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I'm not sure how you are refusing to improperly service something, The contractor is there because a high ranking individual at the DOD put them there, in most

I'm not sure how you are refusing to improperly service something, The contractor is there because a high ranking individual at the DOD put them there, in most cases they are helpful, and willing to help out when they can, but they are there with the orders to make sure the equipment they are tasked is maintained properly. With that said, if a commander orders someone under his command to smash the piece of equipment with a hammer, the contract won't interfere, but he will report the situation. The issue is, most of the equipment at this point is well beyond the knowledge a company commander would have, they aren't qualified to know if this is something that can be fixed in the field, and a soldier under his command that is qualified isn't in a position to refuse the capt. order. So they fry the equipment. The army is pretty big on redundancy, and having contingencies, it would be very rare that an operation couldn't continue without a single piece of equipment. It might be harder, and may be a greater risk, but in a place where lots of things get shot, you make a plan, then you make due. I'm not saying the scenarios I'm describing fit all situations, but I can say that far less equipment was destroyed after they came on board.

avmich 5y ago
I didn't mean a contractor in the army quarters. Being in the field close to soldiers should help - in case of farmers, it's as if John Deere's certified mechanic (of course with all training, tools and spare parts, including and especially all software-related) was on the farm during harvest period. However, there shouldn't be a situation when the equipment can be fixed - i.e. it's not destroyed enough - and it's not because of software. Software is something which is relatively easy to change - I'm a software guy - and it has this property and advantage over hardware. So if it's software which misbehaves, it should be double duty of such a contractor - this time the whole company, not only the person in the army position - to help with everything, in a timely manner. In farm it's to allow harvesting to go with less problems, in fight it's to avoid losses among soldiers. I'm mostly talking about the whole company approach to such time-sensitive customers.
- Godel_unicode 5y ago
  You can't field-update software which has to pass a hardware-enforced integrity check. This is by design, and is very much a feature (for further reading, look into anti-tamper). In general, military (electronic) gear is designed to be difficult to repair because repair and reverse-engineer are pretty similar. One radio being out is a small problem. The radio system's crypto being compromised because it was captured and reversed is a big Problem.
  - metaphor 5y ago
    > You can't field-update software which has to pass a hardware-enforced integrity check. This is by design, and is very much a feature (for further reading, look into anti-tamper). The suggested notion that anti-tamper integration exists on arbitrary whathaveyou weapon systems is, at best, misinformed. Field updating of operational software at the box level over e.g. 1553, or ARINC 429 via 615, or even vanilla RS-485 PHY via bespoke protocol, is very much a thing and almost de facto mandatory capability for most systems. If we broaden the scope of the term "field" to include intermediate-level maintenance in forward-operating labs staffed by uniformed personnel, then even firmware updates of cherry-picked circuit card assemblies can be a thing (although much simpler isolation to a replaceable circuit card or modular assembly is a lot more typical; CCA-level firmware updating is usually reserved for depot or OEM activity). > In general, military (electronic) gear is designed to be difficult to repair because repair and reverse-engineer are pretty similar. Bullshit. In fact the exact opposite is almost always boilerplate baked into acquisition performance objectives, sometimes even down to defining explicit MTTR targets. Certain systems even modularize the anti-tamper crypto applique portion to enable repair of everything else that isn't anywhere near as sensitive and much more probable to fail based on analysis. The real meta is an adversarial one where private defense contractors are intentionally exploiting a complex process with the objective intent of locking in the ever so lucrative OEM sole source sustainment dependency, and the corrupt influence on DFARS statutory language as it relates to technical data rights is a critical part of that game.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- metaphor 5y ago
  > Software is something which is relatively easy to change - I'm a software guy - and it has this property and advantage over hardware. Ha...you've clearly never been a software engineer in the encumbered world of fielded defense systems.

avmich 5y ago

I didn't mean a contractor in the army quarters. Being in the field close to soldiers should help - in case of farmers, it's as if John Deere's certified mechanic (of course with all training, tools and spare parts, including and especially all software-related) was on the farm during harvest period. However, there shouldn't be a situation when the equipment can be fixed - i.e. it's not destroyed enough - and it's not because of software. Software is something which is relatively easy to change - I'm a software guy - and it has this property and advantage over hardware. So if it's software which misbehaves, it should be double duty of such a contractor - this time the whole company, not only the person in the army position - to help with everything, in a timely manner. In farm it's to allow harvesting to go with less problems, in fight it's to avoid losses among soldiers. I'm mostly talking about the whole company approach to such time-sensitive customers.

Godel_unicode 5y ago
You can't field-update software which has to pass a hardware-enforced integrity check. This is by design, and is very much a feature (for further reading, look into anti-tamper). In general, military (electronic) gear is designed to be difficult to repair because repair and reverse-engineer are pretty similar. One radio being out is a small problem. The radio system's crypto being compromised because it was captured and reversed is a big Problem.
- metaphor 5y ago
  > You can't field-update software which has to pass a hardware-enforced integrity check. This is by design, and is very much a feature (for further reading, look into anti-tamper). The suggested notion that anti-tamper integration exists on arbitrary whathaveyou weapon systems is, at best, misinformed. Field updating of operational software at the box level over e.g. 1553, or ARINC 429 via 615, or even vanilla RS-485 PHY via bespoke protocol, is very much a thing and almost de facto mandatory capability for most systems. If we broaden the scope of the term "field" to include intermediate-level maintenance in forward-operating labs staffed by uniformed personnel, then even firmware updates of cherry-picked circuit card assemblies can be a thing (although much simpler isolation to a replaceable circuit card or modular assembly is a lot more typical; CCA-level firmware updating is usually reserved for depot or OEM activity). > In general, military (electronic) gear is designed to be difficult to repair because repair and reverse-engineer are pretty similar. Bullshit. In fact the exact opposite is almost always boilerplate baked into acquisition performance objectives, sometimes even down to defining explicit MTTR targets. Certain systems even modularize the anti-tamper crypto applique portion to enable repair of everything else that isn't anywhere near as sensitive and much more probable to fail based on analysis. The real meta is an adversarial one where private defense contractors are intentionally exploiting a complex process with the objective intent of locking in the ever so lucrative OEM sole source sustainment dependency, and the corrupt influence on DFARS statutory language as it relates to technical data rights is a critical part of that game.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
metaphor 5y ago
> Software is something which is relatively easy to change - I'm a software guy - and it has this property and advantage over hardware. Ha...you've clearly never been a software engineer in the encumbered world of fielded defense systems.