Slashdot Mirror
The Soldier is the Network
Roland Piquepaille writes "This article from InfoWorld says that "in the battle of the future, the helmet becomes a data retrieval device." It describes a scenario where soldiers are equipped with sensors and other networking equipment. "Each person is a network with routing capability to everyone else," says Peter Marcotullio, director of development at SRI International. This technology should be available in five years for the military, which probably means that we'll become networks ourselves ten years from now. Check this column for a summary. Please note that this article is part of a special report called "From the battlefield to the enterprise" which looks at why some key technologies -- deployed on a massive scale in Afghanistan and Iraq -- may hold promise for corporate IT."
we are becoming Ender's Hive Queen. Does this mean i'll have a job before the unemployment runs out?
Can someone explain how this differs from mesh networking?
I can think of some other technologies that I would have liked to have available at work, some days.
of soilders taking Playboy into battle. Why bother when you can get thehun on your HUD?
This reminds of the old Omni magazines in the 1980s.
We'll all be robots by 2003!
Similar technology already exists to let you see what your squad members see... in the Starsiege: Tribes games.
Whatever will they cook up next? Bullets that "think for themselves"? People put far too much trust into "AI" and "computer controlled". If you knew how difficult it is to something so mundane as getting a robot to walk.. this seems ludicrous.
Have you ever read the warnings that come with the x86 assembly books from Intel? "Do not use for lifesupport systems" etc. etc. There you have it from the horses mouth.
I'm glad that I'm a pacifist, so I don't have to face these on the battlefield any time soon.
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
I don't know about anyone else, but I'm starting to see scenes from 'Spaceballs'...
Anybody knows if FCC has some advisories about wireless devices touching your body for long periods of time? A booklet I have (from my wireless router) states that "The FCC with its action in ET Docket 96-8 has adopted safety standard for human exposure to RF energy emitted: 1) Do not touch or move antennas while unit is transmitting or receiving."
"In the future the wars will be fought by tiny robots and it will be your job to make sure they work" Slashdot Rule 1455.1.2 - In any story about war and technology there must be the Simpsons quote from the GI Jane rip off episode. Failure to comply will ensure a duplicate post of the story will be repeatedly posted until the quote is done.
I doubt that the millitary will allow access to the internet or even have a connection to the internet available anywhere on this network.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
The mainstream tech media has a way of phrasing technology in the most colorful ways. I read it enough in the local newspaper, which is the worst all-around newspaper I have ever read in my life. But on slashdot? Give me a break.
...will be fought by really big routers. Your job will be to support and maintain those routers.
With DARPA and DoD's never ending penchant for technology to solve every problem, I see potential for numerous problems with the "wired soldier". DoD has a bandwidth problem now trying to control and get imagery from airborne Predator UAV's, what happens when you wire the individual soldier? Where is this bandwidth going to come from? Can this be subject to monitoring and how is it going to be secured? For that matter can it withstand an EMP pulse? If I wanted to take out communicating enemy forces using modern comm gear that is not hardened, a small tactical nuke would do just fine. And what about the possibility of interception even if it is secure? What if a unit that has a base unit to receive updates is captured, then parts of the system (or the whole system) is compromized. This will take years of testing before it ever becomes reality, I wouldn't hold my breath.
The date is 2199. A unit of the Fourth French Resistence, a ragtag bunch, hide in a canyon. The commander listens into his radio for a minute
[commander [in french]] the americans are coming. we should shortly be attacked by a robotic flying drone capable of dropping bombs sucking all air out of a 500 foot radius, followed by a mopup crew of several hundred armored networked hive soldiers. everyone put on your air mask.
the commander begins to get a piece of equipment out of a duffel bag. he hovers intently over a red button on it, watching.
[recruit] What's that?
[commander] EMP blast. It's the only weapon we have against them.
Sounds like these guys are going to want to put a check in the box for "Do not function as a Supernode". =)
I predict high ping is going to be a real killer.
Wow! This has so much potential!
The soldiers could install CS or UT2003 on their HUDs, and then play with other soldiers over the net who are githing in different battles, or just training at HQ - ultimate VR!!!!
They could then pretend to kill people on the game, whilst killing people in real life!
(Did I use too many exclamation marks???)
The military does not connect secure networks to the public Internet. I.E., they use an airgap, not a firewall.
...each platoon has a cracker or a few, who is able to jam the opponent's displays temporarily, hack into older models to confuse the enemy's friend-or-foe identification, protect his own people from such attacks, snoop on enemy data transfers, fry their heads or change the intelligent helmet into guided missile attractor beacon...
