A long time ago I watched “Aliens” and got to see some pretty interesting portable self-defense systems.

When I played Half-Life 2, I got to virtually deploy a version of those colonial marine robotic weapons systems in the game (“List of Combine combat technology in Half-Life 2” – Link).

As some of you are aware, I’ve been following development of both net-deployed/virtual weapons and semi-autonomous mixed-reality weapons systems for some time on this blog (reLink 1, reLink 2, reLink 3, reLink 4, reLink 5, reLink 6, reLink 7).

And a short while back I came across the vCrib remote-control gun turret for the wired (and somewhat paranoid) homeowner (reLink).

Yesterday I came across the above video.

And since then I’ve come across a report on Wired’s “Danger Room” blog (Link) which really starts to turn movie fiction into reality:

For years and years, the Israeli military has been trying to figure out a way to keep Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip from crossing over into Israel proper. The latest tactic: create a set of “automated kill zones” by networking together remote-controlled machine guns, ground sensors, and drones along the 60-kilometer border.
…
The idea, ultimately, is to have a “closed-loop” system — no human intervention required.

It’s not the first one. Just last November there was an announcement (Link) of similar sentries planned for deployment along the North Korea/South Korea border. This one, however, seems to be further along.

So long as they’re static installations, I figure they’re not all that different from mines. Both are disgusting, but at least you can steer clear of them. But what happens when these things go mobile, as they almost certainly will at some point? Will an “electric fence” be sufficient? Will typical military safeguards be enough? Will a cyber attack disrupt communication at a critical time and lead to the slaughter of innocents?

For all the redundancy the military has, it still makes mistakes. And when the machines operate without human oversight, who’ll catch them before it’s too late? Worse yet, when the human race develops a self-sustaining, rapid on-site weapon manufacturing system that deploys an entirely unique kind of killing device (example – reLink), what do we do when the “Off” switch malfunctions?