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DARPA Wants To Seed the Ocean With Delayed-Action Robot Pods

Posted by timothy on from the mostly-for-spying dept.

coondoggie writes "This plan sounds a bit like a science fiction scenario where alien devices were planted in the ground thousands of years ago only to be awoken at some predetermined date to destroy the world. Only in this case it's the scientists at Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency who want to develop a system of submersible pods that could reside in the world's oceans (presumably not in anyone's territorial waters) and be activated for any number of applications days, months or even years later."

3 of 67 comments (clear)

  1. Security by AmiMoJo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    These things will need some kind of command and control interface. It will have to be deployed for years, decades perhaps. If anyone finds a security vulnerability they get to own a global botnet of actual robots. Considering drones have already proven prone to hacking I'd be a little bit concerned about this.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  2. They've done this already by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    They're called mines

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  3. Please don't do it by dave69 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Dear America, please don't mine the entire ocean with giant robotic sea mines, just because you can. signed, the rest of the world