DARPA moves ahead with electronic tags for soldiers
By Donald Melanson 
posted July 18th 2008 3:36PM
posted July 18th 2008 3:36PM
It may not be going so far as to chip every soldier with an implant, but it looks like DARPA is now moving ahead with plans to give soldiers a slightly less invasive electronic tag. Apparently, the so-called Individual Force Protection System (or IFPS) will measure about three inches long, and it'll communicate with an array of vehicle-borne and portable receivers, which DARPA says will be able to pick up the tag's signal and pinpoint the soldier's location even in the most electronically-crowded battlefield. That's apparently also all done without GPS, which has the added side benefit of greatly increasing the tag's battery life. Of course, there's no word as to when the tags might actually be deployed, but the system itself is apparently already pretty far along in development, and the agency has now tapped Science Applications International Corporation to bring it to fruition.
I guarantee you the Chinese would have pwn3d this technology long before it was deployed. When we go into the battlefield, we'll see "our" soldiers everywhere, rendering it useless.
The US is so open and lax that all of our biggest enemies have probably infiltrated and compromised most or all of our communication systems already, both present and forthcoming. For example, do you know how many Chinese nationals there are working on sensitive US technology? Russians?
Dumb Iraqi peasants can't do anything. But let us ever face the Chinese, the Russians, or the Israelis, and we're screwed. Our tech is pwn3d.
We deserve it.
Don't worry about the enemy tracking them, it's being designed by SAIC: The battery will die after 15 minutes, requiring a contractor to replace it, who will end up frying the board and leaving before you figure it out. Two years later your tags will be in semi-working condition, and the receiver will only think you're in Guam, instead of Antarctica.
Hopefully this will prevent or reduce "friendly fire" by being able to recognize friend and foe easier.
Doubtful.
The average soldier won't have time to log into an IFF (identifier: friend or foe) Interrogator and discern between an enemy and a friendly while being shot at.
This will, however, be GREAT for tracking captured troops... until the enemy ditches the transmitter halfway to their cave.
The anti-christ takes control!
LA LE LU LE LO
Is this somehow married to each soldier so that the device will only work when being carried or worn by that soldier? I mean, what if the enemy gets a hold of this device and decides to wear a similar US Army or Marine Corp uniform along with this device?
in the near future.......MGS4!
can you respawn from that?
The System is mine!
Enter Liquid Ocelot...
now we only need the other piece. ID weapons for our ID soldiers. Then some Drebins hired by Halliburton to lauder weapons to the local rebel factions. which will jack up the warprice for the region, which means more profits selling weapons and logistical support to the US and its allies. Then the war economy will be complete but we wont have any snake to free us from the system.
Just one more step closer to microchipping...
...ala the TV series The Last Enemy?
It's all about the money. The military industrial complex at work again. For example, the Vietnam war. When FORD sold use the M151 knowing that it was defective. It put 3000 names on the Vietnam wall from roll overs. A profit for a life. Now you have the HUMMVEE that was made out of fiber glass and aluminum, for a combat vehicle what where they thinking?
true that this could be used to our disadvantage, but it could also be used to our advantage. We could use these as decoys. Put them on little RC vehicles and corner the baddies. =)
DARPA moves ahead with electronic tags for soldiers
campers, speed haxers, and friendly firing bastards caught!
Soon every soldier will have a chip on his shoulder ... just what we need.
Stupidest idea ever. I don't even have to read this. There is no way that this could work. Because the enemy will find away to scan soldiers as well.
i think this could backfire as its possible that the enemy could find a way to locate the soldiers http://www.gadget-mania.co.uk
How long before this enters the civilian population? Will we still say land of the free when the man knows where and what we are doing at all times?
This is a huge, huge mistake for the military if they decide to deploy it. Even if it would take, say, five years of high access to the technology in use (the middle east will see this amount of action within about five years) to properly reverse-engineer some REALLY sophisticated comms on some REALLY antiquated equipment, here's the reality:
You take one spread-spectrum tx/rx device
You take one high-bandwidth data recording device (you could probably do this with a bunch of cassette tapes a la TI-4A)
Mash "go" next time the Americans come barreling through.
Now you have a seriously great DoS machine that could, at the very least, confuse the HE** out of anyone unable to physically see the ground conditions.
"Come Back?? We've got friendly ground forces fighting WHERE? ABOVE us?!? We're at 24,000 feet! Over?"