Remote Control War

**FJV** · 03 Oct 11,, 19:52

The US routinely jams cell phone activated IEDs that use checksums.

If you can do it to them, they can do it to you.

I will leave it to any readers to make up their mind.

**Chogy** · 04 Oct 11,, 13:58

Originally Posted by FJV

The US routinely jams cell phone activated IEDs that use checksums.

If you can do it to them, they can do it to you.

I will leave it to any readers to make up their mind.

Does the cell phone actively hop at 500 hertz over a huge frequency band in lock-step with a partnered device?

Look, no data or comm system is 100% invulnerable, but modern digital electronics with frequency synthesis, and extremely accurate clocks, have tipped it a bit towards the "unjammable" side. Like armor vs. armor piercing, and stealth vs. AESA radar, the battle swings back and forth as technologies evolve.

**Durian10** · 31 Oct 11,, 19:04

Don't forget about the fact that the General Atomics MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 reaper are widely used by the USAF for Reconnaissance and small scale air support. They both outfitted with AIM-92 Stingers, and AGM114 Hellfire missiles. While the Predator has been outifitted with Griffin air-to-surface missiles and the Reaper with the GBU-12 Paveway II laser guided bombs. We are really not that far from R/C warfare.

**Triple C** · 11 Nov 11,, 03:50

I think you are overestimating the effectiveness of cell phone jammers. Harper's just ran an article on those gadgets and the writer notes that when he was embedded in Afghanistan the best combat engineer he met used a stick tied to a cord for bomb detection. Nothing high tech. Just hand work and eye balls. Digital age people seem to overestimate the capacity of software quite a lot and honestly I think that reflects how overdependent on technology.

**gunnut** · 11 Nov 11,, 18:54

Originally Posted by kato

And i can see the developers of such a system being executed for war crimes, considering that's a direct violation of all Hague and Geneva Conventions ever written.

Forgive my ignorance, but what specificly in the Hague and Geneva Conventions states that autonomous killing machines are illegal?

**gunnut** · 11 Nov 11,, 18:58

Originally Posted by Chogy

The leap to true kill autonomy, though, is going to be a big one and not lightly taken.

Surveillance is palatable by just about everyone, but a robot deciding, on its own, to use lethal force... close, but we're not quite there yet.

Yeah, we have to wait for Skynet to go online.

Anyone remember that episode of Star Trek called "A Taste of Armageddon?"

The 2 warring planets developed a sophisticated and integrated computer network to fight their wars for them. Casualties are simulated and recorded. People are then ordered to disintegration chambers to be "neutralized."

Wars became clean, comfortable, and a fact of life.

**YellowFever** · 11 Nov 11,, 19:12

I said this same thing (also bringing up Star Trek) about four years ago when a similar thread popped up.

War SHOULD be terrible and costly. It's suppossed to be avoided for this very reason.