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Meshnet Digital Armor To Protect Tanks
Posted by
Zonk
on Tue Nov 13, 2007 09:22 AM
from the web-facing-armor-plating dept.
from the web-facing-armor-plating dept.
An anonymous reader writes "General Dynamics Canada and Secure Computing have partnered to develop Meshnet, a hardware/software firewall designed to protect networks and digital devices inside tanks and other military vehicles from hostile computer and virus attacks. Without adequate protection a tech savvy enemy can infiltrate networks, manipulate information, and deny crews the data they need to participate in modern warfare. Exactly such an event happened last year to an Israeli crew, when hackers from Hezbollah eavesdropped on their communications. 'The system uses Secure Computing's off-the-shelf Sidewinder Security Appliance ... Sidewinder consolidates all major Internet security functions into a single system, providing "best-of-breed" antivirus and spyware network protection "against all types of threats, both known and unknown," according to Secure Computing.'"
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Submission: Meshnet Digital armor to protect tanks by Anonymous Coward
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Why? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Why? (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
If you want a chuckle, go to Google and type "French military victories" and click on the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button...
Umm? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
Sanity check: (Score:5, Insightful)
This unsubstantiated BS as a justification for an obvious product placement requires more scrutiny. I don't doubt that there IS a chance that some enemy force could have the capability to "hack" a tank, but the "Exactly such an event happened last year to an Israeli crew" needs some evidence.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No you think "great, it'll be hard to evesdrop on my conversation, I'm running SSH, it's encrypted!"
So, now some hacker comes along and wants to observe me. He *could* go after my SSH traffic, and try to decode it, but look! I'm not running a firewall or intrusion detection software. He figures (correctly in most cases), it
You still haven't said how he would do that. (Score:2)
HOW does he do that?
Does he send you an email with an attachment named "nude girl.jpg.exe" that you open?
Does he send you an HTML email that exploits a vulnerability in Outlooks/IE?
Does he use a worm to attack the v
Re: (Score:2)
The best answer that can be given without more information is simply - they try stuff until they get some indication of the quality of the user, and the OS. At which point, they pick their method and target.
The firewall can make this a
Yeah, you go with that. (Score:3, Insightful)
No, there are not. There are very few avenues to crack any system.
#1. Attack the daemon listening on an open port.
#2. Trojans.
#3. Exploiting a vulnerability in an app when fed specific data (IE is a good example).
#4. Viruses that attach themselves to other apps.
How about making that #7? (Score:3, Interesting)
http://docs.lucidinteractive.ca/index.php/Cracking_WEP_and_WPA_Wireless_Networks [lucidinteractive.ca]
And as you've noted, a firewall would NOT be much help.
Particularly, as noted in the article, and "off the shelf" firewall.
Re: (Score:2)
The article that is being referred to doesn't provide a working link to the alledged hacking story.
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Re:Sanity check: (Score:5, Informative)
There was no great security hack, just monitoring and DF'ing the encrypted radio traffic. I don't need to know what is actually said. If I can track the enemies location by simple DF'ing of their communications, I can quickly locate them and then track their movements. And when that indicates that a large number of radio's are moving up the valley towards my position, I know to be ready to attack, defend or run.
Parent
Don't want to imagine (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The solution the US military will come up with: Spend trillions setting up a super intelligent AI that can defeat hackers on the fly and control all military weapons on it's own to spare ever needing to send real troops into battle again... it will be named Skynet...
Re: (Score:2)
It will be funny the day all the Predators fail to come in for landing and the guys in Nevada are left staring at a marijuana leaf on their screens...
They will need to study hard though. (Score:2)
Did I really understood TFR? (Score:2)
This reminds me (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
I was thinking of Keith Laumer's "Bolo" stories actually... how long till we have a completely self-aware tank?
Buzzword threshold exceeded (Score:2)
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Isn't that when 8 track tapes of bad 70's bands rain down from the sky?
Hey, it runs BSD! (Score:2)
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They won't say which BSD, but who wants to bet OpenBSD or at least parts of OpenBSD have found their way into it?
One would think you would choose a stable, high uptime secure OS in a tank as it's fundamentally a good idea. Makes me wonder why it already isn't intrinsically firewalled. I wonder if some idiot put Windows inside the tank? I can hear it now:
Gunner: Can't fire yet, waiting for the A/V to finish scanning...
Boom, silence after. It crashed thinking the shell was in mid flight when it restar
Skynet (Score:2, Funny)
Technology Worth It? (Score:2)
In fact, the entire war was characterized by the overall failure of modern military technology, gadgets and intelligence to defeat an enemy essentially using little more than AK-47s, mortars, and sandbags. The entire Israeli army could do little more than advance ~2km into Lebannon. It's clear that military reliance on technological silver bullets is no match for simple numerical sup
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AFAIK Israel doesn't really want Lebanon or other countries, they want Israel. Judging from the UN Security Council "vetoes" and other similar stuff they've already got the USA by the balls.
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Good post and I essentially agree with you, however this is a bad example. The Russians threw countless bodies in front of the German advan
Well no, not really (Score:5, Interesting)
That conflict showed the failure of an army fighting by the rules, against an enemy that did not, and never has.
If Israel could have used the full force of its military without the world breathing down its neck, hezbollah would have been so much smoking corpses.
