Tag Archives: battlefield

Outsmarting hackers

US Cyber Challenge puts UD student on fast track to outwitting hackers

“Cryptography enables you to send secret code and hide information within a network to keep it secure,” Billy Bednar, a University of Delaware senior, told U.S. Sen. Tom Carper during a conference call Wednesday, July 18. 

Carper, who is chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, is working to help safeguard the nation’s cyber space. To accomplish this he will need to rely on today’s leading experts, but also ensure that future cyber sleuths currently in the pipeline have the proper training to meet emerging cyber challenges. (more…)

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Smartphone App Can Track Objects On the Battlefield as Well as On the Sports Field, Says MU Researcher

COLUMBIA, Mo. — University of Missouri researchers have developed new software using smartphones’ GPS and imaging abilities that determine the exact location of distant objects as well as monitor the speed and direction of moving objects. The software could eventually allow smartphone-armed soldiers to target the location of their enemies. On the home front, the software could be used by everyone, including golfers judging distance to the green and biologists documenting the location of a rare animal without disturbing it.

“The great advantage of a smartphone is that it provides so many tools in a single, readily available, relatively inexpensive package,” said Qia Wang, a doctoral student in MU’s College of Engineering who led the development of the software. “For example, on the battlefield, a soldier needs a rangefinder, compass, GPS and other tools to do reconnaissance before calling in an air strike. With our software, the soldier can have all those instruments in one device that can be purchased off the shelf. When that soldier returns from war, she can use the same software to protect her family by clocking a speeder near her children’s school and catching the culprit on video.” (more…)

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Revolutionary Computing: $100 Million DARPA Program to Develop Next Generation of High Performance Computers

Imagine that one of the world’s most powerful high performance computers could be packed into a single rack just 24 inches wide and powered by a fraction of the electricity consumed by comparable current machines.  That would allow an unprecedented amount of computing power to be installed on aircraft, carried onto the battlefield for commanders – and made available to researchers everywhere.

Putting this computing power into a small and energy-efficient package, and making it reliable and easier to program, are among the goals of the new DARPA Ubiquitous High Performance Computing (UHPC) initiative.  Georgia Tech researchers from three different units are supporting key components of this $100 million challenge, which will require development of revolutionary approaches not bound by existing computing paradigms. (more…)

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Cunning Machines: Researchers Give Robots the Capability for Deceptive Behavior

A robot deceives an enemy soldier by creating a false trail and hiding so that it will not be caught. While this sounds like a scene from one of the Terminator movies, it’s actually the scenario of an experiment conducted by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology as part of what is believed to be the first detailed examination of robot deception.

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