US Begins Sophisticated Wireless Jamming Project

coondoggie writes "Looking to begin developing algorithms and other technology to automatically learn to jam certain new wireless transmissions that may threaten US military personnel, BAE Systems recently got about $8.4 million from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to begin work on what's known as the Behavioral Learning for Adaptive Electronic Warfare (BLADE) system. According to DARPA: As wireless communication devices become more adaptive and responsive to their environment by using technology such as Dynamic Spectrum Allocation, the effectiveness of fixed countermeasures may become severely degraded. The BLADE program will develop algorithms and techniques that will let our electronic warfare systems automatically learn to jam new RF threats in the field."

Comments

Only $8 Million ?

[rwv]

This doesn't sound like a lot of money to develop a system that seems like it would be fairly novel and revolutionary.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[Monkeedude1212]

I wish they'd spend 8 million to get Cell phone jammers at theatres. If there is ONE place where reception should not be possible its half way into a great drama.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[jittles]

Seems like a lot of money to me. A friend of mine once created an 802.11a jammer out of a cordless phone and it only took him a day or two. The first go around his reprogrammed phone would block a specific channel. With the second iteration it would find what channel you were on and block it out so that you couldn't do frequency hopping. It would even take out a broad spectrum cordless that was using multiple channels at once. Granted they want something that blocks more than just one frequency range, but it doesn't sound very much different than what my friend did.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[raymansean]

to quote the summary: "$8.4 million from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to begin work on what's known as the Behavioral Learning for Adaptive Electronic Warfare..." This is likely a phase 1 or 2 porject were they have to show proof of concept. This is the DOD we are talking about, I am sure that before BLADE is done that the total cost will be in the 100's of millions.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[arth1]

You can buy cell phone jammers over the counter (where legal), and some places, theatres have them.

Fine dining restaurants should also have them, IMO. How important it is for you to be reachable shouldn't affect my being able to enjoy peace and quiet.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[Locke2005]

Heck, couldn't he just jam something in the door switch for his microwave and leave the door open?

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[jank1887]

DARPA does basic research. that's actually fairly sizable. the effort will likely focus on the basic science and technology implementation. when the "System" gets funded, expect 3 more zeros at the end.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[girlintrainingpants]

Ummm...good luck with that. WIFI is notoriously easy to jam. You can barrage jam every frequency in the band with a low-power transmitter, say 10-20dBm, and no one is going to get through. No decision mechanism needed.

If you're paying to develop an ECCM anti-jamming algorithm, you are going to be working with systems that were built with jamproofing in mind in the first place. This is NOT the case with WIFI. With sophisticated modulation schemes, you have spatial and frequency multiplexing. As in, spread spectrum that actually works and may have tens of GHz of bandwidth and with 10 or 20 degrees of beamwidth. It's still jammable despite trying to keep it from being jammed by brute force or intelligence (read--someone gets the PN code), and these guys want to figure out at least how to automatically keep that from happening. This is going to involve a lot of data analysis because there are a lot of ways to jam a "stealthy" signal in the first place.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

No you don't. You wish people'd be more considerate.

The difference is a cell phone jammer won't stop a PSP/DS/Watch/iPod etc.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[jank1887]

so why didn't he submit a proposal to the BAA? i mean, it's gotta be a simple solution, right? I'm sure all the military's worried about are non-adversarial civilian signals. I'm sure they're just worried about narrowband low power transmissions with a clear IEEE spec.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[arth1]

Keep in mind that they want to jam ALL of the enemy (and civilian) wireless transmissions, but none of their own. That's a little more complukated.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[DrgnDancer]

It's actually pretty complicated. I used to be a military communications officer, so I have some idea of what they're trying to do here. The way modern military radios work is they take an entire spectrum and jump frequencies around a hundred times a second (that's what the US radios do, I assume enemy technology to be on par) based on an algorithm, a frequency plan, and a randomly generated salt which is a shared secret between all the radios. Unless you have all three pieces or you can use something like this adaptive "smart jammer" they want to develop, you can't jam the radios without jamming the entire spectrum. That's possible of course, but a) it takes a lot of power and b) it typically jams your radios too.

The trick here is that you don't want to create a radio "dead space" you want to jam enemy communications while leaving your own untouched. Your friend created a broad spectrum jammer. It crudely killed anything in the immediate area that was trying to use any frequency close to the one he was broadcasting on. Since there's a fairly limited number of channels that wifi runs on, and they're published frequency ranges, it was fairly trivial to scan each channel (which a WAP is doing anyway) to jam the correct one, or just broadcast on all of them. Now imagine your trying to jam a device that can use any frequency in the VHF range, has a list of 10,000 freqs it may be using, is changing freqs once every .001 seconds, and is jumping in away that appears random without the algorithm and salt. You probably have the algorithm, but the salt is only stored on secure devices that self wipe after either a certain number of failed password attempts or any attempt to access the internals. On top of that, since the enemy is almost certainly using more than one channel to communicate, you have to sort which devices are one which channels. All of which are that complicated. Finally, you have to do all of this without impacting your own communication systems which are doing the same thing on the same freq band.

Still seem easy?

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[Americano]

8 million dollars will pay a few salaries for a year - rule of thumb at my work is each engineer costs 250-300k per year, in terms of space, equipment, salary, benefits, infrastructure. So, figure that pays a team of 10-12 people, with plenty of money left over for some hardware purchases for a prototype.

