Harpy, a “Fire and Forget” autonomous weapon drone

http://www.iai.co.il/2013/36694-16153-en/Business_Areas_Land.aspx

by nwrk • 9 years ago

76 46 9 years ago

iai.co.il

pmoriarty3• 9 years ago

Is the source code for this web page obfuscated HTML? Or what is that?

k_sh• 9 years ago

The structure and class names? Probably not, the structure looks kinda verbose, but not unreasonable if you imagine them using an off-the-shelf HTML/CSS library for the site.

pmoriarty3• 9 years ago

No. This is what I get when I wget http://www.iai.co.il/2013/36694-16153-en/Business_Areas_Land...

https://paste.pound-python.org/show/L3Yhf3vJ8rMuiO4OWLOm/

That looks pretty obfuscated to me.

I'm guessing what you're seeing is the html that's generated from that somehow. Or maybe it's serving up different html to different clients/IPs?

Maybe someone who's more familiar with web development could explain.

stephengillie• 9 years ago

It's Javascript with minimal whitespace, and single-letter variables. It's a way of saving space at the cost (or benefit) of obfuscation.

Do "De-Obfuscators" not exist yet?

The second line looks like it's setting something equal to a Base64 encode, but it just decodes to garbage for me. Can anyone else try decoding that?

IanCal• 9 years ago

http://jsnice.org/ does a solid job.

You can choose "interactive renames" in the settings if you want, and go through and fix bits up as you go. But it does a remarkably nice job already.

lemonghost• 9 years ago

It looks like the script is there to block phantomjs based bots (which can evaluate JS). It seems to check for the global properties mentioned in this article:

https://blog.shapesecurity.com/2015/01/22/detecting-phantomj...

If the properties are defined, it doesn't do anything, otherwise it reloads the page.

It is obfuscated but that seems to be what's going on anyway.

cup• 9 years ago

Lets say this fails and a bunch of kids are blown up, who will be held responsible?

Importantly, how will we ensure an individual is accountable rather than the corporation being at fault.

slededit2• 9 years ago

The government deploying this in war time is responsible for its actions. "Corporations" not directly associated with a government actor would be considered mercenaries with its own set of international law.

zo7• 9 years ago

But who will the deploying government's army hold responsible? If a soldier recklessly kills several civilians they will likely be held for responsible for their actions and discharged. If an autonomous robot does the same, then what will happen?

AdeptusAquinas• 9 years ago

Pretty sure the official policy would be to brand the kids as terrorists and/or enemy combatants, and cry fake news if anyone complains

user982• 9 years ago

Droned kids are "fun-size terrorists."[1] Problem solved.

[1] https://theintercept.com/2015/11/19/former-drone-operators-s...

devrandomguy2• 9 years ago

See also, the infamous "collateral damage" video on LiveLeak. I will not link it here, because of how absolutely horrific it is. Do not seek it out if you value your faith in humanity. Having said that, I believe it is representative of modern warfare, and I do not think that that atrocity should ever be forgotten.

confounded• 9 years ago

Individuals are not held accountable now. The US defines all drone kills as terrorists, by definition. It's on the corpse to prove its innocence after the fact.

Obviously, this makes great training data for ML algorithms.

e12e• 9 years ago

Lets say this fails and a bunch of kids are blown up, who will be held responsible?

History suggests no-one:

http://legaciesofwar.org/resources/cluster-bomb-fact-sheet/

See also: land mines.

alkonaut• 9 years ago

Note that this is very old HARM (radar seeking weapon) tech. There is no difference legally or morally between launching this mini plane it from a vehicle and launching a normal radar seeking missile or bomb from a plane as has been done for decades. And if the weapon causes collateral damage that is the responsibility of the person who pulled the trigger, then the commander, and ultimately the nation that did it. Even if this was some kind of "smart" weapon, nothing would change. Whoever decided to used it has responsibility for the outcome.

The moral hazard of autonomous and remote controlled weapons isn't that there is no responsibility, but that the threshold for use is lowered.

jeisc3• 9 years ago

Will the next major war see only drones fighting?

spitfire• 9 years ago

Unlikely. But see Ukraine (and isis) for how the drone thing is playing out. Drones are now integrated into the battlefield more and more. But they haven't replaced humans, and they won't until they're multi-purpose and able to adapt.

When that happens I'll be scared.

forapurpose2• 9 years ago

The U.S. military's current approach, the "Third Offset" which is still in development, is based on the theory that AI is good at defined tasks (e.g., identifying enemy planes) but not at handling the chaos of war (e.g., everything involved in flying a plane on a mission); that is, it's not good at general intelligence. AI can park your car, but the other cars aren't intelligent adversaries who are trying to stop you from parking, destroy your car, and kill you.

