the book they were fighting this strange interstellar planetoid bent on Earth's destruction.
The book also reminded me of Max Headroom, where that newsroom director "ran" Edison Carter when he was doing those live-on-the-scene reports.
The stuff you saw with Tank and his brother-in-law in the Matrix had many earlier precedents, young jedi.
Try maintaining a satilite uplink while there is a sand storm going on and your com base is somewhere in norfolk virginia, and 500 miles out to sea. Not only that try following network cabling from a bunker to satilite uplink stations.
I still can't get over them refering them as chat rooms. Shouldnt' it be Armed Forces Comm Relay Applettes or something. Chat rooms seem so yesterday
There has been alot of press made about the US military's changes in the way it communicates and it's desire to "swarm" on an enemy instead of the old way it and every other army has moved and communicated.
Basicly since the Romans every conventional army moved like a great set of parallel lines with interconnecting lines between them for communication and supply.
There has been a layer of abstraction between what the Generals tell the Colonels, what the Colonels tell the Captains, what the Captains tell the Lieutenants and what the Lieutenants tell thier soldiers.
Since the Revolution the layers of abstraction grew wider and wider.
By the Second World War, the United States Army had the widest gulf between the commanders and the men at the front of any Army in the European Theatre of Operation.
By Vietnam it was worse and the Gulf War it came to a head when Schwarzkopf canned a General who refused to advance due to a lack of fuel for his M-1s.
Now what is happening is remarkably fast adaptation of technology and communications systems for an Army.
In Afghanistan it was possible for A-Teams on the ground to contact the Pentagon directly and request supplies for themselves or thier allies on the ground and to have those things loaded within hours on C-17s.
Beyond the chat-rooms and GPS are the data-links between aircraft like the newer F-15s, F-22s, Grippens, Comanche, or data-links between ships, helicopters and patrol aircraft.
An example of this can be seen in the F-22. The radar of the F-22 has many modes, but one of them is to sit there dark and listen for radar signals, then it sends out pencil thin beams to detect the engines of an aircraft and it compiles a list of possible types from that signature. Using a data-link the detecting F-22 can send back detailed target information and aircraft behind the lead aircraft can launch AIM-120 missiles on a profile to light thier radars only when they get close to the target.
People have been pooh-pooing this revolution in communication and sensors in the press, but I think there is an assumption of rapid technology adpotion in the private sector that just doesn't happen in the military, but as militaries go the United States is adopting at a revolutionary rate.
MENTION THE WAR...
[John Cleese, Faulty Towers]
Private : Colonel! It says, "MSN Messenger down for maintenance. Please try again in 15 minutes"
:Sir! XP just had to install an update. I need to reboot! ...Sir? Sir???
Colonel : Shit, boy! We're gonna get gassed 'cause Billy didn't change the oil up in Redmond! Sheeeit.
Private : Do you want me to bring out the pigeons?
Colonel [lights cigarette]:Fuck it. Send an e-mail to command that says, "possible chemical attack underway. pls advise."
Private
[Colonel breaks M-16 over leg]
Thankfully, a giant penguin dropped down from the sky with reliable software, just before it was too late.
Interesting article from WSJ that talks about these new Warriors.
"What's funny about using Microsoft Chat," he adds with a sly smile, "is that everybody has to choosean icon to represent themselves. Some of these guys haven't bothered, so the program assigns them one. We'll be in the middle of a battle and a bunch of field artillery colonels will come online in the form of these big-breasted blondes. We've got a few space aliens, too."
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Reminds me of the scene from the South Park movie, where the holographic war map crashes, and the General summons Bill Gates. Here an MP3 of their conversation.
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
The news ruined the word "embedded" for me...Embedded reporters watching soldiers fight, take a piss, talk about this war like it had been going on for even two months, watching them do whatever...I will always hear that word from now on and think of soldiers doing mundane things.
As for them using "Microsoft Chat" or whatever they called it, that's just plain irresponsible. If people have trouble using computers for simple email every day then why on God's (sandy) earth do they think those same technologies will hold up in much more mission-critical military conditions?
They're talking Farenheit, not Celcius.
125 degrees Celcius is above the boiling point of water. To find that kind of temperature on the surface of the Earth you'd have to be standing on an active volcano.
Didn't the fact that prolonged exposure to 125 C would be enough to kill anyone (even military grade geeks) give it away?