The summary is pretty clear that this is "to begin work on developing" a new system, it's not for the entire system - think of this as proof-of-concept phase. Somebody has a few smart ideas and says, "if we had some money, we could probably make something workable out of this." So DARPA gives them some cash, and says "show us what you can do."

If it's promising, it's likely it'll turn into a much larger program funded by the DoD procurement budget, rather than DARPA.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[BobMcD]

Right, but wouldn't the very behavior of such a system betray what THEY were using to communicate? It seems like it would only take a few minutes to find out which parts of the spectrum DARPA's machine had whitelisted, and then you could simply jam only THAT.

Sounds like a relatively stupid idea to me.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[PopeRatzo]

And, will you be still saying that when a doctor or other emergency worker doesn't get a page because you didn't want to be disturbed?

Maybe the "doctor" should get a phone that vibrates. With what he makes, I assume he could afford it.

Of all the times I've been disturbed by cell phones at the movies, symphony, opera or library, I very much doubt that any of the offending calls were of this "emergency" nature. Usually, it's just assholes being assholes.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[digitig]

You are so right.

That guy whose health depends on clarification from the Attending is just going to have to wait. That or the attending should just have to sacrifice their entire lives for their jobs-- it's not like you'll ever need their help, so why give them any sort of respect or dignity?

Yes, because after all they're at liberty to take a vacation on the other side of the world, go caving, go on a wilderness hike whilst on call. Oh, wait, no they can't. If they're on call their movements are limited already.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[Monkeedude1212]

I don't wish for impossible things.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

But you do wish for foolish things? Much cooler.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[jftitan]

Pagers work on a different frequency than Cell phones.

  Many Jammers have been proven to jam just the cellular freq. and Pagers still work. I personally have seen EMTs and Doctors still receive their pages while their phones are sufficiently jammed.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[jittles]

Now I could have been mistaken but I thought this was to jam signals that threatened military personnel, and I made the assumption that they were referring to IEDs. I know that they do not depend on jamming signals for IR or RF missiles.

AFAIK they only use COTS components to create these IEDs, though I suppose they could use more sophisticated military grade comm systems. Heck even police departments are getting into more sophisticated realms w/ regard to radio comm.

But based on my knowledge of government contracts, most of the cost will be to cover documentation and project management overhead costs.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[mcgrew]

Bullshit, the theaters and nice restaraunts should put up some sort of faraday cage. Nobody HAS TO be on call 24/7/365; the surgeon and the fireman should be able to have a replacement ready when he's at the theater or sleeping.

There didn't used to be such things as pagers, and folks got along just fine. There is no excuse for a phone to ring in a theater or (worse) in church, PERIOD. If you absolutely, positively HAVE to have you goddamned phone on 24/7, stay the hell out of churches, theaters, and any restaraunt that has wait staff.

YOU ARE NOT THAT GODDAMNED IMPORTANT. Nobody is.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all, you're being a hypersensitive douchebag. The rest of us grin and bear it, so quit whining like a pompous little bitch.

Second of all, if the establishment you're eating at doesn't appropriately cater to your dainty ear drums, perhaps you should take your business elsewhere.

The reality is, the people receiving those phone calls PROBABLY ARE just that much more important than your entitled ass. Otherwise, the waiter WOULD eject them from any suitably reputable place of dining.

Whatever color of self-important idiot you are, getting caught with a cell-phone jammer for such trivial reasons should be grounds for a felony conviction with no jail time or probation. Just a good old fashion black balling to let the world know what a self-righteous prick who would interfere with the delivery of a life saving SMS message to a phone on vibrate looks like!

All because what? Your sensitive disposition can't handle the offense of an occasional 3 second accidental ring tone while you dine at "Le Pretentiouse"?

What set off your passive aggressive PTSD anyway? Teacher? Give a lot of "SUPER IMPORTANT" serious business powerpoint presentations?

What's actually going on here is that you fly by the seat of your pants so much, and are running so far out beyond your actual qualifications that an interrupted thought process actually bodes poorly on your ability to deliver a presentation.

Got bullied alot in school so you clawed you way in to some government management position where you fell up in to a chair fit for a pointy haired boss such as yourself. Now you're happy because you actually get "the respect you deserve" from a bunch of underlings who recognize that flattery and glad handling your ego are the easiest way to mitigate the political impact of their idiot boss, and minimize his interference in their affairs. Eventually, they'll be stolen from your fiefdom by more competent managers who will actually enrich their careers, which is why your employees are constantly "moving" for "family reasons" or a "change of pace."

Now, you've grown so accustomed to being treated like royalty(so that you'll stay out of the way of actual work being done) that when someone who's ACTUALLY important in this world, gets a phone call: it offends your sensibilities. How DARE they take their work home with them?!

Maybe: there is justice in this world and the source of your migraine is some IT worker fresh out of college who hasn't got enough experience on his resume to get away from bridge trolls such as yourself. Just maybe, that phone call raping your ears is from some other fascist pointy haired boss who doesn't respect his employees boundaries.

That's not irony, that's poetic justice.

Hit a nerve? A little bit butthurt? U MAD? Please, prove me right and try to dismiss the above as a "Rant".

