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Hacker puts a video cam on an RC truck and saves the lives of 6 soldiers

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Re: Hacker puts a video cam on an RC truck and saves the lives of 6 soldiers

#51

Post by digikata »

RomP wrote: post #43
digikata wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At that point you'll have one. Now try to make it it work through extreme weather - hot, cold, pouring rain, etc. Now make it reliable to shock so you aren't fixing thing every 50 miles or so. Ok, write the reference manuals so that 18yr old mechanics how to install, maintain, replace them. You've got some sharp mechanics there, but you have a few dumb ones too. The manual will involve breaking things down to a painf…

Some of the things you're listing are must-haves (secure channel), but most are not. If increasing reliability and versatility makes the drone last 10 times longer and costs 10 times more -- it's not worth it in the long run: it's goal to trigger the first IED it can find, anyway. Even if it's not, it still would be cheaper and easier to buy 10 drones or make them modular enough so anybody with some X-Box experience…

I'm no military historian, but there are terrible failure stories for products pushed out before they're ready to the frontlines too. Beauacracy is a waste, but some of those steps seen as wasteful in the DoD procurement process are "scar tissue" from where things went wrong either in the battlefield or, as often, protection against incapable, or worse, fraudulent contractors.

You're right, my post wasn't a list of requirements, just an illustration of some of the things one might end up having to care about when packaging up a military product used in dangerous situations. There's a balance to be made, it should be made on a case by case basis.

Re: Hacker puts a video cam on an RC truck and saves the lives of 6 soldiers

#52

Post by dctoedt »

RomP wrote: post #43
digikata wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At that point you'll have one. Now try to make it it work through extreme weather - hot, cold, pouring rain, etc. Now make it reliable to shock so you aren't fixing thing every 50 miles or so. Ok, write the reference manuals so that 18yr old mechanics how to install, maintain, replace them. You've got some sharp mechanics there, but you have a few dumb ones too. The manual will involve breaking things down to a painf…

Some of the things you're listing are must-haves (secure channel), but most are not. If increasing reliability and versatility makes the drone last 10 times longer and costs 10 times more -- it's not worth it in the long run: it's goal to trigger the first IED it can find, anyway. Even if it's not, it still would be cheaper and easier to buy 10 drones or make them modular enough so anybody with some X-Box experience…

> If increasing reliability and versatility makes the drone last 10 times longer and costs 10 times more -- it's not worth it in the long run: it's goal to trigger the first IED it can find, anyway.

Google's approach to building server farms was likewise to buy hardware that was ultra-cheap because it had failed to meet manufacturing specs. Google expected a certain percentage of hard disks, etc., to fail, and simply swapped them out when they did. That resulted in a significantly lower TCO. (So says Steven Levy in in his recent book In the Plex.)

Re: Hacker puts a video cam on an RC truck and saves the lives of 6 soldiers

#53

Post by r00fus »

kno wrote: post #47

I wonder why the Army doesn’t have stuff like this already, for all the money they spend each year.

For the same reason we're even in an armed conflict going on a decade (Afghanistan)... corruption. We should have declared mission completion long ago.

The purpose of military spending these days has been captured: it is now to transfer wealth from the social security trust fund into the coffers of military contractors and thus their investors.

Re: Hacker puts a video cam on an RC truck and saves the lives of 6 soldiers

#54

Post by rokhayakebe »

shabble wrote: post #49
rokhayakebe wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well who do you think writes software that controls missiles?

I can't remember the exact quote, or even the source, but it was along the lines of "For engineers, the biggest [moral] issue with weapons development is that it is fun ". You can build some really neat things when you have a military R&D budget behind you. The downside is of course that it actively or passively hurt people. And then there's the whole calculus-of-death/unintended consequence thing, where in theory, a…

Yup. I am sure they pitch it as you can build something that saves lives. Little Bob can ride his bicycle safely because of your work. As opposed to you can build something that can kill the enemy in mass in seconds.

