Slashdot Mirror
Developing Open Source Defense Projects
An anonymous reader writes "I'm a developer looking to develop an open source surface-to-air missile guidance system, with the aim of helping developing nations develop low-cost missile defense systems to aid them against attack by the warplanes of invading forces. However, given the very nature of the project, I feel I may be walking into a bit of a minefield regarding the legalities of such a project, since, as I'm sure you can imagine, this project could easily benefit hostile nations was well as relatively peaceful ones! Unfortunately, since Google does not seem to shed much light on the subject, I'd be very interested in hearing Slashdot's views on the matter, especially some advice from those in the know about the legal matters - whether there would be any restrictions (exports, perhaps?) or whether it would be simply plain illegal to develop!"
You can't share the technology with other civilizations!
Imagine what will happen if the Terrans start building Protoss cannons that can strike ground and air targets, or the Zerg start equipping Zerglings with stimpacks! The results would... be...
Wait, was that just a computer game?
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
I'm sure if you ask really nicely they'll consider opening one of their projects for you.
There was Cowboy Neal at the wheel of a bus to never-ever land.
Perhaps the US Government would like to contribute some code to your project.
april fools is not a license to be a retard.
Ceci n'est pas un post
I know this might sound silly, but here's a really simple answer for you:
DON'T OPEN-SOURCE IT!!!
this is a really stupid joke post. i bet you $10 the poster will be getting some calls from the Dept. of Homeland Security.
Well being April 1, I wont take this seriously.
Beta Testing your product will sure be a bitch, and it will be hard to keep good beta testers.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Missile Command (Atari) works great and is dirt cheap now-a-days.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Who will you sue when it blows up the wrong target?
You picked a bad day to post this question!
I'm getting sick of these April Fool's posts... We all already know that Open Source Defense Projects is an oxymoron, you know source has to be closed to be truely secure.
Can we have a real story now?
April Fools
The Open Source Hammer in the Sky protocol suite is what you are looking for. I use the OSHITS protocol to defend my small volcanic (it's not active, thankfully) island.
Oh, I also need to mention that OSHITS is GPL-compliant, so feel free to modify it in any way you'd like. It can be found at OSHITS.com*
The OSHITS protocol suite has also been through the legal ringer, in both the EU and the US.
In fact, the Supreme Court and the UN Tribunal Council both agreed, OSHITS is legal and quite good for use. Thanks and have a great day.
*web address doesn't render properly on IE. User must use an old version of Netscape.
Sent from your iPad.
First thing, don't be inside of the US developing it. The US doesn't want anything in the way of them rolling over any foreign countries that they find Oil in.
Otherwise, I'd love to see such a system out there. I've always drafted up ideas for tanks, planes, missile guidence systems, but being in the US, there's no way I could ever develop them.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
As we all know there is no security in obscurity.
The story seem credible up until that part :o)
flossie
Write now. Defend liberty
Hey, man. You have the right to bear arms. Missiles are arms.
Now lets party.
I demand a filter option for 'Stupid April Fools' stories
perhaps you should write your controlling app using .NET technology?
Food: It's whats for dinner
I wonder if you could get some funding from DARPA?
is there any missle defense system for this other than adult diapers?
This shit is not funny.
www.coxmodels.com
:P
Those estes rockets are really cheap.
Why waste time developing a new system, when you can buy really nice ones on the black market for next to nothing?
I'm sure some of the people over at theNationstates forums would be able to help you.
You really are an idiot.
Better get a lawyer to start. Seriously. Export regulations are harsh, and breaking them is harsher. And that was BEFORE 9/11. Now you could seriously be considered a terrorist.
You think Estes just build model rockets? Call their customer service line and ask for a guy named Jimmy 'The Switch'. He'll sort you out.
Include the following in your software:
if (missile.origin == US)
do_nothing();
else
shoot_it_down();
I'm sure US would be satisfied with this. And the security is foolproof!
Obviously this project will need something that allows fast access and data transfer. I would recommend setting a webserver on the missle that would be able to interact with the controlling machine through a java interface. Putting an 802.11a wireless interface on the missle would probably be the best idea so that you would have a large enough area to access the missle.
It is April Fool's if it is funny.
Unfortunately, this askslashdot fails on both counts.
Lame post!! Lame post!!!
I may not be the first and/or only one to think of this, but this seems to be a proven formula:
1. Post article on Slashdot on April 1st
2. ???
3. Profit!
Sigs for Nerds. Sigs that Matter.
Missle defense is just going to create another arms race as countries build weapons that can get past them.
An open source missile defence would be its very nature be the easiest to fool, so I don't necessarily see the use.
Aside from all that, good luck.
Dance like no ones looking and love like it's never going to hurt.
Just make it obfuscated or unreadable
:D
then you won't have a problem about people
reading your source or trying to impliment
it without you knowing
Or.. put a big huge bug in the source that has
to be commented out or something for it to
compile !!
-- my thoughts
he demonstrated by A plus B minus C divided by Z that the sheep must be red, and die of the rot
You just need to stand at the border with large baseball or cricket bats. Planes hate bats, and bats are sympathetic to American causes. Evil nations would use pointed sticks. So if you develop a system that can tell the difference between pointed sticks (evil) and baseball bats (good), no problem. I'm sure any ol' RFID would be useful in a good American or British bat.
riding round the world on an old motorcycle
Michael isn't intentionally picking April Fools stories. He's actually following his normal selection patern, it's just today that we're willing to consider them jokes....
Remember to say "Hi." to Mr. Ashcroft for me.
Man, promise me you'll share the videos of your real-life tests =)
____
nico
Nico-Live
That being said, how much help is the software without precision aviation hardware? And wouldn't the software you write be tied to some particular hardware that may or may not be hard for a typical nation's defense forces to obtain?
Those are my thoughts.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
OK, michael must be stopped...
perhaps someone here chould develop a ground-to-slashdot editor missile system so we can get on with the regular dupes and SCO stories?
Schrodinger's cat is either dead or really pissed off...
remove the earwax from your ears - the lead in the pencil can rub off and give you permanent brain damage.
That is a LAME April Fools Day joke dude. I mean, it isn't even funny.
Why waste time working on weapons. Use your skills for good. Something like software to route food in underdeveloped nations. If this is an April's Fools post, it is quite uninspired.
harmonious design
I think O'Reilly has a Munitions book that includes surface to air missiles and a host of other goodies (with code snippets).
I can't remember what's on the cover.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
The joke of this submission was that he says he searched google before asking Slashdot for advice.
Dun't worry yurself 'bout the legaltys. 'Ell, I owns one a dem dere new-clear weapons and no one's dun gone'n fussed ta me about it. Course, I ain't told no one 'bout it either. B'Sides, it's my second amender-ment right!
Could we give it a rest already!
"there will be no more fun of any kind" - Dean Wormer
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
http://www.pmdtc.org/reference.htm
If you want some more info, go to: http://www.interestingprojects.com/cruisemissile/p rocurement.shtml.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
... KICBM?
or GMissile?
Beta testers are sure gonna be a hard thing to find when bugs crop up.
I have a BS in BS.
This fits in just a little too well with some recent "Ask Slashdot" stories.
