Cyborg Bugs to Engage in Warentless Eavesdropping

[reggievandam]

Cyborg Bugs to Engage in Warentless Eavesdropping

Category: insect

http://scienceblogs.com/zooillogix/Robo%20Moth.jpg

Big Mothra is watching...:eek:

Darpa is funding four research groups at various universities for a four-phased development/deployment strategy. The third phase is the demonstration of a remote-controlled, "tethered" insect and then positioning the insect within 5 meters of a target from 100 meters away. The fourth phase...

...as stated in this article in the EE Times includes "breeding insect battalions." We suggest a fifth phase in the program: Drop to your knees and accept Jesus Christ, Allah, Jaweh, or Bringham Young as your lord and savior, ASAP! Remember, you only get one, so choose wisely.

http://scienceblogs.com/zooillogix/Robo%20Roach.jpg
:eek:


"What? That? Oh that's just a new hat I bought. Now go on, you were saying that America is the great Satan...."

The universities are focusing on moths and horned beetles as their subjects.

Says Peter Eckersley, a staff technologist at the Electronics Frontier Foundation, a non-robotic, watch-dog group, "Anyone who is just a little bit creative can imagine both useful and non-productive applications of remote-controlled animals--especially if ordinary people will mistake them for normal animals." Just reading that sentence we came up with 10 non-productive applications of a cyborg animal...this guy ain't kidding!

The cyborg insects or as we have decided to call them, "robugs," will most likely be used initially for surveillance, intelligence gathering, secret-meeting listening, sniffing air for chemicals and tracking targets. Their further uses, however, are truly intriguing.

http://scienceblogs.com/zooillogix/Robo%20Cop.jpg

The President and CEO of Darpa in front of one of his first projects (early 1990's)

Thomas Easton, the author of Sparrowhawk, a book at accurately predicted the use of cyborg animals, postulates (also quoted in the EE Times article), "Moths are extraordinarily sensitive to sex attractants, so instead of giving bank robbers money treated with dye, they could use sex attractants instead...then, a moth-based HI-MEMS could find the robber by following the scent."

How do you spot the bank robber of the future? He's the guy at the bus stop who's being humped by 175 moths. Case closed!

http://scienceblogs.com/zooillogix/2007/10/cyborg_bugs_to_engage_in_waren.php

[reggievandam]

Are robotic dragonflies the government's newest surveillance technique?

http://blogs.spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/Robert%20Wood%203%20cm%20wingspan%20micro%20aerial %20vehicle.png

An article in today's WaPo discusses some odd dragonflies seen in New York City recently, which some of the witnesses say look "large for dragonflies" and suspiciously mechanical. Speculation is that they're robotic bugs spying for the US government -- of course, there's other speculation that they're just plain dragonflies, too. Don't be misled by the photo in the article (reproduced here); that's a picture from a lab at Harvard.

But after all the apparent warnings for the tinfoil hat brigade, the article does a nice of highlighting some of the ongoing research into robotic insects. Here's an interesting bit:

In one approach, researchers funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) are inserting computer chips into moth pupae -- the intermediate stage between a caterpillar and a flying adult -- and hatching them into healthy "cyborg moths."
The Hybrid Insect Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems project aims to create literal shutterbugs -- camera-toting insects whose nerves have grown into their internal silicon chip so that wranglers can control their activities. DARPA researchers are also raising cyborg beetles with power for various instruments to be generated by their muscles.

"You might recall that Gandalf the friendly wizard in the recent classic 'Lord of the Rings' used a moth to call in air support," DARPA program manager Amit Lal said at a symposium in August. Today, he said, "this science fiction vision is within the realm of reality."



http://blogs.spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/dragonfly.jpg:confused:


http://blogs.spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/2007/10/09/are_robotic_dragonflies_the_go.html

[reggievandam]

Snake robot to the rescue!

(I don't know if this'll be used for surveillance, but odds are it will be!);)

http://blogs.spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/omnitread%20serpentine%20robot%20snake.jpg

From Automaton correspondent Sally Adee:

New Scientist's blog has an interview with Johann Borenstein, the father of
the OmniTread serpentine robot. Borenstein thinks this could be a new way to find people in collapsed buildings or otherwise disaster areas. The snake configuration lets the robot slither through small holes as well as get over tall obstacles and across extreme terrain. Controlling one, however, requires more than a flute and a basket.


"We currently need three operators," Borenstein told New Scientist. "Each operator controls two joints of our six-joint OmniTread. Typically all joints need to be controlled at all times."

OmniTread, Johann Borenstein, Snake Robot, UMich

http://blogs.spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/2007/10/17/snake_robot_to_the_rescue.html