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US Army Considers a Smartphone For Every Soldier
destinyland writes "The US Army is seriously considering the idea of issuing a smartphone to every soldier, and they're already modernizing one Texas brigade 'through a range of electronic devices that will include not just smartphones but tablet devices, e-reader and mini-projectors.' The company that developed Patriot missiles has already created several dedicated military apps for both iPhone and Android phones, including one that allows soldiers to track colleague's locations on the battlefield. Interestingly, the army is likely to use an off-the-shelf model, heightening the war between Apple and Android phones. Apple's non-replaceable batteries may become an issue in the field, since 'plugging the phone in to recharge isn't always a viable option in the middle of combat.'"
I gotta get back to ya later Mom - I'm kinda engaged right now.
Didn't they just ban all portable mass storage devices as security risks? I mean what do they think these smart phones are?
I haven't seen much consumer electronics equipment that could survive a combat environment. Seems like just the sand alone in Iraq would mess up a lot of devices pretty quick.
And that's the thing -- it's all well and good to say that a certain piece of equipment will give soldiers some kind of advantage, but after a while the "advantage" becomes the norm. What happens then, when a piece of equipment that a soldier has come to rely upon just stops working? Do they carry on like before they had the equipment, or does what was once an advantage become a disadvantage, as the soldiers have to essentially retrain themselves on the fly?
Batteries, cracked screens, fouled-up input devices, software bugs... there's a reason why equipment designed for the military costs so much more than consumer equipment..
Breakfast served all day!
Upload to Wikileaks, is there an app for that?
We found Bin Laden, and he's an excellent dancer...
Rather than straight out "off the shelf" devices, wouldn't they be better served by something equivalent to a Panasonic Toughbook. Maybe that could be covered by 3rd party cases (with built-in batteries) but an iPhone is something that requires a bit of protection even for everyday use.
When they came for the communists, I said "He's next door. Take him away. Goddam commies."
They better get a GOOD DATA plan with free roaming or the fees will kill them.
where you can hit 11k for a few hours of web surfing in Canada and Canada rates are much lower then over places.
not on the main app store.
How many car and pedestrian accidents are caused by people texting while trying to do something else?
Do we really wanna see sexting incidents in the fox hole?
Why can't we let people believe whatever they like? It's not like a little religion has ever hurt anyone.
Should texting by fighter jet pilots be banned unconditionally, or only when operated by rookie pilots, at speeds in excess of Mach 1, etc.
I wonder how much other Chinese electronics it'll be a good idea to use on the battlefield.
User space apps by DARPA. Rootkit by the the PLA.
"Oi, , can you just stop shooting for a bit while I change the battery and reboot my phone?"
If im not mistaken motorola has/had a few phones that could stand drop and shock to some mil spec. If they could put a smartphone into that sort of shell durability would be less of an issue
I'd rather have a Smartsoldier for Every Phone
== With enough Will Power, one could move mountains. With enough Brains, one would just leave them where they are ==
'Droids for Droids'
Pvt Smith just checked in to "That Big Crater in the middle of the town"
If your going to identify your location to the enemy, there must be cheaper options than a smart phone.
I could see using these things while not deployed, but I suspect that the coverage in Afghanistan will be a little poor. If they are talking about a souped up handset radio, it might work...
âoeAny society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
So, you're going to put a comm device on every soldier that emits RF much of the time?
You better seed the whole place with decoy receiver transmitters or relay devices.
Else a military with any level of technical sophistication will use it to target and trigger munitions.
(I had a similar idea when I was in the Army still in the 80s. But it involved specifically putting out more decoys to act as relays than there were soldiers/real radios. Some of them moving, so that wouldn't be a way to decide which was real. Wasn't very practical at the time due to limits on the computing power available.)
I gotta get back to ya later Mom - I'm kinda engaged right now.
What if I told you me and 10+ other guys saw 'AFK: Real War' from an actual soldier in Afghanistan playing a war simulation at that time?
(not naming any names including game)
Or how about let's spend money on making our troops armor plated first? Instead of buying them useless bling.
IFF, TL;DR
(IFF is now In Fire Fight :)
Yeah, sure, it sounds like a stupendous idea. Praise Allah.