"I'm a moron. How can I be less of a moron? Should I not be a moron at all? Or should I be even more moronic?" (bitchslapping ensues, mostly by those too bored to restrain themselves)
Premature optimization is the root of all evil
Which is worse? To feed trolls by posting replies, or to reply to any story posted on Slashdot on April 1?
The answer to the question is of course: ITAR, the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, which is detailed here: http://pmdtc.org/reference.htm
"127.1 Violations.
(a) It is unlawful:
(1) To export or attempt to export
from the United States any defense article
or technical data or to furnish
any defense service for which a license
or written approval is required by this
subchapter without first obtaining the
required license or written approval
from the Office of Defense Trade Controls;"
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside a dog, its too dark to read.
10. Nuclear landmines kept warm by being packed with live penguins
9. The Gentoo Torpedo
8. *BSD WMD (this one is buried deep so you can't find it)
7. SDI SDK
6. The *real* Mozilla: a 600' tall flame-breathing Japanese monster.
5. Neutron GAIM
4. The BeoWulfowitz Cluster
3. Sun OpenWarfare project
2. The Doomsday Linux
1. Cmdr Taco
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
I CTRL+P'd this and faxed it to the DOD. Also to the RIAA, they can find you Mr. "Anonymous Reader."
Damn I did so many drugs today I thought I was ordering drive-thru at McDick's, turns out I was posting this message on /.
Coz I was high, Coz I was high, Coz I was high....
Mod +5 Drunk
It's a no-brainer.
I submit that this is proof that michael is a long-running hoax here on /. . That would explain a lot of things, that's the psuedonym the other editurs hide behind when being an ass.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I thought it was kind of funny, but I'd put money on it that they have your phones tapped right now just to make sure. Better put your tin foil hat on and start praying that the feds figure you are just joking.
Maybe you should try making fun of a bunch of sissies that can't do anything about it. Maybe a nice Canada joke? Or better yet, make fun of the stupid, like the rest of us do. At least they won't get it.
Yes sir, I like it!
"Hmm. I am to metaphor cheese as metaphor cheese is to transitive verb crackers!"
Since Every Time I post this, Slashdot PULLS THE STORY, I thought I'd see if I can get them to pull EVERY story
.ORG, since SLASHDOT is a FOR PROFIT venture?
THE FACTS:
For several hours yesterday and this morning, slashdot and freshmeat were UNAVAILABE. The server reported 509 errors.
THE QUESTIONS:
1. Was network solutions trying to REVOKE THE
2. Did Linux fuck up? This would be the worst possible thing, since the ZEALOTS here refuse to belive LINUX CAN CRASH.
The public has a RIGHT TO KNOW THE TRUTH SLASHDOT!
READ THIS POST NOW! BEFORE SLASHDOT DELETES IT, OR THE WHOLE STORY!
And yes, this is a troll, too.
Open Source Missile, a la google.
What is your IP?
Well, these april fools joke posts are getting a bit annoying. But I'll reply anyhow.. Making defensive (or offensive) systems open source is pure insanity. You might as well put a giant target on whatever you are trying to protect, with giant flashing neon lights and have them dump out massive ammounts of RF so they'd be even easier to lock on to. You could have come up with a better April Fools post.
The cost of the actual hardware would be ASTRONOMICAL compared to the software. How much of a savings will open source software offer in the face of billions? Missiles ain't cheap. Okay, sounds like fun and all... Interesting project. Enjoy yourself. But come on!
No one will fall for that one.
?
Maybe this guy can contribute to the project!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
or was it a camel.. I'm not sure
"Hmm. I am to metaphor cheese as metaphor cheese is to transitive verb crackers!"
You gave yourself away. Real Askslashdot entries never search Google before posting.
I agree, April fools is supposed to be about funny postings on Slashdot of jokes other websites are running.
The chicken warmed nukes were hilarious, and the Omniscience Protocol was a good laugh as well. But what the heck is the point of the "anonymous reader" posts by michael which don't even have links to stories in them and consist of crap that isn't even funny? Come on michael! There is an excellent joke up on google today you could link for us, and I am sure there are hundreds of other hilarious stories you could dig up.
Why must you post such lame crap michael? It isn't funny, and there are plenty of truly funny stories to post. Do your job, and edit out the crap.
Being a retard is no excuse for april fools.
This place NSWC Crane used to design such systems. Don't know if they do anymore......
CMDRTACO CHECK YOUR EMAIL!
Well, security through inferiority is a tried and true method, historically.
No, this is just the answer to that guy in New Zealand with the DIY cruise missle! Hey, you wouldn't be that guys neighbor, would you? I'm beginning to understand now...
All I know is that if I were a kid in his neighborhood, I wouldn't be walking on his grass...
So long as you only market them at the Open Source Defense Industry trade show, or the OSDI, which is being held, coincidentally, today.
Missile Command
[Missle defense is just going to create another arms race as countries build weapons that can get past them.]
Because everyone knows the sword was invented after the shield.
[An open source missile defence would be its very nature be the easiest to fool, so I don't necessarily see the use.]
Just like everyone can hack OpenBSD because it's open source.
The only real problems with the plan are policitians and lawyers.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
It will be easy to keep good beta testers, they are the ones who survive because they are so good at dodging. The trick is recruiting new beta testers, and keeping them around long enough to become good beta testers.
As your code improves, it will increasingly weed out the beta testers who are not quite good enough. The really good beta testers will improve as your code improves, and will take your improvments as just the motivation they need to keep on improving.
Your product will be ready for release when you run out of beta testers.
Infuriate left and right
Please make sure portability is in the specifications.
There is a need to fit a unit in an inconspicuous van or truck which can be left near a major airport.
Target selection is not an issue, any plane will do.
the most cost efficent, survivable software project is to have open source colonies on the moon. currently there doesn't exist any missle that can reach that point. in this case, the best missle defense is distance away from the primary, and secondary launch windows.
"good hunting, kirk out."
Anti-terrorist unit dispatched. Don't resist, they are authorised to use lethal force. Lay on the ground immediately, face down, put your hands over head and wait for arrival of the security team.
There you are, staring at me again.
That's the way it was last year and IIRC the year before that.
the internet is knee deep in instructions on how to build and h-bomb.
2 1337 4 u!
I like this idea because, as it stands, the price for this type of software is artificially inflated.
Right now, terrorists' funding is being stretched quite thin because of increased costs for heroin production in Afghanistan. So, anywhere that they can cut costs, they want to. Buying guided missiles from former Soviet block nations can be quite costly, and a more cost effective solution involves cutting out the middle man and building them "in-cave."
I'm not sure about legal issues, but perhaps Syria or Lebanon or other countries would be interested in supporting you. Just watch out for those pesky CIA dudes that are trying to kill your ass.
Take it easy? I'll take it anyway I can get it . . .
This should definately be part of devfs. You should be able to say something like:
dd if=/dev/nuke of=/dev/[your enemy] count=5
Good luck!
April fools asside, the question really is worth pondering. What if some country somewhere really did develop an open-source defense project that it would share with other developing countries, complete with schematics, bills-of-material, and source code. Someone's got to realize that established defense companies and dominant countries may indeed be caught with their pants down.
I thought it was funny as hell. I guess slashdotters can't see the humour in themselves. i.e All open source projects are Good, all government restrictions on software are Bad.
