Army Unveils Menacing Truck at Auto Show

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=technologyNews&storyID=2006184

[Hacker in a box?!? I'm game if it does cool commericals too. :)  - WK]


By Greg McCune
January 7, 2003

DETROIT (Reuters) - It looks like a contraption that should be entered 
in a monster truck rally -- menacing black with reinforced silver 
bumpers, big tires and floodlights mounted on top of the cab.

But it can track down and zap the enemy in so many ways.

At the Detroit auto show, the U.S. Army on Tuesday unveiled a hulky, 
prototype "SmarTruck II" -- designed since the September 11, 2001 
attacks with President Bush's War on Terrorism definitely in mind.

It will not be rumbling through the desert toward Baghdad any time 
soon, but the military is trying to create an all-purpose vehicle that 
could make a statement if it suddenly appeared over the sand dune.

"Once this vehicle comes on the scene, we want everyone to know that 
we mean business," Germaine Fuller, the director of the project that 
created it, told Reuters at a news conference featuring a marching 
color guard and a military band playing patriotic songs such as "God 
Bless America."

Last year at the Detroit show, the U.S. Army showcased its first 
attempt at a high-tech truck, which the military brass now 
acknowledges was eye-catching with a pop-up pepper spray dispenser and 
surveillance cameras, but hardly ready for the real world.

"It was more a James Bond vehicle, more 'gee whiz' but not designed 
for a specific mission," Army General N. Ross Thompson III, chief of 
the command that designed the truck, told Reuters.

PRESTO CHANGE-O

SmarTruckII is equipped with all the latest hi-tech bells and whistles 
too. This time, however, the designers have tried to create a military 
vehicle that can be changed in an hour or so to fight a new enemy with 
new weapons in a post-Sept. 11 world.

Built on the modified platform of a Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck 
with a 350 horsepower, V-8 engine, the watchword of the SmarTruckII is 
flexibility.

Designers created what they call "nodules," based on a stainless steel 
box that sits on what would normally be the bed of the truck. The 
boxes are swapped on and off the truck depending on the mission.

The idea is for the vehicle to be useful in conventional combat, or be 
transformed quickly to detect chemical and biological weapons, or even 
help in recovery from a disaster.

Fuller said the boxes can be changed in about an hour, depending on 
the situation.

For example, out of the top of one of boxes on the prototype vehicle 
popped SPIKE, which the military described as a "fire and forget" 
small missile and launcher system that can fire two missiles 
simultaneously.

Others boxes housed equipment useful in communications or 
surveillance.

BIG BROTHER HOVERING

In another twist, the vehicle can house an unmanned drone-like small 
aircraft that can hover over a nearby area and send live video back to 
the vehicle.

In the cab of the truck are housed a 3-D mapping system and a 
communications system that Fuller described as "hacker in a box." It 
includes a computer program linked with surveillance equipment to 
monitor what people in the area around the vehicle are saying in 
e-mail. SmarTruckII could just sit and listen, send bogus e-mails to 
confuse an enemy, or, if it is not amused, kill the enemy 
communications system altogether.

The prototype vehicle cost between $500,000 and $1 million, Fuller 
said, although she said it is tough to estimate precisely because it 
involved partnerships with several firms.

The military said it has no plans to produce the truck any time soon, 
although Bran Ferren, a designer of SmarTruckII, said that if an order 
came through it could be put in production in a year.



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