GSM wasn't made for military communication, are they NUTS??
Hope I won't give anyone an heart attack by stating this fact but a lot of military software runs on Windows. It even includes some missiles.
Of course their quality standards could be way more higher than anyone down to the choice of languages (e.g. ADA).
conservatives should be all over cutting frivolous defense spending like this.
Some of the places they could fight probably are out of range (even if in range, could be a vulnerability, an infiltration mission could be badly screwed because someone called the wrong number, or would be bad of someones position could be triangulated). So or they use satellite signal, or they don't plan use it in the battlefield. Of course, are also good pocket computers with camera, gps and so on, so would love that them add i.e. some augumented reality apps to the current set for all.
Do you realize how much money we currently spend per solider? We might as well be giving them an extra ration of dental floss for how much this is actually going to add in the grand scheme of things.
Don't undermine the good arguments for cutting military spending by focusing on trivial crap like this.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
The Motorola Defy is one hell of a beast and is the right smartphone for the military.
Android 2.1 (2.2 coming), IP67 rating (Sand/Dust-proof & Water Resistant), Scratch-Resistant glass, Drop resistant. Scores well in the quadrant benchmarks at 800MHz compared to other phones running at 1GHz with Android 2.2.
The screen is the same size as the iPhone, but the unit overall is smaller at the top and bottom and weighs less. The battery is removable.
The antenna design is also remarkable, one of the few phones (and the first Android phone) to be certified to be used in Rural Australia, on the very edge of coverage. A lot of users report that this phone holds calls in low coverage areas where other phones have failed.
If the Military is looking for an off-the-shelf phone to deploy, they can't go past this one. It ticks all the boxes to handle the environment, it is not too bulky like most ruggedised phones, the antenna performance in low-coverage areas is phenomenal, and it is running Android with all the features.
Android is also a better development platform for proprietary apps than iOS, as apps can be loaded without Market Approval, without having to register all of the iOS devices in the fleet as development phones or having to jailbreak.
Rather than straight out "off the shelf" devices, wouldn't they be better served by something equivalent to a Panasonic Toughbook. Maybe that could be covered by 3rd party cases (with built-in batteries) but an iPhone is something that requires a bit of protection even for everyday use.
Well the military guys choose 'laptops' (!) like these: :)
http://www.aselsan.com.tr/urun.asp?urun_id=89&lang=en
Funny is, it is considered to be 'light'.
BTW these things are sold to NATO members army high level personnel only. Don't try to buy like a friend did
While on it, it comes with Windows.
A military MD we know keeps buying these.
http://www.gsmarena.com/ericsson_r310s-200.php
Of course as Ericsson did some AOL thing with Sony, they don't produce anymore. You would be really surprised at some 'package not opened' prices for that old phone. So why he keeps buying? Even that monstrous phone can't stand to field conditions in peace time.
Hmmm I'd think they'd at least want something ruggedized like this one that already meets military specs. There's no way a stock iPhone or more 'droid phones would stand up to any kind of abused in the field.
I see this as an excellent opportunity for defence to be able to utilise the innovation of the small software vendor. Generally software supply contracts are won by big players. A platform like this enables small players to more easily get in the game as they can release apps tagged as defence apps, and the forces can see if they are useful or not. And yes, I haven't used American spelling in my post.
Australian running a company that does C# / C++ / Java / SQL / Python / Mathematica
Bling? The ability to know that the person you're shooting at is friendly? I don't think I'd call that bling, that seems pretty important to me.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
And here I am, considering dumping my smartphone for a good old fashioned dumbphone. Don't get me wrong, by HTC Hero is great as a web browser, a text messenger, a Wordfeud platform. If I want to see what time a movie is playing or what planets are visible in tonight's sky, the smartphone is awesome. But god help me if I want to make an actual phone call. If they thought repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell was going to be bad for military readiness...
--I'm so big, my sig has its own sig.
-- See?
This sounds a lot like the old PLRS/JTIDS hybrid (Position Location Reporting System/Joint Tactical Information Dissemination System) ideas that were being shown off around the US Army Signal Center in 1980 or so. It would have relayed back the location of each unit, and allowed messages to be sent back and forth.
