Navy Wants Cyber Weapons That Shoot Data Beams

ectotherm writes "By 2018, the US Navy hopes to equip its fighter jets with the ability to shoot data streams containing 'specialized waveforms and algorithms,' useful in an electronic attack or cyber-invasion. A few non-classified details here."

Comments

Re:What?

[drolli]

I cite from the article'

'"We will tell you that in the world of the exciter, the holy grail is to get a universal design that can generate all the waveforms that you could possibly imagine," says Falco.'

Its pretty clear what they mainly want: Inject any analog waveform in any band to confuse radar with arbitrary objects. If the enemy radar gets a software upgrade which detects you last attempt, you just change your software. Up to now planes tracked by radar (missiles?) could jam the radar by fixed waveforms or the plane ejects some objects (which dont act like planes) to irritate the radar. With the proposes a system you can make the opponent see hundreds of things on the radar which look like planes and fly like planes. Heck you can even fake the transponder message of their own plane you just shot down.

You can use such a capability for choosen plaintext attacks (e.g. what do their systems send when a plane is entering a perimeter around the base), to confuse the enemy during active combat. If somebody uses radio links, and your crytographers are good enough you can also directly inject messages into enemy communications. Lets not forget that in asymmetric conflict the opponents of the USA very often have only the rudest communication means; the capability to control e.g. GSM communication during a battle could help in some places. Last but not least, you could help a plain cyberwar by injecting information here and there.