US Military Working On 'Optionally-Manned' Bomber 278
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Soulskill
from the contract-paid-by-skynet dept.
from the contract-paid-by-skynet dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Despite massive budget deficits, the U.S. military is working towards a stealthy and 'optionally-manned' bomber capable of carrying nuclear weapons. The craft is intended to replace the 1960s B-52, 1970s B-1 and 1990s B-2 bombers. The new aircraft is meant to be a big part of the U.S. 'pivot' to the Pacific. With China sporting anti-ship weapons that could sink U.S. carriers from a distance, a new bomber is now a top priority."
Re:No one see's a problem with this? (Score:5, Informative)
First of all, even consumer grade electronics require you to have physical access to the machine to hack it if it's properly set up. Something this expensive is going to have numerous measures to prevent enemies from gaining physical access in the first place, such as self-destruct. This is why the episode of BSG where they didn't want to network the systems together because of the Cylons hacking in remotely is so laughable (it would take a single firewall rule in that case... deny all incoming traffic) - there's consumer grade encryption available that far exceeds the capability of the most advanced military computers to crack within a practical amount of time. You would only be able to hack these things while they're in the air, and as long as you're within range of it. It's not like a server that's available 24/7 in one spot for you to brute force.
Secondly, I would expect military grade equipment to be fail-secure. That is, even if they did gain physical access, it would brick itself rather than allowing someone to make changes. I would really, really hope start of the art military hardware is more secure than a simple PS3. Not saying it can't be done, just saying you sound like the media hyping it up with FUD that doesn't come close to the real world.