asymetric warfare

On Sun, 21 Dec 2003 11:34:35 -0500, Peter Stickney wrote:
In article ,
ess (phil hunt) writes:
On Thu, 18 Dec 2003 22:17:34 GMT, Derek Lyons wrote:
(phil hunt) wrote:
The issue is the massive
amount of R&D needed to develop the algorithms the programmers will
implement to analyze the output of the sensor.

Do you know anything about programming? If you did, you'd know that
developing algorithms is what programmers do.

Oddly enough - I do. In fact, I've done developmnet work on Image
recognition for about 15 years out of a 25 year career as a Programmer
and Project Manager, much of it for just the purpose you describe.
Derek has far more of an understanding of the problem than you do.

Oh? Do you know him personally? What is his skillset?

--
"It's easier to find people online who openly support the KKK than
people who openly support the RIAA" -- comment on Wikipedia
(Email: , but first subtract 275 and reverse
the last two letters).

On Sun, 21 Dec 2003 19:38:09 GMT, Charles Gray wrote:

On Thu, 18 Dec 2003 20:53:21 GMT, "Kevin Brooks"


4. If the U.S. is gathering to attack, don't get cute hiding WMD's,
or being coy. Unless you can reveal that you have 20 SS-18's bought
war surplus and you can kill 50 major U.S. cities with them, WMD's
have proven to be less than useless.

Here's where I disagree somewhat. Let's compare Iraq and Korea

Iraq: "We don't have any weapons of mass destruction". Which
apparently they didn't, at least nobody's found any.

Korea: "Sure we have weapons of mass destruction. Wanna make
something of it?"

Compare the results. Iraq gets invaded. The US says "We will not be
provoked" to N. Korea.

Now allies may have made a difference, but Iraq had French and German
support, while Korea has Chineese support. So they both did have
allies.

BTW, on diplomatic grounds, I would say that the best response is not
Korea's very belligerent approach. I'm not quite sure how you say
that your nuclear weapons are purely defensive weapons and not
intended as weapons of mass destruction in diplomateese, but that's
basically the approach to take.

It might also be good diplomacy to point out, tactfully, that the US's
nuclear weapons aren't really WMD's either :-).

ess (phil hunt) wrote:

o you know anything about programming? If you did, you'd know that
:developing algorithms is what programmers do.

No, IMPLEMENTING algorithms is what programmers do (and often without
understanding of what they are implementing).

DEVELOPING algorithms is what software and systems engineers do.

And I know a bit about the subject....

--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn

ess (phil hunt) wrote:

:On Fri, 19 Dec 2003 06:17:02 GMT, Kevin Brooks wrote:
:
:"phil hunt" wrote in message
g...
: Even
: LCCM's are fairly high technology, and 'dead reckoning' isn't as easy
: as it sounds.
:
: Why not?
:
:Accumulated error, for one thing; you can't count on GPS for positional
:updates.
:
:Say the error is 1%. Then it'd be 1 km off on a 100 km journey.
:That's close enough for terminal homing to

No, it isn't. Which way is the target and how far is it from where
you actually are? What's the FOV of your sensor. How long can you
hang around and survey looking for your target? Will you even
recognize it when you see it?

I'd also suggest you look at the specs for real IMUs that fit in your
price tag before you start making assumptions about how much error
you're going to get.

:Your LORAN idea fell flatter than a pancake.
:
:No it didn't.

Well, the stations to support it fell flatter than pancakes the minute
you got invaded. Now you have no guidance. Now what?

: So you are now left
:with trying to cobble together an inertial nav system--more weight and
:complexity, more R&D required, and in the end it is not going to give you
:the kind of accuracy you need over the distances you will have to negotiate.
:
:Are you an expert on inertial nav systems? If so, how much
:weight/cost? If not...

I sit in a room with a bunch of GNC types. You don't have a clue.

: and if you start going for IR systems, you've just stopped
: being "cheap".
:
: That's mostly true, IR cameras cost around $5000. Probably it'd be
: best to have plug-in sensors so ther operator could choose to add IR
: when it's necessary for the job.
:
:Now you need a whole new set of target data--more R&D again.
:
:I'm not sure it would be that much more. For the main application of
:spotting moving vehicles you could probably use essentially the same
:software. Also, the shape of objects under IR is the same as under
:visual light.

Not even. There are algorithms for converting from one to the other,
but you have to have those in hand.