Shove that chinese noise maker up your ass.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[icebraining]

There's a difference between being physically limited and being stopped because the restaurant owners are too afraid to do something about jerks. There are other ways to deal with them besides jamming everyone's cellphones, including those who are in vibrating mode and not bothering anyone.

I suggested above adding a ringing cellphone fee to the check (and warning about it on the entrance). If they see their bill going up 30% they might remember next time.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[Belial6]

The problem I see is that we have two camps that are so set on being right that the obvious solution doesn't even get considered.

Camp 1: We should ban cell phones, or at the very least jam them so that they are functionally no longer a cell phone because those particular sounds offend my senses!
Camp 2: It is up to the individual to be responsible for their actions, so any interference at all is an offense to my senses!

Camp 1 is ridiculous, as the theaters and restaurants could kick out patrons who make noise. They find it more profitable to not do that though. Other public places are, well, public places, and expecting public places to be quiet is absurd. They also ignore the fact that people do want to be contacted in the case of an emergency, or even for really important things.
Camp 2: Likes to ignore the fact that when you get enough people, someone (and likely multiple people) are going to keep pushing the envelope to the point that someone else snaps, just for the attention. They also ignore the fact that humans make mistakes, so even if people's intent IS to turn their phone off in theaters someone is going to forget.

There are not that many cell phone manufacturers. There are even fewer carriers. If Verizon, Sprint, AT&T and T-Mobile would agree on a simple carrier signal on a particular frequency to be considered a REQUEST to put the phone into silent mode, the problem would be solved. We could set phones to accept the request, and thus any business that doesn't want noise could turn our phones to vibrate WITH OUR PERMISSION. Everyone would still receive their calls. Anyone who didn't accept the quite request could be considered to be doing it on purpose, and thus the business would be in a more reasonable position to throw them out. We could set our phones to deny the request if we found certain places that the most extreme of Camp 1 decided to abuse the ability. This would also make a clear line between those that are offended by noise, and those that are offended by technology existing.

The best case scenerio is getting the FCC to set aside a specific frequency for this, as well as set rules for broadcast strength. While that would not physically stop anyone from abusing it, it would make it similar to what we have with FM. Anyone can jam FM frequencies. It does happen on occasion. Not often, and when it does, there can be legal ramifications. We can still buy low power FM transmitters for short range personal use. And if someone abuses the signal by transmitting at high power, the worst that happens is the phone goes into vibrate mode.

There is nothing technologically difficult about this solution. Failure means either a phone ringing when someone wants it quite, which already is happening. Or, a phone goes into vibrate mode when someone wants the noise. Annoying, but not the end of the world, and better than all out jamming.

Phone owners can get their calls, which is presumably what the polite people from Camp 2 are asking for, and Quiet people can get their quiet, which is presumably what the polite people from Camp 1 are asking for.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[nschubach]

Hey! That's how I cook things that are too big to fit in the microwave.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[h4rr4r]

People used to get buy fine with horses too, lets ban cars!

Some people really do need to be on call. As one who is on call often I use the vibrate function and call them back after exiting the theater or restaurant dining area, no church for me so that not an issue. You are trying to solve a social problem with a technical solution, that never works.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[h4rr4r]

No, but being able to answer a phone does not mean they should be trapped at home. They should use vibrate and take the call outside or in the bathroom. Stop trying to solve social problems with technical solutions. Fun hint, the folks you are complaining about are not folks on call, the ones you care about are kids and losers. To get rid of those, just boot them from the theater when they answer inside.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[Dishevel]

If you are on call 24hrs a day then YES. You should give up your freedoms during your NOT FREE TIME so that it dose not infringe upon the freedoms of those that are actually enjoying their FREE TIME.

Just like you used to be able to got out without screaming babies. Now because Mommies deserve to go out. We have to suffer. Mommyhood is a choice. Do not make just the part of the choice that is convenient for you and let the rest of us pick up the suffering for you. Fuck those people. They are inconsiderate asses.

Rant over.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[arth1]

I say that doctors and other emergency workers who are ON CALL have no business being in a theatre or fine dining establishment in the first place.
If they're expected to be able to respond immediately, they should be where they can respond immediately.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[mcgrew]

You are trying to solve a social problem with a technical solution, that never works

Social problem: your family is scattered all over the globe. Technical solution -- planes, trains, automobiles, telephones, and internet.

People used to get buy fine with horses too, lets ban cars!

Paris To Test Banning SUVs In the City

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[phantomcircuit]

Jam everything but the channel in your time splice. (Almost certainly harder than it sounds)

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[quickgold192]

Except that "whitelist" is constantly changing (every .001 seconds, apparently) and is as predictable as the frequency-hopping devices, which, unless you have the three components the gp mentioned, is rather unpredictable.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[IICV]

Yes.

Take an array of directional antennas, figure out where the target signal is coming from, and throw a missile at it.

Signal jammed.

Repeat until there are no more signals to jam.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[Obfuscant]

Maybe the "doctor" should get a phone that vibrates. With what he makes, I assume he could afford it.

Please, if you are technically illiterate, don't make suggestions how to solve problems with technology.

If you are jamming cell phones, it doesn't matter if the phone has a vibrate option. It won't ring, it won't vibrate, it won't do anything, because some asshole has decided that nobody ought to be able to use a cellphone anywhere near him because he's so fucking special and his rights are more important than everyone else's. Even when everyone else is being nice and polite and using vibrate setting.

