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The US Army Wants Distributed Bot Swarms And An 'Internet of Battlefield Things' (defenseone.com)
turkeydance shares a new report about the U.S. Army Research Lab:
In the coming months, the Lab will fund new programs related to highly (but not fully) autonomous drones and robots that can withstand adversary electronic warfare operations... A second program called the Internet of Battlefield Things seeks to put to military use "the research that's going on in the commercial space" on distributed sensors and Internet-connected devices... One thrust will be equipping drones and other autonomous systems with bigger brains and better networking so that they can function even when an enemy jams their ability to radio back to a human controller for direction... "When you don't have bandwidth, when you're under cyber attack, when you're being jammed. That's the problem we're trying to address."
The lab's director also says they want "as much processing as possible on the node" so it can continue functioning in "contested environments."
The lab's director also says they want "as much processing as possible on the node" so it can continue functioning in "contested environments."
...preferably not from the pony.
The only kind of distributed system we can currently deploy and be relatively certain that it won't be taken over en masse and used against us is humans. And even then, there's no guarantees.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
"That really STUX, the swarm is compromised."
Let's hope they read 'Second Variety' by Philippe K. Dick.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
What could possibly go wrong? :-)
This will bring a whole new meaning to the "Bluescreen of Death".
FFS why would you hook up a battlefield swarm to the internet? Bad enough that your fridge can announce to the world that you're out of yoohoos and cola. Is there any plausible reason a distributed battlefield device set needs to access and potentially be accessed by the entire world?
This seems like a good time to check your tab and light up a red cigarette. You might want to check which type of blade that malfunctioning one was too.
and someone (a body of people, an organization, what have you) figures out how to seize complete control of them is when the world takes a sharp turn into something nobody really wants. I don't even think this is doomsday-talk either, we're naturally progressing in this direction, have been for some time now. Our paranoia is going to drive us into oblivion if we don't shift our collective mentality soon... ...as if THAT'S going to happen! :)
I tend to rant.
yes and lets give them the ability to self-replicate, and use biomass to do so!
Is just plain DUMB. Remember the phrase "There is ALWAYS Somebody Better"? No matter who is coding your security protocols, someone better WILL come along and hack that shit! Automated weapons and the interwebs, in ANY form such as secure/private webs and otherwise, should be a strict NO NO! Un-jammable, unstoppable, wireless killing machines... Yeah that sounds like NOTHING could possibly go wrong. LOL!
FFS why would you hook up a battlefield swarm to the internet?
So you can make "Call of Duty: Ender's Game Edition"?
and the robot/drones become (practically) useless or they have enough autonomy to kill on their own? (Which may be violation of some new UN rules on autonomous robots used in war).
Either way, it's not good. Is it likely that an adversary would be able to cut off communications? I'm wondering if there is a failsafe method of communicating with autonomous drones and robots outdoors with a clear line of sight to the sky directly above them. What you need is a satellite with a high powered maser (microwave laser) being able to cut through any jamming and the robot/drone having a high gain directional antennae pointed at the satellite. (If they also had masers on board then presumably could talk back.)
Of course this would only work when the satellite is viewable but if they had enough assets in space (like the GPS satellite constellation) maybe at least one satellite would be in view at a time. Bandwidth, of course, could be quite limited compared to local transmitters but as a backup system it might keep the system from becoming completely helpless (or completely deadly).
This is just speculation of course but perhaps Elon Musk's super constellation of 4000 internet satellites could carry these masers as well. Then they'd almost assuredly have a relatively un-jammable connection (and if his constellation is really going to provide internet for the entire world, they'll have plenty of bandwidth). Maybe if he cuts a deal with the U.S. military, they'll subsidize his constellation in order to put these masers on each satellite.
[I'm assuming that this system would be pretty un-jammable because, with the drone/robot's antennae pointed a a single point(s) in the sky, local jamming would be pretty ineffective. It's a twist on the idea behind the "Northpoint" communications system, but the signal you want to get would be from space not from the ground (the Northpoint system was the other way around). http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04...
Of course the enemy could knock down the satellites or use a nuke-powered EMP blast to fry all the electronics but in that case I think we would be worried about much more than some drones and robots on a battlefield.
As a side project, we'll also need some non-nuclear, small scale EMP weapons.
Everybody will have distributed Bot Swarms.
Think of a Citronella Candle or Bug Zapper, you don't
want other people's Bot Swarms around you in a battle zone, or Urban neighborhood, when law enforcement starts using them.
The Chinese have been testing anti-satellite missiles. Nukes not required. It's pretty clear that if there were any kind of built-in dependency on satellites and that became an Achilles heel, then adversaries would go for that weakness.
That is why they want 'autonomy'. The Army foresees space to be a contested environment and communications can't be guaranteed.
Botnet edition
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
Mission Accomplished.
wars have always been fought to take land from other civilizations because food was scarce. Food isn't really scarce anymore. Our food problems are now just distribution problems. We could end the need for arms greater than a few pistols for the occasional nut job tomorrow if we cared to. Of course, that would require us to give food/shelter to just about everybody without preconditions, and good luck with that.
