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Today's Top News
iPhones in Iraq – The US Army's New Weapon
Applications prove invaluable for soldiers on the battlefield
In Basra's Hayaniyah district, a notorious stronghold of Shia militias, a US army sergeant leading a patrol faced two suspects in the street. Amid rising tension he produced a gadget from his pocket and after a few minutes of its use the matter was amicably resolved. The Iraqis and the Americans went their separate ways.
(flickr photo by Paul J. S.) The equipment being used - described by the US Army as ideal for 21st-century warfare - was an Apple iPod Touch. In a matter of minutes the soldier had established through words and images that the two men were not considered to be serious threats and detaining them was unnecessary.
Apple's iPods and iPhones, symbols of a modern urban lifestyle, are now in use in a very different setting - the front lines of Iraq and Afghanistan. They are, say the US forces, ideal for the age of "network centric warfare", relatively easy to use, safe with secure software, and far cheaper than manufacturing a military version.
The sheer versatility of the kit - with the capability of over 30,000 programmes - allows a huge variety of functions needed for operations ranging from providing language translations to the transmitting of sensitive information and working out trajectories for snipers. Projects are on the way to use them as guidance systems for bomb disposal robots and receivers of aerial footage from unmanned drone aircraft.
The US Marine Corps is funding an application that would allow soldiers to upload photographs of detained suspects, along with written reports, into a biometric database. The software would match faces, in theory making it easier to track suspects after they're released.
Members of the British military who have seen the Apple instruments in action drool about the opportunities on offer. The Ministry of Defence, however, remains wary of security implications and has "no plans" at present to go down the American path.
But Lieutenant Colonel Jim Ross, the director of the US Army's intelligence, electronic warfare and sensors operation, believes the iPod "may be all that the personnel need".
"What gives it added advantage is that a lot of them have their own personal ones so they are familiar with them," he said.
Another plus is the cost. The iPod touch (which soldiers can use over a secure WiFi network) retails for around $230 (£150) and the iPhone for $600. Bulk orders placed by the Pentagon bring further savings. The manufacture of a specific military model would be much more expensive.
Robert Emerson, a security analyst who has advised foreign governments on computerised warfare, said: "The US military has had a reputation for being somewhat heavy handed, with justice. But what they are doing with iPods and iPhones show they can also be nimble on their feet. Other militaries should learn to be equally open minded."
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22 Comments so far
Show AllJammers are so easy to build.......
Security in a "secure wi-fi network" is illusory.
iPhones will never work as a secure information system, and the military know it.
So what's the point of this article? Oh, yeah, more Independent News "news". You will find this item on the page opposite "Madonna gives birth to 3-headed child".
I dont know what is being used, but there is no
TECHNICAL reason that communication using the
iphone could not be made VERY secure.
Philip Zimmermann in 1991 created PGP. To the
best of publicly available information, there is
no known method which will allow a person or group
to break PGP. In 1996, cryptographer Bruce
Schneier characterized an early version as being
"the closest you're likely to get to
military-grade encryption."
The Customs Service started a criminal
investigation of Zimmermann, for allegedly
violating the Arms Export Control Act. The
boundary between permitted ("low strength")
cryptography and impermissible ("high strength")
cryptography placed PGP well on the
too-strong-to-export side. The investigation
lasted three years, but was finally dropped
without filing charges.
You may be familiar with skype or other VOIP
products. There is nothing to prevent high
strength encryption being used as the basis for a
product perhaps called "private conversation".
The block sizes used in audio codecs are normally
small, and unsuitable for high encryption. Larger
blocks are needed for high strength encryption, so
"private conversation" would have to either use
more bandwidth, or it will impose a longer
encoding delay, increasing the communication delay
overall. But basically that amounts to NO MAJOR
PROBLEM either way. In fact, it could potentially
use stronger encryption than PGP.
Such a product would undermine the entire phone
tapping enterprise. That is a HUGE enterprise.
"Private Conversation", therefore, would be
resisted toth and nail. It would most likely be
classed as a WMD, and policed as such. I remember
when the introduction of the GSM network in
Australia was delayed by 6 months because their
CIA (ASIO) did not have their phone tapping
equipment ready to go. That is a demonstration of
how important the government views phone tapping,
and to what lengths the government will go to.
