MIT and the DARPA Network Challenge 68
mit_team writes "As you might have heard, DARPA has announced a network challenge in the vein of the DARPA Grand Challenge. In this challenge, participants are tasked with finding 10 red weather balloons distributed throughout the continental US for 8 hours on December 5. The idea is to get this to be a crowd-sourcing kind of activity, where people will use social media tools to solve this problem. Our group, the MIT Red Balloon Challenge Team, based out of the MIT Media Lab, has created a system where you get money not just for finding balloons, but for getting people to join the hunt who find the balloons, or for getting people who get people who find balloons, etc. First you have to sign up. Then you can send invitations to others to join through your own unique URL, crediting you with recruiting them. While our team is interested in winning the contest, we are also interested in studying information diffusion in social networks. Does Twitter spread information faster than blogs? Is your blog effective at spreading information? We could use your help in getting out the word. If you sign up and blog about us you will be able to see the impact that your blog has on getting out the word in real time. Win money, help science, and help charity! Kind regards, The MIT Red Balloon Challenge Team."
Sounds like (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Precisely what it is, except with a brand that is likely to be more trusted to many of us.
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How about (Score:2, Funny)
By sending this message out to as many people as possible, Microsoft will pay you...
Re: (Score:1, Offtopic)
3rd post! weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
What time zone are you in? If you're in the States - East Coast, well, starting the party early?
England, it's what, 11:13PM now? And you're pretty piss drunk about now.
Now, if you're on the West coast, it's 3:14PM - off work early?
If you're in the Midwest, I'd be pretty drunk too at this time every day.
Over in Hawaii, dude, having a hell of a lunch are we?
Japan. Ah, drunkedsan! An eye opener for your Saturday before you go into work?
China - what, the government has put a gun to your head and you have to dr
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"Read This Notice" (Score:5, Funny)
Dear esteemed Sir and Madam.
The University of MIT has lost its Identified Flying Baloons(IFB). We need you to locate them for us.
Join this work from home opportunity and you can earn part of $40,000 from your one bedroom apartment! *
If you don't forward this to 100 of your next best friends you will lose out on your chance to have a big enough Multi Level Network to get the reward!
Tetimonial:
"Once that happens, we send Dave $2000 for finding the balloon. Carol gets $1000 for inviting Dave, Bob gets $500 for inviting Carol, and Alice gets $250 for inviting Bob. The remaining $250 is donated to charity."
*(Chances not representative of all entrants. Some terms and conditions apply. See site for details.)
Re: (Score:2)
I really like this triangular based scheme they've got going there. Everyone knows triangles are the sturdiest shape, so this is a good basis for the transfer of money. These techies should let some investment types in on their cool ideas.
Also, let's say I sign up directly from MIT and find one balloon, I get $2,000. Awesome, go me. MIT is out $2,000 for that balloon. If my friend Fred had referred me, I get my $2,000 and Fred gets $1,000. Now MIT is out
ponzi? (Score:3, Funny)
Maybe you could get Bernie Madoff to help.
Re:ponzi? (Score:4, Informative)
Not every MLM scheme is a ponzi scheme. They do lend themselves to shadiness, but there are some distinctions (which is why Amway, or whatever they call themselves these days, doesn't get prosecuted into oblivion).
The major distinction is, the flow of money is linked to production of something that serves a goal outside the system. In Amway's case, that would be a sale; in this case, it would be knowledge of the location of a balloon.
missing boy? (Score:3, Funny)
'Scuse the Nasty, Paranoid Mind (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, these charming folks would never dream of using the project to map out, in a loose but enlightening way, the contacts of some of the more net-savvy people around. And keeping that info for future reference, of course.
Vonnegut would loved it.
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They could just check Facebook (I don't mean everybody on Facebook, I mean they could set some net-savvy roots and work from there).
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
The more net-savvy people around don't use twitter or facebook, etc.
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Depends. I know several people who could easily be called "net-savvy" who use Facebook to keep in touch with family/friends. And when I say "net-savvy" I'm not talking about people who know how to use Google or Wikipedia to find information, I'm talking about people who administer servers/networks, and participate in "grey hat" operations involving the security of other servers. Contrary to popular stereotypes, most of the sysadmins and peo
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So we can identify them by exclusion!
