DARPA Funds a $300 Software-Defined Radio For Hackers 94
Sparrowvsrevolution writes with this story from Forbes: "Over the weekend at the ToorCon hacker conference in San Diego, Michael Ossmann of Great Scott Gadgets revealed a beta version of the HackRF Jawbreaker, the latest model of the wireless Swiss-army knife tools known as 'software-defined radios.' Like any software-defined radio, the HackRF can shift between different frequencies as easily as a computer switches between applications–It can both read and transmit signals from 100 megahertz to 6 gigahertz, intercepting or reproducing frequencies used by everything from FM radios to police communications to garage door openers to WiFi and GSM to next-generation air traffic control system messages. At Ossmann's target price of $300, the versatile, open-source devices would cost less than half as much as currently existing software-defined radios with the same capabilities. And to fund the beta testing phase of HackRF, the Department of Defense research arm known as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) pitched in $200,000 last February as part of its Cyber Fast Track program."
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know why DARPA would necessarily feel the need to contribute to work in an area that is already receiving attention(The guys at Ettus will sell you a competent little package for under $2k, sometimes rather far under, depending on the frequency ranges you want, which is hardly free; but isn't exactly "If you have to ask, you may be in the wrong store." money); but I'd imagine that whatever sub-unit of DARPA made the decision is the sub-unit where people who realize that 'obscurity' ain't gonna cut it as a security strategy in the future hang out.
While, yes, the US Intelligence Community certainly wet-dreams about a world of full spectrum dominance and Total Information Awareness, anyone who hasn't fully removed themselves from empiricism has to admit that that isn't really on the table. Especially for assorted hacker shenanigans, there are just too many parties who can drum up enough nerds to at least go after soft targets.
In such an environment, the US(as a country deeply dependent on complex electronic infrastructure) is probably better off if friendly security researchers have cheap toys to work with, at the risk that enemy ones will as well, rather than a situation where friendly security researchers find that the tools they need are expensive or illicit; but anybody doing work for even fairly cruddy little nation-states has what they need to pump out the zero-days.