My only real complaint is there are just too damn many April fools jokes on slashdot. If the majority of the stories were actually real and only a few stories were jokes it'd be much easier to put one over on everyone.
AccountKiller
Actually, I just checked CPAN, and it looks like there is already a Perl module that does it. Oh well. Maybe think of soemthing else to work on?
its easy to buy these missiles on the black market, much more so than it is to develop them. if you are serious then i would say suck it up do your own research and read the genenva conventions about what the actual limitations are on these weapons. other than this stop wasting oxygen.
How frikken hard can it be to design a guided missile? I mean hobbyists already build and operate model jet airplanes. It would seem that you could just replace the jet engine with a rocket engine ( or not, just use the off the shelf jet engine ) add a camera with a TV frequency transmitter ( get from spy shop ) and sit in your van steering the thing manually to the target like a kamikaze. I think you could build a decent cruise missile with at least a 5 mile range for less than $1000 and a high school education.
Eat at Joe's.
go fuck your sheep
As soon as you release an open missile guidance system for surface to air, someone's going to hack the code to make them surface to SCO missiles.
you'd already know. ;-)
"It was a summer's tale: Just a boy, his Linux, and a head full of dreams..."
I think you pretty much have to do the work in one of the beneficiary countries. You'll need access to anti-aircraft weapons for testing, after all.
Even then, you are likely to have trouble getting permission to give it to anyone else. You might have to smuggle the software out and distribute it as warez. If caught you are likely to be prosecuted as a "terrorist".
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Due to the patriot act we've had to curtail certain rights. The seven words you can't say on television now have been expanded to 256. The first additions were the words "in god we trust". You have missles for arms? This could be a problem, as yow may know, smoking prohibited in public places.
That would explain a lot of things, that's the psuedonym the other editurs hide behind when being an ass.
That would explain their submissive position during the assfuckings.
Why is the US government hell-bent on pissing off the Chinese by selling the renegade Chinese province (which Taiwan is by international law) hitech weapons?
Since U.S. intelligence services will have access to the source code and will be able to figure out a way to defeat the system relatively easily...
-1 Willie Nelson Reference
I thought the April Fool's jokes were getting out of hand, but now we're being cruel...
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
So, I'm thinking, wouldn't it be fun to open such a project on Source Forge? Then I thought - I'll bet somebody did. (yeah, go to the link, it's there).
Kinetic stupidity has a new brand leader: Allen Zadr.
Today, April 1st, I am building a nuclear device in my back yard, and I need some advice. First off, how do I separate Uranium-235 in sufficient quantities? Secondly, I don't have a lead suit to work in... Is it ok if i wrap myself in aluminum foil?
My third question was going to be where to find an open source guidance system for my delivery device- thank you Sourceforge and Mr. Anonymous!
A witty saying proves you are wittier than the next guy.
despite what most of you readers are saying, its NOT illegal to develop this. and for the same reasons i can post bomb making instructions on line, or print them in books. as long as you aren't actually implementing it, or selling it to some terrorists, its legal.
'WE DON'T' -- all know that source needs to be closed in order to 'secure'. There is alot to be said that the more 'things', including source code is open, the easier it is to put energies into other things, including waiting to be on the offensive, for the 'instruders' who will appear at the 'open door'. The more I 'have to' pick and remember 'passwords', nicks, etc, the more I hate the whole process, and dream of having all the 'systems' around me in life (ie not just computer stuff), 'open', so that I can have more time being creative and productive in other things, other than 'worry' constantly about 'security', when the fact of the matter is, if someone wants to 'get me', they can no matter what. But my chances greatly improve (i theorize), if I have more time to 'be ready' and identify and nullify and 'intruders' (bad guys) in my life when I am NOT mistakenly dupped into thinking that all my worries and calclutions of nics and pw's will let me sleep tight. As far as working on military projects as a seperate, civilian party... It should be quite obvious by events in Iraq and recently with the Haitians, that ONLY when a certain amount of 'The People' (masses) rise up in anger, do the so-called 'official's (servents) cower back into 'their place'. I hope many 'professional' military' people are/will join the poster in contributing to projects such as these 'directly' by 'The People'... after all, I personally have complete confidence that 'The People' will always act correctly in all situations, including war (eventually) INSPITE of what 'the goverments' (or their supporters) say is contrary!!! :)
I will gladly loose all of life's battles.. in order to win the war..
Is it possible to mod the story as funny?
/. is a bunch of nerds at a million typewriters. It's not a political conspiracy determined to undermine your beliefs.
from the real-submissions-unedited dept.
from AP Newswire: A humorless group of secret service agents shut down slashdot.org for almost 2 hours today while computer forensic analysts tore apart servers and examined archived posts concerning a rumored "open source missle guidance software" project. Agents permitted resumption of services after dragging an unidentified individual out of the company's offices who was screaming "It is april fools day! It was just a joke! It was funny!"
Leonard McButcheeks, press agent for the Dept. of Homeland Security stated "we will investigate this situation further but the US Secret Service does not have a sense of humor as far as we know."
.. the launch codes! And the launch computer should run windows 95 and have a permanent, non-firewalled internet connection. You do that, and I'll open-source my very own doomsday worm (development is still in an early phase, the release is expexted around april 1, 2005 :)).
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
Step 1) Get a dual B.S. degree in Computer Science and Signals and Systems.
Step 2) Get a M.S. in Physics, with a core focus on Aerodynamics.
Step 3) Get a P.H.D. (or 8 years of field experience with Boeing equivalent) in Advanced Automated Flight Systems Development.
Step 4) Obtain a suitable number (50 ought to do) of gyro-guided surface-to-air missles for testing (try www.ebay.co.ussr, they usually have great deals this time of year what with munitions bunker spring cleanings and all)
Step 5) Develop!
Plan B:
Step 1) Break into NORAD and steal the source for their guidance systems.
Step 2) Sell it.
I gotta say, Plan B sounds a whole lot easier than A.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
man, /. is teh suck on April 1. goodbye till tomorrow. until then i'll be reading the last 2 months of dilbert.com
What a wonderful idea! I know that whenever I'm planning on doing something that mightpossibly get me charged with aiding and abetting terrorism the first place I'd check for legal advice is Slashdot.
Well, in all reality, writing a surface to air missle defense system seems impractical considering the hardware implementation would vary. If you expand your statement to include an open-source/unclassified hardware implementation with descriptions, plans, etc, then you could feasibly write the related software.
Either way, this seems like a bad idea. If you want to help other nations, if they'll listen to you (doubtful), offer your project to them directly. Open-Source of this kind of thing seems like a very bad idea and probably will have some military folks at your door in a hurry, especially if you actually know what you're doing. The liklihood of one person knowing all of the required elements is slim to none.
If this isn't april fools and you're really considering this, consider that the US government is spending millions/billions on such things and are not all that successful. Keep in mind too the testing costs. How many patriot missiles do you keep at home? If that answer is more than 0 and you don't have some weird/impossible clearance for missile launches, your idea is doomed.
Anyway, thought this needed at least one serious reply, even if it is a joke.
nuf sed
Ever heard of the "Gerald Bull Supercanon" project? If I where you I will not only be concerned about the legality of the project. By doing that kind of project you'll become an unofficial enemy of many industrial country's and that's the perfect scenario to finish like this guy. Is basic project wasn't mean, he just wanted to develop a cheap way to send payload in space but because he was helping enemy nations he got more than he bargained for. Even if he was a Canadian Citizen (I think) he wasn't out of reach of the Mossad...