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
"GCCS runs over Siprnet - the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network"
Just how damned difficult is it to get acronyms right?
The correct definition is "Secure Internet Protocol Network," although I have also heard it as "Secure Internet Protocol Router Network"
Apparently, very difficult.
Go to a chat room right now, and say something nice to somebaody. At random, let's all do this RIGHT NOW.
If you go to average chat room, you find LITTLE wars and hatred. War is OK sometimes, but peace is better.
Why not try and use the 'net for peace technology, if we all go and do this RIGHT NOW!
I suggest you read Slashdot
Most of the important stuff in the theater of operations runs on Solaris, usually.
It looks like you're communicating news of a WMD emergency. Would you like help?
__ Get help with emergency
__ Continue with emergency without help
__ Howl in agony and clutch at face as it melts grotesquely into the desert sand
Now I'm sure someone will complain about my talking up the F-22 and claim I'm over Tom Clancy'ing it's capabilities or something.
My info came from International Air Power Review Volume 5 pages 60-62 and covers the ALR-94 passive receiver, Intra-Flight Datalink and APG-77 radar in non-cooperative target recognition and jet engine modulation modes.
like cleaning everything... constantly... endlessly.
Most people who have never deployed to that region of the world don't realize that it's not sandy... it's dusty. The soil (or what passes for soil) is this lightweight, fine, adherent brown dust... that dust got into damned near everything, even closed pelican cases (don't ask me how).
It wreaked havoc on our COMM and Systems guys; they were constantly cleaning their boxen, from the servers, right on down to the Dell laptops we were using.
Even in my field (medical), we were constantly cleaing and mopping out our Operating Room (in a tent, naturally).. you could NEVER get ahead of the dust. This drove my surgeon colleagues nuts... you could pretty much count on a higher complication rate with an environment like that. When the sandstorms would roll in, forget about it.
A bunch of us ran our own private LAN between a bunch of tents; honing our 31337 CounterStrike 5killz (I tell ya, those terrorists were in deep trouble if they tried to take us on... our M4 and AWP skills would have devastated those Al-Queda noobs... ) Fortunately, our hardware was not as mission-essential as the systems/COMM types... we could afford the occasional crash (though it did hurt to lose your sweet kill ratio).
Demanding environment, alright... it's amazing our stuff worked as well as it did.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
The US military is supposed to be all SI, so they must be talking Kelvin.
The challenge is to integrate the technology without reducing the skills that make the particular occupation unique. I own a hardware store and we've embraced all sorts of inventory, POS, web, wireless and communication technology. However, we still need to be able to manually examine a rusted ballcock that a customer yanked out of their toilet and hook them up with the proper replacement parts.
"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers." Carl Sagan
A journalist who does not research his subject well is a poor journalist. I agree that he doesn't spend 20 hours a day working at a computer for its own sake, but I also doubt he spends 20 hours a day working at journalism either.
I have a friend that was one of the people running tests again the models of the communication networks that are being used in the Middle East.
Losers whine about doing their best
Winners go home and f*ck the prom queen!
"What's funny about using Microsoft Chat," he adds with a sly smile, "is that everybody has to choosean icon to represent themselves. Some of these guys haven't bothered, so the program assigns them one. We'll be in the middle of a battle and a bunch of field artillery colonels will come online in the form of these big-breasted blondes. We've got a few space aliens, too."
This is exactly what I fear, that going to war is fun and not causing any harm to whoever is in it. First the US television stations didn't want to show the pictures of their own casualties, now this is added.
War is cool, war is fun and it doesn't cause any harm[*]!
[*] no pictures of harmed people by our own actions will be shown.
bash$
yes, Renember mesurements without units are useless. That mars lander fun we had all over again. Pls all for god sakes at least be kind enough to mention units as, as before we(as appearant by the post we still do anyway) will asume they are using the units that are standard localy(damn global economy can get anything so simple... rant rant rant). So renember boys and girls do your math homework converting and save us/US billions so we can buy more bombs.... J/K... I'm Canadain. Actually I am impressed that they sent so many heavily armed 18* year olds into a place and accomplished what they set out to. Back on topic, what I find troubling is that making such blunders is concidered a mistake and not incompetence. We have a course at the University of Alberta for computing Science that goes over types of errors and how to measure error and see when it is significant. I renemper the old bug* that the patriots (missiles) would after being on for a period grow more and more out of sync. This resulted in failed interceptions. Anyhow if there is a related error that was made by someone before then I dont EVER want to hear about it being made again. Take the damn course. One of my favourite Old rule applies in spades- To err is human but to really fuck up requires a computer. Geers are held responsible for errors in thier designs when a (insert structure) colapses. Software coders should also be. I hate it when something shoddy propogates the whole system and the EULA says the programmers arn't responsible for shit. Users suck they fuck up so much good* code to but I believe it requres a understanding of human stupidity to anticipate the responsibility a programmer I believe should take. Legally requireing insurence or liability would at least make companies and people may more attention. Give me a better system that works and I may prefer it. God I love to rant.... GL world Yes democracy is doomed/
...it shows a soldier leafing through leafing through a "Windows NT 4.0 Unleashed" -type book. I guess the military decided they weren't going to pay for upgrades either...
