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

Can you fit them on the heads of sharks?

[Skarecrow77]

I'm just asking?

Re:Can you fit them on the heads of sharks?

[MrNaz]

Only if the data is modulated in a collimated, uniform wavelength beam of light known as a "laser".

Re:April Fools is over

[Lehk228]

i can shoot a stream of information...

What?

[Mitchell314]

So now we're trying to rick-roll enemy pilots in dog fights?

Re:What?

[Tetsujin]

So now we're trying to rick-roll enemy pilots in dog fights?

No, it's a cyber-invasion. The weapon unleashes a flood of A/S/L requests.

Re:What?

[TubeSteak]

American Pilot 1: Oh shit! They just launched missiles!
American Pilot 2: Quick, do a barrel roll!
American Pilot 1: I am saved!

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.

Re:What?

[dummondwhu]

Great points. That's pretty much where my thoughts were going.

People seem to be thinking this thorough as a parallel to what we think of as cyber attacks in the internet world today where viruses and trojans take control of our PCs for nefarious purposes. And while that may be desirable to the Navy too, everything in warfare is moving toward digital communications these days. There are a number of types of tactical data links, communicating virtually everything that one battlefield entity might need to know from another and it's only going to get more widespread over time.

You don't need to "take over" an enemy radar when you can just tell it to report whatever you want to its operator via spoofed waveforms. Or, if a good guy plane could fool others into thinking it was an enemy plane (with a spoofed radar signature, IFF, etc.), the benefits are obvious.

The difficulties are defeating encryption and decoding messages/waveforms to be able to inject specific bits of data as seen fit. Though, a targeted DoS attack is probably not very difficult to achieve even now because if you flood a link with messages of the appropriate size, it still has to do some processing to decide that it can't do anything with them, possibly slowing or stopping legitimate messages.

Incidentally, I work in defense and I don't see my company listed in TFA so that sucks because this would be an interesting project. Though, it might be involved in some way that I just don't know about (because it's a huge company, not necessarily because of secrecy or anything).

Re:What?

[gillbates]

I understand electronic countermeasures are cheaper than chaff, but cheaper still are electronic counter-counter measures. They're fighting an uphill battle because:

1. Processing power is cheap, which makes:
2. Encryption cheap.
3. Advanced recognition algorithms cheap.
4. Advanced interception techniques cheap.
5. Active countermeasures cheap.

Ever since the Hellfire missile was reprogrammed to arc above a target and strike downward (as opposed to track-beam-to-target), the sophistication of software on weaponry is the real arms race. Consider, for example, the following sequence of advances in technology:

1. Radar guided missiles which track to the jamming radar when they detect a jamming signal.
2. A disposable, super-cap powered radar jammer ejected away from the plane when incoming missile is detected.
3. A multi-sensor missile which uses radar to locate a target, and combination of IR, visible, and radar techniques to track to kill.
4. A radar jammer which transmits stronger "bounce" signals of a higher/lower frequency to fool a missile radar into thinking the target is closer or farther away.
5. A missile radar which uses a PRNG generator to fool the radar jammer. It transmits at random intervals - and if it receives a ping when it did not expect one, rejects it as a jamming signal and continues on track.
6. An anti-missile radar system on aircraft and tanks which tracks and kills incoming missiles (think small scale CWIS).
7. Palestinians defeating such systems (like Torch) by spray-painting rpgs with radar-absorbent paint. Or using the radar transmitter on the missile to detect the tracking radar and transmit waves of opposite polarity to fool the tracking radar. Repeat with doppler shifts, etc...
8. Missiles which can actively track and avoid incoming counter-missile fire.
9. Reusable SAMS which can return to base, land, and refuel in the event of a miss, which essentially reduces the cost of an airplane kill to that of a single SAM, plus the fuel. Much cheaper than firing a handful to ensure a single hit, and losing all in the process.
10. Intelligent cruise missiles which can detect and route themselves around radar installations on their path to a target.

It's just your classic arms race, folks.

This sounds like a scam

[linzeal]

Electronic Warfare has been around since at least WWII but the idea that airplanes are going to be hacking anything more sophisticated than a WiFi network at Mach 2 is dubious. Sure, they have been able to own spectrum, but owning devices is a whole other story. With the advent of cheap system on chip solutions that include robust cryptographic silicon it will not be long before China and Russia are integrating that or better in their domestic and for export weapon systems.

