[Infowarrior] - Pentagon's Lightning Gun Sold for Scraps on eBay

[Richard Forno]

(c/o GP)


http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/08/pentagons-lightning-gun/

There was a time, not all that long ago, when the Pentagon sank tens of
millions of dollars into remote-controlled lightning guns that it hoped
would fry insurgent bombs before they killed any more troops. Now,
disassembled parts from the one-time wonder-weapons are being sold on eBay.
At least one buyer snatched up the gear, hoping to use it in his latest art
project for Burning Man.

All of which would make for a funny little story, if that buyer didn't
discover that the multimillion dollar "Joint  Improvised Explosive Device
Neutralizers," or JINs, were kluged together from third-rate commercial
electronics, and controlled by open Wi-Fi signals. In other words, the
Pentagon didn't just overpay for a flawed weapon. On the off-chance the JIN
ever worked, the insurgents could control it, too.

"This is the hack of all hacks," says Cody Oliver, a freelance technologist
in San Francisco. "And this is what they were selling to the government?
Holy shit."

OK, that story is kind of funny, too. In its own dark way.

It started one day last April, Oliver says. He was brainstorming with
sometime-employer, Elon Musk, about their next project for Burning Man. For
the last three years, Oliver had built for Musk "art cars" - tricked-out
jalopies - in the shape of rocket ships that Musk then drove around the
festival. (Musk is the founder of the rocket-maker SpaceX, among other
firms.) This year, Oliver suggested something different - a
remote-controlled art car. Musk liked the idea. So Oliver started trolling
eBay for robotic control systems.

He figured he'd get something industrial grade, that already had all the
safety and interference issues sorted out. Oliver quickly found a pair of
Omnitech Robotics NGCM1 controllers - the kind of high-end electronics that
ordinarily sold for tens, if not, hundreds of thousands of dollars. Oliver
bought a pair for a thousand bucks. He sent his dad down to a nondescript
warehouse in Tucson, Arizona to pick the stuff up.

Oliver knew there was something different about these controllers almost as
soon as he took them out of the crate. The steering wheel was outfitted with
black buttons labeled "Enable Weapon" and "Weapon On." In the center was a
big red button marked, "STOP!"

Things got more curious when he started poking around the software. There
was no password on the gear that was supposed to be outfitted on the robot,
so he was able to type "root," and get right in. Then he checked out the
operator's equipment, which ran a Java app on Windows XP. He decompiled it,
and found a string in the code: "IONPaysBills=true."

ION was the stock market symbol for Ionatron, the company that managed to
convince Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Defense Secretary during the early years
of the George W. Bush administration, to give the firm $30 million for its
bomb-zappers. Shaped like golf carts, the remote-controlled JINs were
supposed to use short-pulse lasers to carve conductive channels in the air.
Electricity could then be sent down those channels, frying bombs from a safe
distance. A company press release quoted Brig. Gen. Joseph Votel, head of
the Pentagon's Joint IED Defeat Task Force as saying, "The Ionatron system
was just the type of out of the box, new technology solution we're looking
for."

But the JINs never quite lived up to their overheated claims. In early 2006,
the Washington Post recounts, two JINs were flown to Afghanistan. At one
point, "the kill switch failed and the device continued to fire bolts of
electricity. Steep mountain terrain and poor roads also proved difficult;
one JIN rolled downhill and flipped over."

Eventually, the Pentagon soured on the JINs. Ionatron lost most of its cash,
changed its name, and got wrapped up in a series of shareholder lawsuits and
insider trading scandals. A couple of years ago, the broken firm reached out
to Tuscon's Southwest Liquidators, who helped clear the Ionatron warehouse
of its useless inventory of electronics. "We took it all," says Southwest's
Keith Tearne. Then they put it on eBay.

Oliver kept going through the strange gear he had indirectly acquired from
Ionatron. The wireless router that was supposed to be mounted on the robot
was a standard Linksys model, the kind that filled countless homes with
Wi-Fi. There was no encryption, and no password to protect the information.
Anyone could've tapped in. "All the video, all the commands, there were all
in the clear, over standard 802.11 Wi-Fi," Oliver says, his voice rising.

There was one difference, though, between this Linksys router and a standard
one: The tell-tale blue plastic had been removed, and the serial numbers
were carefully shaved off. As if someone didn't want the government to know
that they were using commercial parts.

That was fine by Oliver - he was using the gear for Burning Man, not for
Baghdad. But he figured he ought to e-mail the CEO of Omnitech Robotics,
Ionatron's supplier, to find out what was up - and see if he could get some
configuration files. "I also got a LOL on some of the code statements,"
Oliver wrote. "Guess this should read 'TAXPaysBill = true.'"

The CEO, David Parish, quickly answered back. "Those systems were sold to
Ionatron under NDA [nondisclosure agreement] . If you openly disclose this
type of information and violate NDA or copyrights, you and or Ionatron may
be liable for infringement," he wrote. "Any use of the scrap parts you have
is dangerous, at your own risk, and not authorized or supported by
Omnitech."

"The random comments you noted in some files were software programmers
attempt at humor, nothing more. I do not share their sense of humor, and
take this compromise and potential threat seriously. I suggest you act
responsibly and heed this warning," Parish added.

Oliver eventually dropped the idea of using the Ionatron gear for Burning
Man - and not because of Parish's threat. The gear just seemed too
jury-rigged. Its network detector was a wire connected to the "on" light on
the front of the router.

"I just don't trust it," he says.

The military, on the other hand, continues to have some faith in Ionatron's
technology, investing additional millions into their lightning weapons. The
Marines combined the JIN with a mine-roller, used to crush buried bombs.
Then they hung the whole thing in front of a truck, and called it a
"JOLLER." A May 2009, Marine Corps briefing (.pdf) shows the phallic
contraption shooting electricity into the ground. "Lightening Bolt:
Pricele$$," it reads.

At least, until it goes up for sale on eBay.