Wow. i dont even know what to say about this. the us went in and, with the help of technology, slaughtered(sp?) and carpet bombed a country that didnt even have a standing army. does anyone know how many altercations with millitary units they had? of course this is just glossed over because its slashdot and because the story has to do with computers it doesnt really matter that the computers are being used to kill real people.
this is sick. america acts like it won a very tough battle when really its like mowing down native americans with shotguns and rifles. iraq never had a chance, this isnt a war, its fucking mass murder.
and what the hell does this mean (from article)
A sign posted on a folding picnic table outside the door reads, "the beatings will stop when morale rises." UMMM??
i sware to god america wake the fuck up. go ahead patriots mod me down ive been at -1 for 2 years and dont expect it to change, but what really are you defending, what are you being patriotic about? examine your rational before all this sophisticated hardware is turned inward on you; of course thats what it woudl take to make americans realize anything, that there personal lives are in danger.
first they came for the terrorists but i was not a terrorist....
-
Give me a break. Swarm tactics are NOT new to military campaigns. It's called : gorilla warfare. It's called : not being predicatable. Its called : keeping secrets. So much crap written about NEW and wonderful techniques. Oh, I'm sure Rumsfeld's a smart guy and all, but he didn't invent swarm tactics. He didn't invent squat!
Instead of giving credit to all the current Media Hero's, how about some credit to all the hard working engineer's and support people who made this possible.
I came to Athens and no one knew me. - Democritus
*** soldier (jimbo@army.iq) has joined channel #help ... ...
*** techie (whizkid@pentagon.mil) has joined channel #help
<soldier> hey, anybody know how to get sand out of a gatling gun?
<techie> Sure thing. let me look it up for you. brb
<soldier> thanks
*** katie (luvkitties@ipt.aol.com) has joined channel #help
<katie> hay all!!!!!!!!!!!!!
<soldier>
<katie> hi solder ASL??
<techie> Approximately when did you get the sand in the gatling gun?
<katie> huh??
<soldier> about 15 minutes ago.
<techie> okay, brb
<katie> techie what r u talking about!!
*** jenny (nsync_rulz@msn.com) has joined channel #help
<katie> hi jenny how r u ltns!!!!!!! lol
<jenny> K8E!!!! kisskiss
<soldier>
<techie> How much sand would you say is inside the gatling gun?
<jenny> wtf lol
<soldier> well, there's quite a bit. it's draining out like an hourglass.
<jenny> hour glass??
<katie> jenny geuss what, taylor told lisa today that he want's me 2 invite him 2 the dance on saturday
<jenny> omfg LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
<jenny> wat did u say? did u say anything 2 him?
<techie> The sand is draining out of the Gatling gun like an hourglass?
<soldier> pretty much, yes.
<katie> heehehe!! well i went up 2 him and said hi and then he bought me a bottle of mt dew code red!! LOL
<techie> I see. have you tried shaking it vigorously?
<katie> techie wtf would i shake it vigorusly, it would fizz over and explode
*** techie rolls eyes
<techie> soldier: Have you tried shaking the gatling gun vigorously?
<soldier> no. brb
*** taylor (linkinparkfan@earthlink.net) has joined channel #help
<jenny> OMFG
<katie> OMFG
<soldier> OMFG
<soldier> the damn thing just went off and took out the cook and the chaplain
<katie> hi taylor, how r u????
<techie> I see. Recommend you replace gatling gun immediately.
<taylor> hi katie
<soldier> roger
*** soldier has left channel #help
<taylor> jenny, how r u? r u busy saturday night?
<katie> f u jenny
*** katie has left channel #help
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
Where's Junis when we need him?