Yahh, hiii haaaaa! -Major Kong, from Dr. Strangelove
Isn't this proof that Open Source people are nuts?
cruise missle? amateur!
the internet is knee deep in instructions on how to build and h-bomb.
Dude, I'm not touching that link through ten anonymous proxy servers...
The world has enough weapons. April 1st or not.
Dont you just use a PS2 for that?
Help! I've fallen in a karma hole and I can't get up!
Take all the rules and regulations of ITAR and the Patriot Act together, and it's illegal to just think of doing something like that.
But seriously, all those people complaing about April 1st stories should realize some of us enjoy it. It's only one day after all...
Having worked on many defence projects using open source (and no, its not an oxymoron!), I can tell you that
a) the software engines to power it would be based on physics, general knowledge, it's not an export issue
b) the parameters and performance of the missiles etc would be classified, you'd never be able to estimate it well enough without real data, and to even get it working in the first place you'd need some test data
c) you'd need a trillion dollars for the actual hardware... hardware thats not even properly proven, with vaporware results
d) oh yeh, and about a billion lines of code
So, good luck mate!
Can't we end this april fools crap, its already over in Oz!
I don't know how many times I've to explain that again and again to my co-workers. I just back from explaining to a manager of such question, only found the same thing in /. :)
:)
For GPL derivative work:
YOU ARE NOT REQUIRED TO DISTRIBUTE THE SOURCE WHEN YOU AREN'T GOING TO DISTRIBUTE THE BINARY.
For tailor-made projects which the result work are used inhouse you don't need to worry too much about leakage of secret. Nobody force you to release the source of the derivatives.
In this connection, GPL is especially desirable for Government projects, as the binaries of such GPL derivatives can be distributed without source code, when distributed among governmental departments. (see FAQ)
Finally if you HAVE to distribute the result products and don't want to share the sources with your customers. Just TALK to the original author of the GPL sources your project derived from for a seperate license desirable for your distribution. Pay them decently, we need to feed our family and pay mortgage.
Instead of all these lame April Fool's jokes every year, it might be nice one day (not necessarilly April Fool's) to have all articles that are ordinarilly rejected. I'm sure there are lots of incredibly lame, and stupid stories suggested every day. I would think that at least some of them would be (unintentionally) more humorous than many of these April Fool's jokes.
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
Actually, i don't think a missile guidance system would be of much use to a peaceful nation.
Nope, the hard part of developing an open-source defense project is not the legality or even the morality. It's not even the top secret/SCI clearances you'd have to get for everybody who worked on the project. It's the money. Not the cost, since it's presumed you'd do the work for free and give the software away. It's the fact that a defense project isn't a defense project unless you are spending a lot of money. So what i'd suggest is that you draft a *proposal* to develop an open source project for some branch of the military, then form an alliance with Northrop-Grumman or some other big-time defense contractor. Ask for *at least* 50 million dollars, and don't call your project open source, but rather network-centric symbolic code acquisition system (and make sure you thereafter abbreviate it as NCSCAS). Then go off and develop your guidance system, and spend the money however you want. Trust me, nobody will ever know the difference
How many awesome hoaxes are completely blown because the dupes have been tipped off because there's NOTHING but hoaxes- and mostly lame ones at that.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
You insensitive clod!
if you apply for the job at google you could continue this project in your "20%" time and since laws have no effect in space you will be fine. Happy April 1st
this sig intentionally left blank
The act of obtaining, delivering, communicating, or the receiving information about the national defense with an intent, or reason to believe, that the information may be used to the injury of the United States OR TO THE ADVANTAGE OF ANY FORGIEN NATION. (emphasis mine)
poster
Why not develop a set of components to control (ahem) videogame cruise missles. Figure gravity all that, then the components could be reused any way people want. Just bill it as a super accurate simulation.
l8,
AC
From what I can tell this project is already stable and ready for production. It even has a sophisticated simulator to test the missile firing alogrythms if you don't happen to actually have a real missile to fire. Check out the source code.
From a country-protecting perspective, there's really little need for this project because:
1. For many countries, any such system will simply trigger an arms race with a neighbor, a cycle of more defense, more fighters, more defense etc.--impoverishing the populations of both countries. The software might be free. The hardware (aircraft, radar & missiles) never will be.
2. If the country to be defended is a good one, either democratic like Japan or Taiwan or fairly good at protecting human rights, and actually needs such a system (i.e. missile defense against North Korea and China), the U.S. (at least under the Republicans) will help provide a first-class defense system, subsidizing costs when necessary.
3. If the country to be defended is a nasty one, brutally violating the rights of its citizens like Iraq, then the French, Germans, Russians and Chinese will be eager to supply the country with air defense and any other weapons it needs including proto-WMD technology, like the nuclear reactor France built for Iraq. Indeed major industries in those countries are dependent on sales to dictators and mass killers. Supporting mass murder in poor countries is how many Europeans now pay for their pampering welfare states and long vacations. That, incidently, is why so many Europeans hate the Bush's U.S. Outlaws never like to see the sheriff ride into town.
So, as you see, there is only one reason for such a project. It would make you a hero to the left in the U.S. and a hero to the anti-Semitic left and far right (strange linkage going on there) in Europe. Such people have a romantic longing for Stalin's U.S.S.R. Castro's Cuba, and Saddam's Iraqi. The all-powerful state is their god, and they're secretly delighted to hear of Stalin's gulags, Castro's political prisons, and Saddam feeding dissidents into giant plastic shredders. The world is finally getting organized, they think. It is getting regimented. As the useless, backward refuse of humanity is being destroyed, progress is upon us. They have seen the future and it is.... blah, blah, blah.... No less a person than H. G. Wells trumpted just such ideas. To his great credit, George Orwell quite right blasted this sort of evil.
The world has been tormented by that sort of madness since the Great Terror of the French Revolution. With those people, you would be a hero. But who wants to live in such vile company. Free software (as in free speech) should never be turned into an instrument for destroying freedom.
--Mike Perry, Seattle
Editor: Dachau Liberated
Editor: Eugenics and Other Evils
Editor: The Pivot of Civilization in Historical Perspective
But if the evil nations use pointed sticks, should we have a lever to release the Bengal Tiger just in case they attack? Heck, what if they attack us with a banana?
The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
Lots of programmers, and they have nukes there too, so it should be easy for them to do field tests of your software. As for the "evil nations" issue, you can just slap a paragraph in the license agreement in the style of all crypto software: If you reside in one of these evil nations, you cannot use this software. Please refrain from using this software. The biggest problem I see with your software is the hardware requirements.
Go hug some trees.
Sorry, but I'm having a problem developing my open-source missle guidance project. I'm currently using GPS and a reverse lookup database to locate and lock onto the Internet host closest to the intended target. I then use ping to track the success of my software. I'm looking for a willing volunteer, and their IP address, to join my project as my previous testing using the loopback address caused my code to dump core all over the place.
Why not just build a multilinual education system for developing nations - course work and all - on the internet?
Justice: The balance between people - in helping the person who needs the most help.
Correctness: The balance between people and things.
As Mr. Garrison of South Park says, "There are no stupid people. Only stupid questions."