My phone has a vibrate option. It also has the buttons to set this on the side of the phone where they often get pushed and it comes out of vibrate mode all by itself. Like butt-dialing. So I have the volume on the ringer turned down all the time, too. I've missed some important calls because of that. All because I thought I was being polite to assholes who don't care and don't think I should be able to get warnings about my house heating system failing or my work disk arrays falling apart while I'm not at home or at work.

I'm turning my ringer on high and locking it there. Screw you.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[colsandurz45]

Bullshit on you. This system isn't about jamming pagers and cell phones. That technology already exists and has existed. This is about jamming cognitive radios in war theaters and perhaps this is about jamming illegal secondary access users in dynamic spectrum access scenarios.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[Obfuscant]

If you are on call 24hrs a day then YES. You should give up your freedoms during your NOT FREE TIME so that it dose not infringe upon the freedoms of those that are actually enjoying their FREE TIME.

Oh, God, please let there be an amendment to the Constitution listing "the right to never be annoyed by anyone else in public ever" so I can sue every asshole who chews gum or bumps into me or coughs loudly or, God forbid, looks at his cellphone because a message about his kids just came in and his phone vibrated soundlessly in his pocket. Please let's codify this "right" somewhere so all those jerks who think it exists will be happy.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[flipperdo]

Great, so the one night a year that my wife and I actually get to go out, we can't go to a movie or a nice restaurant because our babysitter won't be able to contact us if there's a problem?

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[Dishevel]

There dose not need to be a constitutional amendment, or even a law.

Very few people these days understand this but all it would take is for people to have 2 things.

1. Common Courtesy.
2. Personal Responsibility.

I know it seems to you archaic to want or even worse to expect people to behave this way. Though it is a world I would much rather live in. In my personal life these are the people I try to surround myself with. These are the people we used to be when we were a great nation.
Though now it seems that greatness, personal responsibility and common courtesy are things that when mentioned or expected draw the ire of the masses. You are correct in seeing that this is so. That dose not make any less sad that it is so or that you seem to be at ease with it.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[PopeRatzo]

If you are jamming cell phones, it doesn't matter

This is my point: jamming cell phones in order to keep entertainment and other "quiet" venues from being disturbed is a bad idea.

It also has the buttons to set this on the side of the phone where they often get pushed and it comes out of vibrate mode all by itself.

So the reason vibrating cell phones is not a solution is that you are too clumsy to properly operate the buttons. And you call me "technically illiterate".

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[mcgrew]

TFA wasn't about cell phones, but the comment I responded to was.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[stewbacca]

Indeed that is nuthin' in the world 'o Defense Contracting. That wouldn't even cover the cost of documentation alone.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[stewbacca]

I'm in Camp 3: Ban stupid people. Since that's not feasible, beat them down and ridicule them as the scourge of society that they are.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[arth1]

The problem isn't just ringing, but people picking up and speaking in a loud voice.
Kudos to those who discreetly look at the phone and then leave for a few minutes. But there are too many jerks and jerkettes who don't.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[stewbacca]

+1 awesome (from a former signal jammer here)

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[TimSSG]

So, tell the enemy what is the correct frequency/time slice to listen. Bad Idea if your pattern repeats; but, maybe the US Military pattern never repeats. Tim S.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[mcgrew]

That's the cost of having children. I had the same problem when I had small kids, but I didn't expect everyone else to be inconvinienced because I was a dad.

And in fact, if you're getting out once a year you're getting out a whole lot more than I was ever able to.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[Obfuscant]

This is my point: jamming cell phones in order to keep entertainment and other "quiet" venues from being disturbed is a bad idea.

No, that wasn't your point. You responded to someone who pointed out that doctors really do need to get cell text messages sometimes and that jamming was a bad idea with the suggestion that doctors could afford a phone with a vibrate option. As if the vibrate option would somehow get around the jammer. Well, it won't. That's a stupid suggestion.

So the reason vibrating cell phones is not a solution is that you are too clumsy to properly operate the buttons.

That's not anywhere close to what I said. I didn't say they weren't a solution, I said they were, but that even that solution sometimes doesn't work and requires more. And it had nothing to do with being "too clumsy to properly operate the buttons", but you know that. It has everything to do with the placement of the buttons and that they are easily pressed by anything close to them. Just like buttons can be pressed while in your back pocket, and thus my clear, deliberate reference to butt-dialing. But it's more fun to be insulting and deliberately misinterpret things, isn't it?

And you call me "technically illiterate".

The suggestion that doctors can afford "vibrate mode" phones as a means of getting around a cell phone jammer is technically illiterate. Vibrate mode is irrelevant in a discussion about the use of jammers.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[arth1]

Camp 1 is ridiculous, as the theaters and restaurants could kick out patrons who make noise. They find it more profitable to not do that though.

It's more that jerks are likely to create a scene, which creates even more disruption than they originally did. Out of consideration for everyone, both staff and other guests pretend like nothing, but that doesn't mean they find the behaviour acceptable.

If you are expecting important phone call, please pay others the courtesy of going somewhere where it's socially acceptable, or at the very least turn off ringing and leave to take the call. And if enough people show that they can't be that considerate, jamming is indeed a solution, much like frisking at a concert is.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[arth1]

That's a choice they make themselves.
I shouldn't have to pay the price for them choosing a well-paid job with lots of inconveniences.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[Obfuscant]

Pagers work on a different frequency than Cell phones.

