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US Military Develops P2P Wireless Network Sniffer
Merlin83 writes "As being reported on The Register, the US Military is developing a new system for monitoring enemy battlefield communication. Called WolfPack, each node is a 6"x4" cylinder, launched by missile or dropped from aircraft. Once the node lands, it stands up, extends its antenna and contacts other nodes. The nodes can also jam cellular communications by transmitting a signal themselves. "
Of "the Diamond Age". We just have to get these things smaller...
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
Considering how dependant the US military is on high tech communications, I'm guessing we are only hearing about this because they have figured out how to get around something like this. Anyone care to speculate on what that is?
Galium Arsenide is the material of the future, and always will be.
beowulf cluster of these! No. Seriously. Could you have a impromptu cellular network be put up, perhaps in the Niagara-Mohawk area if power goes out again and the cell-phone tower generators run out of fuel?
I wouldn't think that the US would want something like this to exist. Think what some of these could do in a large city.
And they propose to drop them on the ground in unfriendly areas, where anyone can come along and pick them up!
-1 Idiotic
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
That has to be one of the more poorly edited articles I've ever seen. First off, there were numerous gramatical errors and incomplete sentences. Secondly there's a completely erroneous reference to Napster which was NOT a P2P network.
I consider this as poor as CNN reporting that ConEd was on fire last night. Just 10 minutes of proof-reading and fact checking would show the faults. I hate this bullshit.
Why limit the system to only battlefield? I mean if this works for the US Military it is also usefull in a more civill environment.
The Army could license the technology to companies and earn in some of those tax dollars.
This has happened before with a lot of tech and it could happen again. Just think about the possibilities in for example the fight against terror.
Proud patriot and republican voter.
Picture now that these devices are equiped not only with wireless, but also with infrared and motion sensors.
;) ), and you have just created a mine field that can be abandond without worring about hurting civilians afterwards.
Slave these to a smart 'expert' system, that creates a 'map' of the area over which they have been spread. Now you can 'see' when anyone intrudes into that area.
Slave THAT to some artilery (or better yet, a jeep towed high energy rail gun
I wrote a high end overview of such a system for my technical writing class in 1989... As I recall, I got a 'D' for it, because my diagrams were not good enough. Ahh, I wish I could have had Visio back then!
If you can jam the enemy's communications, they are in deep shit. They can't coordinate movement of units, call for fire support, report contact with the enemy, request resupply, etc.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
The countermeasure is surely too straightforward - send a bunch of kids out to collect them.
Unless they are fitted with antipersonnel devices (looking unlikely given the current trend towards banning cluster munitions) they will make nice souvenirs of the conflict.
2 days after they are released in the wild we'll be bidding for them on eBay.
The Registrers version:
A slightly different version you've got there Sir.Proud patriot and republican voter.
Proprietary frequencies? (non-cellular standard)
Digital communications with IFF that are ignored by the jammers? Like the pay-per-view stuff -- if your key code is correct, we don't jam you.
Ultra wideband that doesn't rely on a specifig frequency.
etc.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
This looks like the results of a flashy bid for government dollars through a beurocratic bid system the values WOW glitz as higher than good ole useful application.
I forgot the painfully obvious one...
The devices themselves are used as comm nodes for the U.S. military. They could forward encrypted, digital communications through the network they create.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Just let them "bomb" you, pick it, hack it and have a cool wireless p2p box. Imagine porting Kazaa to these! :)
:)
Seriously, remembering times from IIWW when in occupied Warsaw people commonly made grenades from dud bombs, that thing with some technology applied, could provide great means of communication network for the enemy
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
They drop these. You pick them. They win the war, conquer your country and then sue you for stealing US government property. Sounds probably, doesn't it?
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
This reminds me of when, from the movie The Fifth Element, Zorg's main lackey was using a remote-controlled cockroach to listen in on the President's "secret plan" to send Bruce Willis to meet the Diva Plavalaguna on Planet Fhloston to get the stones and save the world...anyway, the President grabs a shoe and squishes the cockroach, sending a squeal of feedback into the lackey's ears, and sending waves of giggles into the audience... I wonder if, since these are so "secret", if it won't be the same type of situation. They'll be found, dismantled, and disposed of. It was just a thought...
+5, Female
this seems the complement of the smart dust .
The smart dust was supposed to be a 1 cube mm sensor with some computational power that was also supposed to transmit signals. I also recall that it was supposed to cost very few $ (one?). Clearly, you do not need parachutes for it and you can just deploy thousands on the battlefield or whatever you want to spy on. I don't know if these can send such a strong signal, but I believe that if you deploy enough of them you could. And being much smaller and many thousands, they would be much harder to get rid of. However, I haven't heard of smart dust in a while. Maybe they have perfected it and started using it. Or maybe the project just died.
odd, i've always ascoiated it with my alma mater. Never heard of the Nazi connection. I figured it was just a group of like items working together much lick a pack of wolves.
That's all good and well, except that the first thing you do when you invade is destroy those fixed lines of communication. Even if these fixed lines are made impregnable, commands to the field still need to be transmitted to mobile units. I also wouldn't assume that the full details of what these units can do was laid out in the very brief news article.
There are numerous articles on this subject, and the Army acyually uses special guidelines when they name operations.
A liutenant Sieminski wrote a article about this (do some googling).
At the end of his article, Sieminski offers four guidelines for naming operations in the future.
Operation Desert Storm was a good name but Operation Iraqi Freedom was even better. The names are altered to fot to the public whom would not accept war unless its sounds "meaningfull".
Personally i liked the Operatin Just Cause (Panama) because of the noble sound it gives, and I think it added something to the justification of he war.
The last operations in Iraq was initially called "Operation Desert Freedom" and later "Operation Infinite Justice". I love the last one as i think it reflects the way the US Military should fight. After that someone wanted to call it "Operation Iraqi liberation" but for some reason they abadonded that. I think this was a good thing as the word "liberation" is a reference to a french word.
I like Sieminski as he has nailed the whole point of naming wars in a special way for the cause of getting the public to accept a war that will beneft the nation:
In a perfect world this would not be neccesary, but as long as the public is so relluctant to wars in general this is a good way to convince them to fight for the country in wars that are neccesary but hard to understand ordinary non-educated workers.
Proud patriot and republican voter.
The function of a single can would be some combination of:
Maybe they could even have solar cells to make them last more than 2 months in the field.
main(O){10<putchar((O--,102-((O&4)*16| (31&60>>5*(O&3)))))&&main(2+ O);}
LN2 is cool!