Air Force Aims for Control of 'Any and All' Computers

Noah Shachtman on Wired.com's Danger Room reports that Monday, the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson AFB introduced a two-year, $11 million effort to put together hardware and software tools for 'Dominant Cyber Offensive Engagement.' 'Of interest are any and all techniques to enable user and/or root level access,' a request for proposals notes, 'to both fixed (PC) or mobile computing platforms ... any and all operating systems, patch levels, applications and hardware.' This isn't just some computer science study, mind you; 'research efforts under this program are expected to result in complete functional capabilities.' The Air Force has already announced their desire to manage an offensive BotNet, comprised of unwitting participatory computers. How long before they slip a root kit on you?

Comments

Do you run Windows?

[bussdriver]

11 million is probably enough to get into all the windows boxes out there with the help of microsoft; who would love to help the US government on its war on 'terrism'.

Microsoft already has a ton of stuff in Vista to keep the music and film empires happy and nothing to do with what an OS distribution is supposed to do. Why wouldn't they help out? Wiretaping... We only know about a FEW things that eventually leaked out.

Its a Vista update away... if not already having backdoors.