Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

DARPA Network Challenge Lasts All of 9 Hours

Posted by timothy on from the now-they-can-buy-more-warm-clothes dept.

stillnotelf writes "A team based at MIT has won the DARPA Network Challenge. DARPA notes: 'The Challenge has captured the imagination of people around the world, is rich with scientific intrigue, and, we hope, is part of a growing "renaissance of wonder" throughout the nation,' said DARPA's director, Dr. Regina E. Dugan. 'DARPA salutes the MIT team for successfully completing this complex task less than 9 hours after balloon launch.' PDF with (scant) details. Hit the first link above for a map with the locations. How many did your team find?"

37 of 129 comments (clear)

  1. Re:That was pretty fast... by bramp · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If you offered them $40,000 I bet they could.

  2. Re:That was pretty fast... by thefear · · Score: 4, Informative

    Team Nerdfighter found 9/10 balloons

    http://twitter.com/hankgreen/status/6392128271

    --
    :(
  3. Re:how by Shadow+of+Eternity · · Score: 2, Funny

    They asked Fark for help.

    --
    A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
  4. How many did your team find? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    We found them all within fifteen minutes but we sold the information about this secret DARPA project to China for $400,000. I'm posting anonymously for obvious reasons.

  5. Re:That was pretty fast... by maxume · · Score: 4, Funny

    How many times has that guy had angioplasty?

    --
    Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
  6. Re:That was pretty fast... by MadFarmAnimalz · · Score: 5, Funny
    What's DARPA?

    Right. Get off slashdot. Now. Thank you.

    --
    Blearf. Blearf, I say.
  7. Re:That was pretty fast... by jack2000 · · Score: 5, Informative

    I sure do hope there's some irony in your post I'm not caching.

    DARPA is an acronym standing for Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
    It is an agency of the US Department of Defense it develops tech for the army.
    It's predecessor ARPA gave us the internet amongst other things(too condensed a statement).
    They like to issue challenges and geeks of all trades either like to participate in them for the sport and/or are picked from the crowd and given jobs at DARPA to develop new cutting edge technologies.

  8. Re:how by OverlordQ · · Score: 4, Informative

    Well reading the previous article about MITs solution to this challenge would be a good start.

    --
    Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
  9. 99 Luftballoons by tylersoze · · Score: 3, Funny

    Come on, couldn't they have a least made it 99 red balloons? Was DARPA afraid they might accidently start a nuclear war?

    1. Re:99 Luftballoons by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      nah, the RIAA would have sued them

    2. Re:99 Luftballoons by inflame · · Score: 2, Funny

      which basically would have been nuclear war between two major factions of the US. The DoD and the corporations

  10. Re:Great, but by smitty777 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here's the answer. I was wondering the same thing myself. It appears that the solution was very low tech: just get a bunch of people, and when they see a balloon, send a message to the group. Instead of splitting the 40k among the group, they donated it to charity. Reward for MIT? Bragging rights.

    --
    "Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish"
    Albert Einstein
  11. Interesting results by Thad+Zurich · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Funny that it doesn't seem to work on Bin Laden.

    1. Re:Interesting results by Fzz · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Are you implying that Bin Laden is eight feet high, red, and visible from the nearest road? Interesting intel, that. Perhaps you should call the CIA?

  12. Re:That was pretty fast... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I sure do hope there's some irony in your post I'm not caching.

    Irony typically has a short TTL; you're better off not caching it.

  13. What's DARPA about it ? by bytesex · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So how was this a technical challenge, and not just a boyscout fox hunt ?

    --
    Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
    1. Re:What's DARPA about it ? by MonkeyOnATypewriter · · Score: 2, Funny

      It required communication between different members of a group, to cover a bigger area.

    2. Re:What's DARPA about it ? by theangryfool · · Score: 3, Informative

      Ummm... Yeah, 'cause I know a lot of boyscouts who can cover 3 million square miles of territory in 9 hours... I'd say the point was to see how people would use technology to build quick awareness of events over a large area. Seeking out insurgents or terrorist cells might be a practical military application of this technology.

    3. Re:What's DARPA about it ? by deblau · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Missing the point. This was not about the hunt itself, but so DARPA could study the spontaneous social networks that would spring up in response to the challenge. They'll have some really good data on that now, and I'm sure they'll interview the MIT guys carefully.

      --
      This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
  14. UPS by zogger · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I was surprised that UPS didn't have a team and won. Seems they would have had the most people out and about and probably seeing the balloons.

    1. Re:UPS by Nipok+Nek · · Score: 3, Informative

      Corporations were specifically forbidden from entering.

      --
      Why choose white shoes?
  15. Re:That was pretty fast... by maxume · · Score: 2, Informative

    At the moment, the grandparent post is showing 1 positive moderation and no negative moderation...

    --
    Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
  16. Re:That was pretty fast... by MisterSquid · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This may come as a surprise to you, but slashdot has readers that don't live in the United States.

    Is this some kind of bizarro version of the ignorance normally attributed to stupid North Americans (USians)? Stereotypically, US citizens are characterized as deeply ignorant of history and current events outside of the US. In this case people outside of the US, on a forum as technologically current as Slashdot, can claim justified ignorance of one of the entities that gave rise to the Internet?

