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US Army Spent $2.7 Billion On Crashing Computer

Posted by Soulskill on from the blue-screen-of-literal-death dept.

An anonymous reader writes "According to two former US Army intelligence officers, the multi-billion-dollar DCGS-A military computer system that was designed to help the US Army in Iraq and Afghanistan simply doesn't work. DCGS-A is meant to accrue intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, and provide real-time battlefield analysis and the current location of high-value targets — but instead, it has hindered the war effort rather than helped. Major General Michael Flynn, the top intelligence officer in Afghanistan, says that DCGS-A's faults have even resulted in a loss of lives (PDF)."

30 of 196 comments (clear)

  1. Pentagon Irresponsibility by Un+pobre+guey · · Score: 2

    Yet more colossal irresponsibility and corruption at the Pentagon in the War on Terror scam. Their needs on the last page seem modest. It's hard to believe how they could not have been served by a few tens of millions of dollars in off-the-shelf equipment and manpower over a few years.

    1. Re:Pentagon Irresponsibility by halivar · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The Pentagon does not write its own budget. Our military is civilian led, which means the place to point fingers is at the Senate Defense Appropriations committee: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_Appropriations_Subcommittee_on_Defense

      Note the list of Republicans: all of them are 00's-style big spenders, and perfect complements to their democratic counterparts. There is not a single voice on that committee for fiscal conservatism or budgetary restraint.

      I agree that we need to slash and gut the military budget. We can run a better, cheaper army, but first we have to gut the appropriations committee (and the Senate Armed Forces committee). For my part, I have supported primary challengers to ever Republican on that list (to little effect). I urge democrats to do the same.

    2. Re:Pentagon Irresponsibility by the+linux+geek · · Score: 2

      Exactly. What reason is there to be spending the massive sum we're spending on a force that has dropped both quantitatively and qualitatively from its peak? In 1988, a world-beating US military took $426bn in spending, compared to $685bn today. That budget sustained every branch at a level far stronger than now; the Army especially has been gutted since then. We should be able to do cuts to $550bn, if not lower, while expanding and improving the force.

    3. Re:Pentagon Irresponsibility by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It isn't just "war on terror" that is a scam. Almost all high cost "war on ______ " government projects are a scam, including: drugs, poverty, illiteracy, teen pregnancy.

      I chalk it all up to the logic found in most government projects: "Something must be done, this is something, therefore it must be done"

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    4. Re:Pentagon Irresponsibility by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Taking inflation into account, $426b in 1988 is worth $775b today

  2. high-tech armies are vulnerable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    T.E. Lawrence and the Mind of an Insurgent

    "Lawrence distilled six fundamental principles of insurgency that even today have remarkable relevance.

    First, a successful guerrilla movement must have an unassailable base - a base secure not only from direct physical assault, but from attack in other forms as well, including psychological attack.

    Second, the guerrilla must have a technologically sophisticated enemy. The greater this sophistication, the greater this alien force would rely on forms of communications and logistics that must necessarily present vulnerabilities to the irregular.

    Third, the enemy must be sufficiently weak in numbers so as to be unable to occupy the disputed territory in depth with a system of interlocking fortified posts.

    Fourth, the guerrilla must have at least the passive support of the populace, if not its full involvement. By Lawrence's calculation, 'Rebellions can be made by 2 percent active in striking force and 98 percent passively sympathetic.'

    Fifth, the irregular force must have the fundamental qualities of speed, endurance, presence and logistical independence.

    Sixth, the irregular must be sufficiently advanced in weaponry to strike at the enemy's logistics and signals vulnerabilities."

    http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3723/is_200507/ai_n14685818

    --------

    In the words of Scotty, Star Trek III: "The more you overtake the plumbing the easier it is to stop up the drain."

    The complexity of modern armies is their Achilles heel.

    1. Re:high-tech armies are vulnerable by couchslug · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That and the laws of war. There is no way to defeat a popular insurgency without committing so-called "war crimes" directly or by proxy.

      Therefore, only a Hafez Assad or a Stalin can win those sort of wars.

      --
      "This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
    2. Re:high-tech armies are vulnerable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Actually, the problem is that the GP abridged Lawrence: in fuller context, Lawrence explains these points in ways that meet PP's criticism:

      Rebellion must have an unassailable base, something guarded not merely from attack, but from the fear of it: such a base as the Arab revolt had in the Red Sea ports, the desert, or in the minds of men converted to its creed.