Future? Maybe not, but certainly a good idea for a computer game.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
THE FOUR HORSEMEN
Looks like P2P networking to me (Person-To-Person of course). [Obvious RIAA reference deleted]
A Beowulf cluster... (Someone had to say, many will.)
For those instances when we *all* want to just bang our heads into the wall - eg. 'My internet is broken.' or 'The laptop won't turn on!' etc.
I am sure RIAA and MPAA would like to get a hold of a multiple launch rocket system or two to deal with that annoying piracy problem.
On the other hand, imagine if a script kiddie got hold of a soldier's IP and began DDOSing him, and making him unable to report back, or sending him bogus information that could kill him.
Okay. First off, i cannot imagine that this would be on the public internet at all. That would be stupid. I'm guessing that the soldier 'network', such as it is, will by and large be limited to the geographic area where the soldiers are. I doubt they'd have public access, though whoever is commander of the block or whatever probably has a private uplink.
A "script kiddie", if you really want to use those words (how about "enemy combatant"?), would somehow have to get into the local network of soldiers, which would mean being there physically. Since i'd imagine this network is using wireless of some sort (well, i mean unless all the soldiers helmets drag ethernet cables), this means that the script kiddy in question would be broadcasting. IP addresses can be forged, but broadcast signals can be traced to their source. If someone is interfering with their network of soldiers, the military can and *will* simply locate and drop bombs on this person, as they are 1) in a war zone 2) attempting to sabotage military defense lines.
I'd imagine that inputting false information, rather than just DOSing, would require the keys to whatever cryptography the military is using. The U.S. military probably has the best cryptography in the world, and if you can get hold of the u.s. military's cryptographic methods and keys, you sure as hell are NOT going to do anything as blatant with this knowledge as interfere with small-time military skirmishes; that would alert the u.s. military that you've broken their code, which would be bad. Rather, you are going to sit there and quietly soak up all the information you can while those keys are still valid.
However, from a military standpoint, attempting to take individual soldiers and hijack their helmets, or something, and pump back false information, would be a very good idea, and much easier. Likewise, i would suspect the chinese military will soon be developing as many ways as possible to jam local wireless networks.
-- super ugly ultraman
.. all that fancy equipment will do if the enemy has some of those EMP bombs that they were itching to try out in Iraq. (Did they ever use one, or is that classified?)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
I wonder how they'll handle DoS, SPAM, virii, etc.
Seriously though, seems like a big security issue that could be exploited, although not easily.
This is also why I'm against putting additional electronics in guns. Sure, a gun that self destructs if an identity check fails seems like a good idea, right up until someone loses an arm because the mechanism malfunctioned. Sometimes keeping it simple is still the best policy.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I'm pretty sure the problem should be solved by now, but I was just wondering, with so many soldiers having RF equipment on them, how do you "fight" against triangulation ? (why you'd do that is kinda' obvious)
The Raven
I sure hope for these guys that the helmet will still be effective to stop bullets (at the appropriate angle), shrapnel and the like. Otherwise their heads will be filled with metal before they'll get their next command from doctor Strangelove.
The biggest interest of the U.S. government seems to be profiting from oil. The second biggest interest seems to be developing more ways to kill people and destroy their property.
The least sophisticated way of relating to other people is killing them.
The network pings you.
"It's so convenient to have a system where everyone is a criminal" - A. Hitler
...Dolph Lundegren and Claude Van Damme. If they can sober up the latter one, that is.
Linux:
any other suggrestions?
Designed especially for the American Law Enforcement user
providing the operator with sixty rounds of available firepower right on the weapon.
So American cops reguarly need to shoot 60 people without the inceonvenient delay of a reload? Blimey, it must be like living in a war zone over there.
Beep beep.
Before everybody starts thinking that the generals at the top of the DoD will have real-time information on what the individual soldier is doing, it's a misinterpretation of what the military is trying to do with their technology.
Basically, the first tenet of war has been "massing of firepower at critical locations," which has been said very inelegantly as "get there the fastest with the mostest." This has been a strength of units such as calvary, who rely on strong reconnaisance to defeat a stronger enemy with a smaller force by being smarter and faster. What the systems that are being developed bring to the battlefield is better communications to mass at decisive places. We aren't to the point where every soldier has a network sensor system on their bodies, because we really don't need that.
It's called the "Rumsfeld Doctrine" and it's a doctrine that uses our technological advantage to do more with less manpower because we can mass faster and better when we know the situation.
What's happening is that from the commander level up to the higher commanders, there is a very good information flow. That has always existed, in reports sent in by radio, such as a situation report (sitrep), mainenance report, or kia report. The only changes are that it's now faster because of the technology, and that we're starting to see information being collected at the higher levels then pushed down to the lower commanders in the field.