With the proliferation of text messaging services and email push to cell phones, the use of dedicated pagers is on the decline. In our local SAR group, I am just one of about three people who still uses a pager and not have callouts come to my cell phone. Most people just don't want to carry two devices when one will do. I'd rather be able to leave my pager at home when I travel out of the area and not have callouts count against my text messaging limit, so I still pay for and carry both.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[arth1]

More likely, they'll create a scene, and cause even more disturbance for everybody else.
Cause jerks are, well, jerks.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[mcgrew]

You ARE NOT God!

Of course not, and neither are you. If I pay to see a movie, I want to see the movie and not hear somebody's phone going off. I have the right to see that movie, and you have no right whatever to interrupt it.

You do realize people on organ replacement lists might like to go to a movie sometimes.

They can watch the DVD, or have someone wait in the lobby for them with a cell phone. Being on an organ replacement list doesn't give you the right to ruin MY experience.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[Obfuscant]

Nobody HAS TO be on call 24/7/365;

That's right. Nobody has to be. But some people volunteer their time and services to help protect and serve the community. Like the SAR volunteer who drops what he's doing to come look for your 81 year old grandfather who has walked away from his assisted living center and it's 30 degrees F outside and he may die from hypothermia if he's not found. That call can come anytime of day or night, 24/7/365.24. When it happens, it's not just one person that needs to show up, it is a dozen or more.

YOU ARE NOT THAT GODDAMNED IMPORTANT. Nobody is.

You are right. Screw your grandfather, I'd rather watch a movie and eat a fancy dinner anyway. Your grandfather isn't that important. Nor is your lost child. Or your lost spouse.

But YOU, yes, YOU are that god damned important that you must be protected from any annoyances anywhere near you, even if that means that other people are inconvenienced. Just don't get lost and need someone to come help you, because my cell phone won't vibrate and I won't come to help find you, because you wanted my cell phone jammed while I watch a movie that you aren't even at.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[Belial6]

So, you are one of the assholes from camp 1. When presented with a perfectly reasonable solution that is both convenient and gives everyone what they claim they want, you sat that isn't good enough. You are no better than a vandal and a thug.

Your probably one of the guys that complains and throws a tantrum if someone is having a conversation on a plane instead of bringing a $0.30 pair of earplugs.
Hate to break it to you, but the world is not your personal meditation chamber.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[PopeRatzo]

No, that wasn't your point.

You know, I've often wondered how some people manage not to have any friends after being part of a community for better than half a decade.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[PopeRatzo]

So because most people aren't doctors, doctors should be barred from public places when they are on call?

I'm not in favor of jamming cell phones or banning doctors from public spaces, Obfuscant. I'm in favor of people using the tools they have at their disposal to avoid disturbing other people unnecessarily. Such as vibrating cell phones.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[skarphace]

Nobody HAS TO be on call 24/7/365; the surgeon and the fireman should be able to have a replacement ready when he's at the theater or sleeping.

Also keep in mind that this was back in the day where you could most likely run around town to find the person in question. You could also be talking about minutes where nowadays it costs millions or someone their life. Things have changed, old man. Nice lawn.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[DrgnDancer]

That'd be hella complicated. One thing to remember here is that a radio net is a shared resource. Only once person can talk at a time. With a large unit, say a Division, it's impossible to allow any percentage of the necessary traffic to happen on one net. Therefore there are many nets. Each one is created by using either a different freq plan or the same freq plan with a different salt (so the radios are rarely if ever trying to use the same freqs). Very large commands have two dozen or more nets for command and control, logistics, artillery, aircraft, MPs, etc, etc. Then the subunits all have their own nets for doing all of those things. Then *their* subunits have nets, and so on down the line. A Brigade has nearly as many nets as a Division, but it occupies the same geographic footprint. A Battalion has fewer, but still on the order of a dozen. Companies have fewer still, usually only two or three. A platoon usually only has one. Still add it all together and you're talking probably a good bit more than a hundred nets for a Division sized unit. You'd have to avoid all those time slices, and avoid generate avoid bleed affecting them.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[gamricstone]

I'm all for banning cars inside theaters, churches and restaurants...
(we're not talking about drive-ins)

What I'm getting at is your example is flawed. Mcgrew was not advocating banning pagers/cell phones everywhere, just in places where other people would be disturbed. I also doubt they would allow you to ride a horse into the movie theater, even if you bought an extra ticket.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a great idea. I wonder why the military hasn't thought of it? /sarcasm

PS: Hint: apartment complex

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[Stregano]

Good. Let the hate... ...flow through you.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[mirix]

I'm not sure I follow your argument here. Big cities pre-date telephone, and even telegraphy. Never mind cell phones and pagers.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[Crag]

Social problem: your family is scattered all over the globe.

That's only a social problem if your family is scattered because they hate each other. In that case your technical solutions won't solve the problem.

When people starve because people with guns lock up the food, that's a social problem. When people starve because of drought, that's a technical problem.

Just because something is a problem for people doesn't mean it's a problem with people.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[arth1]

Hate to break it to you, but the world is not your personal meditation chamber.

No, but some parts of it, I expect quiet. Like a mountain top, a library, my own office, and a fine dining restaurant. Jerks who ruin either experience by not giving any consideration to others are just that: jerks.
If I can't get away from your noise anywhere, you deserve to die. It's as simple as that.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[Belial6]

If you can't figure out how to get away from phone noise anywhere, you are a complete moron. I don't believe that you can't though. I believe that you are using it as an excuse to justify why you are an ass to people.