      All of our enemies currently have this.

      It must have a sophisticated alien enemy, in the form of a disciplined army of occupation too small to fulfill the doctrine of acreage: too few to adjust number to space, in order to dominate the whole area effectively from fortified posts.

      This combines points (2) and (3) in GP's version. "Sophistication" for Lawrence didn't mean "technologically advanced" in the form of using whiz-bang giant walking mechanical spiders that can be disabled with a stick of chewing gum left on the ground by a rebel or any such nonsensical and romantic/cinematic view of a technocratic oppressor: it meant an army with restricted rules of engagement and predictable patterns of behavior. Another distinction between Lawrence and GP's abridgment is the word "alien": the guerilla ought to be in some way indigenous. The definition of "alien" is open to debate in some of our modern conflicts, as irregular fighters in Afghanistan and Iraq have often been aliens themselves to the population from a tribal or even national perspective, but not necessarily so from a religious perspective. In relative terms, western forces may be said to be more alien than the guerillas. Lawrence might also reuse the ideological interpretation of space from the first point, where he said that the rebel "base" can be the "minds of men," rather than relying on a geographic or ethnic definition of "alienness."

      It must have a friendly population, not actively friendly, but sympathetic to the point of not betraying rebel movements to the enemy. Rebellions can be made by 2% active in a striking force, and 98% passively sympathetic.

      GP's abridgment used the unfortunate word "support," and the parent poster rightly criticized this but with the caveat that the Taliban "have been successful at terrifying significant fractions of the populace into not opposing them." That's exactly what Lawrence means: "sympathetic to the point of not betraying rebel movements to the enemy." The guerilla doesn't need the love of the people: fear is enough, so long as fear is sufficient to keep the people from opposing the rebel. That's why "hearts and minds" campaigns get so much attention: if the locals refuse to tolerate the guerillas (that is, if they see them as "alien"), the insurrection is over.

      The few active rebels must have the qualities of speed and endurance, ubiquity and independence of arteries of supply.

      PP criticized this rightly as not being meaningful, but I'd go a step further and say that much of it applies just as much to the regular force as to the irregular: an occupying or governing army can't afford to be lethargic, weak, or absent. The regular force will naturally have some dependence on supply lines, but over-dependence is fatal: bases need stockpiles that can withstand interrupted lines of support for limited periods of time, but the overall command structure also needs to be able to re-secure those lines of support and to resupply the bases.

      They must have the technical equipment to destroy or paralyze the enemy’s organized communications, for irregular war is fairly Willisen’s definition of strategy, “the study of communication,” in its extreme degree, of attack where the enemy is not.

      This is very different from GP and PP's criticism of GP, but still quite open to debate. As PP points out, irregulars depend (though I would not say solely) on shifting political opinion, and the attacks that get the most media attention

  3. Typical... by tekrat · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Meantime, the Republicans want to cut *every* social service, but won't cut a single dollar of "defense" spending, which is how the US Army spends more per year ($20 billion) providing Air Conditioning in Afghanistan, than NASA's entire budget.

    We cannot sustain fighting three or more Wars (I've lost count), without new taxes. And since nobody wants more taxes, the wars must end. What happened to Rumsfeld promising that we'd get Iraq's Oil, and it would pay for the war???

    Cripes we're in a bad situation.

    --
    If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
    1. Re:Typical... by gstoddart · · Score: 5, Interesting

      What happened to Rumsfeld promising that we'd get Iraq's Oil, and it would pay for the war???

      That was horse-shit fantasy from day one ... did you really believe that Iraq was going to pay you for the troubles of overthrowing their government, and that they'd be beholden to you and sell you cheap oil for decades?

      That was one of those purely bullshit things the previous administration was prone to saying (like "Mission Accomplished") that was so far detached from reality as to be offensive. Oh, sure, they'll give you billions of dollars in oil to offset your costs, and they might throw in a pony as well.

      I find it hard to believe that anybody actually believed that the upshot of overthrowing Iraq would be cheap oil -- unless, of course, the whole invasion really was a pretext to try to grab the oil. Mostly, it's just another example of how Bush et al had their heads up their collective asses.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    2. Re:Typical... by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Democrats don't want to cut defense spending either.