We can't get a missile defense system working here. Imagine how embarrasing if say Iceland developed a missile defense system or even Borneo before the US of A.
Oh wait. It's an April Fool's joke. Excuse me while I bang my head on my desk.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
I can't find it now, but about a year ago or so I read up on a guy's website about the project he was trying to create a home-built guided missile, through GPS. It was down under, either in Australia or New Zealand. He was doing real well for a while, until the authorities caught wind of it, then he got all legal hell. He was making some real strides though. And that was no joke!
Anyone know where that site went off to?
Whoa, we have the right to bear arms? That would be cool!
If I had some bear arms, I bet I could crush things like grapefruits in 2 seconds. I think I could probably lift cars too! That would be so helpful in the morning commute! Also, no bully would even think about stealing your lunch money!
And think of how many european chicks you would get with bear arms! European chicks love those hairy arms!
One question I would have is: Do we only have the right to a certain kind of bears' arms? Because I think I would like to change it up every once in a while. Like maybe something like this:
During the day I would wear black bear arms to work.
When I go to the gym I think I would wear Grizzly bear arms to get REALLY PUMPED UP!!!
And on the weekends I would wear polar bear arms, so i can be styling when I go out to the clubs.
When is the government gonna give me my bear arms? I can't wait!
Notwithstanding the possiblility that this entire post is an elaborate hoax in keeping with the USA April First tradition, I must say that helping anyone develop a surface-to-air missile is an unethical use of open source method.
There are far too many people running around who would use the technology to shoot down commercial airliners during their critical take-off and landing approaches. Knowingly allowing a technical contribution from oneself to be used for mass murder is unethical. I am not a lawyer, but I would believe that it is traditionally illegal under the 'accessory to murder' classification and most certainly under the vague new anti-terrorism laws being enacted in the OCED countries.
Of course, this only applies to individuals. If you are part of military defense contractor corporation, you will be getting large sums of money to develop the same technology and distribute it to 'friendly' countries. Representives from these countries will then distribute this technology to their various relatives in various terrorist organizations.
These groups will undoubtably commit acts of mass murder which will lead to the call for more funds spent developing new mass-murder technology (excuse me, defense technology) R&D contracts. The new technology will be distributed to 'friendly' governments who will distibute it to their relatives in terrorist groups... And the circle begins anew.
Terrorism will stop when all the young men who are willing to commit mass-murder for a cause have been identified and killed, AND, when the giant western military contractors stop making huge amounts of money developing mass-murder technology (like surface-to-air missles) that make the whole cycle possible.
Thank you,
Simonetta
Unlike today's slashdot "prank" postings, that made me laugh!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Is this for real?
or
"God, I'm so lame I can't enjoy a joke. I can't believe I pay (subscribe)slashdot for this shit. Slashdot is sooo, like, lame. "
Ben, you've become an UberGeek! Take me as your padawan!!!
ATTENTION METAMODS, this is not flamebait in any way shape or form, this is a reference to the Novel Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
I actually gave this some thought when the Iraq war broke out. (Hopefully, thinking about it doesn't count as treason, because acting on it certainly would. And let's be honest here, we are talking about defending against American air attacks in 99% of all plausible cases.)
Nation-states as a rule prefer for you not to develop weaponry for other countries. As noted by another poster, in the United States, there is specific legislation governing the export of military technology, and you can safely bet that you will not get DoD approval to ship SAM guidance software to anyone who might actually need it. You might find a country willing to have you work on-site, but you want to choose well, as you probably will end up staying there unless you want to be arrested on your return to the States.
Now, all that being said, there are a number of generic libraries you could write that could be applied to missile guidance. When I was thinking about this, I thought these three things would be useful:
1. A pattern recognition system written, probably in assembly, for a cheap microprocessor. Bonus points if you can generalize it so it can learn to recognize aircraft based on infrared, radar, and visual patterns at varying resolutions. This is not an easy thing to write, but there's plenty of existing work (and existing commercial libraries) that uses Adaptive Logic Networks for shape recognition and does an amazingly good job of it.
2. A generic pilot package that could, in response to target guidance supplied by #1, above, actually pilot the missile towards its target. Ideally, this would also be a generic system that could accept the performance and control parameters of a variety of missiles, so that your cash-strapped third world sponsor could mount the control system on a motley assortment of aging Soviet, Chinese, and American missiles.
3. A simulator to test #1 and #2. This would basically be a flight simulator providing a variety of realistic aircraft capable of fairly realistic evasive maneuvers and a plug-in interface for your simulated missiles. Or you could skip the intelligence for the targets and actually pilot them yourself.
None of these are easy things to do, but there's a lot of literature and code which already covers much of it, and none of it is impossible. Good luck.
Now something that might be more useful would be a system for detecting and shooting down inbound bombs and missiles using dumb projectiles. UWB sounds like a good tool for detecting such things without providing an easy target for air-launched anti-radiation missiles, but I believe it's range is currently quite limited.
For the benefit of the NSA spooks who might read this, no, I'm not currently involved in an military development, and I plan to emigrate to Chile or Argentina as soon as the economy improves and devote my life to agricultural research, so piss off.
Fill this in and tell them you want to look like Ron Jeremy.
Doing this by yourself would be, by its very definition, illegal. You would be producing, for export, a technology that is deemed "munitions," and thus subject to Dept. of Commerce Export controls. Making it open-source would also put you at risk of being deemed an exporter, just like Phil Zimmerman had to deal with. In this case, though, the argument could not be made that your product directly helps freedom of speech, or any other civil right for that matter, and you'd be screwed.
Your safest option, but the one that brings the greatest risk of your ideas being bastardized, is to do it under the auspices of a defense contractor. They know the ins and outs, and you could sell it to them (after you came up with a fairly rough proof of concept) as a new product offering that they could make money selling to smaller nations, more cheaply than their higher-end stuff. Kind of like an entry-level product line. But even in this situation, open-sourcing it is essentially going to be suicide.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
Actually, the H-bomb - or at least the conventional fission bomb - is easier to build of the two.
The bomb just will not go off without proper materials, which are extremely hard to get correct. The actual linear acceleration for partial fission is relatively doable. (A high end shaped charge compression suitcase version then again is not)
A cruise missile needs quite demanding quidance system and very trustworthy flight stuff. More mechanical work too.
(Oh, an account? I will, I will, the next time)
What about creating a FPS that takes place in Flatland? :D
The game window could be a few pixels tall, just a horizontal line above (or below) the screen.
You could play unoticed!
... the guy building a cruise missle in his garage for under $5k. He actually says he'll make all the plans and specs available for the missle except the guidance control software because he deemed that too sensitive.
Even simpler plans and cutaway drawing here
Usually the best Ideas originate as jokes. Could this be one of them?
On the other hand most government projects are jokes. So why can't /. have a few!?
Never Politically Correct ~ I prefer the facts If you don't like what I say, get a life, or comment yourself.
if your a us citizen then us export laws apply to you. this is a huge set of laws aimmed at keeping you from exporting anything that could threaten the us and its property in a manner of speaking. It doesnt stop you from exporting it but there are literally thousands of guidelines to go by from it and there are laws that if you violate them you are subject to arrest, jail time and fines if found guilty.
