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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."
If you get really good at the game, they give you a real spaceship to pilot!
You can't take the sky from me...
Achievement "Collateral Damage" unlocked!
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Sure it can.
Oh, you meant intact.
Misery loves company. Online misery loves unsuspecting random strangers.
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.