      Yes, because the ones that do get called traitors by the same blowhards who whine about how the government isn't fiscally responsible enough.

    3. Re:Typical... by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 2

      Barney Frank for one. He was also subsequently lambasted from tons of right-wingers do to that. And after proposing so you can find numerous examples such as this to see that he was lambasted by right wingers for being a traitor.

  4. Re:What's so special about this computer system? by Un+pobre+guey · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Or modern day commercial "supercomputers" and clusters. These people are a budgetary black hole. They should be shut down.

  5. Marketing gimmick by losttoy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    RTFA and comments on it. Apparently, the linked article is a pro-Palantir marketing gimmick.

    1. Re:Marketing gimmick by Sepodati · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The JUONS (PDF) linked in the article is likely pro-Palantir or pro-Something without coming out and saying it, too. They are written with "requirements" that usually only one system can fulfill. It's not necessarily malicious, though. The writer is sure they know which system they need to satisfy their own requirements.

  6. Re:What's so special about this computer system? by the+linux+geek · · Score: 2

    Can those commercial clusters be easily deployed to a place where you don't have massive AC units, raised floors, and perfect 3-phase power links? Or are you suggesting that they run everything remotely, though satellite links (1sec or more of latency, well under a megabit of reliable speed)?

  7. Re:But senators need money, too! by Rob+Riggs · · Score: 2

    Reason #1 why no U.S. politician wants to cut defense spending right there.

    --
    the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
  8. Now everyone's a freakin' expert! by david.emery · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's really easy to produce a system that meets the easy 80% of requirements. It's A LOT harder to complete the job. The 'lives lost' statement is a consequence of 'missed operational opportunities', where the computer is only an enabler. It still takes a human to decide to act on information (in a timely fashion.) I've met very few people who are both trained intel analysts and experienced/competent programmers or system engineers and therefore competent to pass judgement on the implementation of a large complex distributed (and hopefully fault-tolerant) system that must deal with incomplete/inconsistent information and communications problems. (But I've met a lot of military/government people writing requirements who are happy to specify things that are theoretically impossible...)

    This reads like someone trying to do 'procurement via public relations,' something that was particularly blatant during the USAF Tanker recompete.

    And of course the Slashdot postings are full of posturing based on political persuasion and no knowledge of the actual system or its requirements or implementation.

    I'm not defending DCGS-A, I'm just pointing out observations from a career spent doing these kinds of systems in both military and non-military government contexts. I do not have any knowledge of DGCS-A requirements or implementation nor do I speak for anyone besides myself. If caught or captured, my secretary will disavow any knowledge of my actions.

  9. Slashvertising by liquidweaver · · Score: 2

    If you RTFA, this appears to be guerilla marketing on part of a certain company that rhymes with schmalantir...

    --
    mov ah, 4ch
    int 21h
  10. Re:What's so special about this computer system? by Perl-Pusher · · Score: 2

    Your mean DCGS-1? The A stands for Army. I used to work at the 10th Intel Squadron, Langley AFB. Before it was called DCGS-1 it was called CARS (Contingency Airborne Reconnaissance System). It also didn't have any windows fail screens. Everything was UNIX (IRIX & Solaris) and just worked! I retired from there in Dec of 99.

  11. Don't try to paint this as a Democratic thing by Benfea · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Every time a Democrat tries to do something about the corruption and fraud committed by military contractors, they get accused of treason loudly by our "liberal media" and the usual right wing blowhards until they get run out of office. What did you think would be the net result of making military contractors immune to oversight? Was the Magic of the Free Market supposed to fix this on its own?

    1. Re:Don't try to paint this as a Democratic thing by halivar · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Fact: democrats love pork just as much as republicans do. What free market? There is no free market here. A republican walks up to a democrat and says, "Hey, I got this company back home that wants to develop shitty trucks for $1 million a pop", and the democrat responds, "Really? Because I got a company back home that wants to develop ballistic armor made of Saran-Wrap. Let's do lunch." If you don't believe that, you are living in a fantasy world.

  12. Re:What's so special about this computer system? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    If not satellite, then what are they using that's faster over a multi-thousand square mile theater? They claim that the system often went offline unexpectedly on a frequent basis, so it's not a stand-alone system.

