Pentagon: Our new robot army will be controlled by malware

This article emphasises the importance of developing indigeneous technologies rather than outsource the critical elements.

A US defence department advisory board has warned of the danger that American war robots scheduled for delivery within a decade might be riddled with malicious code. The kill machines will use software largely written overseas, and it is feared that sinister forces might meddle with it in production, thus gaining control of the future mechanoid military.

The most eye-catching of the equipment mentioned is the lineup of the US Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS) programme. FCS was originally supposed to include a wide range of deadly unmanned systems, including a small, possibly rocket-firing flying Dalek, a heavily armed autonomous helicopter gunship, and a robot tank packing guided missiles and cannon. There would also be intelligent sensor minefields, droid-mule transport systems and loads of other stuff; and all of it is supposed to be linked together by a data network. >> More..

Secure Program Coding

It has often be questioned as to whether software developers are doing enough and knowledgable enough to code their applications with security in mind.

This article discusses this issue.

A new certification called the GIAC Secure Software Programmer (GSSP) program, teaches programmers how to write secure code. This can be taught or incorporated in the software curriculum in institutions of higher learning so that software developers can graduate ready with secure software development in mind. >> More ..