The Land Warrior System - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

Wandering the information superhighway, he came upon the last refuge of civilization, PoFo, the only forum on the internet ...

Military vehicles, aircraft, ships, guns and other military equipment. Plus any general military discussions that don't belong elsewhere on the board.

Moderator: PoFo The Lounge Mods

User avatar
By Igor Antunov
#13754139
Over reliance on widgets = fail

One need only render the wireless communication system useless.
User avatar
By U184
#13754512
One need only render the wireless communication system useless.
One only need blow it up...one only need reach the machine gun nest...one only need take the bridge.

Some things are easier said than done. ;)
By Wolfman
#13754530
You cann't stop hackers, no matter good you think you are. The problem is that in this case, you don't need to be on the battlefield running face first into gun fire. Makes it a little easier.

My major problem with these systems is that if they go haywire (it'll happen, no system is perfect) the soldier probably has a whole bunch of dead weight attached to him.
User avatar
By U184
#13754535
The system is directed via tele-nav so the hack would need to come from the system control origin or the satellite relay. The other option would be a mag pulse but these days most military grade tech is shielded. This is a particular hard nut to crack.

Wolfman, I hear you. Tech is good but it can not become a crutch.
Last edited by U184 on 12 Jul 2011 02:22, edited 1 time in total.
By Wolfman
#13754543
Considering everything, I wouldn't put it past some countries/organizations/people to hack the system at any level just to fuck with us. Anonymous in particular would probably hack the system just for fun.
User avatar
By U184
#13754547
They would have to be very good, not only is that system the best it has fulltime active programmers to act against intrusion. So whoever try to hack the system has to out hack it AND the other hackers protecting the system.
By Wolfman
#13754551
You realize of course that Anonymous has some of the best hackers on the planet in their ranks, and they do this shit for teh lulz.
User avatar
By U184
#13754553
Yup and anything is possible. Yet if these asswipes can overcome our best active security measures then they all need to be hunted down and killed or hired, forcibly if needed.
User avatar
By Takkon
#13754564
You realize of course that Anonymous has some of the best hackers on the planet in their ranks, and they do this shit for teh lulz.

They took down the CIA homepage which is publicly available for viewing. I doubt they got to its deepnet counterpart that no doubt exists. I wouldn't be too worried about this hacker-mania, to me it seems like much ado about nothing.

Publically available network = security risk. Private network = no security risk with enough security. So in one case the risk is a priori the other it is not.
By Wolfman
#13754586
Anon has done some high profile stuff though. There was a real interview of a woman in Second Life, and a group (which I believe included Anon) did some hilarious stuff with floating dick balloons attacking the interviewee. And the news agency that did the interview claimed that they could counter-hack in real time. They couldn't. Call something unhackable, and hackers will swarm. Anon would do it for teh lulz, as they always do.
User avatar
By Igor Antunov
#13754609
Yup and anything is possible. Yet if these asswipes can overcome our best active security measures then they all need to be hunted down and killed or hired, forcibly if needed.


They're already busy in that regard:

Internet Activist group Anonymous have released information about their latest attack today, in which they posted 90,000 e-mail addresses and passwords of Military personnel.

It marks another leak under the #Antisec movement which seems to be quickly gaining a reputation for mass leaks of information. The question is whether these leaks are of benefit to Anonymous’s goal of protecting Internet freedoms and user privacy or if it is simply putting people at risk for no legitimate reason.

The large database of sensitive military data that was named ‘Military Meltdown Monday’ was quickly released to torrents and mirrors alike, making it extremely difficult for governments to remove the information from the web and public view. The 90,000 login details included personnel from SOCOM, Marine Corps, Homeland Security, State Department staff and US CENTCOM which is just a few of the leaks victims.

Anonymous said “Additionally we found some related datas on different servers we got access to after finding credentials in the Booz Allen System. We added anything which could be interesting. And last but not least we found maps and keys for various other treasure chests buried on the islands of government agencies, federal contractors and shady whitehat companies. This material surely will keep our blackhat friends busy for a while”

http://www.neowin.net/news/anonymous-re ... -personnel
User avatar
By U184
#13754624
Igor that is not an active system, it is a software dominate system. Active systems have live operators monitoring the system who are ready to initiate counter protocols. Such systems include full data swamping, download and denial...in order to hack, your system needs to be open and a bigger better system or operator, can come in and download your whole HD, fry your board, etc.

That is what these hackers do, but they do it to a closed system with set security, not active systems.
User avatar
By Takkon
#13754646
That is what these hackers do, but they do it to a closed system with set security, not active systems.

Spot on. That's the issue there, when security is self-contained there's no intelligence to it, it just makes it so that most things that people could do are not possible. However, if you're letting people access your network there are ways to screw with your system just through that aspect alone, and if you have other ways to interact with outside computers it's even more of a threat.
By Xbow
#13757196
Thermal sights, Low light level TV and the like are all swell but a simple tritium sight is pretty hard to beat for reliability at night. And I wonder what the screw up rate for sending text messages in combat would be? AFAIAC anything that takes a soldiers eyes off the threat isn't a good thing, and imagine a system where a butter bar can decide to put YOUR weapon on safe.

Countermeasures

I think hacking the Land warrior system would be the long way around the problem if it is even practical at all (see Kflint's Posts). I am sure that signals between systems are protected by a variety of encryption methods and frequency hopping. However, a more direct and low tech counter measure to something as absurd as the Land Warrior exists.

Since they are not going to be able encase individual Land warrior systems in Faraday cages a better countermeasure would be artillery, missile or air delivered E-Bombs. More specifically a Flux Compression Generator pumped by a conventional explosive. Such a devise would render a great deal of expensive electronic gizmos inoperative...permanently. These devises have been in use since the 1950's, the technology is known to everyone and weaponized versions have been tested. You could build one in your garage if you had the desire. Basically all you are doing is creating a moving short in a solenoid and transforming the chemical energy of an explosive into magnetic energy.