This helps the decision-makers because they have better situational awareness. If you've never been on the ground looking for stuff to kill, you'd be amazed at how easy it is to focus on your little part of the war, and then get surprised when you forget that you're one little piece of what's going on.
I do what the voices on my console tell me to do.
GIVE PEACE A CHANCE!
No more arm races and unnecessary wars!
Killing people in wars is a crime.
Nah ... they're just REALLY inaccurate.
A Minesweeper clone that doesn't suck
When can I get one of these as an add-on for my copy of America's Army?
Maybe they can give them away for free to kids to get an early start on training.
Heinlein would be proud.
www.bannination.com Two things float to the top he
I strap a wireless access point to my back and run WASTE?
SPAM
So you mean you will have a hat that is WAP enabled??? So what? The only thing stopping more technologies like this reaching the "home" are telcos who charge like a wounded bull for mobile services. Until this stumbling block is overcome, then these technologies will not come to fruition. (for the mainstream - of course the fat cats will have it as soon as it comes out) It is not that we have not the technology, but that our teleco infrastructure has been hijacked by private institutions. Almost as bad as the Internet toilet. i.e. A toilet with a computer and an internet connection in it. Big deal??!! I could make one tommorrow myself. Nobody would want to use the keys.....:o) (yes I know it was a prank, but I am commenting on the media's interest in such a unrevolutionary concept - a simple sticking of two old concepts together does not make a ground breaking technology) If that was the case I will be a millionare with: The WAP enable potatoe peeler. Surf while you peel!!!! The I-Suck!! Get the latest weather while you vacuum your house. The I-Blow. Never be lonely again......;o)
What is with the US fascination with military hardware? The world doesn't need more storm troopers.
So American cops reguarly need to shoot 60 people without the inceonvenient delay of a reload? Blimey, it must be like living in a war zone over there.
You misunderstand the special and dramatic needs of Drug law enforcement officers. It isn't a matter of 60 people, it's just a matter of sometimes, they really need to shoot one person 60 times very quickly. After all, think of the horrors that could happen if they only shot them 30 times; some of the people these brave officers are up against are armed with wallets. God knows what the druggies could do if they were only shot 10 or 20 times in quick succession by an unmarked officer busting into their house in the middle of the night with no explanation. They could retaliate. Do you want to put policemen in the line of danger like that?
To address the number of devices they'll need, I'd bet on their making the transition to ipv6, which has been, unfortunately, stymied and postponed for years now.
Just demonstrating the transition in a rather large real-world application would be one of the more useful spinoffs. At the very least, it will help keep ipv6 efforts alive.
60 people? No. Try to stop a car by shooting out the tires/engine? Yes. Also, remember "law enforcement" covers SWAT teams; using 3-round bursts, this will give you 20 pulls of the trigger before it needs to be reloaded. Still a bit excessive for most situations - but better to have too many rounds than to be first into a drug den, and be up against 11 people with only enough to take out 10...
Blimey, it must be like living in a war zone over there.
Not from what I've seen - and no, the police don't carry these things on patrol! They just have a lot of stuff "just in case", for dealing with really serious problems. Everything from adapted tanks for breaking down doors, to helicopters for chasing getaway cars without endangering other traffic.
Kids Look Here!: Safety Guide
NBD... No Big Deal
Let's face it - when it comes to the Net, we know much more than our parents. Its No Big Deal being able to surf the Net, be in a Chat room and txt your mates on your mobile all at the same time!
Who R U?
You might think you've met some real cool friends in Chat rooms but how can you be sure who you're talking too? The person may be nice and trustworthy, but then again they may not be. I tell my mates not to put too much info in my Chatprofile and never arrange to meet up with anyone you've been chatting to - Chat room mates are best left in cyberspace. You might think you're clued up about using the Net safely, but make sure you look out for your mates and remind them to be very careful and stick to the SMART rules in this leaflet.
Stick to the Positive
The great thing about the Internet is that there are some fab sites out there - many of which have been created by young people! If you find a really cool site which helps you with your homework or hobby tell a friend. Nasty stuff like hate sites, sectarian or pornography are right out! Get a life! - Leave those sicko sites where they belong - in the trash can! Be particularly careful about sites which ask you for lots of personal details! You never know where that information goes!
Mobile Up!
Everyone's texting mad - but its not only your mates who are buzzin your fone! Don't give your mobile phone no. out to anyone you don't know and if you start getting annoying or offensive texts talk to your parent or guardian straight away. Keep your mobile out of sight when your on the street and make sure you have a security code or PIN to lock your phone.
Keeping Smart Online!
There are some really cool things on the Internet but a lot of bad stuff too. This means we have to be SMART when we are online. See if you can remember these 5 Safety Tips, and then prove to your friends and parents that you are a SMART surfer.