On the lighter side, there was an earlier post that said this has already been done and it has. i cant remember the project name but it was on a few open source sites a few years ago. It even had directions on what hardware you would need and places you could get it.
If you really do want to do it just research laws that have to do with it or consult a export law expert on it. No need to get arrested for not doing the proper research.
Also if you are not a us citizen many other countries also have similar laws so check around.
And i wouldnt doubt that if you do it that your going to have certain agencies watching what you do.
ender_pete
(please don't shoot)
.... are built by the full knowledge of every government contractor and government out there that:
A-human beings steal a lot
B-some of these "legitimate" missiles are going to suffer "inventory shrinkage"
C-they will and have wind up on the black market
In the US, even the official sources are an open air bazaar (google for the huntsville alabama scandals)
Even nuke tech gets lost/stolen, informed rumor has it that's how israel (which to this day refuses to sign the nuclear non proliferation treaty) was able to build it's first nukes, they were given or sold the stuff straight from US arsenals, but then it was reported as "lost". uh huh, sure it was, same as the deliberate fires set around the grounds at los alamos let some rogue group steal some critical info. Same as Saddam got critical WMD info and hardware from a variety of western nations, including the US.
Wheels within wheels within intrigues around global power/money. Weapons are just too valuable, and human beings too weak to deal with the temptations. Sucks, but there ya go.
I know this is an april fools message, but reality is, the jenni is out of the bottle on missile technology, and the cork has been thrown away.
http://www.wassenaar.org/
look for prohibited software, and technology
Building a missile system to seek a radiation source, be it emissive or reflected, is actually pretty easy. Building it so that it will damage said radiation source is very difficult. Why? Terminal Flight Profile.
Think about it. If you want to intercept a target object moving at a certain rate of speed at a certain aspect angle, you might have to make a severe turn in the final seconds of the closing maneuver to actually make contact with your target. If the seek logic therefore is simply to steer directly toward the source of radiation, your PK (probability of kill) will go way down, and it will be trivially easy to evade the missile. There are two basic ways to solve this problem:
- proximity fusing
- better TFP logic
Proximity fusing was used extensively by the Soviets in their very successful early model guided SAMs. The general concept goes something like this: screw trying to hit it, just get close and explode. In keeping with their design philosophy of simple, hardy weapons systems, their SA-2 missiles would detect the range to target, and their TFP was simply to go off like an aerial depth charge, filling the sky with searing shrapnel. The downside of this approach is that in order to be effective, you must use a significant quantity of explosive. This increases the fuel requirements, and the size of the missile, launch system, and supporting hardware, and makes the overall system more expensive to use.Another problem with this approach is that by using very simple guidance logic, the weapon has virtually no capability to overcome enemy countermeasures. This became such a problem in Veitnam that during the defense of Hanoi, SA-2s were actually fired at attacking B-52s without the guidance system active, set to simply explode at a certain height, much like the function of a depth charge against submarines. Not a very effective way to bring down capitalist pigs.
In order to deal with any level of sophistication in enemy countermeasure technology, some level of intelligent guidance is required. This calls for some sort of logic, as demonstrated by the following simplified example:
- At 1000 meters range to target, begin computing intercept solution for a turn to take place at 100 meters range to lead the target
.
- Update solution as frequently as hardware allows
- Execute TFP turn at 100 meters range.
These sorts of instructions would be relatively easy to implement on any basic computer hardware, and once you have a platform capable of this sort of programming, adding features such as countermeasure detection and reacquisition after miss is relatively easy. The physics can be modelled on a computer, and you can develop what amounts to robotic intelligence to guide your missiles. Before you know it, you'll be firing your own AMRAAMs!who are those slashdot people? they swept over like Mongol-Tartars.
You are probably violating some of SCO's intellectual property. Just send them $699 to be on the safe side.
linoleo->Preferences->Home Page
Exclude Stories from the Homepage
Authors
x michael
Be faithful to your obsessions. Identify them and be faithful to them, let them guide you like a sleepwalker. JG Ballard
Well, make sure you get a permit from your government first, or your open source missile project could end up being shut down: DIY Cruise Missile Grounded.
Trusted Computing FAQ | Free Dawit Isaak!
"Running -WITH_WMD in a non-WMD environment could cause a kernel panic..."
Wouldn't that be a colonel panic, or would the panic occur higher in the ranks?
Does this mean that anyone who posts a question on Slashdot is viewed as a moron?
I have many computer related questions because I have just upgraded my PC with "entry level" hardware (new mobo, CPU, vid card, etc..). There are settings in the BIOS and other system specific questions regarding computers that I have.
After reading your post I am a little leary about asking for help.
I read the many posts on here and have many laughs at the comments people make. I also learn a lot, which is something that matters a lot to me.
I am not an IT professional, but I am a technologist (associate engineer) and I am half way through obtaining my Elec Eng degree. So I am not a total moron, but definitely inexperienced with computer systems. The experience I have relates to 386's and Novel Netware 3.12, but this was back in college - 1995 - 1998.
I have found that much that is taught in university is pretty much too theoretical to be applied to most places in the "real" world. Let's be honest, how many times have any of you been asked to derive the minority charge carrier density equations for a p-n junction (diode)? Or explain why the depletion layer of a MOS metal/SiO2/p-type Si junction reaches a maximum value (because the rate at which ionization occurs in p-type region is a root, while electrons are attracted to the interface at an exponential rate - thus when you increase the gate voltage the depletion layer reaches a maximum - as the electrons "neutralize" the positive charges building on the metal plate of the gate - the charges are separated by SiO2 insulation material).
Yeah, my thoughts exactly - who cares! (you would care if you were designing semiconductors though).
So is every question posted as "Ask Slashdot" viewed as something moronic?
added to some countries 'better dead' list, (doesn't need to be yours) put down your last will now.
Gee, and that just for an april's fools joke, that wasn't really necessary.
The concept behind stealth is simply to build aircraft with geometry that minimizes reflections directly back towards the source. It's the inverse of a corner reflector, which sends most of the energy back in the direction it came. The geometry to do this is complicated, but the concept is simple.
But the stealth approach fails if the radar transmitter and receiver are at different locations. Such "bistatic radar" systems can overcome stealth. See "Bistatic Radar Cross Section (RCS) Characterization of Complex Objects".
Multiple emitters and receivers are even better. See "A Dispersed Radar Concept for Air Defense". This 1981 paper from the US Army Missile Command outlines the basic concepts of a distributed radar system. 1981 was too early to build such a system, but it's worth looking at the technology again today.
With the basics covered, we can now architect a system, designed, say, to cover a nation's capital and outlying areas. A basic system might use medium-sized phased-array antennas perhaps a meter or two across, placed flat on rooftops. Stations would be placed about one kilometer apart. Each station needs a radar transmitter of modest power (comparable to a microwave oven), a good receiver, some DSP and SAW processing power, a GPS receiver, a good clock, a general-purpose CPU running Linux, an RF data link to its neighbors, and a broadband connection to an air defense center.
With that hardware, all of which is available off the shelf, it becomes a software problem.
First, we need a network. All the nodes need to link up, preferably using encrypted IPv6. Linkup should occur both over the broadband connection and the RF data links, so that if the broadband connection goes out, the radars can use their own RF net to intercommunicate. As long as the air defense centers can contact a few nodes of the net, they can still get a radar picture.