GPS didn't exist yet, so you kept location with timing between the nodes of the network. It was text messages at that time. Very limited, but still the core of the idea.
When encryptable packet switched radio came to the fore, it was one possible way to implement this on a more advanced basis. You could also make sigint and traffic analysis very difficult by dropping cheap realys/decoys all over the place. It would have been robust, as you destroy one, you still have many many paths to get your message through. Fill up network with bogus traffic so that traffic levels wouldn't spike before an operation. Or, spike them in one area as a ruse and then do something in a different area.
I fear, though that the US is getting overly used to fighting forces that have limited technological abilities. They probably won't make the investment to do the decoying and traffic loading that would make this safe against a more advanced military.
... and homosexuals in the military ...
There are many others like it, but this one is mine. My iPhone is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. Without me, my iPhone is useless. Without my iPhone, I am useless. I must text my iPhone true. I must text faster than my mother, who is trying to block me. I must text my friends before she grounds me. I will. Before God I swear this creed: my iPhone and myself are defenders of my social life, we are the masters of our parents, we are the saviors of my social life. So be it, until there is no enemy, but peace. Amen.
I didn't intend that to be that creepy when I started it, but I think that describes 90% of high school and college students I've interacted with.
"including one that allows soldiers to track colleague's locations on the battlefield."
Now, lets say I am a soldier that has just been killed. My device does not know this, but the opposing force does. They pickup my phone, start running through a list of who is on the battlefield, and designate where their snipers need to aim.
Alternatively, opposing force finds device, and now appears on the location system as the soldier. This could be a bit of an issue if they send a message via it for everyone to regroup... or medical evac. I can imagine a well booby trapped body for that.
My point being: convenience is very nice, but deactivating it on death is vital. This is not something you'll get off-the-shelf, but can be as simple as a plugin heart monitor with password reset in the event of no pulse.
I'm not in the army anymore, but I still want one of these... Though on a civilian it would probably make me look more like a moron than those guys with bluetooth's in their ears or an ipod nano clipped to my shirt sleeve. This will probably end up on the list of things that would be fun but I won't get (out of embarrasment) along with a night vision system, robotic security cameras, or one of those cool new parrot uavs.
Android with custom hardened OS hands down, Apple has never impressed me with security and they've run off of "macs don't get viruses" for too long (although they never officially state this it is a common misconception).
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Cool. Then it automatically alerts me when it moves. Nice. :)
If you need more than one battery on an iPhone, you add a second, external battery, typically built into a case, and that battery is of course, replaceable, you can carry 10 if you like. iPhone also has about double the battery life of any Android phone right out of the box, so if we're talking batteries, Android is at a distinct disadvantage.
The US military already owns the largest collection of iPod touch in the world. The fact that it requires almost no training and maintenance is a key feature. Powerful native C apps that are very easy to develop is another key feature.
They should give the diplomats and foreign intelligence also these devices and change the name to youtubeleaks. Than we at least have some nice footage to see the gory details of what is done in the name of the US citizen..
WAIT A MINUTE. Are we talking about the same Patriot missiles that barely managed to muster 40% success rate in Israel during the first(of many) gulf war? And these nice folks are making apps for soldiers that may using them to make critical decisions that may affect the lives of our soldiers? Obviously some people in our military have not read their history books.
"We are just a war away from Amerikastan. When god vs god the undoing of man." Dave Mustaine
I love that you are on Slashdot and you're arguing against people using computers.
I'll bet it won't have a camera!
So each solider is getting a TI calculator (complete with square root key) ?
Have you fscked your local propeller head today?
"Why stop there? Lets get each of them a limo and a call girl too."
Too bad we can't use limos as they are cheaper than MRAPs...
In my day we paid for whores out of pocket, but now the UCMJ for no reason other than to pander (pun intended) to Bible Thumpers and Feminazis says that's illegal. It would be fair if they did fund brothels in compensation. :)
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Seriously, these need to be made in a none Chinese nation, IDEALLY, in America. This would offer a company like Motorola an opportunity to bring back manufacturing and then apply it to sales in America as well.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The Gulf War is ancient history, and the Patriot missiles and tracking systems have had a couple decades to mature.