SECRET - Always keep your name, address, mobile phone number and password private - it's like giving out the keys to your home!
MEETING someone you have contacted in cyberspace can be dangerous. Only do so with your parent's/carer's permission, and then when they can be present.
ACCEPTING e-mails or opening files from people you don't really know or trust can get you into trouble - they may contain viruses or nasty messages.
REMEMBER someone online may be lying and not be who they say they are. Stick to the public areas in Chat rooms and if you feel uncomfortable simply get out of there!
TELL your parent or carer if someone or something makes you feel uncomfortable or worried.
The swedish army has something like that in development, they call it "Network Based Defence". For information about it check on their homepage www.mil.se, it's on swedish but there is an english section as well. Dunno if the english parts covers this project though.
There project adress is http://www.mil.se/nbf/ for the swedish version at least. There are a few demonstration movies and quite some information, haven't really read it all though, but if you want to learn more about this tecnology I think it's worth the read.
D00dz! Internet access moved to helmet 184C! As usual, the camera is pointed at the screen and REMOTE/AIM moves the mouse, with REMOTE/BAYONET for clicking. Pass any found helmets to a fellow d00d and eventually it will reach us for setting up access.
Why would future generations even need such a helmet considering every child I know is more or less clearvoyant already without extra extensions?
:/
Just surfing along on the fucking wireless networks, mobile networks and blahdiebladiebladieblah fucking zionists...
Instrumentalism has happened already considering how fucking bored almost everyone is knowing too much to have a real confined sense of ego.
Here in the US, we're pretty generous with our "bullet to person" ratio, so 60 bullets does not imply anywhere close to 60 people. I mean, seriously, even when running with the counterstrike cheats, nobody's that good.
P.S. Last time I was in England, we couldn't find a trash can anywhere. They had mostly been removed because of the possiblity that someone would leave a bomb in one. How's that war zone thing going with you guys?
..aka: Being shot.
(If the Soldier is the network).
Hmm, seems FARK had slashdot scooped here. This story has a picture and some more information:s tory001.html
http://www.rednova.com/news/stories/3/2003/06/01/
Remember, there were no nuclear weapons before women were allowed to vote.
And think of the possibilities... outright corporate sponsorship. Advertising.
"This battle brought to by ... Burger King. Have it your Way."
"Series production of the MP5/10 is slated to begin in mid-1991. A .40 S&W caliber MP5, termed MP5/40, is undergoing development and testing and is expected to enter series production in late 1991"
Thats an outdated website
The utility of this technology is for a unit leader, with an obvious hierarchy of technological burden/C4I access and control. Officers at the platoon level and up would benefit greatly from this technology so that they could keep track of all of their units and support elements. Likewise, a lesser amount of access and interface for squad leaders to keep track of individual soldiers in an urban or similar combat zone. There's no need for anyone below E-5 to need to know the status of the damn UCAVs because they don't, and shouldn't, have the authority to command them anyway.
Moreover, I really wonder if these people actually expect soldiers to basically compromise their line of sight in the middle of combat. Even if they do, those HUDS are never going to be used in the middle of a firefight because there isn't anything remotely useful for a soldier to utilize that can't be done with an order over the radio from someone who DOES have sufficient overwatch capability and necessity to do so. When the U.S. Army or Marine Corps sets up sniper/countersniper positions relatively afar from enemy forces, what difference does it make that each soldier have a map or any other nonsense? They need to be able to shoot and have unit coordination, which is better accomplished by limiting this much technology and information to platoon headquarters units and above, and possibly much less information to squad leaders.
Which brings me to my next point: INFOSEC.
God forbid a soldier or Marine gets killed while wearing all of the crap necessary to operate this farce of a wannabe battlesuit. How do they presume to them eliminate the potential for hostile agents to access and compromise U.S. forces by using all of this information against them when they are in the middle of combat and can't quickly strip the dead soldier (which I'm sure their recently-close friends would enjoy in the middle of combat) and destroy (to prevent immediate threat of compromise) all of this equipment.
All of this equipment has its place, mainly with vehicles (the first place this type of technology was introduced and where it is most advanced) for a reason. It's mainly utility and scope of combat, as well as the amount of data relevant to those forces as opposed to Infantry. Infantry doesn't need this. The officer corps would benefit from it, but the individual soldier or Marine would find it useless, distracting, and quite simply and unnecessary burden. This could easily add 10-20lbs. to their ensemble, and for units in Airborne, Special Operations, and even most Infantry that is heaping crap on top of gear that already weighs almost as much as they do (i.e., the 100+lbs. of gear Airborne soldiers carry in airborne insertions). As we saw in Afghanistan during Operation: Anaconda, depending on the locale the gear was already too much for them to carry, especially as they are moving out in the middle of a firefight, with soldiers actually falling over backwards and struggling to get into helicopters because the weight of the gear and exhaustion (due to fatigue and the thin air at the altitudes of the combat zones in Afghanistan) just got the best of them. So these geniuses want to ADD MORE WEIGHT? Good luck.
