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Registered Member #2431
Joined: Tue Oct 13 2009, 09:47PM
Location: Chico, CA. USA
Posts: 5639
main story :
a quote from the aove sources:
According to a declassified drone incident report cited by the Post, here’s what allegedly went down at a remote drone base in March 2011:
…a Predator parked at the camp started its engine without any human direction, even though the ignition had been turned off and the fuel lines closed. Technicians concluded that a software bug had infected the “brains†of the drone, but never pinpointed the problem. “After that whole starting-itself incident, we were fairly wary of the aircraft and watched it pretty closely,†an unnamed Air Force squadron commander testified to an investigative board, according to a transcript. “Right now, I still think the software is not good.â€
ive been hearing rumors of this for a while, but the way i heard it they actually had to stop it from rolling out (it rolled over the chaulks) as it throttled up, and tried to take off...(while it had weapons on-board) Id rather stick to the facts, but with the pentagon classifying everything thats not easy.
who knows (since the military try to classify everything) how much of the rumors are true. its probably sounds worse than it really was, with the fuel lines closed it probbly was just burning off what was in the fuel line. then you get "woodward and beistien wannbe" tecnical journalists, and our bone headed miltary clasifies non-relevant information to protect idiot contractors' mistakes...
And all these drone makers say they have "safety features" to prevent this from happening. just like Chernobyl, 3-mile island, Fukushima and the Titanic... all had "safety features " to prevent even the possibility of "so-called disasters". great.
the truth of course is that a few hex codes here or there, a single or more registers corrupted, and basically any machine can do anything at anytime. Mostly, corrupt code just cuases normal civiliian equipment to just crap out and not work... but once you add explosive rockets, 30mm rotary cannons, and other weapons, to a fully automated system, and then that system shows autonmous, uncomamnaded start-up, thats getting dangerously close to a hollywood story...
the scary part is, if it can electronically bypass deliberate safety/security features and start, then it can definately do the same for the fire control system, short of a mechanical interlock like those "remove before flight tags." those should be beyoud electrical/computer intervention.
Registered Member #30
Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 10:52AM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 6706
Oh come on, if everyone thought that way, we'd be scared to get into a modern car with its everything-by-wire systems.
It all comes down to probabilities. Old-fashioned cars could go out of control too for purely mechanical reasons. Human fighter pilots dropped bombs on the wrong people now and again. I doubt the new technologies make matters any worse.
Registered Member #96
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:37PM
Location: CI, Earth
Posts: 4061
Rise of the Machines indeed.
Scary stuff, what if they hadn't stopped it? Best case is it would have run out of fuel and crashed, worse case is it might have bombed a "target" and caused a lot of casualties.
Registered Member #242
Joined: Thu Feb 23 2006, 11:37PM
Location: Erie PA
Posts: 210
That's why you never trust software. A proper designed system with hardware interlocks and redundant systems would prevent this. And in toyota's case, a simple thing like limiting the engine to 50% throttle (or whatever the brakes could hold) when the brakes are applied could have saved them some trouble.
Registered Member #65
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 06:43AM
Location:
Posts: 1155
@Patrick Indeed, sanity checks for control loop safety are often overlooked.
@Steve The difference is when a Toyota malfunctions it doesn't kill 9 and wound 14: ..or turn on the observers trying to empty additional rounds from an empty magazine:
@Conundrum In a weird way, mechanization systems already rose via a competitive exclusion principle. Manufacturing and agriculture industries are certainly changing...
Registered Member #30
Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 10:52AM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 6706
Carbon_rod, a batch of faulty Toyotas could easily kill 9 and wound 14. Even a single Toyota could do it if it mounted the sidewalk on a busy street. It probably wouldn't make the news as cars already kill tens of thousands of people every year.
I'm still glad I don't write code for the defence industry though. :/
Registered Member #96
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:37PM
Location: CI, Earth
Posts: 4061
I read something suggesting that the US "lost control" of 50 Minuteman nuclear missiles back in 2010 due to a power failure corrupting the software in one of the control boxes.
In the UK, many people in London were affected by a telecoms blackout Turns out to have been the triple redundant fibre links were routed through a single junction box somewhere along the route to save money, and a single switchbox fire caused by possible rodent damage took down all 3 links.
Registered Member #103
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 08:16PM
Location: Derby, UK
Posts: 845
I was writing some software about 3-4 years ago to control the motors in an electric shunting vehicle. It was a torque control using a PID controller and the current feedback was taken from some LEM hall effect modules.
It worked great when the current sensors were connected, but one day when they were disconnected and I powered it on, the 10 tonne vehicle suddenly took off at full modulation in reverse - towards a load bearing wall - trying desperately to generate zero amps! Luckily the code for 'emergency stop' was working at this point
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