To give an idea of the timeline, someone who enlisted during Desert Shield could be retired by now.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
That is exactly why whoever wins the contract NEEDS to bring back the manufacturing to America. Considering that Apple has not done manufacturing in decades and never on this scale, then it would make sense for Motorola win.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
when real warfare becomes a networked virtual RPG, played on tablet computers by the soldiers of warring factions. the loser has to buy pizza....
Republican leadership = Idiocracy
Link
Now just buy a bunch of those link cables and code a few apps on those and you're good to go.
Okay seriously I've just run out of pointless things to say.
After all, it's the most widely-used smartphone in the Federal government because of it's solid security. Oh and the battery is easily replaced as well.
I love that you are on Slashdot and you're arguing against people using computers.
That's not necessary an either/or... Just give them armor-plated wearable computers.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
I haven't seen much consumer electronics equipment that could survive a combat environment. Seems like just the sand alone in Iraq would mess up a lot of devices pretty quick.
My iPhone survives water, sand, etc when I am out hiking in wilderness areas. I use a ziplock bag. I recommend the freezer bags over the sandwich bags, the freezer bags are a bit more durable.
Somehow i can't see 'air strike' and 'scud missile' making it past the app store approval.
Cellphones can be tracked. That means enemies/terrorists can "follow" your patrols around and map their routes, then set up ambushes. This is a show stopper for phones. Secondly civilian phones are insecure, so someone could hack in and listen to mission briefs. That would be bad. Third any soldier could upload classified data to their phone then send it to wikileaks, again that's bad. Forth: classified systems must always be air gapped from unsecured civilian networks. The cellphone network isn't. If you give someone a cellphone you should expect them to use it for their work. And their work is likely classified.
Apple's non-replaceable batteries may become an issue in the field, since 'plugging the phone in to recharge isn't always a viable option in the middle of combat.'"
No, but a battery pack in a rugged case is.
Meanwhile having to extract a device from a ruggedized case and also having a device that allows sand and dust to get more easily inside, could well be seen as a negative too.
Sliding keyboard? Right the hell out.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It would be nice if Android could join this list. However, it would require some changes to its structure:
1: Encryption of more than just APK files on the SD card. Even 2.3 doesn't support this. In the corporate market, this is completely hamstringing Android from ever getting more than a token foothold. Apple understood this, and made a deal with MS so their devices can properly store anything Exchange related encrypted. The Droid Pro is advertised as having encryption in 2011. Google needs to get on the ball and address this, and it doesn't take that much to deal with this issue.
First, you have a random 256 bit key stored in a protected location (where it can be easily and thoroughly erased.) This is tied to the passcode or PIN on the Android device. When the customer enters the passcode, it unlocks EncFS protected directories and stores the key in two locations in RAM (one normal, one bit-inverted with the keys flipping every so often.) The SD card can optionally be completely protected by EncFS.
Another good way of encrypting which goes beyond files (but the downside is that the card is only readable on Windows with FreeOTFE) would be completely encrypting the SD card using LUKS. The advantage of using LUKS is that everything on the card is protected.
2: A way to encrypt backups. One of Android's strong points is that it is not tied to one computer like iOS devices or WM devices. However, it would be good if Google had an official standard for backing up data so each phone vendor doesn't take this into their own hands. Titanium Backup and nandroid are ideal for home use, but not enterprise solutions. Instead, something profile based that can happily scoop up the APKs that are not flagged copy-protected [1], make note of the copy-protected apps so they can be reinstalled via the Marketplace, and then have the encrypted file saved to the SD card, or exportable to the computer via other means.
3: Profile compliance. Some companies lock out backups, demand 15 character PINs, and those changed every 2 days, disable camera and screenshot capability, and other nasty stuff. Eventually, Android will have to play ball here (preferably with virtual machine capability as mentioned on another /. article), if it wants a foothold in the enterprise market.
Would these changes be good? #1 would be good regardless. #2 and #3 may make Android less friendly to consumers and developers.
Don't they have that technology already? I use it all the time in Black Ops. Even has an alternative color blind scheme.