Oh no...

[gad_zuki!]

...they're shooting data beams at our Gibson! Release the Da Vinci virus!!!

Down for me

[nazariuskappertaal]

http://74.125.153.132/search?q=cache:http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,212940,00.html&hl=en&strip=1

Re:Down for me

[binarylarry]

This vicious slashdotting will teach them about the nature of hardware disabling data beams.

In the Navy

[gad_zuki!]

I'm sure Navy guys have a lot of practice shooting coded "information" at each other during long stretches at sea.

Re:Yet another DARPA idea straight out of sci-fi

[blackraven14250]

They'll put research funding into any idea that they've seen on Star Trek or read in a book somewhere.

It's led to most of their successes too though. That airplane-mounted laser that shoots down missles from the air? Totally sci-fi, and not even the book kind, that was given to them by Hollywood. It was a success in that it would work, just not in getting funding.

Their basic motto is "try everything and see what ends up working". Do you think most of their innovations started out as "holy shit this is obvious" concepts, or ones that 99% of the population would say "that's fucking retarded" when told about?

Re:Yet another DARPA idea straight out of sci-fi

[forkazoo]

So it's kinda far fetched to plan on 0wnzoring your opponent's radars remotely by sending out data packets taking advantage of an exploit that your opponent can just patch with a firmware upgrade.

Yeah, it's kind of far-fetched. OTOH, if there is something exploitable in the electronics of an enemy system, it could be very useful to use that for a combat advantage. Imagine a comms system that can get overloaded with corrupt packets, and reboots itself. Even if you can only make an enemy radio unreliable instead of taking it out completely, he might miss out on key intel or orders.

Re:Yet another DARPA idea straight out of sci-fi

[bmajik]

The story blurb is of course ridiculous but i think you are downplaying the extent to which software/system vulnerabilities will be a factor in future conflicts. Especially due to the assymetrical, break once, break everywhere dynamics of attacking widely deployed IT.

I'm not sure who the US will use this against, but I suspect many people will be able to use IT attacks against the US. And it's going to be terribly effective, because getting new IT created, tested, deployed, and humans trained on how to run it, takes us a lot of time and money. But once some guy figures out how to break it... usually it's broken everywhere at once.

IOW: attacking the US's use of IT is going to be a force multiplier for people that don't like us. And they'll probably be able to do it on the cheap. Whatever they cannot figure out themselves, they can pay someone $5-$50k in Russia to figure out how to do for them.

I've heard that for a long time, ground-to-sat control signals weren't authenticated or encrypted. For a long time, screwing with Uncle Sam was kind of a "security through obscurity" sort of affair, but the clock has pretty much run down on that concept; seeing what kind of successful attacks are waged will be interesting.

Suppose for the sake of argument that some GPS-guidance system were using an off the shelf receiver that had support for the D-GPS standard [the stuff where a terrestrial signal is used to enhance accuracy]. Even though the military can use the "military grade" GPS, more and more work is getting accompolished using consumer receivers, so its only natural to assume that some may have this "local radio" feature that i seem to remember.

So what's to stop someone who has a factory he doesn't want getting blown up to introduce a huge "correction" offset into the local signal. Perhaps you can misdirect people and potentially munitions [not aware of any GPS guided munitions though].

Or suppose that our ground units aren't using encrypted comms all the time? suppose you've got a radio listener that records everything it hears, and correlates that with times, channels, etc. Some association rule mining and you have gleaned a working model of who is using the radio when, and what they are saying. Now you decide to start playing back the audio you previously recorded, and for some amount of time, everyone using radios is _really_ confused. Maybe you even call in a false operation or movement. Maybe you convince the US to bomb an orphanage by giving a _very_ authentic sounding (you just replay Private Pyle's voice, after all) request for ordinance at coordinates you control.

The weak link in all of these computer-aided decision systems is that humans beleive them when they shouldn't, and that humans don't do enough to protect them from tampering. rather than some kind of magic wave [which could very well work, for instance by somehow distrurbing the small gyroscopes that inertial nav systems use... but again, that would be ANTI aircraft instead of launched from aircraft], figuring out how to mis-use the technology to cause problems for the humans will be where successfull attacks come from.