That doesn't change the fact that you argued against a system that still lets people have their contact with other people without noise. Obviously, your belief that the world should adjust itself you you is NOT just about noise. There are other mental disorders at work here.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[Obfuscant]

Don't quote an Anonymous Coward and then pretend it was something I said.

You shouldn't wonder about a lack of friends. It's obvious.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[Obfuscant]

These are the people we used to be when we were a great nation.

And you are probably one of the people who stuck his head out the window and shouted at Paul Revere to shut the hell up and let you sleep.

Expecting common courtesy is a two-way street, and much different than enforcing it. Common courtesy not only includes expecting someone not to have a ringing phone at a movie, but it includes ME allowing for the fact that THEY have a life, too, and that THEY paid for the movie, too, and that maybe the message they are getting is important to them and maybe other people, too.

Common courtesy also includes YOU allowing for the fact that my decision to donate my time and efforts to helping others when needed should NOT require that I give up any hope of any life outside my own home, or any use of those facilities that you so happily claim for yourself. Such as a movie or a dinner out.

The difference between expecting and enforcing is called "freedom", and I shall not spend the time explaining the difference here.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[hairyfeet]

Or maybe, just maybe, these "doctors" that everyone uses to allow assholes to have cell phones and ruin movies and other public entertainment could just do what we did before cell phones and leave the number of the place they'll be at with their service?

Lets be honest folks: It ain't the doctors that cause us to need cell phone jamming, it is Latisha and Randy that want to fucking bullshit for a damned hour on their fricking phone REALLY LOUDLY in the middle of everything!

Personally unless you are of the "I'm entitled!" set I think we should allow businesses to decide for themselves whether they want to jam and let the free market handle it. After all if the doctors are more important then the business that doesn't block will do better than the one that does, yes? But what I think would happen IRL is that the theaters and restaurants that don't block will end up ghost towns as everyone runs away from the cell phone douchebags. What happened to free choice people? Let the market and businesses decide! As long as there is a sign right up front that says "we jam cell phones" I don't see any problem. Let the market handle it.

Re:Only $8 Million ?

[PopeRatzo]

I just assumed that the AC was you. I'm still not sure.

To quote one of the jamming targets

[dkleinsc]

"I've lost the bleeps, I've lost the creeps, and I've lost the sweeps!"

(or watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXKOsajNZY4)

Re:To quote one of the jamming targets

[bytethese]

That's not all he's lost...

Re:To quote one of the jamming targets

[camperdave]

This video contains content from mgm, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds.

Sigh!

Re:To quote one of the jamming targets

[mcgrew]

They're censoring Spaceballs in your country? That's obscene!

May the farce be with you.

BLADE

[I8TheWorm]

Behavioral Learning for Adaptive Electronic Warfare (BLADE)

Acronym fail? Or did they realize quickly that BLAEW would be pronounced "blew" and saw what happened when the FBI created the WTF?

Re:BLADE

[Anonymous Coward]

Behavioral Learning for ADaptive Electronic warfare

Military-types like to get creative with which letters they pick for their acronyms.

Re:BLADE

[Even on Slashdot FOE]

Behavioral Learning for ADaptive Electronic warfare, and yes, even a bureaucracy can learn to avoid being embarrassed in public.

Besides, this is the DoD - they want an acronyms that sounds like a weapon anyway.

Re:BLADE

[bill_mcgonigle]

I'm convinced that they come up with the acronym first and then backronym it into a phrase. The military acronyms usually have names that an 8-year old would think are pretty cool for some GI Joe toys.

The thing I still wonder about, though, is whether they first pick the acronym, then pick the phrase, then invent a need and a project to fit the phrase.

Re:BLADE

[oodaloop]

The Cocaine Importation Agency was the one that created the Wikileaks Task Force, unless you're referring to another WTF within the Famous But Ineffective.

Re:BLADE

[oldspewey]

Hey ... the guys at the Tactical Advanced Acronym Research Division don't take kindly to having their work disrespected.

Re:BLADE

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Behavioral Learning for Adaptive Electronic Warfare (BLADE). Acronym fail?

No, it's a case of bending the name or the way the acronym is made up, to make an acronym sound clever. So it's "Behavioral Learning for ADaptative Electronic warfare".

Uncyclopedia calls it a case of TTHTMAFPCW. The US government has been trying really to TTHTMAFPCW lately ("USA PATRIOT Act" for instance)...

Re:BLADE

[arth1]

Does it make those who deploy these systems Blade Runners?

Re:BLADE

[Arancaytar]

No, this is a military-style acronym, where you drop words that don't fit and use abbreviations instead of initials where convenient, just to get a cool-sounding word.

Behavioral Learning for Adaptive Electronic warfare. BLAdE.

Re:BLADE

[vux984]

"Behavioral Learning for Adaptive Electronic warfare"

Then why not just go with:

behavioral learning for adaptive elecTRONic warfare" => TRON

and called it a day? Way more hip than blade...

Personally, though I think...

behaVIoRAl LeaRning for ADaptIve electrOnic WarfARe. => VIRALRADIO

is more memorable than yet another "BLADE" system.

Where is ...