: Also, computer's and programs that can pick out
: targets against ground clutter are somewhat more difficult-- note the
: fact that even now the U.S. still prefers laser guided missiles, and I
: don't believe we have any autonomous weapons like this in stock
: (although some are being made ready). The problems are tremendous.
:
: sarcasmWell, obviously, if the USA can't do it, no-one else
: can./sarcasm
:
:The hell with your sarcasm, the fact is that it is a hell of a lot harder
:nut to crack than you seem to comprehend. If you think otherwise, you need
:to go into business for yourself and offer us this wonderful, cheap, easily
:produced autonomous attack system to ther DoD.
:
:My understanding -- and I've heard this from multiple sources -- is
:that in defence procurement it's not how good your product is, it's
:who you know.

And I'd bet none of those sources had contracts, either. Sour grapes
always tells a good story.

: Swarm co-ordination is a software problem. To solve it, you need a
: few clever postgrad students, properly managed.
:
:ROFLOL! Gee, I guess you also consider AI to be something you can acheive
:over next weekend, right?
:
:Er, no, I didn't say that. And in any case, swarm co-ordination is
bviously not AI-complete, as you would know if you knew anything
:about it at all.

It's also very difficult, as you would know if you knew anything about
it at all.

: Your habit of taking every serious problem with
:your pet theory here and writing it off as a "software problem which is easy
:to take care of" is getting a bit monotonous.
:
o you know anything about software? I've been a programmer all my
rofessional life, and I like to think that I do have some
:understanding of the field.

You may know everything there is to know about PROGRAMMING. You're
still clueless as to how hard some of the problems are that you're
just hand waving away.

: The idea that Italy couldn't make a cruise missile is silly IMO.
:
:Sure they could--but they can't make the autonomous uberweapon you have
:posited. Nothing to be ashamed of--right now neither can we. But you can,
:because all of the problems are mere exercises in writing a few lines of new
:code, right?
:
:A few hundred thousand lines, more like.

Keep counting.

--
"Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute."
-- Charles Pinckney

On Sun, 21 Dec 2003 12:42:11 GMT, Fred J. McCall
wrote:

pervect wrote:



Well, if you assume the enemy has magical powers (which is essentially
what you're doing above), then I suppose anything is possible. Just
by the way, even your "black box" replacement above isn't simple.
Examine the replacement of PPS-SM by SAASM, for example.

You know, if you want to keep speculating, you might want to learn a
bit of something about the GPS system before you continue. See
http://gps.losangeles.af.mil/user/pr...curity/hae.htm for a
very brief synopsis on GPS security.

Another poster already pointed me at

http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...nd-gps_faq.pdf

which was much better, IMO.

From my POV, the key point that I missed in my earlier post (the one
you just replied to, there have been a bunch since then) is that GPS
is spread spectrum.

Of course this has spawned yet another argument, where I point out
that if you know what the satellites are supposed to be sending, use
of encryption (rather than spread spectrum) would be unlikely to
provide much security. Other people have suggested that "good codes"
are harder to break than this. I haven't gotten around yet to
pointing out that all you'd have to do given that you would already
have the plaintext because you know what the satellites have to be
sending is to broadcast a signal that would provide a "lookup table".
Then someone else could point out that this would slow the response
time of the GPS system down. Then I could say, yes, but is that
really significant. And the argument could go on for quite some
time....

ess (phil hunt) wrote:

:On Fri, 19 Dec 2003 09:12:47 GMT, Thomas J. Paladino Jr. wrote:
:
:LOL.... now you're talking about *multiple* lauch & storage facilities,
:
:Launch facility = a land rover and trailer

Ok, so now you're trying to coordinate a thousand vehicles.

:storage facility = any building will do

Where they will eventually be found, since you need a big enough door
to get your land rover and trailer through

:for
:potentially 500-1000+ missiles, all cooridinated with each other to hit the
:same small targets *simultaneously*?
:
:co-ordination = radio

In which case we're going to KNOW when you're spooling up to shoot and
you'll be dead before everybody gets rolled out and ready.

:The infrastructure and technology for
:that undertaking would be even more cost prohibitive, but just as futile.
:Even if they were somehow built and tested (extraordinarily unlikely);
:again, what would stop *all* of these facilities from being taken out in the
:first 10 seconds of the war?
:
:Knowing where they are?

You'd be surprised.

id the USA knock out all Iraqu tanks at the start of the 2003 or
:1991 wars? No, it did not, unlike in your worthless comtemptable
:idiot strawman scenario. Did the USA knock out all Serbian tanks in
:the Kosovo war? they didn't in the whole war, let alone the first
:ten minutes.
:
:Face it, this is a bad idea.
:
:Face it, you're an idiot bull****ter.

Now THERE is a telling response. Ok, after that magnificent
exposition of technological prowess, I'm sure we're all convinced now
that your magical $10k cruise missile is perfectly workable and we're
ready to admit defeat.

Don't let the door hit you on the ass on your way out....

