http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=technologyNews&storyID=2006184

[Hacker in a box?!? I'm game if it does cool commericals too. :) - WK]

By Greg McCune
January 7, 2003

DETROIT (Reuters) - It looks like a contraption that should be entered
in a monster truck rally -- menacing black with reinforced silver
bumpers, big tires and floodlights mounted on top of the cab.

But it can track down and zap the enemy in so many ways.

At the Detroit auto show, the U.S. Army on Tuesday unveiled a hulky,
prototype "SmarTruck II" -- designed since the September 11, 2001
attacks with President Bush's War on Terrorism definitely in mind.

It will not be rumbling through the desert toward Baghdad any time
soon, but the military is trying to create an all-purpose vehicle that
could make a statement if it suddenly appeared over the sand dune.

"Once this vehicle comes on the scene, we want everyone to know that
we mean business," Germaine Fuller, the director of the project that
created it, told Reuters at a news conference featuring a marching
color guard and a military band playing patriotic songs such as "God
Bless America."

Last year at the Detroit show, the U.S. Army showcased its first
attempt at a high-tech truck, which the military brass now
acknowledges was eye-catching with a pop-up pepper spray dispenser and
surveillance cameras, but hardly ready for the real world.

"It was more a James Bond vehicle, more 'gee whiz' but not designed
for a specific mission," Army General N. Ross Thompson III, chief of
the command that designed the truck, told Reuters.

PRESTO CHANGE-O

SmarTruckII is equipped with all the latest hi-tech bells and whistles
too. This time, however, the designers have tried to create a military
vehicle that can be changed in an hour or so to fight a new enemy with
new weapons in a post-Sept. 11 world.

Built on the modified platform of a Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck
with a 350 horsepower, V-8 engine, the watchword of the SmarTruckII is
flexibility.

Designers created what they call "nodules," based on a stainless steel
box that sits on what would normally be the bed of the truck. The
boxes are swapped on and off the truck depending on the mission.

The idea is for the vehicle to be useful in conventional combat, or be
transformed quickly to detect chemical and biological weapons, or even
help in recovery from a disaster.

Fuller said the boxes can be changed in about an hour, depending on
the situation.

For example, out of the top of one of boxes on the prototype vehicle
popped SPIKE, which the military described as a "fire and forget"
small missile and launcher system that can fire two missiles
simultaneously.

Others boxes housed equipment useful in communications or
surveillance.

BIG BROTHER HOVERING

In another twist, the vehicle can house an unmanned drone-like small
aircraft that can hover over a nearby area and send live video back to
the vehicle.

In the cab of the truck are housed a 3-D mapping system and a
communications system that Fuller described as "hacker in a box." It
includes a computer program linked with surveillance equipment to
monitor what people in the area around the vehicle are saying in
e-mail. SmarTruckII could just sit and listen, send bogus e-mails to
confuse an enemy, or, if it is not amused, kill the enemy
communications system altogether.

The prototype vehicle cost between $500,000 and $1 million, Fuller
said, although she said it is tough to estimate precisely because it
involved partnerships with several firms.

The military said it has no plans to produce the truck any time soon,
although Bran Ferren, a designer of SmarTruckII, said that if an order
came through it could be put in production in a year.

-
ISN is currently hosted by Attrition.org

To unsubscribe email majordomoattrition.org with 'unsubscribe isn'
in the BODY of the mail.

• Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ] [ author ]