If not for the Internet most Americans would never have heard that much of the intelligence information Colin Powell presented to the U.N. was based on outdated, and plagiarized material. The U.S. press simply didn't report it. So among other things, in wartime the Internet is going to continue to be very important for getting reliable information beyond state propaganda.
Of course if the United States' press didn't have their noses stuck up the ass of the government and the corporate establishment they might learn how to ask probing and difficult questions, and we wouldn't have to go looking for truthful reporting and real analysis from outside sources.
-- thinkyhead software and media
that the reporter has no clue or didn't really care what he was looking at. GCCS is actually a great system, to bad it's run on unix!! They've finally ported it to windoze(as a client)...but it's only as good as the input from humans. Plus not everyone using the system are fully trained in how to support it, most don't know how to completely use it. I won't even get into explaining the SIPERnet!!
such is life...
Read what an Iraqi has to say about it.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
So, what LAN games do you suppose they play when there's a lull in the war?
America's Army? uh, um, never mind.
Here ya go
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Yes, it's true that they're doing this. Check this out.
"The biggest achievement of the internet is that it reduces a nuclear war to nothing more than a series of routing errors"
--Anon
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
I haven't heard of a war for quite a while.
Oh, you mean the war against SARS?
resistance is futile.
this kinda realtime adaptation to battlefield problems is one step in the borgish direction. the more that i see of our growing ability to collaborate the more it seems like the borg, but the less it bothers me. maybe not all group-minds are created equal.
bottom line is how our assimilation of Iraq turns out. if we're conquerors, that's one thing. if we're liberators, that's another thing.
Seeing Barney the Dinosaur is being used for psychological torture of Iraqis, does this mean that we can start an international campaign to ban Barney?
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
The Parent gives some nice technical details.
Where exactly were you deployed because I believe your post is pretty much bullshit.
No surprise, there.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Whoa. Very well done, and very funny. Thanks =)
Duct tape your victim to a chair, pick one of the songs at random and play it over...and over...and over...
Note to M1-ers: a curt but otherwise insightful message is not "Flamebait" or "Troll".
Your flesh is a rug on your vessle. Hand over your flesh, We demand it.
While this new link is very interesting,
it is typical of most coverage of the war:
The actual blood and guts cost is left out,
the "Hey gee whiz" technological side is
emphasized, along with hearty shots of
celebrating Iraqis.
That being said, I am somewhat surprised they use microsoft chat. Not because I hate MS, but I would have assumed they would write their own
chat program, to more efficiently use what computer resources they have, and to have complete control over the stability and function of the program.
"My lord, we have come out of lightspeed and..."
"You have failed me for the last time, Admiral. Captain Piett, You are in Command."
The military better watch itself -- if they start relying too heavily on technology, soldiers will lose the fundamental skills that make them unique.
I hear this a lot, but it's never valid. Much in the same way that 99.999999% of the population in the world today has lost the ability to flake proper flint knives for use in spear hunting the buffalo, so too will the military lose it's ability to fight bloody ugly wars with thier bare fists. Reliance on technology is what humans are meant to do... and should that technology fail? Well then the answer is more, berrter, faster technology!
Sufficiently new technology tends to be so overpowering that old technology stands no chance. Take for example swords and modren armour. Kevlar/Goldflex armour is poor protection against pointed weapons like swords or ice picks. It may stop bullets well, but without some supplement, it will not stop a sword thrust. No problem, armed with a gun and with the superior mobility of the lighter armour, a person with a sword and suit of platemail is no problem. A .223 will punch right through said plate mail and doo it at 200 yards away, where a sword is not a problem.
Ennio Flaiano: "In Italy there are two categories of fascists: the fascists and the antifascists".
Post tenebras lux. Post fenestras tux.
Ennio Flaiano: "In Italy there are two categories of fascists: the fascists and the antifascists".
Maybe it's a translation artifact; I took the quote directly from my English copy of "The Rage and The Pride" by Fallaci. Tha article you linked to appears to be the original newspaper article, but the book is the "full version" of what she meant to say but couldn't fit in.
I can't believe they use Microsoft. Imagine getting the system crashing in the middle of a war. That really would be the Blue Screen of Death!!!
-- Karma Karma Karma Karma, Karma Chameleon - Boy George
"The thick front wall swings open, revealing two rows of Compaq servers." And my compaq dies when ever I look at it sternly. Seriously, why did they choose those?
it was a good laugh :)
125 degrees Celcius is kind of hot. It's not an easy job.