If a unit is in a situation where the opposition is under cover, Police and military doctrine calls for covering fire.
Covering fire is basicly firing off rounds to create noise, to get the badguys heads down to allow other friendlies into a position with better shots.
Suppressing fire is higher volume and more accurate fire to get the badguys into a situation where they can't fire or can't fire accurately so you can move into better positions or overrun thier position.
Most American cops aren't trained with MP-5s or M-4s and do everything with thier pistols, and pistols don't hold 60 rounds.
would you like some help with that!?!?!?!
Seriously, though, this sounds very much like the comm units described by Robert Anson Heinlein in Starship Troopers (the BOOK not the movie!).
...
Properly designed and used this sort of communication capability can greatly expand effectiveness and survivability.
Just don't let Microsoft do the software
--
Tomas
I wouldn't like to know how a DoS, or ping-of-death attack will be. A remote exploit?
Too scary....
sgis ddo ekil t'nod i
Your religion or lack thereof is irrelevant to the person trying to kill you because their god told them to.
In an interesting twist, it is precisely this moral crutch used by soldiers of countries who kill you because their president told them to.
So, a soldier of the west kills because the enemy is commie/arab scum, with the real reason being the obtainment of strategic resources, while the enemy basically has no problem with you, he just wants your money?
And just how long before someone creates a smart bullet to home in on the EM emissions of this helmet -- and at a whole lot lower cost than the helmet itself?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
We are the Borg. The Borg is your future. Resistance is futile.
This perceived soldier of the future is gonna get wacked pretty easily. Being a former airborne veteran and now engineer, I'm glad that I'm not going to be wearing one of these things. Let's just see...the average pack weighs ~60lbs. Add ~20 for body armor and you get ~80 lbs of gear the average joe has to hump.
Let's see now...we want to stick another 20 lbs of crap on. The makes the average weight for a solder over 100 lbs. And that doesn't take into account the friggin batteries or the fact that the helmet is now going to weigh 10+ lbs (Kevlar helmets are pretty heavy). Talk about neck sprain.
And the idea of having a tactical HUD in front of the soldiers face is just another brilliantly stupid idea...I'm sure the soldier will love it when they're taking fire and sees stupid markers/graphics jumping across his cornea. Screw night vision also...oh wait, they have a AN-PVS8 which attaches to the helmet...whoopie my helm now weighs upwards of friggin FIFTEEN lbs.
Getting past all that...how the hell is the average soldier going to contribute to overall battlefield planning? Does he really need to know where the company commander is during a firefight? That's why we have NCOs...
Hope our new Army is rife with Arnold type bodies and Einstein brains...
I can just see it now. pr0n and spam delivered right to my helmet.
What is being proposed has been tried before.
The Royal Navy led the world in the mid-19th century in adopting steam propulsion, with ships proceeding in formation at constant speed, with evolutions being carried out as per flag signals from the flagship. Signal books became more complicated; signalling became a job for the brightest and best, among both officers and seamen. New signalling mechanisms such as Morse code over wireless, or Morse over signal lamp, were adopted with alacrity. People sent signals because they could, and having sent signals to the commander, whose orders they were supposed to follow, they expected replies.
Consequently, after a couple of decades of this, the Royal Navy couldn't fight worth shit.
There are two anecdotes involving Nelson and signalling -- the "blind eye" at Copenhagen, and the "England expects" before Trafalgar. These weren't tactical signals. These were Nelson having a laugh. Nelson had no truck with centralised command and this signalling malarkey; he trained his commanders as he was trained, to understand their job and to get on with it as they saw fit. Nelson and his like put the fear of God (or rather, the fear of the Royal Navy) so thoroughly that it lasted a century.
This "the soldier is the network" business means that a soldier is going to get flooded with urgent requests for tax records at a moment when he might expect to be being given information about at which window to point his grenade launcher. But then, that information would probably be coming from a major in a bunker in the Pentagon who's never handled a grenade launcher, and whose orders are going to be at best meaningless and at worst horribly counterproductive.
Maybe the DoD should consult at the militaries of other nations, that have efficient armed forces and smaller budgets, and see what'd spend the money on, given the choice. Wouldn't be this. But it might be a smaller, lighter, more reliable, more powerful, strongly-encrypted radio comms system with extensions for a whiteboard mode.
