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Hacker puts a video cam on an RC truck and saves the lives of 6 soldiers
- epochwolf 15y agoIt's a good story but I really, really hate auto playing videos. Edit: "video ads" -> "videos" I don't like either one.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- illumin8 15y agoI have Flashblock and I didn't see any ads.
- DavidAdams 15y agoI thought the same thing, but if you wait around, you'll see that the ad is a pre-roll to a TV news story about the Afghanistan story. So it's not really an auto-playing ad, it's an auto-playing news video with an ad in the front. Still annoying.
- jerrya 15y agoFwiw, I agree with you. So I wondered why I didn't get an autoplay story, then I realized it's on ABC and last week I had ad block plus create an easy filter to get rid of their videos entirely. As far as I can tell, losing ABC videos is just not a loss, and it leaves a static jpg that ABC presents to browsers that can't do video. What I've been curious about is can sites tell when someone has started playing a video, but clicked away from their precious video after a second or two?
- sbierwagen 15y agoI hate upvoting stories like these, because the HN comments are always going to be pure crap, but oh well. Also, fuck video ads.
- mcantor 15y agoWhy will the comments be pure crap?
- burgerbrain 15y agoI assume he was anticipating anti-military/war discussion.
- mcantor 15y agoWell, it's stereotypical for both hackers and hippies to have scruffy facial hair and hygiene problems, so I guess I can see how one might mix them up. Hackers don't hug their computers, though. At least, not when anyone else is looking.
- illumin8 15y agoThe funny thing is that if the DoD contracted out to build these, they would end up costing over $1 million each. There are a lot of unique opportunities for startups that are willing to use off the shelf technology and package it in unique ways. Provided, of course, you don't have any ethical qualms about selling technology that might be used for good or evil.
- quux 15y agoIsn't that true of any technology?
- 3pt14159 15y agoNot the PSP controllers they use to control various things. The DoD gets those cheaper than we do.
- Iv 15y agoActually, if you don't sell it for at least 1M$, you won't get any contract, it doesn't look serious enough. Terrestrial drones were being done during WWII, Russians were remote-controlling full-sized tanks in the 40s, these techs should be obvious by now. I have been working for a defense project about instrumenting some armored vehicles with video cameras and monitors. The project was more than 10 years old when I arrived in it. I couldn't help but thinking "bring the prototype to any hackerspace and pay 20k of salary for two weeks of dev and you'll be done."
- Cushman 15y agoLet me be the first to say thank god they don't. We should all count our blessings that hackers tend to be peaceful people by nature. Imagine if we were trying to kill each other.
- rokhayakebe 15y agoWell who do you think writes software that controls missiles?
- camworld 15y agoI have shared this story with some of the Army leaders I work with.
- daeken 15y agoThis is really, really cool. I wonder how much it'd cost to take something like http://micromotorx.com/kids-x-treme-ride-on-cars.html http://micromotorx.com/kids-x-treme-ride-on-cars.html and fit it with cameras and all that. It seems like the larger size and the weight might be able to trigger things that a little RC car wouldn't. Of course, it's significantly more obvious than a little RC car, so it might get attacked separately -- then again, that's valuable info too.
- threepointone 15y ago[OT] For once, thank you for editorializing the title. Perfect choice of words.
- sologoub 15y agoThese guy should put this up on kickstarter to raise cash for sending the units as gifts until DoD gets off their ass and actually learns from it! Of course it's not as tough as it probably should be for all of military due, but the fact that it was still alive from 2007 means it's good enough to start.
- forgingahead 15y agoInteresting -- I was in the army (Non-US, but allied) years ago, and we were developing a lot of similar technology. RC Cars/Trucks with cameras, guns that shoot around corners, and surveillance balls amongst other things. They were developed for close-quarters combat, clearing rooms, hallways, that sort of thing. The tech isn't new, but what's interesting I guess is the application they accidentally discovered. Strap a camera on a hardy RC vehicle, and have that be the sweeper in the front of a patrol checking for roadside bombs. Interesting article, thanks for posting it.
- dhughes 15y agoI'm surprised the reveres isn't true that small RC planes or land vehicles are not being used as unmanned bomb delivery devices by the Taliban. If this were to happen I'd guess Libyan rebels would do it since I see a lot of fabrication of weapons by them.
- dkokelley 15y agoThe defense is the same as cellphone-triggered bombs: jam RF when moving in unfriendly territory.
- stcredzero 15y agoI'm surprised the reveres isn't true that small RC planes or land vehicles... I just had an image of Paul Revere warning the Massachusetts countryside the British are Coming with an RC 4x4 with a speaker stuck on it.
- dhughes 15y agoHa! I deserve that, typos bug me.
- HanPham 15y agoMost people are missing the point of this story. The question is, why are these people trying to kill US soldiers in the first place? The answer is because the US soldiers are invading a foreign country that's not theirs. So who is really the bad guy? The guys killing the invaders or the invaders? The guys at the toystore who are sending the RC trucks to the US soldiers - did they even stop for one second to ask "Why are those soldiers being attacked?" How did they come to the instant conclusion that the US soldiers are the good guys? How is this obvious?
- jonaldomo 15y agoPBS has a good documentary called remote control war. It is on netflix, it talks about similar current technologies and those under development. There is also a clip about hackerspaces developing similar devices later in the program.
- Estragon 15y agoThe book Wired for War is also good.
- pkteison 15y agoI'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 speed bumps that the car can't handle get built all over, or patrols can't safely go out on rainy days when the streets are muddy. I worry that this only works well when it's a disposable individual hack used as an additional precaution, not as a standard issue primary first line of defense.