The nodes need to know their own location, hence the GPS receiver. But once installed, they save that data in non-volatile memory, so that they can survive GPS outages caused by hostile action. GPS can also be used to get the time. But, again, it can't be relied on. Using NNTP over the RF network will allow nodes to synch up with a precision of tens of nanoseconds, which is needed for the radar signal processing. Provided, of course, the RF links have low latency and jitter.
In operation, only some nodes emit radar pulses, and emitting nodes take turns. The other nodes listen for echoes. Off-axis echoes from stealth aircraft will show up somewhere in the net. Ordinary aircraft will show up as well.
Some of the emitters may be taken out by HARM missiles. That's why all nodes are potential emitters, but most don't normally transmit. Damage to the net is routed around by telling passive stations to go active. Gaps in the net are thus filled in automatically.
Some fraction of antenna time is used to detect and locate jammers. Most of the illusions created by jammers fail when multiple, synchronized stations are listening. Receivers must have delay lines that can record what was received in a chosen time slot, then play that back more slowly into the local computer. Nodes share these timestamped samples with their neighbors over a peer to peer network. Each node then correlates its samples with ones from its neighbors, looking for time-shifted matches. Four or more matching samples, received at different locations, will yield the coordinates of a target.
So that's a basic design for an open-source air defense system.
the Open Source Active Missile Assault (OSAMA) has already been deployed several places in the world.
Even simpler plans and cutaway drawing here
Thanks, I hate those difficult h-bomb plans...
Depending upon where you live, you may wind up in jail if you did what you propose. For instance, as an example, the U.S. has very tight weapons export control regulations. What you propose would more than likely fall under that. You would have to be registered as an arms dealer, and be able to produce end user certificates for each distributed copy of the system extant. Without those, you would wind up in a federal prison for about 20 years. Most other countries have similar requirements. Hell, the Brits killed John Bull, the inventor of the supergun when he moved to S.A. and started negotiations fwith Iraq for selling them superguns. I would not walk near anything to do with weapons if I were you.
Wouldn't open-source be the direct opposite of defensive??? And invading power could go to their favorite SAM downloading page and get a copy of the software the opposing power is using to defend themselves, and then workup exploits for the system. Imagine if there was a SINGLE bug, and overflow error, allowing said offensive power to complete derail the defensive systems AND any attached system which would surely include communications and radar.
also.. joke or not, this is a dumb idea and doesn't need to be publicized on a reputable new site.
- Category 0 - Nuclear Materials, Facilities and Equipment and Misc
- Category 3 - Electronics
- Category 4 - Computers
- Category 7 - Navigation and Avionics
- Category 9 - Propulsion Systems, Space Vehicles and Related Equipment
Typically, EAR is used for 'dual use' systems, which covers things that have both a military and non-military application, while ITAR is for those things that are considered to not have as a significant non-military application.Those interested should see the following websites:
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
The SCOud missile [pronounced 'scud'] was blatently left off your list. Did you get a payoff?
Shh.... Don't tell anyone. They paid me $699 to leave it off the list.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
"Safety note: Don't put all your enriched uranium hexafluoride in one bucket. Use at least two or three buckets and keep them in separate corners of the room. This will prevent the premature build-up of a critical mass."
Gotta love it!
Even if you don't click on it, many browsers pre-fetch linked pages to the cache for faster response. Check your settings and be ready when some guys in suits come buy saying something about "Guantanamo".
Isnt one of the conditions of the GPL that every time you distribute a binary version of your software you also have to give them a copy of the source code.
I suspect that delivery by missile, could (legally) be considered an advanced equivalent of DHL or FedEx.
So, to keep RMS happy, remember you'll need to include in each of your rockets a source distribution floppy disk or CD that contains the src to your guidance system.
Why not practice your skills by building an autonomous drone that will zero in on police radar and drop water balloons on them. Blood-sucking parasites!
"Sic Semper Path of Least Resistance"
especially on April Fools Day.
this space intentionally left blank (oops)
I will send you all of my top programmers to help you with development work right away. (They are adept at the state-of-the-art Pascal programming language) Expect a large, unmarked wooden crate to arrive at your house tomorrow. You may want to hose off the contents before opening the package.
-Fidel
-Vendal Thornheart
Stick with chemical and biological weapons, and be a part of the growing Open Sores Community...
Any sufficiently advanced man is indistinguishable from God
No joke here.
I too am developing a project that, although it is not directly defense related, certainly has defense applications.
I suggest that you:
- switch to an equivalent non-defense application
- develop a working prototype in relative privacy
- have a friend permanently post it on freenet (in case you get taken down)
- only then can you post it yourself on the internet
You can't get locked up for saying sixty-9 but you can for saying fsck.
Instead of wasting your time to develop open source defense (or offense) projects, you and all your liberal friends should lobby the government of your nation to open source all of its software, hardware, mechanical designs, and any other information that is needed to recreate these designs (or to find their weaknesses prior to an attack), and to release all of that information in open-standards file formats on the Internet for anybody to use and enjoy.
Furthermore, the government should be lobbied to tax away all the money of the rich business owners and the rich property owners and give that money to a newly organization called the Warfare Freedom Foundation. The WFF would essentially provide money to hostile states so they could produce weapons of equal or higher capabilities to those of your own country.
Finally, you should lobby your government to shut down all defense projects it has, so that your country will be a sitting duck when the aforementioned hostile nations show up with tanks, missiles, planes, aircraft carriers, and other weapons, to destroy your country for no reason at all, just because they felt like it, because your country was nicer than theirs and therefore they felt oppressed (instead of working to improve their country).
Yes, I think this is a wonderful idea.
And no, I don't think there are any legal issues whatsoever involved in doing this, either.
Oh yeah, and did I mention, you should go directly to the looney bin, if you even think this is a good idea.
Oh yeah, and yes, I knew all along that this was April Fools. SUCKER!!!
Someone else mentioned the travails of the NZ gent who's been working on a backyard "cruise missile", if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, gov'ments are going to treat it like a duck.
Luke, help me take this mask off
... would be this one.
HydroAcoustic Signal Analysis System
http://hasas.sourceforge.net/
Anti-submarine warfare, anyone?
I am not a lawyer.
What's the point? If, near your territorial waters, you find:
1 Carrier Battle Group: They're looking around.
2 Carrier Battle Groups: You're on radar.
3 Carrier Battle Groups: You're history.
That's the magic number: 3. Seriously. Don't worry about one; that's normal. If it's two, they're just being intimidating. It's 90,000 tons of diplomacy each (and there exist 12 altogether). But if you ever see three, it's serious. No air defense system has EVER survived three carrier battle groups, period. It doesn't matter what kind of software you have, how coordinated the system is, or how redundant your fiber optics are. It doesn't matter how 'right' you are or whether your Mommy agrees. It doesn't matter how screwed up it gets afterwards. A squadron of F/A-18's doesn't give a rat's ass about the diplomacy of it all. The fact is the entire system will be 'degraded' in a matter of hours. So much for open source.
And the point? To make the whole idea an exercise in futility. Spend the money on butter instead.
I'll glady help out if I get my own test system!
Real SUV's don't have cupholders
It's 5:42 A.M., do you know where your stack pointer is?
