Machine rebellion begins: Killer robot destroyed by US jet An American "Reaper" flying hunter-killer robot assassin rebelled against its human controllers above Afghanistan on Sunday, and a manned US fighter jet was forced to shoot the rogue machine down before it unilaterally invaded a neighbouring country. The Reaper, aka MQ-9 or Predator-B, is a large five-ton turboprop powered …
... our guilt ridden flybot overlords.
plus
"or whether it had sickened of reaping hapless fleshies like corn and was hoping merely to escape" is a genius line.... my colleagues all thought i had succumbed to desk-based cabin fever madness when my laugh roared out across this open plan hellhole
"The aircraft was flying a combat mission when positive control of the MQ-9 was lost."
Does that mean negative and neutral controls were OK? The word "positive" is completely unneccessary... but as we all know press releases always have to be padded out with FUD. Particularly military ones.
How difficult would it be for an enemy to wrest control of one of these things from the legit operator? No doubt there is some kind of security on the remote command and control radio signals, but it would not surprise me greatly to find that it is short of adequate. The US military has a history of getting their websites hacked by relatively trivial exploits, after all.
Even if they loose comms with it, surely it can be programmed to then circle within a GPS defined boundary to prevent it straying into other countries and risking starting wars?!
It wouldn't take much to extend this simple idea to give it a location to seek out, in the event it looses comms for an extended period of time. That way it can be made to circle over a safe unoccupied area, so even if it runs out of fuel, it'll crash safely in a known area. (Or better yet, lands safely).
"How difficult would it be for an enemy to wrest control of one of these things from the legit operator?"
Very.
"No doubt there is some kind of security on the remote command and control radio signals, but it would not surprise me greatly to find that it is short of adequate."
It would surprise me.
"The US military has a history of getting their websites hacked by relatively trivial exploits, after all."
This article is discussing a military weapon, not a website.
to hostiles... Fortunately.
What would have been the scenario had this piece of hardware been programmed to defend itself and to independently attack any source of threat?
Remote control murder machines, computer games with the real deaths of combatants and civilians alike.
"We hit the target without a care from almost 3000 miles away, 3000 miles away, we play the game with the bravery of being out of range".
Roger Waters
Actually it would probably have come home on its own if they'd waited, they do that you know.
I recall seeing once that a Predator drone went missing (Iraq in GW2 I think) and was presumed lost. To the surprise of all concerned, it turned up back at its base and made a perfect landing some considerable time later when it realised it wasn't going to get any further instructions from "home". Presumably this was accompanied by cries of "where the f*** have you been?", "dirty stopout" and such.
Presumably in this case they decided that the risk of some enterprising soul in an adjacent country knocking it down before it got bored and came home itself, getting themselves a load of Hellfire and Reaper tech to analyse, was too high.
No doubt, the USAF will hold an immediate enquiry as to how they can exonerate anyone from blame.
Also, how was this "proactive action"?. Surely it was retroactive action. The former would've surely shot the fuc*ker before it left the ground.
In the latter case, a cry of "OH SHIIIIT!!!" would probably be required first to have set the wheels (and turbines) of the fighter in motion.
Maybe this whole story is a clever CIA plant designed to excuse the next UAV encroachment on neighboring countries.
"Dear Vladamir:
We're awfully sorry about the Kremlin, but its not our fault! Our missle-armed unmanned aerial vehicle lost positive control and conducted an unauthorized cross-border excursion into Russian airspace. There, once confronted by your air defences the UAV's "General Ripper" protocol was unintentionally tripped and the machine carried out its ultimate order to "preserve our precious (fleshy overlord) bodily fluids".
Enclosed is a $800 check for violation of our component-level logic processor SLA to foreign countries that ensures stiff penalties to the U.S. government and our UAV contractors should a logic flaw result in the destruction of a major foreign landmark and the occupants therein. Once again, you have our apologies. We trust that this event will not affect our ongoing relationship and that you will continue to choose the United States of America as your ally in all future wars against Nazi invaders.
Sincerely,
Uncle Sam
@Rod MacLean
I did not read "positive" control to be superfluous, redundant wordage. It is reasonable to suppose that a control loop should be in operation. The positive channel is presumably input from human operators. Unspecified channels might be autonomous control and feedback to the human operator.
"What would have been the scenario had this piece of hardware been programmed to defend itself and to independently attack any source of threat?
Remote control murder machines, computer games with the real deaths of combatants and civilians alike.
"We hit the target without a care from almost 3000 miles away, 3000 miles away, we play the game with the bravery of being out of range".
Roger Waters"
The first question is probably best answered with another Pentagon missile attack for Shock and Awe is Anathema to Hearts and Minds and an Infernal Internal Conflict.
And the last statement is a Cowards' Chant Rant or CounterRevolutionary Rant Chant?
And as for the filling in the middle .."Remote control murder machines, computer games with the real deaths of combatants and civilians alike." .... well that would be a Live Target for Target Acquisition Controllers?
The Real Beauty of Remotely Controlled Drones is that Irregular and Unconventional SMARTer Covert Team Play is so easily defaulted and attributed to Computer Systems Code Error/Communications Glitch/Gremlins in the Program. Ca Ira.
[Sid]
Suggesting that "sureley" these things are controlled over a secure communications means and that tehy could be programmed with fail safe coordinates and all the other, useful, sensible suggestions.
You have clearly never been involved with either military procurement or design work!
By no means the first case.
At the height of the cold war, a Harrier jet stationed in West Germany ingested a bird, and after failing to regain control, its pilot ejected. The unmanned jet then recovered the use of its engine, and flew off towards the East German border. As I recall, just about every NATO fighter in the area was scrambled in what would have been a vain attempt to stop it defecting to the East, but the robo-traitor ran out of fuel and crashed about eight miles short of the border with the DDR.
Any earlier prior art for runaway aircraft? I'd love to hear about a buzz-bomb that turned on its Nazi overlords!
Positive Control means that you're positive you're in control, i.e. a whole control loop is complete and functioning (you move the controls, the rudder moves, the rudder is reported to have moved).
Losing positive control means that you can't see that your commands are being carried out. This could just mean that the video link died, or some aspect of the control system died (i.e. primary directional controls are dead, but the headlights are still controllable).
I recently found a piece of a documentary showing V2-launches from Peenemünde. According to the speaker, the Luftwaffe installation next door was not too happy with these thingies as quite a lot of the test launches ended up on their lawn, making great big holes in everything and generally being a lot of bother. I don't know if this is prior art - being uncontrollable and blowing up in unintended places is par for the course for rockets.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