- krschultz 15y agoThat's a good point. I'd say that the minimum to get through mud for a serious vehicle is something around the size of a small ATV, at which point you are talking about a completely different vehicle. This really only works on dry or paved roads.
- shabble 15y agoAnything that disrupts the enemy's tactics could probably be considered valuable. Induction loops would be harder to build, transport and disguise vs a spool of piano wire and a friction fuze. The tricky part is making sure it doesn't lull the people using it into a false sense of security. Once you identify the new tactic, you can adapt to it; once they start using magnetic triggers, you send your little RC car out with a big Neodymium magnet mounted on it or whatever.
- lutorm 15y agoWhat 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.
- JackWebbHeller 15y agoI remember reading an article in the UK edition of Wired about IEDs. Soldiers soon realised that roadside bombs were heat-detecting - as soon as the heat being given off from a truck driving past was detected, these IEDs would launch straight into the truck, killing soldiers on several occasions. One morning a soldier had a brainwave and took a long metal pole and gaffer-taped it to the front of the truck. On the front of this he attached a toaster that he rigged to be 'always on'. This heated toaster, protruding three meters forwards, was enough to trick roadside bombs of this kind for months afterwards. They would fire in completely the wrong direction.
- kno 15y agoI wonder why the Army doesn’t have stuff like this already, for all the money they spend each year.
- r00fus 15y agoFor 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.
- swah 15y agoHackers, saving lives without moving their asses away from the PC.
- ChuckMcM 15y agoNice 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.
- jdietrich 15y agoThe first bomb disposal robot was built from a powered wheelbarrow[1] controlled remotely by a length of string. Within three weeks it was being used in action in Northern Ireland and within months had become one of the most valuable tools for ordnance officers serving there. There's a long military tradition of improvisation and invention. [1]http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article629051.ece http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article6...
- bugsy 15y agoThis is an awesome success story and shows once again that given a chance (ie not explicitly banned or thwarted) can-do inventive american individuals will come up with great solutions that work well and save money and lives. I can't help but move past that and, knowing how corruption, waste and inefficiency work, predict that this device will be banned by higher ups for field use, requiring that devices that cost at least $2 million each and are built by military contractors be used instead. I also predict that the public will be happier and more comfortable paying $2 million through taxes than paying $500 through passing the hat at the county fair, which he points out raised $6.
- Estragon 15y agoI'm kind of wondering what would happen to an entrepreneur who started selling these kinds of devices direct to soldiers, through the mail.
- sequoia 15y agoFor some reason I imagine this story would end in court with a multimillion dollar lawsuit. Does anyone have the knowledge to spek to Estra's question, or know of an example of this? If it's legal I'm sure people are already doing it.
- digikata 15y agoFWIW, I'm skeptical that this would end in a lawsuit.
- MiguelHudnandez 15y agoSo, I am excited about this, but there is a major problem with thinking that this could be scaled up without increasing the cost. What happens when we have hundreds of these things out there, and insurgents wise up to them? I can imagine the conversation: "Hey, check it out. Now we can get an X11 receiver and we can watch the video feed from all the nearby US troops' scout drones. Now we just wait for a drone to come into range and we can use remote detonators instead of trip wires." I think military hardware is way too costly in general, and this RC truck is a cool success story, but scaling it up would only be beneficial in the short term. It is a cat and mouse game. That said, we need more rapid innovations like this to keep our troops safe. Just don't think we can solve all our problems without a lot of engineering. Solving the eavesdropping problem will require engineering. That said, wasn't there a similar problem with our incredibly expensive predator drones sending the video feeds unencrypted? http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126102247889095011.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126102247889095011.html
- breck 15y agoYou could encrypt the video feed.
- blhack 15y agoSo...what. The enemy can see where they placed their own bombs? This thing is going to be 100 meters or so (at most) away from a humvee with people in it. That was the same argument, by the way, for why it didn't matter that the drone feeds were non-encrypted. The enemy already knows where they are, they already know that the drone is there, the video feed gets them nothing.
- stcredzero 15y agothey already know that the drone is there, the video feed gets them nothing The video feed lets them know when and where we are looking.
- MiguelHudnandez 15y agoThe aerial drones are not immediately near ground troops. A little RC truck would never be very far from them. Therefore, by picking up video signals from the cheap recon device, combatants could know where the ground troops are going to be very soon and from what direction they're coming. Furthermore, picking up the source of the RC controller would mean combatants could tell exactly where the troops are. In the case of an aerial drone, piloting happens from an air conditioned trailer, often across the globe. So that's less of an issue.
- davidhollander 15y agoA response to statements such as: > it shouldn't be that damn hard to send some RC cars to Iraq to save lives Actually, efficient resource allocation is usually a NP hard problem! It's very computationally complex, and the US Department of Defense is one the largest bureaucracies in the world. From that perspective, and depending on one's expected value for bureaucratic efficiency in relation to size, one could also argue that the efficiency of the DoD is surprisingly good. What could possibly help the Department of Defense's resource allocation problems for such infantry equipment, and to open up the possibility for more off-the-shelf solutions, is to push acquisition demand down to the squad level as much as possible. You would more or less be giving squad commanders equipment purchasing credits to allocate independently of one another. This would simulate one the best tools currently available for resource allocation, markets.
- radu_floricica 15y agoAlso create opportunities for corruption at all levels of the military, instead of just a few. Plus it would open the way to fads and fashions, instead of evidence-based decisions.
- jarin 15y agoThis reminds me of the time back when I used to post on Something Awful, when SA members put together a fund to buy armor plating for a member who was going to Iraq and his platoon. http://www.somethingawful.com/d/news/update-from-frontlines.php http://www.somethingawful.com/d/news/update-from-frontlines....