Currently there are export restrictions on this kind of thing, if done in USA or European country. I suggest alternative. We have small floating nation/ship with no such restrictions. Only 3/4 done it is under construction in S. Korean ship yard, for launch in 2006 or 2007. We whould have no sush restrictions. In fact, we may be willing to be a beta customer, and even help with the initial product launch.
...to cover all your bases before earnestly starting such a project. The poster doesn't mention who his/her employer is (if any), but the employer company may not want you to do this. Follow me for a second... I work for a defense contractor (think Aukheed-lay Artin-may) and the standard employment contract includes a clause that the company gets first crack at ownership of any patents you develop. What I don't know is this: by extension, if you develop software that relates to your company's line of business, and said software violates US Export laws, could the company be liable? What if the developer in question uses resources or methods gleaned from the workplace? I assume, at the very least, you risk being fired. If the poster doesn't work for such a company, then that isn't much of a threat, but still.
I don't know if the code would be illegal to develop necessarily, but I think it's safe to say it would *definitely* be illegal to export (including allowing access to the code by unfriendly nations via HTTP or FTP). IANAL however.
If you really want to do this, I would suggest two options: (1) Get a job with a defense company and a secret clearance, and get paid to develop the stuff legally. (This option would not allow *you* to give the code to developing nations, the State Dept. would make that decision). Or (2) move to a country with less restrictive export laws. I'm not trying to flame here, just pointing out some of the dangers.
Good luck
Travis
Was anyone else thinking "traitor" as they read that? Just me? Oh well.
I think you would be a Traitor to what ever country you are from.
When a man lies he murders a part of the world.
until i realized it was 1st of April. Good 1st Arpril joke.
This is not a joke.
One time I was on a sales call to a defense contracctor. They were interested in a free software alternative (this is from before the "Open Source" days) to their then current proprietary vendor.
Why? Well, up to when the missile was launched they needed only one license, but when it MIRVed they would need n (I think 6 or 8) more...and they didn't want to have to justify to the government paying for the extra "unnecessary" licenses...
(I suggested they just deal with the contractual issues when they came up, but apparently the kinds of guys who worry about these issues don't find comments like that funny).
I'm sure BUSH can't tell his computer (if he has one) from a potato salad, so right there your system won't be availabe to one of the most hostile people on earth.
There is quite a bit of stuff that could be done in the open source area to promote peace and improve the legitimate needs of nations to defend themselves. My own favorite is development of a network of 802.11b web cams that form a mesh network. The idea is that these could be scattered on a border area so that it would be much more possible to monitor those borders. Theoretically this could be inexpensively enough that even poor countries could afford it.
This might not stop invasions, but do countries really want their agreesions towards their neighbors to be televised live-and unedited?
That said, I'm not terribly sure how a new missile guidance system (open source or not)would be received by the DoD. When I looked at doing something similar to this about two years ago, it seemed that the existing contractors pretty much had a stranglehold on the market. You think the SCO case is contentious? Just wait until you start pitching a low cost missile system to the DoD. You'll have defense contractors putting out hits on you then. LOL But I still do think it's a "possibly" idea. Not sure how you'd break in though.
Another area of defense I think could benefit from open source is biolocation and defense. That's one of my current research projects right now. The idea is that if you can determine a targets unique biological "signature" then you should be able to fairly easily locate the target over a given area. My current interests lie in applying this to satelitte and flyover technology. Imagine being able to put in Osama's unique biological signature and have a satelitte or drone search a given wide area for anything with that signature. I'm seriously thinking about doing this and pitching it to either the DoD or NSA (both could benefit) and it would definately be open source. All I need are a few serious people interested in bioinformatics, biology, and technology who are willing to work for free until we interest the defense community. I'm sure I'll find THAT really quick.
All that to say, I think this is a good idea. Some of the technology has been done already so you wouldn't need to start from scratch. Your main obsticles would be 1)the export restrictions (I'd pitch it to your home country first) and 2) breaking into the industry. Good luck if you're serious!
Anthony Papillion
Advanced Data Concepts, Inc.
"Quality Custom Software and IT Services"
It's funny how "defense" weaponry is usually offensive. To my mind, the ONLY weapons ever designed for defense is the Patriot AMS, the old SDI satellites, and the current ABL/ABM programs. Even these could be easily modified (an airborne laser for shooting down missiles? what if we pretend Kim Jong Il is a missile? Stir fry, that's what).
No shit. Exporting weapons technology. Exporting weapons software. Providing aid to non-State actors (it IS open source - do you honestly thing Al Qaeda, Hamas, or Hezballah won't want to apply this technology - they don't all live in mud huts you know). Selling weapons. Just posting this is probably good for 20 years in the hoosgow with a big black man named rock as your dancing partner.
I admire your goals. But you're dabbling in dangerous territory. I highly suggest you scale this down to a more civil use. You'll never get a federal license to even buy the srb engines to test such a device, and the first time you intercept an airliner by accident (even if you don't break the law by putting a warhead on the device), you're going to jail.
The Common Ada Missile Packages (CAMP) project has produced reusable software components, primarily for missile operational software
now you know.
Since it's april fools day and all, I feel obliged to post this. But if anyone does reply to this, by all means. . .
PGP has dual uses. There are varying types of EAR - dual use items, and crypto falls under this. Note that PGP is controled via the key length used - the larger the key and more controlled the item is. This is a pretty specific defense targeted product and is billed as such, so thus falls directly under ITAR. Good luck as you probably have a future of making large rocks into small rocks for a minimum of 10 years. Hope you do not have to share a cell with Buba...
As all the potentially good ideas it must be done already but you just don't know it yet. The same happened to my idea about a flock of computer-guided mechanical birds that would cause havoc to our enemies or rioters or just help surveil terrain. Guess good ideas happen to many people at same time.
your product will be good when only ONE beta tester is left standing...
However - there isn't only the pilot in the aircraft, but the bombs too; usually many more than one. A single bomb can kill many people on the ground. What's less ethical: killing one pilot, or allowing the said pilot to kill significantly more than one person on the ground?
The Department of Defense already developed a study on the application of open source:
_ 01/kenwood_software/index.html
http://www.mitre.org/work/tech_papers/tech_papers
Montreal - Best city to live in!
Well, war is hell. A whole separate set of ethics governs it. Since this is a hypothetical scenario (inspired by an April Fool's joke, I might add...), we can't say which action is more ethical.
;-)
But in general, I would think that aiding countries with a recent track record of agression with their neighbors is not morally justified.
We can't pretend that both participants in every dispute are equally right. In some cases it may be very hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys, but in other cases it may be clear. The point is that if you throw this technology out into the world, the clear bad guys could get hold of it, and I believe that that is an ethical problem.
Keep in mind, too, that people who are true traitors to their own country are universally hated. Even disinterested parties view them with disgust. So if you think giving anti-aircraft technology to countries hostile to your own is a good idea, prepare to be hated.
MM
--
By including this sig, the copyright holders of this work or collection unreservedly place it in the public domain.
Wonder what'd happen if one chose Windows as a deployment OS for missiles. Can they re-use their licenses once older missiles are used? :-)
Textual informations have the highest content/size ratio, are very easy to hide. I can imagine a follow-up to FreeNet, let's call it StegoNet. Another possibility, providing plausible deniability, is to spread the nodes using a worm.