The creation of "private conversatio" would incur
the wrath of the US government. The next Phillip
Zimmerman would most likely be exported for
torture.
Like PGP, it would have to be given out freely,
because there is no way the US government is going
to allow such a product to be marketed. Hence, no
corporation will develop and market such a
product.
But it would be easy to create because
there is no need to hire an expensive
software development team to create this product.
Three students, one with a good knowledge of
cryptology, one with a good knowledge of
networking and another with a knowledge of
software development practices would suffice. Or
else a single person with a solid knowledge of
those things.
The problem is not in the algorithm, but in maintenance of the keys.
This is a problem that the Germans had with their enigma machines in WW2. Private key encryption has that problem. Private key encryption is encryption where both parties must know a secret key. And somehow they key must be delivered from one party to the other for this to work.
But that is a solved problem now. PUBLIC key encryption (e.g. PGP) solves that problem. It works in a different way. The timings of key presses provides random data for the generation of public keys, and their associated private keys.
The way it works is this:- There is a private key associated with each public key. The iphone (and every other device) broadcasts its public key, but never reveals its private key to anything or anyone. Whatever device wishes to send a message to the iphone will encrypt using the public key. It is not possible to decrypt using that public key. You need the private key to decrypt it. And only the iphone knows its private key, and only the iphone can decrypt the message.
So there is no longer an issue with the maintenance of the keys.
The two phrases to google for more info (or tutorials, if your maths is good) are "public key encryption" and "digital certificate".
So they put Darth Vader mask on the phone.
That's appropriate. USers are minions of evil.
I don't think that picture has anything to do with its use in Iraq, it doesn't mention that in the photo credit.
Big Brother the Internet?
Well wowie-zowie, now you can be truly an army of one! With your Ipod-Iphone you can: direct drones, robots, and snipers, and organize and inventory the entire population 18 ways to Sunday.
Bradly fighting vehicles, Abrahms tanks, and icky machine-gun mounted jeeps are so 10 minutes ago! Soon everyone will be assigned an avitar and a wii joystick and we will be totally virtual in our mayhem and murder. Bill Gates and Microsoft must grinding their collective teeth in envy for not having thought of it first!
Poet
OOps! how did that one get by the military/industrial complex, no-bid, guaranteed cost over run, contract system?
So what's the military version of Twitter like?
Ahhh, too bad we can't give the Iraqis and Afghans an IPod each so they could provide virtual victims. Then this whole miserable charade could be played out as a video game, no one would be hurt and people could go about their business with no fear of getting targeted by a drone while eating lunch with their family.
Well, I can dream, can't I?
I wonder how long before they get the regionalised version of "Shake the Baby" and call it "Shake the Iraqi"?
Apple's latest iPhone ad:
Want to know if the guy with the rocket launcher is friend or foe? There’s an app for that. Want to know how many civilians you just bombed? There’s an app for that. Want to know how much tax funds have been wasted paying private contractors rather than regular military? There’s an app for that. Want to keep a steady stream of disinformation going to the mainstream media? There’s an app for that. Want to know how much better quality of life would be if we were supporting green jobs in renewable energy instead of waging a medieval war of resources? There’s -- oh wait.....
When are they going to link them up to space based lasers so a soldier only needs a flick of the click wheel to decide who will die next?
Is there an application for that?
Yeah, it's called Gears of War.
Hammer of God. Awesome.
Irony is wasted on the indoctrinated.
Haha. It was a joke.
D'oh! Sorry, it was me who fell into email comedy vacuum syndrome.
good business for the Chinese.
Time to mine more coltan.
The reporter leaves out an important backstory: there is no such thing as a US high tech industry without Pentagon funding. All the wireless, digital, internet, and nanotech technological advances are developed and perfected through Pentagon funding for the military... THEN the corporate world gets it and charges everyone. That these silly phones are described as being used on the "battlefield" is just a ridiculous distortion of how the high tech industry operates hand-in-glove with the miliatry-industrial complex.
I was checking out some electrical schematics for some professional movie equipment- the manual/schematics being published probably back in the 80's. The odd thing was that every little diode or transistor had some sort of ID number that started with a "MIL-46748" or "DOD-897465". Go Figure.
"amid rising tension he produced a gadget from his pocket and after a few minutes of its use..." still more innocent iraqis were subjected to the god-like mentality of the american military complex.