Explosively Pumped Flux Compression Generator Cut Away View
Principal Of Operation
Electro-magnetic Pulse (EMP) Systems (Nuclear & Non-Nuclear)

Wikipedia wrote:The effect of small e-bombs has proven to be sufficient for certain terrorist or military operations. Examples of such operations include the destruction of certain fragile electronic control systems of the type critical to the operation of many ground vehicles and aircraft.

One could easily imagine that a barrage that included a mixture of High explosive, EMP and Smoke ammunition could disrupt a unit equipped with the Land Warrior system. So in my opinion I think Igor Antunov was absolutely correct when he said,
Over reliance on widgets = fail

One need only render the wireless communication system useless.

On a side note, when Viktor Belenko defected in 1976 and handed over his Mig-25 the inspectors discovered that the machine's electronics were heavily reliant on vacuum tube technology. This was at first considered to be laughable and proof of the inferiority of Russian military technology...until someone figured out that this was intentional. The flight controls, fire control system and all other critical systems of the Mig-25 would be highly resistant to EMP pulses that would roast delicate electronics based on integrated circuits. Digital electronics would die and the Mig-25 would keep on ticking.

Wikipedia wrote:Vacuum tubes are much less susceptible than corresponding solid-state components to the electromagnetic pulse effect of nuclear explosions.This property kept them in use for certain military applications long after more practical and less expensive solid state technology were available for the same applications.
Last edited by Xbow on 16 Jul 2011 00:15, edited 2 times in total.
User avatar
By U184
#13757209
E-Bombs. More specifically a Flux Compression Generator pumped by a conventional explosive. Such a devise would render a great deal of expensive battle field gizmos inoperative
This system and many, if not the majority of battlefield tech is shielded.
By Xbow
#13757351
Kflint wrote:This system and many, if not the majority of battlefield tech is shielded.

I have a great deal of respect for you and your knowledge and expertise in a great many areas. But with that said remind me to tell about the tests of the EMP shielding on the M1A1 tank and a variety of other Vehicles and equipment at YUMA proving grounds that I was a very very SMALL part of in the late 90's. Actually the results are probably still classified so I wont talk about any specific equipment (even though much of the gear tested is now obsolescent). However consider that the upgraded M1A2 now being deployed employs fiber optics instead traditional copper wiring that the M1A1 used. This was done in part as a defense against EMP even though a tank is quite resistant to EMP as it is. The EMP shielding of military equipment is hardly fool proof. Such passive shielding provides some resistance to EMP not immunity. The sad fact is our equipment of today has less resistance to the effects of EMP than our Cold War era equipment.

If you don't mind please point me towards some data that shows that the Land Warrior system and all other pieces military equipment that employ an antenna are now immune to the kind of pulse that can be generated in a small area of space (50m to 100m) by a conventional EMP weapon. Large EPFCG's (Mk 84 bomb size) can generate an energy of 10 TeraWatts or more... an EMP pulse equal to a thousand bolts of lightning in a fraction of a second. The effective devise kill radius radius of such a weapon would be similar to the blast kill footprint of the MK84 bomb of about 200m. That of course is why the Russians,USA, China and a few other countries have all developed or are developing conventional FCG weapons.
Carlo Kopp, a defense analyst from Australia wrote:The FCG is a device capable of producing electrical energies of tens of MegaJoules in tens to hundreds of microseconds of time, in a relatively compact package. With peak power levels of the order of TeraWatts to tens of TeraWatts,

This report speaks mostly to pulses generated by atomic weapons but conventional EMP weapons can generate similar field densities in a small area that can be compared to the casualty radius of conventional high explosive munitions of a similar size. The Commission To Assess The Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack (2004)
Coupling Modes
In assessing how power is coupled into targets, two principal coupling modes are recognised in the literature:

Front Door Coupling occurs typically when power from a electromagnetic weapon is coupled into an antenna associated with radar or communications equipment. The antenna subsystem is designed to couple power in and out of the equipment, and thus provides an efficient path for the power flow from the electromagnetic weapon to enter the equipment and cause damage.

Back Door Coupling occurs when the electromagnetic field from a weapon produces large transient currents (termed spikes, when produced by a low frequency weapon ) or electrical standing waves (when produced by a HPM weapon) on fixed electrical wiring and cables interconnecting equipment, or providing connections to mains power or the telephone network. Equipment connected to exposed cables or wiring will experience either high voltage transient spikes or standing waves which can damage power supplies and communications interfaces if these are not hardened. Moreover, should the transient penetrate into the equipment, damage can be done to other devices inside. This discusses Conventional EMP weapons in particular

The bottom line is that every piece of military or civilian equipment that requires an antenna and is in operation at the time of an attack by an FCG is vulnerable to EMP damage via front door coupling. If a system is available to receive information via the electromagnetic spectrum then it is available to receive a electromagnetic kick in the ass. The antenna can be isolated and send its signals to devise internals via fiber optics after translation but this is an expensive proposition and used only on high value equipment. In general military equipment is more resistant to back door coupling than civilian gear but that is all.

I have no doubt that the land warrior could have been made to be immune to moderate pulses even on the front end if enough cash were to be thrown in that direction. But thankfully for the tax payers and the soldiers the program was cancelled in 2007 even though it was battle tested in Iraq in that same year.


PS. And Kflint, I have a suggestion for something that you might want to pass on to your martial arts students.

It is implausible that the IDF could not or would[…]

Moving on to the next misuse of language that sho[…]

@JohnRawls What if your assumption is wrong??? […]

There is no reason to have a state at all unless w[…]