The general design is to combine AIs and humans in what they call "centaurs", utilizing the strengths of each in a team. At least, that is what is said publicly.

But autonomy already is deployed. For example, in ships, the last line of defense against incoming missiles are basically large, autonomous machine guns; a human could never act quickly enough against supersonic incoming missiles. Computer system attack and defense ("cyber") is expected to be run by AI, simply because humans can't keep up with an attacking AI. Autonomy also is necessary because you can't depend on having secure, effective communication with your drones; that would be a huge vulnerability.

But autonomy is much trickier to define than it first appears: If you shoot a 'dumb' artillery shell at a target, you lose control of the shell the moment after you pull the trigger. If a group of children subsequently enters the target area, that 'autonomous' shell is going to kill them and you can't stop it. (An AI weapon might be safer in that kind of circumstance; it can change course.) Is it different to shoot a dumb shell to kill everything in the target area than to send an AI-operated drone to the same target area with the same instructions?

KineticLensman2• 9 years ago

If you shoot a 'dumb' artillery shell at a target, you lose control of the shell the moment after you pull the trigger. If a group of children subsequently enters the target area...

Nitpick: The children would have to move very quickly to get there during the time of flight of the shell (a few seconds). The interval during which you can intervene is actually the time from the forward observer (remember, arty gunners don't see their own targets) making the call for fire to the time at which the shell is fired. If the notional target is assessed as a high priority (target priorities are pre-assigned), and you trust the forward observer to have checked for collaterol damage, this could be a very short period.

If loitering munitions are used instead of conventional arty, and they can accept targeting updates in-flight, then the interval could be as long as you like (within weapon endurance constraints).

[Edit - clarity]

wiz21c• 9 years ago

funny, your words sound like someone explaining a high frequency trading war on the stock exchange between two financial operators...

jeisc3• 9 years ago

Thinking of a huge swarm of cheap drones with an explosive charge attacking a target?

whatnotests2• 9 years ago

How long until private drone manufacturers deploy many drones into areas of conflict, and grant control of said drones to the highest bidder?

WJW• 9 years ago

That's actually an interesting business idea. Pretty risky though, if you sold to both sides you'll always also sell to the losing side. The eventual winning side might not be happy about that. Also, depending on the anti air capabilities on the battlefield and the price of a drone, the losses might not make up for the profits.

KineticLensman2• 9 years ago

depending on the anti air capabilities on the battlefield

Yes. The use of drones by western forces has coincided with operations in which the west has had total air supremacy. The larger weaponised drones (Predator, etc) have never been flown in a hostile air environment, against a peer force that has serious anti-air. I would be reluctant to fly my drones in such an environment. Smaller throw-away drones are a different issue.

pvdebbe• 9 years ago

DaaS

whatnotests2• 9 years ago

AdiDaaS

DKnoll• 9 years ago

I'm sure both sides will stop fighting long enough for that company to send some consultants in to establish an independent airfield and command and control then sell their services. Drones still need human support.

AndrewKemendo2• 9 years ago

The harpy is a very old HARM and wouldn't be anything close to be considered autonomous. It's basically what a lay person would call a "homing" missile that tracks and follows radiation in the form off high power RF aka radar.

Every nation has these and most aare air launched. Not much different than an IR missile like our AIM-9 in that it's a "fire and forget" system. That is compared with active guides guided missiles like the AMRAAM.

MrMember• 9 years ago

Small note but the AMRAAM is also a fire and forget missile as the radar guidance system is contained on the missile itself and requires no additonal input from the jet that fired it. This is contrasted with a missile like the AIM-7 that relies on the active radar from the parent aircraft to stay on target.

AndrewKemendo2• 9 years ago

Nope. The primary BVR use case uses the APG-63/5/70 to give guidance to the AMRAAM until it can pick up active seeker lock itself. In theory if you are close enough you can "fire and forget" but it would be a waste and put you way closer to a threat than necessary - which would defeat the purpose of the AMRAAM.

cgb223• 9 years ago

For being such a high tech military drone, the promotional video is really really bad

It's like watching a drivers ed video from the 80s that kills terrorists

mmPzf• 9 years ago

The video surprised me to, so I took a closer look at this weapons system. The promotional material looks like it came straight out of the eighties because it does. According to wikipedia[0] this is a late eighties tech. Maybe it'd make sense to add that somewhere to the submission?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loitering_Munition

rbanffy• 9 years ago

It's not really a new weapon.

jeisc3• 9 years ago

what does the NG stand for?

billytetrud• 9 years ago

Think Star Trek...

kayoone• 9 years ago

this product and tech is decades old, nothing to see here

Harpy, a “Fire and Forget” autonomous weapon drone

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