You know they only carry missiles right? so if it sees someone try to mug you, it blows you both up?
404: sig not found.
Really, give the soliders in the battlefield a device that can: Take pictures (complete with gps location!), have a gps. have ways of sharing data.
Yes, We don't need some lone solider to turn info into wikileaks, we'll just use facebook.
Be seeing you...
This sounds like the Army@Love comic series that satirizes the Iraq war. Soldiers are issued mobile phones to use in combat because of 'motivation and morale', and one of them coins the term 'joining the Hot Zone club' - which is doing the nasty while under enemy fire.
"..One hosts to look them up, one DNS to find them, and in the darkness BIND them."
So, have they actually hit anything yet?
If nothing else that company has a reputation for shipping an unfinished and unreliable product into a war zone where people are depending upon it for their lives. That's not something they can live down in a hurry.
Compare that to the magic space laser the Israelis have that can apparently shoot down artillery shells. It's got put through more testing to apparently iron out the bugs instead of being rushed out and trusted to shoot down 40 year old Iranian surplus rockets fired by the untrained.
... apps for both iPhone and Android phones, including one that allows soldiers to track colleague's locations on the battlefield.
And how long before somebody on the other side finds a way to use that to track the where all their enemies are? Wouldn't that be useful information for them? In fact, they don't need much more than a list of telephone numbers for the people they want to track - and the persons won't even need to be talking, since their mobile will be doing that for them at regular intervals in order to stay connected to the network. I'm not sure this is a clever idea.
"...allows soldiers to track colleague's locations on the battlefield"
What could possibly go wrong?
I think they should be dealing with angry kurds instead of Angry Birds.
But it never went further than the first (successful) trial:
http://myapplenewton.blogspot.com/2009/05/apple-newton-in-combat.html
http://homepage.mac.com/matthewboulanger/NewtonandGPS.html
William
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
Que Deus te de em dobro o que me desejas
[May God give you double that which you wish for me]
Eventually, war will come down to soldiers from both sides playing Modern Warfare (Call of Duty, BlackOps, etc.) against each other. The loosing team will be required to exterminate X% of their team/society, just like that Star Trek episode many years ago. Conventional warfare is just becoming too expensive and too damaging to the environment.
>including one that allows soldiers to track colleague's locations on the battlefield
Yes, let a phone that is know to have weaknesses be able to track movement of all armed forces when in a country that has no problems what so ever to hack into networks and such, and give them an easy way to eliminate all those troops all at once....come on....are you serious???
die_infidel (die_infidel@gmail.com) wants to share their location with you on Google Latitude. You too can see where your friends are and share your location using Latitude from your phone, computer, or both.
Get started with Latitude
Go to https://www.google.com/latitude from your phone or computer.
See the sharing request
Open Latitude and select the notification in your friends list.
If you're on your computer now, go to https://www.google.com/latitude?tab=sharingrequest
I've lost all my marbles except one & It's fun to test angular & centripetal acceleration in my skull
Not sure where the 40% success rate mentioned in a previous post came from, but even taking that as a given, the troops were doing a hell of a lot better at 40% of the enemy missiles getting stopped than 0%!
You really need to look at these things with some perspective. War is an inexact science at best - no one can wait for perfection, or often even wait for halfway-decent.
That 40% has been questioned and pushed down to close to 0% by some miltary and academic investigations. Only the salesmen were talking about 40%. With a fairly dramatic and stupid early bug they were initially no more effective than a stone to repel tigers, after that was fixed reports are mixed as to whether they were effective or a distraction that led to troops wasting time better spent elsewhere.
Let's try a large scale example to outline the point. One thing worth keeping in mind about deploying experimental technology in war is if the vast resources Germany committed to the V2 (where more slaves died building them than the weapons actually killed) where committed elsewhere a lot more people would have died in WWII.
It's not about "perfection", it's about whether there is any improvement at all. In the initial stages it was not and it's debatable if they made a difference after they were improved paticularly since some data appeared to be very unreliable to the point of possible fraud.
Tatoos that show all the best ways to infiltrate our military. All you need is one dopey "gomer pile" jailbreaking and installing a bad app that sends all communications with the device to terrorists.