
Hacker puts a video cam on an RC truck and saves the lives of 6 soldiers - acangiano
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/remote-controlled-truck-soldier-afghanistan-saves-soldiers-lives/story?id=14225434&fb_ref=abc-fb-recs
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illumin8
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.

~~~
jxcole
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.

~~~
boredguy8
It absolutely can be. The XM-7 Spider is basically the same thing, except over
secured remote control, and it holds munitions instead of video cameras. It's
pretty difficult to build technology that _only_ saves lives.

~~~
ZoFreX
"To every man is given the key to the gates of heaven; the same key opens the
gates of hell." - Bhuddist Proverb, via Feynman on whether science can be good
or bad

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pkteison
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 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.

~~~
JackWebbHeller
I 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.

~~~
etruong42
These two anecdotes suggest that we should teach a hacker mentality to
soldiers. Or have a hacker (or a group of hackers) with each unit where they
identify problems, experiment, and implement solutions. Hopefully the military
would place more value on the intelligence and creativity of the common
soldier and invest more in order to nurture it.

~~~
spitfire
It's already being taught. It's called maneuver warfare and the marines
practice it. Read MCDP-1.

Further reading is a guy named John Boyd who developed this stuff (along with
the f15, f16, f18, a10 and first iraq invasion) from the 60's through the
90's.

People, ideas, hardware. In that order.

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jdietrich
The 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/article6...](http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article629051.ece)

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epochwolf
It's a good story but I really, really hate auto playing videos.

Edit: "video ads" -> "videos" I don't like either one.

~~~
DavidAdams
I 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.

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MiguelHudnandez
So, 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>

~~~
blhack
So...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.

~~~
MiguelHudnandez
The 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.

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daeken
This 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> 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.

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davidhollander
A 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
Also 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.

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forgingahead
Interesting -- 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.

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sologoub
These 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.

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jonaldomo
PBS 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
The book _Wired for War_ is also good.

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camworld
I have shared this story with some of the Army leaders I work with.

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

~~~
r00fus
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.

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threepointone
[OT]

For once, thank you for editorializing the title. Perfect choice of words.

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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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bugsy
This 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
I'm kind of wondering what would happen to an entrepreneur who started selling
these kinds of devices direct to soldiers, through the mail.

~~~
sequoia
For 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
FWIW, I'm skeptical that this would end in a lawsuit.

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jarin
This 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....](http://www.somethingawful.com/d/news/update-from-
frontlines.php)

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dhughes
I'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.

~~~
stcredzero
_I'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
Ha! I deserve that, typos bug me.

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swah
Hackers, saving lives without moving their asses away from the PC.

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sbierwagen
I hate upvoting stories like these, because the HN comments are always going
to be pure crap, but oh well.

Also, fuck video ads.

~~~
mcantor
Why will the comments be pure crap?

~~~
burgerbrain
I assume he was anticipating anti-military/war discussion.

~~~
mcantor
Well, 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.