What this shows you is that most advanced tank cannot deal with a meat shield if there is a camera crew near. Hezbollah has become very good at using this kind of war, they had to, the more recent lebanese actions have shown they suck at military conflict. Note that lebanon could just blow the hell out of hezbollah bases and civilian casualties be damned. Suddenly the world realises that just because a shot up corpse is dressed in civil garb, does not make it a civilian.
In fact the military conflics around Israel have shown just how bloody effective modern equipment is, outnumbered in every way, Israel nonetheless manages to hold out, because they use tech to the max.
You are also wrong about the soviets, the russians were actually the one with the better gear against the germans. It just took a while for it all to come together, but it was the germans that copied soviet tech, not the other way around. The turn around came when russia learned to use the tech advantage it had and properly equip its soldiers with it. Early in the war, it had excellent tanks, but often without radios, or it had motivated troops, who lacked guns. Once that was sorted out, the germans never won a single battle against the russians. Superior tech.
Offcourse, you got to use it properly.
Iraq again shows you just how lethal tech is over numbers. The iraq army was many times greater and was wiped out.
The current conflict has nothing to do with the lack of manpower or reliance on tech. You cannot occupy a country that doesn't want to be occupied unless you are capable of dealing out massive amounts of punishment Roman style. Storm the city, kill everyone inside, tear down the buildings, plow up the ground and sow it with salt, so that you can then point to the desolate area and say, "this is what we do with those who oppose us, any questions?"
In a way, Hezbollah uses very modern weapons, western media, to fight the war. No use of radio? How do you think the images of bloodshed, real and staged made its way to the west? Pigeons?
One final note. You state that Israel only managed to advance X miles. How many miles did Hezbollah advance? Okay, yards then. Feet? Inches? So much for low tech then. Hezbollah has never once manage to threaten Israels survival. It is one of the reasons Lebanon is so fed up with them and finally took action against them and this time, the world media didn't care.
Parent
And those protected devices now slow to a crawl... (Score:4, Funny)
BOOM...
In reality... (Score:2, Funny)
"The A-176 tank scope operator was panning to the North to acquire the target in question when a pop-up add appeared in the view finder alerting him of a fantastic deal on Viagra. Later alerts included free porn and offers to download virus scanning software"...
Nice ad (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
More seriously, this is at least a somewhat interesting post.
Single Point of Failure (Score:2, Insightful)
Missing the obvious (Score:3, Funny)
What is their "antivirus" protecting against? (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, what's the threat? "This was reportedly the case during Israel's incursion into South Lebanon last year, where Hezbollah hackers were allegedly able to monitor IDF communications, giving the guerrillas a leg up in attacking Israeli armor." sounds like ordinary signals intelligence. You don't fight that with firewalls and antivirus software, you fight it with encryption and electronic countermeasures like dummy sources to fight tracking and traffic analysis.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Really?
Yeh, I know a lot of people who were working on mil-spec stuff back in the '80s and earlier, and their battlefield and avionic firmware was using languages and systems developed specifically for military use. Some of them were even dismissive of ADA. I think using C++ would have started a rebellion.
I seem to recall a battleship that got stalled a few years back
Yeh, an experimental one. After that fiasco, the
MS has a version (Score:2)
Sorry folks, we're not that Sci-Fi yet (Score:2)
Sure the commander is getting info electronically. But it's not like the computer that stabilizes the gun and sight is connected to the network. Nor is the turret traversing mechanism. The article at best glosses over the systems that are networked, and at worse is FUD. From TFS it sounds like there's imminent danger that Al Queda is go
Crap! It's updating! (Score:2)
"We're taking small arms fire, possible RPG position sighted!"
"Ballistics are non-responsive! The whole thing is locked up! Possible enemy infiltration of system... wait, no, it's installing new DATs. 28% complete... 29%... RPG fire! Cover!"
The 800 LB gorilla in the room... (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
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It apparently does run Linux!
No, It doesn't. According to the PDF in the article:
Re:It runs on snake oil. (Score:2)
"The system uses Secure Computing's..... " makes it sound secure.
"off-the-shelf.... " makes it sound 'cost effective'
"...Sidewinder Security Appliance..." makes it sound like a cool offensive weapon
".... consolidates all major Internet security functions into a single system" makes it sound like they
Re: (Score:2)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1_Abrams#Aiming [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The sorry state of affairs today in that our boys on the field rely TOO MUCH on TECHNOLOGY is reflected in what happens when that technology FAILS. People DIE.
a) Technology can give you a huge advantage over The Enemy(tm). Which is why the US led coalition was able to dominate in Desert Storm.
b) Because technology acts as a "force multiplier," meaning you can do a lot more with less people/tanks/planes/etc.. Without high technology we would need many more real live people in the military. So you
Re:id4-type attack? (Score:4, Funny)
You are confusing logic with sales. The point of this excercise is to sell a bunch $50,000 anti-alien-mind-control-ray tin foil hats. "100% Guaranteed and Tested! No Space Aliens have ever penetrated our ReflectoBeanie! Its a real bargain!"
Never you mind that practicality of manipulating takns into shooting each other or their own troops is beyond ridiculous from the perspective of logistics on the battlefield and return on investment for the attacker who would have to be just in the right place in the right time with a complete understanding of the internal workings of the enemy's command and control systems and procedures, relative tank positions and in respect to their true targets and also to be able to plausibly override voice communications when one tank commander goes on his radio to ask "Sir, why are we prorized to shoot a target 90 degrees from the direction towards the enemy positions?".
But thats Military Industrial complex for ya. Next up, $500 military-grade anti-vampire garlic patches.
Parent