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Army of Davids Beats Pentagon Procurement

Posted by Zonk on from the many-hands-make-smart-work dept.

chris-chittleborough writes "The Wall Street Journal reports that 'a Marine officer in Iraq, a small network-design company in California, a nonprofit troop-support group, a blogger and other undeterrable folk designed a handheld insurgent-identification device, built it, shipped it and deployed it in [Iraq] in 30 days.' Compare this to the Automated Biometric Identification System, a multi-megabuck Pentagon project now 2 years old. With bureaucracy increasingly strangling innovation, will agile smaller businesses be able to accomplish what once required a sprawling government project?"

5 of 412 comments (clear)

  1. Re:American Spirit at it's best by Hoi+Polloi · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    I be more impressed if they designed a way to ship all Americans OUT of Iraq in 30 days. Don't take "no" for an answer to that problem either.

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    It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
  2. Re:Apples & Oranges? by HomelessInLaJolla · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Ooooh! That's a good one. Do you feel better?

    --
    the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
  3. A little hyperbole by stratjakt · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    Problem: If a cop in Anytown, USA, pulls over a suspect, he checks the person's ID remotely from the squad car. He's linked to databases filled with Who's Who in the world of crime, killing and mayhem. In Iraq, there is nothing like that. When our troops and the Iraqi army enter a town, village or street, what they know about the local bad guys is pretty much in their heads, at best.

    Solution: Give our troops what our cops have. The Pentagon knows this. For reasons you can imagine, it hasn't happened.


    I do police RMS systems for a living. They don't have all this most magic of technology. Usually, roadside, the cop will radio in to the dispatcher to have them run an NCIC check, although increasingly they have the infrastructure to put this on a laptop in the car.

    Anyways, more on topic, it isnt about the government not being able to develop this device. The government doesnt develop such devices, we do, in fact we sell something quite similar. Governments have to bid contracts and select one. The problem, as presented in TFA, is that they are trying to fight a war with peacetime procurement rules.

    It's not "hurr US too stupid to make a database", it's "dems dont want to let them have the funding they need".

    Besides, aren't you guys going to freak out about the privacy implications of a database that people can put names in? ONE THATS USE BY DUN DUN DUNNNN THE US GOVERNMENT?!

    --
    I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
  4. Re:I-Can't-Believe-It's-Not-The-Legal-System! by El+Torico · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    Actually, the insurgency would have been over very quickly if every male between 16 and 70 had been executed. Of course, that would be a monstrous atrocity, but it would be effective. After all, Rome didn't get much grief from Carthage after the Third Punic War. Fingerprinting doesn't seem so harsh in comparison.

    --
    In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is usually crucified.
  5. Re:American Spirit at it's best by Stormwatch · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    The Americans will occupy Iraq until public opinion forces them out. So it's up to the public.
    That's what happened in Vietnam. That's why the american forces solidly won in the battlefield but had to quit anyway. After they left, communists took power -- and killed far more people than the war. Guns don't kill people, peacenik bullshit does!
    --
    Circumcision is child abuse.