You think my post is bullshit? I really don't care what a 14yo AC who hasn't the stones to post under his real account thinks. Besides, unless you've got security clearance and NTK, I can't tell you.
Sorry, but I take the national security agreement I signed very seriously.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
What the hell is going on?
I used to use an old shortwave radio for just that sort of thing...
A buddy of mine was a lieutenant in charge of logistics for the 101st airborne based in Kentucky. He said on their training maneuvers they were expected to use what he called "War for Windows" to route supplies to battalions in the field and things commonly wound up on the exact opposite part of the map from where they were supposed to arrive. He said the temptation to inform his superior officers that they had been forced to reboot the system with an M-16 was overwhelming.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Wipe out the four major NOCs in North America, and the much-vaunted Internet redundancy dies on the pointy end of traceroute.
Someone named an OS for me.
Multiple lines of communication are established .
.
.
.
.
Standard Radio, and Encrypted if need be
Sat Comm, now computers via the internet
cutting communications lines is an old tactic,
it is anticipated, thus the needs for multiple
lines of Comm
And believe it or not a Secret means I cannot
mention that is so far fetched, alot of ppl
would not even believe it , thanks to the Navy
Peace
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
Give me a break. I've read your previous posts before I declared your parent bullshit. You're a karma whore and it bothers me because there are real soldiers overseas today working with military technology that aren't playing Counter-Strike on them.
A) Which active duty military personnel calls Al-Queda "noobs"? You must be nineteen years old.
B) But, you can't be that young to be in the "medical field".
C) Surgeons in the military are all medical school graduates with two years experience. Minimum age is 27/28. Please don't tell me you're 27 and still using 31337 and "5killz" and "noobs".
D) Which MOS are you calling the "systems/COMMs" guys? Why not just say Signal Corps?
E) What MOS are you in the "medical field"?!?
At best, you're a contractor, but please don't put down the real work of miltary service personnel serving overseas with your bullshit stories. And, using acronyms like "need to know" doesn't impress me.
Sorry, kid... but you've got a lot to learn.
I'm not here to indulge your adolescent military fantasies. Normally I'd tell you to go live vicariously through somebody else, but you're persistent, which I admire, so I'll bite.
First, I'll correct your misconceptions about military medicine. Most surgeons in the miltary are trained in civilian residencies, except for the output of the handful of military residencies (2-3 per service branch). That's undergrad, medical school, and FIVE years of residency. Many programs require a year of research, and end up being SIX years... minimum age 32+. Note that I'm not talking about GMO's (battalion surgeons and "flight surgeons," neither of which are actual surgeons)... who go to the field with ONE year of experience.
You betrayed your age by responding to my tongue-in-cheek CounterStrike comment... I'm glad my attempt to throw readers your age a bone wasn't totally lost on you... though it's too bad you missed the joke. Surprised to find that adults play video games? Shocked that it's not just you and your teenage friends? I've been a gamer my entire life; I was a Pac-Man/Donkey Kong/Galaxians/Gorf master before you were even born. Also, reread my post; we ran our game net on OUR OWN hardware. Misuse of Govt. Systems is a crime, particularly in a combat zone... and none of us were keen on getting that career-ending article 15.
Also, there's NO WAY I can give you ANY information about where I was deployed; I can't even tell you why, since it would amount to the same thing. Sorry, but that's just the way that particular group wanted it (if you're in the military yourself, you'll realize what I'm saying here). So yes, you DO need a security clearance to know where I was... sorry.
"Put down the real work of military personnel serving overseas?" Please... when not working, we played video games to amuse ourselves. We were in an extremely austere location, where the local sensibilities would NOT have meshed with our normal american idea of off-duty entertainment. Hence, fragging one another for hours on end in our tents was better than the alternatives. Local justice in some of those countries is pretty damned harsh, so we behaved, and amused ourselves in other ways. Deploy sometime... you'll learn to improvise, just as we did.
Finally, I've got to stand up for the contractors here... I dearly hope you were not disparaging them. I loved those guys... they freed us up to do other jobs, and kept us supplied with ordinance, food, and other materials we needed... even kept our equipment serviced... They were great, and their knowledge of local politics was a godsend. They exposed themselves to substantial risk, and they were a big help to us, so no potshots at the contractors, got it? They were there, right alongside the rest of us.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.