    The mind, it has to boggle.

    --
    blog
  17. Re:how by Lumpy · · Score: 3, Funny

    MIT used the pyramid scheme. You don't have to find a balloon, just get 5 people under you to find 5 people and so on.

    It's not MIT tactics... It's AMWAY tactics...

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  18. Re:That was pretty fast... by theangryfool · · Score: 2, Funny

    And obviously slashdot has readers who don't know about TCP/IP.

  19. Re:That was pretty fast... by Abstrackt · · Score: 4, Funny

    And obviously slashdot has readers who don't know about TCP/IP.

    So that's how the Internet works! I always thought it was a series of tubes.

    --
    They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
  20. Why this challenge? by sp3d2orbit · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Am I the only one that sees how nefarious this experiment is? Someone in the US military saw the events in Iran a few months back and panicked. The Iranian military was able to censor official news but not social networks. DARPA is conducting this challenge to gather the real world information it needs to effectively censor social networks.

    1. Re:Why this challenge? by breadstic · · Score: 2, Informative

      Um... WHAT?!

      If the US want to censor twitter or facebook, they can just shut them down...
      People got around this in iran by using anonymous proxies to tunnel requests to websites outside of their government's control... US citizens could do the same thing in such circumstances (using studivz or something more obscure if the conspiracy stretches that far)

      And I think if we're talking about DARPA attempting to find some algorithm to silently censor certain posts about US unrest, unless they manage to completely disconnect a region from the outside world with nobody noticing, I think there would be a fairly large outcry. Tibet managed to get word out, I'm sure an american state could do the same...

    2. Re:Why this challenge? by jafiwam · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Can't Stop the Signal.

      The problem with your paranoia is that information is a tool that does far far more damage to "bad" type governments (theocracies, dictatorships, oligarchies, etc.) than it does to democracies (or democratic republics or other "good" type governments).

      Unlike other weapons systems, information has preferential kill for the stuff you want to kill. Nukes, cluster bombs, bat-bombs, land mines, and AKs don't, they can be used to destroy anybody. Information, even semi-truthful information only hurts the bad guys.

      So, this is one of those cases where you are getting your panties in a bunch over WHO is doing it, and not WHAT they are doing. If this were a Facebook project or some sort of flash-mob or other garbage nobody would even bring up "nefarious purposes" because it would just be a weekend diversion for the kiddies. As it turns out, diversions for the kiddies can be used to help topple brutal dictatorships.

      No you are not the only one to see "nefarious" plot in it, lots of other moon bat non thinking "liberals" thought the same thing and they are just as wrong as you are.

  21. Wait a second... by pongo000 · · Score: 2, Funny

    ...but wasn't this a joint DARPA/MIT project? And an MIT won the challenge? How does this apparent conflict of interest satisfy the "rich with scientific intrigue" tag? This is a non-starter, and I'm disappointed that DARPA would even have wasted their time with this.

    As a teacher, my level of concern continues to rise with what passes for "science" these days, especially from institutions that should know better. This wasn't a science experiment. It was an advertising gimmick. Shame on DARPA, and shame on MIT. (No shame on /., because after 12 years, I've come to expect this type of editorial slackness.)

  22. This is a radio station promotion gimmick by Animats · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is more like a radio station promotion. It would have worked if one of those blowhards on AM talk radio had announced a similar hunt with a call-in number. It didn't need the Internet.

  23. Thanks by zogger · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Thanks, didn't know that. But that rule negates true crowd sourcing datamining for a project, because in a real non test situation it wouldn't matter, an org and corp, an ad hoc group, whatever, would be disseminating and collating information. As this is a defense department test, I wonder what the rationale was for the exclusions?

    Going further, a google run group of volunteer balloon spotters might have done even better. Or an iPhone app, see balloon, mash button that uploads "I have seen it, here is the x-y" deal.

    1. Re:Thanks by Nipok+Nek · · Score: 2, Informative

      I think what they wanted to see was a pick-up group, not the functioning of a previously well-oiled organization.

      --
      Why choose white shoes?
  24. Re:That was pretty fast... by passion · · Score: 5, Funny

    sarchasm - the gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

    --
    - passion
  25. NEWSFLASH: Spam pyramid schemes work! by mtrachtenberg · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Today, MIT and the United States Department of Warxxx Defense are proud to report their joint discovery that spam email, when combined with a pyramid sales scheme, is an effective way to get people off their asses. This works best when your name is well-known and has not yet been sufficiently exploited that your email is ignored.

    Note to editors: when referring to spam in connection with MIT, correct usage is "social network."

  26. 99 Red Balloons by wooferhound · · Score: 2, Funny

    That was too fast . . .
    I think they should use more balloons to make it harder
    99 Red Balloons would have been better
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14IRDDnEPR4

    --
    We are Dead Stars looking back Up at the Sky
  27. No... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Your comment was modded funny because the competition had ZERO affiliation with MIT.

    https://networkchallenge.darpa.mil/FAQ.aspx
    https://networkchallenge.darpa.mil/rules.aspx

    Nowhere does it mention any MIT participation in administrating the contest. You could have verified this yourself in ten seconds. You are a retard.