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Pentagon To Crowdsource Weapons Software Testing
An anonymous reader writes "The Pentagon plans to fork over $32 million to develop 'fun to play' computer games that can refine the way weapons systems are tested to ensure they are free from software errors and security bugs, according to a Defense Department solicitation. The goal is to create puzzles that are "intuitively understandable by ordinary people" and could be solved on laptops, smartphones, tablets and consoles. The games' solutions will be collected into a database and used to improve methods for analyzing software, according to the draft request for proposals put out by the military's venture capital and research arm, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency."
Mr. Card should be proud.
If you get really good at the game, they give you a real spaceship to pilot!
You can't take the sky from me...
reading Ender's Game back in grade school.
What does all the testing in the world do for you if you give your cheapo friends sweetheart bid-free contracts? That advanced Predator Drone XXI is still unable to get kitty from tree.
I'd love to work on the testing software, but I'm going to need some hardware to make sure it interfaces correctly. Just drop off a jet fighter and a couple smart bombs and I'll be set.
Why release it outside the US military, at all?
Sure there are some ordinary people in the various branches of the military.
Makes no sense.
I doubt that the "games" or "puzzles" would be advertising "This is a DoD test for new software."
Most likely the users will not be aware that it is a test at all.
For every benefit you receive a tax is levied. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Works for Slashdot, works for Wikileaks, works for the Pentagon. Yay crowdsourcing!
DARPA is involved, so read this whole story as: this is a cool idea which we think might have some potential down the line but will probably never happen.
On the other hand, this is a pretty cool idea. Not sure if you can make the puzzles strictly apply to real-life problems and still be fun, though. That in and of itself makes this an interesting idea. If they can overcome that hurdle, there is a lot of potential to this sort of thing.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
Achievement "Collateral Damage" unlocked!
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
So let me get this clear: We help them improve the same weapons and other systems they'll be using on us for the NDAA, SOPA, and whatever other unconstitutional laws they have in the works?
This shows how little respect for us they have as well as how stupid they think we really are.
Are you?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Nope? Ok, wait for the next code release.
I take issue with DARPA's assertion in TFA that formal verification cannot be scaled up to work on a modern weapon system. My office has done it for very long time and we are very software-intensive. We and our contractors just had to get smarter as the system became more complex and requirements became steeper.
Nonetheless, I would be interested in the potential of such a process to find sneak circuits and latent problems. Use it during the development process prior to integration and verification.
I don't even know what to begin to think about this. The summary tried hard. So the Gov is going to ...uh... release fun puzzles that analyze how weapons are tested? So what are the licenses on the games themselves? Will they be all locked down by copyright or can we chop them up and do other things with the code and make forks?
Is it all a honeypot?
"Sir, Mr. X. used our game to hack into us."
"Uh, well, we did ask him to look for attack points..."
"Arrest him anyway!"
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
On one hand, it strikes me as one of those "Let's make something really stupid but plausibly usable, so all our enemies will waste their time trying to duplicate it".
On the other hand, this is just the kind of stupid I would expect from US military.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Looks like someone has watched SGU episode 1.
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
"Would you like to play a game?"
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
FarmVille anyone?
They wanted to see if they can use photosensitive epilepsy, motion sickness and vertigo as a weapon.
You only think its a game, until you try to log off in mid battle, and some men in black show up at your basement abode and insist that complete the mission. Ender's Game, anyone?
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
The DoD will soon be partnering with Zygna to test weapons that placate the masses and keep them occupied and off the streets rather than trying to overthrow our friendly dictatorial regimes.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
".. just had to get smarter.."
code for: We have deluded ourselves that we can handle it by throwing more process at it.
And weapon system are far more complex and require far more rigor then your puny software.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Weren't they "crowd sourcing" the testing of software with the tomahawk cruise missile?...
I think they will be most interested in the novel ways in which people leverage different technologies and weapons that are available to them in the game to get one up on their enemies. They could even mock up future tech ideas to see how people use them in the game to determine if they are worth funding. Stats from the game can be leveraged to improve battle doctrine or tactical training scenarios.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
Anybody play the tabletop RPG Paranoia? The Computer (your friend, your boss, and the head of your government) was always crowdsourcing weapon testing to the player characters.
"Congratulations, citizen. You have been selected to test this box of grenades. To study the optimal grenade design, these grenades have random fuse lengths from zero to ten seconds. Please report your findings with whatever remaining limbs you can."
"Citizen, welcome to the world of high-tech weaponry. The ULTI-3600 assault rifle has a computer targeting system to maximize accuracy. Please note that to prevent friendly fire accidents, the targeting system will verbally ask for no less than five confirmations before taking any shot. To insure that you properly test this rifle it will now be welded to your arm..."
"The new Duo-strike vibro knife is twice as deadly as previous models, because the hilt has been replaced with another vibro blade. Pick it up, citizen. Go on. Don't you want to help The Computer test new weaponry? Or are you a traitor?"
I totally support the way our military is becoming like a dystopian comedy RPG.
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
I thought those pigs had a distinctly Persian look about them.
How many people got a chill when they saw "crowdsource" and "weapons testing" in the same heading? I had missed "software" on first glance. That made it only a little better.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
So that is where Angry Birds came from!
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
They test weapon ON crowd!
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
I can kind of grasp how the amazing parallel computer that is the human brain can solve new problems for something like FoldIt, but I can't see how human gamers could improve upon brute force fuzzing and static code analysis of military software. Maybe I have a lack of imagination?
Anyone care to share a vague guess how something like this might work?
Ask me about my sig!
They wanted to see if they can use photosensitive epilepsy, motion sickness and vertigo as a weapon.
Hence the push for 3D TV, to crowd source testing of said effects on the general population.
Advanced weapon systems will consist of large-screen TV airdrops set to loop Discovery Channel shows on sharks and dinosaurs with large buckets of 3D glasses, said to incapacitate a small town in under 1/2 hour.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Imagine if we used this technology and idea to improve society instead of improving weapons..
I am sure there are other useful applications of this, besides better ways to kill people
Valve's already done it:
"The Enrichment Center promises to always provide a safe testing environment. In dangerous testing environments, the Enrichment Center promises to always provide useful advice. For instance, the floor here will kill you. Try to avoid it."
so if everyone who played the game intentionally did everything wrong, or played badly, would they still use the results?
This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
When they start crowdsourcing hardware testing
who prays for Satan? Who in 18 centuries has had the humanity to pray for the 1 sinner that needed it most? ~Mark Twain
This is one of the least ethical things I could think of to do as a gamer. If you wish to help you government, help them feed poor people. If I found out that a game I was playing actually helped my government kill other humans more efficiently, I don't even know how I would take that information.
I like music
so time to pay it forward. This short story was linked stating that military contractors use this book as a guideline to what the future of weapons testing can become.
Military Diorama - By David Kitson
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/35490
Aren't all weapons systems seen in the field ultimately tested on crowds already?
There is crowdsourcing in which you look for exoplanets or translate ancient greek texts ( https://www.zooniverse.org/ ), crowdsourcing in which your computer folds protein models to better understand disease ( http://folding.stanford.edu/ ), and then there is crowdsourcing in which you test weapons systems to help kill people more effectively. I like how the Pentagon is skipping the recruitment propaganda part (We Need You! *pointy finger*) and just putting a gun in our hands (sic). Its bad enough that the American government spends as much as it does on "defense" without subversively enlisting people to test weapons systems for them. I won't be playing that particular game.