5 ms·

Darpa announces Network Challenge winner (MIT Red Balloon Challenge Team)

49 points by jeremyawon 17y ago

jeremyawon 17y ago
press release: http://docs.google.com/viewer?url=https%3A%2F%2Fnetworkchallenge.darpa.mil%2Fdarpanetworkchallengewinner2009.pdf http://docs.google.com/viewer?url=https%3A%2F%2Fnetworkchall...
jazzychad 17y ago
Completed less than 9 hours after balloon launch. Wow.
ryanwaggoner 17y ago
Wow, that was fast. Anyone have any info on how they did it? EDIT: From http://balloon.mit.edu http://balloon.mit.edu, it looks like they just created a system to assign personalized tracking links to which you could submit pics and coordinates of balloons, as well as invite other people to get a personalized tracking link of their own. If you found a balloon, you got $2000, plus your inviter got $1000, plus their inviter got $500, etc, etc. Simple but obviously effective.
- jazzychad 17y ago
  The next question is.. how many people were in their pyramid scheme^H^H^H^H^H team?
- ct 17y ago
  It sounds almost like a MLM (Multi-level Marketing) scheme.
  - SandB0x 17y ago
    Except with a convergent sum of money...
- zackattack 17y ago
  I would be curious about the total # of unique visitors before a winner was found. Also, the NYC police department has a new sign I saw the other day. "Crime doesn't pay, but anti-crime does. Anonymously report crime and receive an award of up to $2000." Humans respond to incentives. This is fundamental.
  - ryanwaggoner 17y ago
    How are they awarding you $2000 anonymously? Are they seriously handing out stacks of cash?
    - chaosmachine 17y ago
      The cops partner with a bank. You get a number to take to the bank, the bank gives you the cash, no names exchanged.
djb_hackernews 17y ago
It will be interesting to see what their approach was. $1,000 finders fee for each balloon? $4,000? Greed is the only solution I can come up with.
- swolchok 17y ago
  Yeah, and your interest will be satisfied if you actually visit their website and scroll down.
cwan 17y ago
What do you suppose the practical military applications for this is? (and maybe a corollary is if this solution was worth 40K + whatever overhead was required) This is what the challenge says: "The Challenge explores basic research issues such as mobilization, collaboration, and trust in diverse social networking constructs and could serve to fuel innovation across a wide spectrum of applications." That's pretty general, and we now know the solution - so does this have any commercial applications?
- dschobel 17y ago
  It's a good solution to any 'spot the terrorist' type problem. As for commercial applications, maybe marketing as it incentivizes spamming your friends and family.
  - catch23 17y ago
    I'm not so sure about that... seems like the way that the MIT team won was by using an affiliate model. We'll pay you money if you find a balloon. Would that work in a terrorist situation? $2000 for the first terrorist found. Seems like you'd get lots of random arrests in hopes of scoring the $2000.
    - cwan 17y ago
      The way the MIT team managed "fraud" was that a picture was required. This isn't like a spot the terrorist problem either though - but perhaps it also provides insight into how to improve the effectiveness of rewards. It's not like a terrorist is like a red balloon at clearly visible intersections (as per the contest design in this case). But maybe rewards should be designed such that they also incentivize the second order referral network to encourage more people to care (in effect creating something of a decentralized team) - perhaps encouraging a referral network to train others to the task. There are all sorts of problems though if the target is a terrorist though. Recently the bigger problem seems to be home grown terrorists so it's not as if they'd stick out. If the problem is applied to a place like Afghanistan in hunting for insurgents, there could well be a number of disincentives to the local population to reporting it (whether it be out of loyalty or fear) and those disincentives might considerably greater than the incentives - particularly to the referral network - a network I'd add would know your loyalties in a rather dangerous place. Similar problems for finding a bomb or anything that doesn't want to be found for that matter. Maybe there will be a future challenge where the balloons are more hidden. It also reminds me of this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=955793 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=955793
johnl 17y ago
Makes me wonder if this is still true (if it was true in the first place) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_degrees_of_separation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_degrees_of_separation
storborg 17y ago
Was it the balloon.mit.edu team or the redballoonrace.com team? (Both involved MIT people, and both used essentially the same strategy)