[PPH]

... Hedy Lamarr now that we really need her?

Old Technology in a new dress

[t00le]

This technology has been around since the 60's and was used before the Vietnam war, as well as during the Vietnam War makes this non-news.

Do a little research and you will find out that during the Apollo moon mission that Army Intelligence at Ft Hood jammed a frequency outside of the listed bands. Apparently they were field testing high powered multi-frequency jammers before being deployed into Vietnam. The field manual was very light and they were instructed to avoid certain bands that were coded red. It turned out to be a private frequency for NASA, which caused a two minute loss of communication with the Apollo team. The reason they knew about the Apollo comm link was two truckloads of intelligence spooks arrive at the site of their outpost. They were interviewed and informed that they had inadvertently knocked Houston's comms down and caused a two minute panic because the primary frequency and the backup frequency were unavailable for communication with the Apollo astronauts.

VFW halls, best halls.

Re:Old Technology in a new dress

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention Picard and his crew used this to weaponize the Enterprise's deflector dish to weaken the Borg.

Re:Old Technology in a new dress

[rickb928]

The occasional EW mishap is legendary, fleeting, and cautionary. Everything from NASA to AT&T has been hit by this. British telecom has a few stories to tell, as well as most of Europe. Darned pods go off at the drop of a wrench.

But this is definitely NOT something that's been around since the 60s. We think of EW traditionally as an anti-radar weapon, until we realized that jamming communicaitons from the radar to the launch control trailer was just as effective at neutralizing SAM threats. Still problems with various IR-guided shoulder- and vehicle-launched weapons, but there you go to infrared and that's a whole 'nother area of specialization.

So jamming comm means you risk jamming your own, since most militaries have observed treaties and kept to certain bands, except in wartime when they surely don't much care. This means you have to have frequency-agile systems that can be adapted to battle regimes where you don't much care what bands you're on. Since trying to communicate on frequencies that are already in use is difficult, you go to either less-used freqs, or hop around finding spots that are not in use, if only for a few seconds.

BLADE seems focused on essentially determining if transmissions are: 1)not friendly, 2)not benign, and 3)suspicious.

"Not friendly" is fairly easy to determine if you have enough theater information to know what your own forces are using. This will not always be the case, so this is as difficult a problem as any other.

"Not benign" will be a lot more interesting. It's probably just as important to know what is innocuous as it it so know what is "suspicious".

I'm a little surprised that BLADE isn't more obviously intertwined with battlefield comm intelligence. Not very useful to jam your own comm. But if we can communicate with Voyager 2, we can certainly burn through the clutter and keep comm going in a busy battlefield environment.

It's sometimes more useful to listen to your adversary than it is to prevent their communications. But BLADE might be destined to be an offensive weapon. Imagine how D-day might have gone if the Allies had been able to completely deny communications from France to Germany. Of how Vietnam might have gone if we had eliminated the North's ability to communicate electronically, at all. Something as simple as docking a cargo ship or dispatching trains could turn into a quagmire. Yes, you can jam landline telephones. No, it isn't pretty. The collateral damage includes civilian deaths from loss of emergency response and hospital communications. You can be sure that both Iraq campaigns used these tactics, at least selectively.

Almost makes we want to get back into the field. The idea of hiding an aircraft carrier is almost as interesting in being able to frustrate your enemy's communications so well that they end up screaming in plaintext. Ah, modern warfare. Some day we'll start a war campaign by convincing the enemy to order 3 million Pampers instead of 3 million pairs of boots. Then we'll tell them "Look! Ponies!"

Re:Old Technology in a new dress

[DrgnDancer]

Tell ya what... I don't fell like typing my response to a previous and similar comment out again, so click my name and read it. Suffice to say this is WAY more complicated. Modern frequency hopping radios are impossible to jam without taking out the entire spectrum. Which tends to screw with friendly comms.

Re:Old Technology in a new dress

[roc97007]

Yep. I did this in the eighties and it was pretty much the same thing. The only possible difference is that besides brute force jamming we also had to capture and analyze the signals (often bouncing and wobbling among several frequencies) and attempt to mimic them, in a short enough time to be useful. (Like, before the missile hits you.) My first programming job (all in assembler).

Re:Old Technology in a new dress

[stewbacca]

The occasional EW mishap is legendary

I most certainly did NOT jam the Ft. Stewart, GA Burger King drive through for two hours in 1996.

Re:Old Technology in a new dress

[DerekLyons]

During *which* Apollo moon mission? There was more than one you know. Not to mention that precisely none of the antenna's used were anywhere near Ft Hood. Not to mention that the terrestrial antenna's that were used were highly directional.

Re:Old Technology in a new dress

[rickb928]

Pfft. You can jam drive-throughs with a car battery and a bracelet.

Now shutting down the phone systems in East Anglia in 1974, that was purely an accident. The water main incident was an accident too.

Re:Old Technology in a new dress

[stewbacca]

I also claim no part in accidentally jamming the Deutschewelle re-broadcast of the 1991 Super Bowl...(that is indeed far more impressive than jamming the Burger King from a mile away!)

Re:Old Technology in a new dress

[rickb928]

That wasn't an accident. Deutschewelle ran that as a test to validate their system to jam BBC Radio 1-3. Sadly, it failed. They ignored BBC Radio 4 for obvious reasons.

