In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Hadron Quark
<hadronquark@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote
on Tue, 29 Aug 2006 03:40:49 +0200
<87irkc1fq6.fsf@xxxxxxxx>:
> Tim Smith <reply-in-group@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
>
>> Where do you get development costs are reduced 98% from that article?
>> The article didn't even talk about development costs.
>
> He used up the rest of the "may"s in the main cut out. None left for the
> ridiculous subject claims .
>
> ps 500 is 1/76th of 38000.
>
> And the day that a product's cost is directly linked to the development
> costs for something hi-tech that's being sold to the military is the day
> that Roy moves to Windows ME for his posting work.
>
It matters little. The *acquisition* costs for such things
as Visual Studio might be an issue here (though I doubt
it costs 38 grand), but the *development* costs appear to
be roughly equal, unless I'm missing something such as a
freeware SDR solution in SourceForge.
Since SDR = "Software Defined Radio" but also "Special
Drawing Rights" and "Subcommittee on Disaster Reduction",
according to Google, there are some interesting issues
here. The best I can do is point at things such as
RealAudio, which allow for streaming of digitized audio.
I'll admit I don't know for sure, but in any event
an *analog* radio is necessary prior to *digital*
radio being a factor (for example, an inverter is an
overdriven amplifier). While the responses to such things
as jamming, dropped aluminum chaff [*], and lightning might
be different (even in analog radio one has AM versus FM
during thunderstorms, or with two stations deciding to
fight one another in marginal reception areas), the basic
principles are nearly identical at the carrier level.
So what does Wifi do, really? It's basically Yet Another
Analog Transmission Media With Digital Layered On Top
Of It. I'd have to look at the details at this point
but everyone should be at least knowledgeable about such
things as dropped phone calls and crosstalk. Wifi might
have better defenses against crosstalk but I don't see
why it couldn't drop the connection real easy -- and one
will then have a slightly (or maybe very!!) confused field
commander if things don't get sorted out *very* quickly.
"Hello! HELLO! Officer Schultz, we have a situation here!
They're about to drop the Big ... Hello? HELLO!!!!
Oh shit...duck and cover, but it won't help, men..."
(Yes, of course this is overdramatized. But the military
isn't John Q. Salesman traveling in his private car trying
to soothe a recalcitrant customer. Recalcitrant customers
don't have nuclear-tipped Armageddon-seeking missiles...)
And how does the military validate this unit? I doubt they
can do it in a day -- and $500 is about what one would have
to pay a squad just to play with the radio, never mind the
extra stuff such as hiring a plane and manufacturing the chaff.
Then again, chaff's just strips of thin aluminum foil; I could
probably make the stuff from a common shredder and store-bought
food wrap. (It might not be as good as the military's but I'm
old enough to remember the $6,000 coffee pots. Not that I have
anything to deliver it in, mind you.)
File *this* under propaganda. It's a pity; it should
deserve better. But until more data is available, how am
I to tell?
[*] AFAIK, chaff is typically used to confuse radar-guiding
missiles but I for one could see it being dropped near a
digital broadcast tower, scattering the signal to kingdom
come and maybe overloading the tower in the process
because of the reflectance. I could also see the chaff
being dropped over the general area of the invading unit
-- although I'll admit I don't know which would be more
effective, the chaff or a nice big daisycutter. It might
depend on the situation.
A variant of chaff -- carbon fibers -- was also used to
short out power lines. Unless the communications towers
have their own generators this knocks out *digital*
radio communications very quick, in the commercial sector.
I don't know if military communications would be any better
off or not, but there is the little problem of where an
invading general force puts a signal distribution tower
for the radio waves to reach the Wifi/Bluetooth/etc. units.
And then there's the Predator -- or the enemy variant thereof.
Seems to me that stray leakage from the Wifi wouldn't be that
hard to pick up. Uh, hello, radio target line 2...and while
you're at it can you pick up that new Beyonce single? Thanks.
--
#191, ewill3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Windows Vista. Because it's time to refresh your hardware. Trust us.
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