Well, that's military doctrine. Police doctrine varies by department but generally involves hitting your target, so the rounds don't go downrange and hit innocent bystanders. In the event of a well-prepared and determined group of bad guys, the police way is to send in sufficiently overwhelming force so you don't have to use military tactics to win. "Covering fire" in a law-enforcement scenario would be grossly irresponsible, imho, if you're not way out in the middle of nowhere. (Not saying it never happens.)
Soldier still need to be trained for events when you have no technologies to use. Like batteries run out, none of them are with you, etc.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
So dropping thousands of shards of extremely fine foil strip on top of advancing American soldiers seems like a good bet.
:)
I seem to remember this stuff plays havoc with just about all radio signals
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
Will soldiers be able to complain in real-time when somebody starts Team Killing?
And I presume that the court-martial procedure will be simplified with a KICK followed by a BAN.
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
Beats me. I am guessing they live in Houston too.
You make a very good point. One thing we know about our law enforment officers is that they tend to fall down when shooting at unarmed people and are prone to uncontrolled exclamations of "he's gut a gun!" when people pull out their wallets.
War is necrophilia.
I don't know about anyone else, but I'm starting to see scenes from 'Spaceballs'...
Is it just me being paranoid, or does the "soldier of the future" in this picture look like an Imperial stormtrooper?
What's next, Dick Cheney on a respirator with a black helmet?
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Still a bit excessive for most situations - but better to have too many rounds than to be first into a drug den, and be up against 11 people with only enough to take out 10...
Hold it, Arnold... I'm sure a regular SWAT guy can gun down 10 armed guys... And if they aren't armed the SWAT guy shouldn't shoot at all...
EXPORT RESTRICTIONS. This SOFTWARE PRODUCT has been classified by the US Government as exportable under License Exception TSU. Therefore the following terms apply: You agree that you will not export or re-export the SOFTWARE PRODUCT, any part thereof, or any process or service that is the direct product of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT (the foregoing collectively referred to as the "Restricted Components"), to any country, person or entity subject to U.S. export restrictions. You specifically agree not to export or re-export any of the Restricted Components (i) to any country to which the U.S. has embargoed or restricted the export of goods or services, which currently include, but are not necessarily limited to Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria, or to any national of any such country, wherever located, who intends to transmit or transport the Restricted Components back to such country; (ii) to any person or entity who you know or have reason to know will utilize the Restricted Components in the design, development or production of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons; or (iii) to any person or entity who has been prohibited from participating in U.S. export transactions by any federal agency of the U.S. government. You warrant and represent that neither the BXA nor any other U.S. federal agency has suspended, revoked or denied your export privileges.
The second is that I see this as another step on the way toward a completely human-less battlefield. Which is a great thing; let the robots fight it out. The engineer in me loves it (I drive an automatic because I feel the tool should do the work. ;-)
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Brings an interesting variation on smart mobs and swarm concepts.
"Police doctrine varies by department but generally involves hitting your target, so the rounds don't go downrange and hit innocent bystanders."
If you look at the shootouts between Police and criminals when there have been officers or civilians down between the criminals and the police, the police will use high volumes of fire with semi-auto or burst weapons.
Usually the Police use shotguns or 9mm submachine guns in urban settings since they lose energy quickly and don't penetrate walls/cars/doors well. The danger is since the North Hollywood shootout and the loss of officers in Portland and Waco to high power pistols and 5.56 and 5.45mm assault rifles, the police are going to M-4s and M-16s whose rounds will go a long ways and go through houses.
"getting there fastest with the mostest" is a quote most often attributed to Nathan Bedford Forrest (US, American Civil War, Confederacy side).
So, a soldier of the west kills because the enemy is commie/arab scum, with the real reason being the obtainment of strategic resources, while the enemy basically has no problem with you, he just wants your money?
Pretty much, yes. It's just that the soldiers generally don't know it. After all, they're "just" following orders...
Or would the soldiers be referred to in Borgspeak? If so, would a shapely woman be put in as Seven of Nine? Would a group of soldiers attacking be committing a biological DDoS?
Steven den Beste, who blogs at USS Clueless, wrote a couple of related posts in the last couple of months, one on information-age military logistics and a somewhat more technical post on how a battlefield network would work.
Mark Erikson
French Resistance? OK, now I know this is fiction.
As it stands, civilians, necessarily mostly unprotected from the benefits of technology, are going to represent the majority of casualties in 'armed conflict'. I'm the only one to think that this is perverse?