And we still have Serie A on the air, in some small part due to that failure, no doubt. Cannot someone devise a system? Please? Spark gap? Numbers? Darts? Please?

Why is this news?

[Locke2005]

If you are putting our self-sacrificing service men and women in harm's way, you damn well better be doing EVERYTHING you can to try to protect them. This is a trivial amount of money compared to what we are pissing away every day in Iraq and Afghanistan, even if the desired goal is something of a long shot.

Re:Why is this news?

[Jawnn]

If you are putting our self-sacrificing service men and women in harm's way, you damn well better be doing EVERYTHING you can to try to protect them. This is a trivial amount of money compared to what we are pissing away every day in Iraq and Afghanistan, even if the desired goal is something of a long shot.

Agreed. So how about spending some money to keep our promises to take care of them AFTER their service is completed. Funding for various VA programs is pathetic, and every jagoff who utters the phrase "...our self-sacrificing service men and women..." should be ashamed to do so without acknowledging that fact.

Re:Why is this news?

[LanMan04]

Agreed. So how about spending some money to keep our promises to take care of them AFTER their service is completed.

Why? They applied for a dangerous, dirty job and got paid for it. If you don't feel the existing pay and benefits are enough of an incentive to possibly be killed, DON'T JOIN THE MILITARY.

They should be treated like any other person who is permanently injured...apply for state and federal disability.

Somewhere in my garage

[Virtucon]

Somewhere in my Garage is an old Amana RadarRange from the 70s. I think the old leaky magnetron in it will sufficiently wipe out all RF spectrum for a 5 mile radius. I'll sell it to the government for only $1M Dollars! All you have to add is a burrito and a 120V power source and you're done!

Re:Somewhere in my garage

[Stregano]

Wait, you have burritos for sale?

How much will this add to our national debt?

[digitaldc]

And do we really need it?

How about we concentrate on creating something like the Internet instead?

Re:How much will this add to our national debt?

[digitaldc]

Yay! I feel much better now that our debt has increased and nothing significant has been accomplished.

Re:How much will this add to our national debt?

[roc97007]

You have to understand that this kind of research is going on all the time. I was doing it back in the eighties for different kinds of communications. (Same issues though -- capture, analyze, counter, when the signal is encrypted and transmitting on multiple frequencies.) There's really nothing to see here.

Re:How much will this add to our national debt?

[GameboyRMH]

Should have thought of that when they were building a supersonic VTOL stealth fighter, when they already had both transonic VTOL fighters and supersonic stealth fighters.

I guess you need both VTOL and stealth on your supersonic fighter jet for fighting some dudes hiding in caves.

Warfare is their business, and therefore redundant

[PolygamousRanchKid]

So they can leave the Warfare out. Or is there an 147st Mobile Pizza Baker Infantry? Or a 139th Airborne Flower Pickers? Warfare is the military's core competency, so they can leave it out of the acronym.

Plus, folks with lots of weapons can choose whatever acronym they damn choose.

In an industry that already spends billions

[Tisha_AH]

Jamming has been going on since the second day after radio was developed. New technologies are developed to adapt to jamming conditions, then jammers get more complex to go after the new tech.

I learned many jamming techniques and countermeasures in a few graduate level courses on receiver design back in the mid 80's. What was being done was very complex, and we were only exposed to the "SENSITIVE NOFOR" security classification of what was going on. "Gating" a radar was developed back in WWII, frequency hopping around the same time, same with spread spectrum. When we were learning the tech the jamming systems could detect and jump on a new frequency in a few milliseconds. Nowadays I bet those response times are in the tens of microseconds and cover everything from "DC to daylight".

The US government would spend $8 million dollars to develop one model of a particular jammer and not blink twice at a $50,000/ unit purchase price. This would have been news if there were three more zeros after the price tag.

Best Jamming System Already Exists

[CycleFreak]

It's called Congress.

Re:Dead Birds?

[roc97007]

Um, no. Speaking as someone who used to do that kind of stuff, countermeasures are usually a lot more subtle than just pouring out huge amounts of RF.

Triumph

[tha_toadman]

So DIS is what killed off all those birds and fish in Arkansas. I keed! I keed!

Simultainous signal injection?

[Paracelcus]

An existing encrypted/unencrypted wireless datastream received & retransmitted/boosted with data intact with additional "errors" inserted (wireless steganography) decrypted by a matching hardware unit, the enemy would have to jam their own frequency(s) to interfere.

Comments?

Hmmmm, seems like this could be..

[Paracelcus]

Something quite Orwellian, think about it, when a Gov. goes rogue the first thing they want to control is the information stream!
Like in Burma & Iran, the world could see what was going on, with this tech. you could seal up and keep secret the violent repression
of the civilian population!

I'm, from the government...

[nimbius]

tell me more about this signal jamming burrito of which you speak. we here at darpa have spent billions of taxpayer dollars on burritos that will effectively subvert and jam microwaves....

Re:Twa da Night afo' Crizzmus

[smash]

Wouldn't being a fag inhibit parenting ability?

Re:Twa da Night afo' Crizzmus

[Stihdjia]

Elton John has a son.

Re:Still seem easy?

[Geminii]

Yes. You use your own salted frequency-hopping gear, and rig a jammer to it. The jammer sends out digital noise on every frequency _except_ the one currently being used by your gear. Result: A jammed spectrum except for a very specific F-H tunnel that your comms sails right through.