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It has finally happened cyberpunks and cyberpunkettes, the military is working on designs for the digital artillery of the future.

The Airforce is beginning work on Cyber Craft, a set of software weapons that have the potential to act as a soldiers eyes and ears, spying on insurgents and infecting everything from power grids to networks to debilitate enemies before raids.

Researchers have some pretty vaunted goals for this tool, take a look at this example.

Current intelligence is about 20-mins old and the squad leader requires updated information. The squad leader finds an electrical outlet and plugs in. This outlet allows access to the power grid of the town and subsequently access to the adversary’s computer network. The squad leader injects a Cyber Craft into the system, whose mission is to locate a) any insurgents or b) locate any hidden military facilities… The Cyber Craft detect[s] some activity at a military installation within 1000-ft of the Marines location. The Cyber Craft performs a ‘recce mission’ to gather intelligence on the insurgents (exact location, number, arms, etc.) and sends back data/information to the marines. However, in the meantime the marines have moved and have located a different means of connecting to the network. The Cyber Craft has ‘sensed’ this shift so readdresses the feedback information to the Marines new location and port. The ‘Cyber Craft’ acquires a positive ID, and sends an alert message back to the marines that the insurgents are about to leave and may be heading their way… The Cyber Craft executes its orders (turns power off, locks the doors), sends back an acknowledgement and self destructs.

There is a laundry list of technical hurdles that need to be surmounted before anything resembling this is possible (including agent self-learning and network penetration technologies), but this has not stopped the government from investing in three companies to continue this research.

The applications are almost limitless, whether that is a good or bad thing only time and hopefully some prudence on the side of the government will tell.

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