    Could be running Lotus Notes. Just sayin.

  13. Re:What's so special about this computer system? by Perl-Pusher · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If its anything like the Air Force DCGS-1 its a mixture of both. Drones are operated in theater far enough away from any action but close enough for control. Data is relayed to a stateside base, our case was Langley AFB. Individual segments of the system can be operated anywhere. That is where data is analyzed and compared with previous missions data. And then the reports are sent to theater commanders and units world wide VIA SIPRnet. At Langley our system was fully deployed to Saudi Arabia after the Gulf War, that changed after Khobar Towers. Then it was decided it was safer to use a much smaller foot print. They use a system called MOBSTR (Mobile Satellite Transmitter Receiver) which only required a maintenance staff and not the intelligence analysts. Unfortunately I was a Senior NCO in charge of the maintainers! Since the addition of drones the need for larger in theater segments were required. The ability to deploy is still a requirement for the entire system as I understand it. So even the stateside system is in trailers that can be connected to for a large facility, Aircraft external power units and HVAC units were deployed. The trailers had raised floors and everything you would expect from a data center.

  14. Re:Sad for the lives lost by royallthefourth · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's terrible that people actually died as a result of shoddy programming but I am not surprised.

    People were going to die either way; this is the military we're talking about. Seems better that an invader should die than someone defending his home, doesn't it?

  15. Re:What's so special about this computer system? by onkelonkel · · Score: 5, Funny

    Lotus Notes is what you give to the enemy, for free.

    --
    None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
  16. I used to work for them... by stewbacca · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I used to work for one of the suppliers (the one most "at fault" according to the article, with the shitty code and shitty UI we provided).

    Here are some things to consider:

    The company's business model was to procure IDIQ contracts...they succeeded for several years by purposefully providing broken bits and pieces, in order to assure that more fixes would be purchased later. It finally caught up to them because you can only pile so much crap on existing crap before the whole thing breaks.

    Palantir is great software, but people in the Army don't like it. They think it's pretty with no functionality. They are wrong. It's awesome. There are two problems with Palantir, in that you have to store your data on THEIR servers, and the owner of the company is not a US Citizen. They have some inroads, like the links suggest, but they'll never be able to get the most sensitive contracts because of the US Persons requirement.

    DCGS-A sucks because it is closed-source garbage that runs only on Microsoft components, and relies heavily on SQL-server. Plus all the people I used to work with are overpaid self-taught jackasses who got the job because they could code in visual basic and they had a clearance.

    In all, I'm glad to see the Army and military in general understand and accept that they are suckers and slaves to politicians and "the free market" mentality of PACs and lobbyists. Too bad this garbage (and even bigger garbage FCS/BCTM that finally got axed last month) wasted so much money in the meantime.

    Screw the free market. Time to put all this money into government R&D and churn out some decent software for the investment. The NSA alone has enough talented programmers to make this happen.

  17. Re:What's so special about this computer system? by afidel · · Score: 2

    No, it isn't. The idiot included the cost of infrastructure like roads in Afghanistan into his calculations, the numbers are utter BS.

    --
    There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
  18. Re:What's so special about this computer system? by Noughmad · · Score: 2

    We are fighting sand people for christ sake! Why not just use a pocket calculator for all our computing needs? That's far more powerful than anything they have.

    Does your last name, by any chance, happen to be Harkonnen?

    --
    PlusFive Slashdot reader for Android. Can post comments.
  19. Re:What's so special about this computer system? by kevinNCSU · · Score: 5, Informative
    I think it's even simpler then that:
    1. 1. Military has it's own system, not controlled by Palantir (Oh noz!!)
    2. 2. Officer requests additional tools for system, and highlights reasons why those tools are needed
    3. 3. Someone twists the Need Statement to claim Army's system is broken and just happens to start pushing Palantir (remember them from the BoA scandal?)

    Read the PDF before you read the article and it's absolutely impossible to come to the same conclusions that the article did, especially the DCGS-A responsible for lives lost part. All he's doing is requesting new analytic tools and the only time he mentions DCGS-A is when he requests that the analytic tools be able to interface with that system. This is clearly a fluff piece for Palantir and with the amount of money they throw around for congressmen, advertising and track suits so their developers look super hip, it's not surprising.