SWAT teams do, yes. Most cops carry only a pistol with them, but speical units like SWAT teams need more firepower. PArt of it is simply the threat of overwhelming force can often difuse a situation. If a gunman is faced with 10 heavily armed SWAT members, they are much mroe likely to give up than if they are faced with one normal officer. However, part of having that threat is the need to be ready if you get called out on it. It wouldn't do any good to have guns that just LOOK scary, they need to be powerful as well.
but i think its a bad idea for your average foot soldier (3 years experience talking here)
---- Put Sig here:
Do you think the world is saver now than 3 years ago?
Yes, it is.
Bin Laden is dead or on the run.
Afghanistan is no longer being used as a base to launch attacks on the United States.
Saddam is dead or on the run.
Iraq is no longer paying tens of thousands of dollars apiece to suicide bombers.
It'll be safer still once Iran and North Korea are dealt with.
Likewise, i would suspect the chinese military will soon be developing as many ways as possible to jam local wireless networks.
Jamming local wireless networks is _reaaaallllyyy_ easy......[lookup the aloha protocol....]
When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. (Larry Wall)
Lose, please. Next you'll be saying that Dr. Noone wants war.
Radio-equipped soldiers are given special tactical status because of the ease with which any useful spectrum of radio waves can be triangulated. The equipment to do so has come down from a few thousand and a truck to a few dozen dollars and a half-pound gadget the size of a sandwitch.
And now someone wants to put an always-on packet transponder on each soldier?!? Why not put them in flourecent pink instead of camo and put "mortar me" signs with bulls-eyes on top of each tent?
Spread spectrum and encryption will keep you from being jammed, overheard, spoofed, etc., but only radio silence can keep you from being spotted. Laugh all you want, just keep your fucking toys away from my troops.
And founder of the Klan.
Those who know Ethernet know what I'm talking about. Nothing like 45 seconds of downtime (unless you're implementing the newer 802.1w standard or one of its many variants, such as the half a dozen proprietary Cisco methods).
This gives an entirely new meaning to the legendary "Man-In-The-Middle Attack."
What does that have to do with his competence as a military commander? Your ass-backwards politics do not automatically color your performance at your job. (Pardon the pun.) You can be a skilled laborer, such as a carpenter, electrician, or a CEO for that matter, and also be a racist.(See Republican party) Also, Forrest renounced the Klan and his past behavior several years before he died.
I'm curious why (with one exception) you never seem to point out that ''this column'' is YOUR BLOG?
If you want to be a karma-whore then that's your business. And that's the only conclusion we can reach considering the sheer number of submissions (33 as of this one, not counting however many were rejected) in the 2 months since you set up your account, and the frequency with which you discourage people from reading the original articles (always pointing them to your blog).
I find some of the articles you post interesting so by all means continue to contribute. But please don't pretend that you aren't pointing people to your blog.
Presumably you're trying to turn yourself into another Internet pundit or get the traffic on your site up high enough so that you can charge big bucks for advertising. That's cool too if you want to do that.
But please ... just stop pretending that you're directing people somewhere other than your own blog.
Sincerely,
HardcoreGamer
The Spiders
Highly recommended. Innovative take on the changing face of war.
You mean you couldn't find a trash can on the underground, because, unlike certain countries who have only found out that terrorism is real in the last couple of years, we've been dealing with it for decades.
Funny, I never heard Americans make snide comments about people in New York over-reacting - maybe it's not terrorism unless it happens to America?
Score:-1, Funny
Please stop inventing more ways to kill humans! What is the point of killing eachother? You'd think we'd be over this already.
Be careful, you could be in for the joys of:
.45acp argument
Involutary psycological evaluation
Involuntary medication
Invuluntary job loss
Pity really, some verbalization without over physcal action does blow off a lot of steam. I'd also suspect that FPS video games have been a huge help at reducing WFV.
While the hardware you pointed too is cool, a 3" magnum semi-auto shotgun can put more 9 millimeter balls of lead in the air faster than you can from that.
(Damn, almost as bad as the 9mm vs
or "mine's bigger than yours")
First we had print publications. Then phones. Then cell phones. Then the Internet. Now we have soldiers living half their battles in a video game.
Watching Star Trek, you see battles of individualists vs the Borg Collective.
But, with all this emphasis on connections and "the network" - has it occurred to anybody that by 2500 AD we will be the borg?
We will be the "collective", we'll be the ones with networking hardware sticking out the sides of our faces, though maybe we won't have such a schtik for "assimilating" other races...
One of those weird thoughts that may partly come from the beer I'm almost done with...
-Ben
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
A committed intelligent enemy is going to have radio direction finders in simple munitions and will make mincemeat of any army deploying this stuff seriously.
great for beating up spear-chuckers, not much else.
'There is a Light that never goes out.'
unlike certain countries who have only found out that terrorism is real in the last couple of years, we've been dealing with it for decades.