49 points by jeremyawon 17y ago

press release: http://docs.google.com/viewer?url=https%3A%2F%2Fnetworkchallenge.darpa.mil%2Fdarpanetworkchallengewinner2009.pdf http://docs.google.com/viewer?url=https%3A%2F%2Fnetworkchall...

jazzychad 17y ago

Completed less than 9 hours after balloon launch. Wow.

ryanwaggoner 17y ago

Wow, that was fast. Anyone have any info on how they did it? EDIT: From http://balloon.mit.edu http://balloon.mit.edu, it looks like they just created a system to assign personalized tracking links to which you could submit pics and coordinates of balloons, as well as invite other people to get a personalized tracking link of their own. If you found a balloon, you got $2000, plus your inviter got $1000, plus their inviter got $500, etc, etc. Simple but obviously effective.

jazzychad 17y ago
The next question is.. how many people were in their pyramid scheme^H^H^H^H^H team?
ct 17y ago
It sounds almost like a MLM (Multi-level Marketing) scheme.
- SandB0x 17y ago
  Except with a convergent sum of money...
zackattack 17y ago
I would be curious about the total # of unique visitors before a winner was found. Also, the NYC police department has a new sign I saw the other day. "Crime doesn't pay, but anti-crime does. Anonymously report crime and receive an award of up to $2000." Humans respond to incentives. This is fundamental.
- ryanwaggoner 17y ago
  How are they awarding you $2000 anonymously? Are they seriously handing out stacks of cash?
  - chaosmachine 17y ago
    The cops partner with a bank. You get a number to take to the bank, the bank gives you the cash, no names exchanged.

djb_hackernews 17y ago

It will be interesting to see what their approach was. $1,000 finders fee for each balloon? $4,000? Greed is the only solution I can come up with.

swolchok 17y ago
Yeah, and your interest will be satisfied if you actually visit their website and scroll down.

cwan 17y ago

What do you suppose the practical military applications for this is? (and maybe a corollary is if this solution was worth 40K + whatever overhead was required) This is what the challenge says: "The Challenge explores basic research issues such as mobilization, collaboration, and trust in diverse social networking constructs and could serve to fuel innovation across a wide spectrum of applications." That's pretty general, and we now know the solution - so does this have any commercial applications?

dschobel 17y ago
It's a good solution to any 'spot the terrorist' type problem. As for commercial applications, maybe marketing as it incentivizes spamming your friends and family.
- catch23 17y ago
  I'm not so sure about that... seems like the way that the MIT team won was by using an affiliate model. We'll pay you money if you find a balloon. Would that work in a terrorist situation? $2000 for the first terrorist found. Seems like you'd get lots of random arrests in hopes of scoring the $2000.
  - cwan 17y ago
    The way the MIT team managed "fraud" was that a picture was required. This isn't like a spot the terrorist problem either though - but perhaps it also provides insight into how to improve the effectiveness of rewards. It's not like a terrorist is like a red balloon at clearly visible intersections (as per the contest design in this case). But maybe rewards should be designed such that they also incentivize the second order referral network to encourage more people to care (in effect creating something of a decentralized team) - perhaps encouraging a referral network to train others to the task. There are all sorts of problems though if the target is a terrorist though. Recently the bigger problem seems to be home grown terrorists so it's not as if they'd stick out. If the problem is applied to a place like Afghanistan in hunting for insurgents, there could well be a number of disincentives to the local population to reporting it (whether it be out of loyalty or fear) and those disincentives might considerably greater than the incentives - particularly to the referral network - a network I'd add would know your loyalties in a rather dangerous place. Similar problems for finding a bomb or anything that doesn't want to be found for that matter. Maybe there will be a future challenge where the balloons are more hidden. It also reminds me of this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=955793 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=955793

johnl 17y ago

Makes me wonder if this is still true (if it was true in the first place) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_degrees_of_separation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_degrees_of_separation

storborg 17y ago

Was it the balloon.mit.edu team or the redballoonrace.com team? (Both involved MIT people, and both used essentially the same strategy)