Re: Hacker puts a video cam on an RC truck and saves the lives of 6 soldiers

#56

Post by lutorm »

pkteison wrote: post #44

I'm torn. On the one hand, I appreciate a good hack. On the other hand, if it's going to be used day in and day out to save lives, a certain amount of quality and versatility is needed so that you can rely on it. If every scout team uses a two foot tall RC car, bomb trip wires go up to 3 feet above ground, or they quit using trip wires and switch to magnetic induction coils like the trip lights for stop lights, or sp…

What you are saying applies to all tactics, which always lead to counter-tactics, etc. It's always more advantageous for everyone to have their own home-brewed methods, because it's harder to counter. It's like in evolution; successful methods become victims of their own success in that there is now more selection pressure on countermeasures. It is, after all, called an arms-race for a reason.

Re: Hacker puts a video cam on an RC truck and saves the lives of 6 soldiers

#57

Post by icebraining »

shabble wrote: post #49
rokhayakebe wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well who do you think writes software that controls missiles?

I can't remember the exact quote, or even the source, but it was along the lines of "For engineers, the biggest [moral] issue with weapons development is that it is fun ". You can build some really neat things when you have a military R&D budget behind you. The downside is of course that it actively or passively hurt people. And then there's the whole calculus-of-death/unintended consequence thing, where in theory, a…

There's the old joke: a decent software engineer would never write a destroyLisbon() procedure - he would write a destroyCity() procedure and pass the city as an argument.

Re: Hacker puts a video cam on an RC truck and saves the lives of 6 soldiers

#58

Post by illumin8 »

jxcole wrote: post #15
illumin8 wrote: post #5

The funny thing is that if the DoD contracted out to build these, they would end up costing over $1 million each. There are a lot of unique opportunities for startups that are willing to use off the shelf technology and package it in unique ways. Provided, of course, you don't have any ethical qualms about selling technology that might be used for good or evil.

Agree with the first part. However, I think that as long as you were fairly firm that you were only interested in building technology that saved lives (no RC toys with guns on them), I would not feel guilty in the slightest. After all, this truck can't really be used to hurt anyone, just save lives.

I was going to reply, but dkokelly below summed up my thoughts exactly. By saving the lives of our soldiers, there is a very real chance that they will go on to take the lives of some enemy soldiers in the future. So, doing any business with the DoD you have to think about the possibility that your products will either directly or indirectly cause the loss of human life. Whether you agree with the mission or support the troops or not, some people don't like selling products that cause the indirect loss of human life.

Re: Hacker puts a video cam on an RC truck and saves the lives of 6 soldiers

#59

Post by Game_Ender »

illumin8 wrote: post #5

The funny thing is that if the DoD contracted out to build these, they would end up costing over $1 million each. There are a lot of unique opportunities for startups that are willing to use off the shelf technology and package it in unique ways. Provided, of course, you don't have any ethical qualms about selling technology that might be used for good or evil.

You are off by at least an order of magnitude in your price estimates, milspec rugged robots are expensive but on the order of $30,000 - $100,000 each not $1 million. Now those are complex systems with articulated arms, complex comms, and full control station style remote. If the military spec'd out a simple system, like the one in this article, it would cost much less. An existing contractor like iRobot would be perfectly capable of producing it at a low cost. They make the existing pack bots used by the military as well as cheaper consumer grade robots like the Roomba.

Re: Hacker puts a video cam on an RC truck and saves the lives of 6 soldiers

#60

Post by ChuckMcM »

Nice hack, and I'm glad it worked out. Given all the other stuff a soldier carries I assume they don't all want to be toting RC trucks along as well.

That being said, history is full of examples of innovations in tactics on the battlefield becoming tactical doctrine later, the risk is that the last war's tactics won't be as applicable to the current war's tactics.

It would be great if the DoD could move more quickly to adopt working tactics but my friends who work and live in that world are very very much aware of how 'bad' tactics can get a lot of people killed and so there is a very healthy level of risk aversion to changing things too rapidly and without a lot of analysis.

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