Sure. But the whole "America must be a war zone" comment seemed like an unecessary snide comment coming from someone in a country that has arguably been a "war zone" as well.
Funny, I never heard Americans make snide comments about people in New York over-reacting - maybe it's not terrorism unless it happens to America?
First: we made much fun of the people buying gas masks, I'm surprised you missed it. Perhaps you have poor listening skills. Second: where's the whole "it's not terrorism unless it happens to America" thing coming from? I thought I was sort of saying, "England has terrorism problems too, you snide 'America is a war zone' comment making limey." That's pretty much the exact opposite. Perhaps you have poor listening skills.
An article in Wireless Business & Technology gives chapter and verse on this...it's written by the founder of 4Gwireless.org, who is also one of the prime movers behind a pioneering mesh-networking company.
Remember, it's a deterrent, not a solution. Americans in some States can have *big* weapons around - this thing is designed to deter in those situations.
Cops have firepower like this to deter the guy with a 6-shooter from trying to 'take one out before they get me'.
There is little arguing with someone capable of safely spraying 30 rounds at you. Well, that is, unless your gun is bigger.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Weapons of mass instruction.
Only if he has enough ammunition to do the job! That regular SWAT guy will look very silly - and very dead - when he aims at the 11th armed bad guy, pulls the trigger, and hears a 'click'...
The SAS, incidentally, use the regular MP5 (or MP5-K), and use pairs of 30 round magazines, taped back-to-back. Changing magazine is, with a bit of practice, incredibly quick and easy. That gives them the same 60 rounds as this gun holds. They seem to think this is useful, and they've been doing the whole counter-terrorism thing for quite a long time...
Can you just imagine being in the middle of battle, killing an enemy soldier and having the HUD flash and an ominous, echoing voice in your ear announcing that 'You are in the lead'.
Not to mention the scrolling display up the top saying how many frags are left...
Hmm, glad to see that the "Special Relationship" is still very much alive and kicking then. On a serious note though. In the UK our incidences of domestic terrorism have fallen greatly mainly due to the fact that people bothered to sit down and discuss the issues. They may not have liked it but both the incumbent government and the previous government made it their priority to tackle the diffcult issue of Northern Ireland through peaceful and meaningful democratic debate, although many in NI would no doubt disagree. Sure there are still terrible tensions in the six counties and a lot of work remains to be done but we live in hope of a lasting peace in the UK. Once again I would like to reiterate that this was achieved by "talking" and not by bombing the country back into the stone age. Valuable lessons maybe.
The uniforms of the Microsoft soldiers have patches, and more patches, and even more layers of patches... and you can still see their underwear through the holes left behind. -- Paul Mischler
(Lifted from the bottom of the slashdot page.)
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
tracert commander.3rdinfantry.dod.mil
1 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms router.whitehosue.gov
2 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms 81.23.243.16
3 20 ms 20 ms 21 ms centcom.iraq.dod.mil
6 37 ms 32 ms 35 ms battlefield.iraq.dod.mil
7 * * *
8 * * *
Sir? I think we have a problem...
Repeat after me: We are all individuals
> Trying growing up in a poor neighborhood with lots
> of crime. Your view of self-defense will be
> radically different than some naive college boy
> from Suburbia, USA, whose only violent encounters
> consist of getting his ass kicked by the local
> bully.
Hey, I did grow up in the 'burbs and my experience of real-life violence consists mainly of dealing with bullies in school. Do I have a "non-violent" approach to life as a result? Shit no. My approach is "don't tread upon me".
If you want to start a fight with this college dropout from Suburbia, USA, then you'd better get right with your God first 'cos I am going to do everything I can to make sure that I'm the last man standing.
Violence can solve all sorts of issues. Just ask Napoleon.
That's what this gun does as well. Sixty rounds is from three 20-round magazines held together by integrated interlocks, the "technology" they were touting. No tape required. I'm not even sure you'd have to stop at three, other than the fact that it would get unwieldly when you were using one on the end and had (10?) 20-round magazines hanging out one side. That's a lot of weight.
The Spoon
Updated 6/28/2011
Go google for more detailed description of the story of a couple of heavily-armed bastards who shot-up several much-lighter-armed cops during a robbery in LA. One link is:
http://theoutrage.com/library/000303.html
No go back under your bridge troll.
-DVK
"The right to figure things out for yourself is the only true freedom everyone shares. Go use it"-R.A.Heinlein
5.56mm has less penetration through walls, in addition to less wounding potential "post-wall" due to it's lighter projectile that sheds mass and velocity that much quicker than 9mm rounds and up.
That said, the maximum effective range for the rifle round IS a lot higher.