If I were going to try and wreck the superior tech advantages of the US military, I'd start by understanding the sensor inputs to the machines that do the thinking. Are laser guided munitions effective in heavy fog or other light-attenuation situations? Can i build goggles that let me see where directed laser energy is currently lighting things up? If so, i can predict targets. If i have boots on the ground near the target, i can find out exactly where the illuminator is positioned (by placing a sheet 10m infront of hte target and working it through a range of motion to see when i am/am not illuminated). If i use several of my own laser designators, can I re-direct a laser-seeking munitions head?

The professionals have been playing war games a lot longer that I've been writing slashdot posts. But I know from an entire lifetime of working with software that there will always be bugs, and humans will beleive the machine when they shouldn't.

Re:I want a pony

[dangitman]

but that's not gonna fucking happen either.

Don't be so pessimistic! If you save your allowance, get a part-time job and cut back on buying snack foods, it could happen sooner than you think.

hit 'em with a 404!

[circletimessquare]

finish them off with a 500!

Re:Yet another DARPA idea straight out of sci-fi

[martin-boundary]

I'm not so sure.

The reason is if we extrapolate the trends in computing to 2020 say, and we assume that huge number of devices that nobody thinks of might have by then a tiny processor with an IP (v6) address (eg think lightbulbs, windows, clothes, vehicles, air conditioners, hand-held tools, watches, helmets etc, etc), then it becomes really very hard to properly secure most buildings and assets.

In a war situation, you'd have troops moving about literally in a sea of potentially deadly gizmos with consumer grade quality of processing power, but even in friendly territory, building a truly secure working military base could turn out to be a complicated problem and maybe not possible.

What if nobody remembers that the cement in building C is connected to the internet and the firmware hasn't been updated (far fetched? There might be tiny sensors mixed into the cement, to help maintenance crews monitor the building better...)

It's likely that in 10 or 20 years, viruses designed to create random damage would be really hard to protect against, because a 100% controlled environment would be really hard to keep, and even 1% vulnerability could be exploited in a war scenario.

Today computer security is a lot easier, because there are so *few* computer systems, mostly big boxes with a local admin who can secure them.

What exactly will they attack?

[SheeEttin]

It's a nice concept, and there's probably a real application there, but the article sounds completely ridiculous.

a weapon system that can deliver cyber-effects through free space into an aperture

Uh-huh. The weapon is easy, convincing the enemy to add a weak point is the only snag.

The data beams would be packed with specialized waveforms and algorithms that work like keys to open networks.

Ooh! It's got waveforms! And algorithms!!

Okay, I'll assume that we infiltrate the enemy to attach an access point. Couldn't we just park a truck nearby and use a lower-power antenna? Or use an unsecured access point?

Re:Yet another DARPA idea straight out of sci-fi

[Gerzel]

Yeah DARPA what have they ever come up with that's panned out?

Now if you excuse me I'm gonna go surf the net a bit more.

Had to happen sooner or later

[aquabat]

Great. It's a spam gun. Way to go Uncle Sam. This thing has to contravene the Geneva Convention for inhumane weapons.

Rick Roll Rockets

[moteyalpha]

They could project goatse links into the enemy planes computers and while they are distracted, send a missile up their tailpipe. Oops, that might be a bad metaphor.

STOP PLEASE!!!!!!

[failedlogic]

Will everyone please stop ridiculing this article!

We must "shoot data streams containing 'specialized waveforms and algorithms" or the terrorists win!

Battlestar Gallactica?

[PinkyGigglebrain]

Isn't this how the Cylons killed most of the colonial tech?

Shot in a beam of data via the ECM systems and activated the "kill switch" 6 had planted in the new software.

As long as they could get the exploitable code into the system this might work.

Cue the "Windows for Warplanes" jokes...

Re:Techniques generator

[SpzToid]

So what you are saying is not only are we talking about war-driving at hypersonic speeds, but we're also bombing away at the Great Firewall of China in the process. I get it. Sort of like Top Gun meets The Matrix.

Only please God, please don't let Tom Cruise ever be Nemo, Mr. Anderson; whatever. No.

Re:April Fools is over

[Hognoxious]

Yeah .... i think people have been watching independence day a bit too much ...

In other words, once.

Re:April Fools is over

[Grimbleton]

Welcome to erf!