--
"Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute."
-- Charles Pinckney

In article ,
pervect wrote:

Here's where I disagree somewhat. Let's compare Iraq and Korea

Iraq: "We don't have any weapons of mass destruction". Which
apparently they didn't, at least nobody's found any.

Korea: "Sure we have weapons of mass destruction. Wanna make
something of it?"

Compare the results. Iraq gets invaded. The US says "We will not be
provoked" to N. Korea.

Now allies may have made a difference, but Iraq had French and German
support, while Korea has Chineese support. So they both did have
allies.

One major difference is that Iraq had no capability to cause any kind of
harm to anybody we like, or even anybody at all outside their own
borders. Even in the first war, (skipping the whole invasion-of-Kuwait
thing...) the best they managed was to toss a few missiles into Saudi
Arabia and Israel.

North Korea, on the other hand, has enough artillery on the border to
completely level Seoul within a few hours, from what I understand. That
alone is enough to stop any plans for an invasion. In a way, it's even
worse than the nuclear problem. Unlike a nuke and its delivery system,
there's no possible way to take out mumble-thousand pieces of artillery
before the deed has been done.

ess (phil hunt) wrote:

:On 19 Dec 2003 15:38:09 GMT, Bertil Jonell wrote:
:In article ,
:phil hunt wrote:
:I've worked as a programmer for
:defense contractors (and for other large organisations), and believe
:me, there is a *lot* of waste and inefficiency. If the software was
:written right, it could probably be done with several orders of
:magnitude more efficiency.
:
: What competing method is there except for Open Source?
:
:Open source -- or rather, using some of the ideas from how OSS
rojects are btypically run -- is certainly useful. Employing the
:best people (the top 10% of programmers are probably 10 times more
roductive than the average, and 100 times more productive than the
:bottom 10%) is important, as is encouraging debate (in a
:non-threatening atmosphere) as to what can be done better.

But selecting those folks out and motivating them to work is much
harder.

:Extreme Programming has some very good ideas, as do other Agile
:techniques.

Many are 'good ideas' only if you don't have to maintain the final
product.

:Collaborative systems for discussing evolving software
rojects -- mailing lists, wikis, etc -- are good.

You think this isn't done?

:Usingn the right
rogramming tools is important, for example the right lasnguasge or
more likely) set of languages. On which lanugages to use, Paul
:Graham's essays on language design, and the way Lisp makes it easy
:for you to in effect write your own specialised language for the job
:in hand, are apposite.

Again, this is wonderful until someone has to enhance or maintain the
result. EVERY effort written in a 'one-off' special purpose language?
Ugh!

:Concentration on software quality involves lack of caring about
ther criteria, so forcing employees to wear strangulation devices,
r unnecessarily attending work at particular hours, are
:counterproductive in themselves as well as being symptomatic of
:wider PHB-ism.

I don't know how to break it do you, but the last time I wore a tie
was around a year ago (I was briefing an O-6 - even so, the tie was a
mistake, which I didn't repeat the last time I went to brief one). I
generally wear polo shirts to work (and pretty much work when I feel
like it - the problems which you find so easy seem to consume an awful
lot of time before they are acceptably solved, so they let me work as
many hours as I want (up to a limit where the company starts worrying
about burn-out)).

Get back to me when someone has obtained a clue for you, won't you?

--
"Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute."
-- Charles Pinckney

ess (phil hunt) wrote:

:On Fri, 19 Dec 2003 13:43:49 -0500, Ray Drouillard wrote:
:
:Also, since it's not encrypted, it can be spoofed using a local
:transmitter
:
:That doesn't logically follow; it's possible to make non-encrypted
:data that can't be faked, you just use a digital signature.

But the 'digital signature' is really just another encryption
algorithm, typically more easily faked or broken than full encryption.

Doh!

--
"Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute."
-- Charles Pinckney

ess (phil hunt) wrote:

:On Fri, 19 Dec 2003 19:05:46 GMT, Derek Lyons wrote:
(phil hunt) wrote:
:
: DR is a non-starter--again, you don't just hurl a few
:missiles in the general direction of the bad guys and say, "Gee, that was
:tough--time for a beer!"
:
:Again, why would DR not work?
:
:Because all navigation system accumulate inaccuracy as time-of-flight
:increases.
:
:Well, that's obvious. it's how quickly it accumulates innaccuracy
:that matters.

And cheap IMUs accumulate them MUCH more quickly.

: Without periodic updates, you are almost ensured of
:failing to hit your target.
:
:Unless you have some other method of terminal guidance.

And you know where you are and where the target is in relation to you
well enough to get your sensor pointed in the right direction so that
the target falls within your FOV. This is difficult to do with a
GPS-precision weapon. Doing it flying pure inertial? BWAAAHAAAHAAA.

--
"Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute."
-- Charles Pinckney