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Person 1: People living in glass houses shouldn't be throwing stones.
Person 2: Couldn't you just develop the best throwing arm and build your glass house just out of everyone else's range but close enough to keep them within your range?
Person 3: Better yet, the people in power could live in concrete bunkers while the slaves are relegated to the glass houses. The people in the bunkers get to throw stones and piss off everyone else who will then want to destroy the slave's glass houses. The slaves will then turn to the people in the bunkers and say, "We'll do anything for you! Just keep throwing stones at them so they don't destroy our glass houses!"
Police drones hovering around your windows and hoovering up all your wireless traffic.
Police drones with miniaturized stingray devices, incidental collection "to-go"!
At some point the citizen is, I think, entitled to some countermeasures against an unreasonable breach by drones. Frankly even the stingray stuff warrants defensive measures to be taken.
Maybe we could get a little accountability if these devices started getting EMPed?
See subject & these videos respectively IRON MOUNTAIN https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSq7r4IoVQ8/ NASA DEEP STATE PLANS FOR 2025 DEPOPULATION CULLING https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPon4znZbJU/
* Couple them w/ "AGENDA 21" https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Agenda+21/ & you get the picture...
APK
P.S.=> They're NOT for the "faint-hearted" folks... apk
...imagine a Beowulf cluster of Custers at the Little Bighorn.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Fancy words to say AI weapons of war.
Literally they want drones that can target and kill without authorization from command.
The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers
.
The number of things that could go wrong with this enterprise are huge. If this starts a military escalation in robotics world wide we could all be in trouble. We already have drones doing all sorts of things like assassinations, especially in Pakistan (surprised they haven't yelled about acts of war given the casualties), or the potential to hack the systems coordinating these proposed drone swarms and turn them against us. I doubt this would be directly connected to the Internet (Internet Of Things (Iot) Is already a joke in IT security these days), but would probably be controlled via satellites, and that could be intercepted or jammed. All someone has to do is capture a few, reverse engineer them, and viola, you make some of your own. This is one of those things where, it looks cool, but just because you can do a thing doesn't mean you should. You could argue benefits in say ,construction (lots of researching/testing going on to make use of mini drones to do work in that area because many smaller robots potentially could have more power than one large one, like the insect strength-mass ratio), but as weapons, that could be terrifying. I wonder how long it will be before we start hearing about drone strikes in our own back yard. (See the Val Kilmer film "Real Genius", they just about got it right).
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
The most valuable weapon will be the soldiers that still know how to fight without all of their gadgets.
The question is whose soldiers will that be?
The Chinese are smarter than that. Think baseball or smaller scale explosives that are launched in mass, gradually make their way to satellites over months, attach and wait. The missiles are for the replacement satellites because you want to get them right away.
Have gnu, will travel.
NOBODY wins. congestion, cut cables, infected routers and servers can affect everybody.
Hopefully they will do better than commercial devices: The 'S in IoT stands for 'security.'
the Ruskies could help us with it! I'll send an email to Trump about it.
Remember the 'Electronic battlefield' where each weapon (crew) would tell all other weapons, any intelligence it had acquired? When the battlefield LAN didn't work, the military created STAR on EWAC planes, for a top-down look at a battlefield. (See most RTS games.) This is removing the human element and creating drones to do the killing. It is an attempt to take humans out the battlefield but only for one side. The obvious response will be to destroy the 'kill-bots' first. Electronic devices are vulnerable to EMP, making nuclear weapons a necessary response to any attack of the drones. Because the devastation is targeted at machines, they are more likely to be used in asymmetric warfare. The result once again being, that US overkill will turn occupation from a victory, into a defeat.
...on military hardware. How much of a ransom do you think the Pentagon would pony up?
Where is the 4.0 in that ?
Where is the agile in that ?
It's lacking buzzwords.... They know better.
Jul. 22, Juche 106 (2017) Saturday
U.S. Shameless Trick to Pass Buck to Others
The U.S. talk about "China responsible" for bolstering up nuclear force of the DPRK is no more than despicable and cynical ploy to pass the blame upon others.
The DPRK's access to H-bomb, strategic sub-based ballistic missile and ICBM, the final gate to rounding off the national nuclear force, is the "feats" of the U.S., which has compelled it to bolster up the nuclear force through persistent nuclear blackmail.
The U.S. pressure upon the DPRK by wooing China can never break the tradition of friendship sealed in blood through the anti-imperialist and anti-U.S. resistance of the peoples of the two countries.
The history of traditional friendship of the two peoples, the masters and makers of history, cannot be written off no matter how impudently such gangster-like state as the U.S. behaves.
In protest against the U.S. pressure, the public is becoming vocal in China that "China is not a country which carries out a decision according to the domestic law of any other country", "China resolutely rejects other's interference in internal affairs as a "law-governed state" and "China is maintaining the blood-sealed relations with the DPRK".
The U.S. should behave with discretion, mindful that it will meet shame and rebuff only if it calculates it could disregard self-respect of a sovereign state and the tradition of history and consider someone as its sentry and chariot run by its whip.
Jo Nam Su