The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has demonstrated Plan X, which is a software platform that was created as an interface to be used by hackers from the U.S. military.
DARPA has recently been testing Oculus Rift, a virtual reality headset, as a means to visualize network simulations for both offensive and defensive purposes.
"You're not in a two-dimensional view, so you can look around the data. You look to your left, look to your right, and see different subnets of information," said Frank Pound, DARPA's Plan X program manager, to Wired in an interview.
"With the Oculus you have that immersive environment. It's like you're swimming in the Internet."
DARPA demonstrated a proof-of-concept of the program with a video made by creatives company Frog Design and software simulation company Infific. Users of the Oculus Rift are first given a selection of missions to choose from, with each mission symbolized by a spherical computer network. Once a mission is selected, the user is then given certain actions to carry out, such as doing a network scan or probing for weak points in the network. The user is then catapulted into the network with a host of tools, while the enemy tries to block the user from completing the mission through protective measures.
Military hacking certainly becomes more like a video game while using the Oculus Rift under Plan X. However, this is an advantage as the Pentagon will be hiring young graduates to work for them in this division, and working with a system such as the Oculus Rift would be able to attract these youngbloods.
It will be years before such devices can be perfected and deployed for usage by the U.S. military. DARPA, which had been at the forefront of the development of technologies such as the Internet, GPS and unmanned aircraft, has already been briefed with new planned features of Oculus Rift. Pound says that by the time Oculus Rift is deployed, it may look entirely different from what it looks like today.
"It's DARPA's charter to take these cutting edge technologies and see how they apply to military operations," Pound says. "I can't predict what the Oculus will look like in a few years. But this is DARPA. We'll be ready to take it on."
In April, DARPA announced the formation of the Biological Technologies Office (BTO) division, which will study merging biological systems with electronics and could give the rise to cyborgs. Last February, DARPA formed a partnership with IBM to create electronic devices that are capable of self destruction.