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So we can identify them by exclusion! ...
Well played sir!
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No, but they might try to use what they learn to figure out the best strategy for finding something else... or someone else... they'd like to find. *Cough* Osama bin Laden, et. al. *Cough*
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> ...these charming folks would never dream of using the project to map out,
> in a loose but enlightening way, the contacts of some of the more net-savvy
> people around.
It's all part of the plan these evil geniuses hatched forty years ago when they invented the Internet.
This sounds way to much like Amway! (Score:3, Funny)
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Well now... (Score:4, Interesting)
Last time I have encountered such an URL sharing spree was no earlier than a week ago, due to a stupid site that promised that people would win whatever items if they get a certain number of clicks on an unique generated URL, just like it's the case here. All I can say is that I had to sign out from all my IM accounts because of that, and after things cooled down and I started my Yahoo messenger again, it froze due to the sheer amount of offline messages. Turned out that some people sent their bloody link over 1000 times via mass messages. So it's not funny at all, because people all get heated up about it and apply every dirty trick in the book to get an edge over the others:
- Make redirecting web pages and give you a false link by advertising other stuff.
- Threaten you to click on the link
- Beg you
- Send the link every 10 seconds or so
In this particular case, I'm safe (not in the US) but I've had my share in the past. And I don't like it.
A DARPA Network? (Score:1)
Bah! Whatever could come of that?
All I can say is those damned balloons better stay the heck off my lawn.
Re: Off (Score:2)
They will. But they'll get stuck in your crab-apple tree.
Oh, great, now MIT has a spam club (Score:4, Interesting)
It's not just spam, it's a spam pyramid scheme. If this doesn't say something about our culture, I don't know what would.
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Blondie (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Blondie (Score:4, Informative)
Nena..
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Slashdot vs. all-comers... FIGHT! (Score:1, Offtopic)
http://balloon.media.mit.edu/evilwombat/ [mit.edu] ;-)
What about doing it for charity? (Score:2)
We've created a team [windarpa.com] to win this prize and we need your help. However we don't offer a dollar or two, just that you get a say in which charity the prize money will go too.
Find us on facebook! [facebook.com]
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"RED" would be an excellent charity.
It would work if it was only MIT.
Why not 99 Red ballons? (Score:1)
99 Red balloons
Floating in the winter sky
Twittering till fingers hurt
Darpa money going somewhere else
Web 2 Point O springs to life
As our tax-dollars slowly fly
Focusing eyes on the sky
As ninety-nine red balloons go by
...and the winner is (Score:1)
Spamford Wallace!
Anyone know where I can buy weather balloons? (Score:3, Funny)
I mean, bulk rate. Like, buttloads of 'em.
And some red paint? (Score:3, Interesting)
Not like anyone would even contemplate such a thing of course...
G.
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Actually red is a standard weather balloon color [scientificsales.com], it's easier to see against a cloudy sky. But the really big ones don't seem to come in red very often.
The future... (Score:3, Interesting)
"All citizens, a murderer is on the loose. At exactly 4:23pm everyone needs to go outside and look for this man (picture shown on the TV), if you see him call 911 immediately." - paraphrased from Farenheit 451 f memory serves
This type of thing, if it works would be an incredibly powerful tool in an emergency (you need to find a specific car, a truck with a shipping container, etc.). I'm glad to see DARPA embracing the future they themselves helped create 40 years ago!
MIT versus the world (Score:5, Informative)
MIT's strategy is very interesting. Several groups (like our team [ispyaredballoon.com]) have been forming their teams for weeks, but MIT appeared on the scene just today, and it's fascinating that they got a front-page Slashdot plug. I give them lots of credit for flooding the scene with mentions in such a short time. Whereas some teams give their winnings to charity (like ours), others entice balloon spotters with cash portions of the earnings, and MIT has decided to do a little of both.
DARPA is the sole decider of how difficult this competition will be. Will they place the balloons in dense urban areas, or will the launch them in small rural communities?
Best of luck to all the teams tomorrow, MIT included. I hope that the contest winner will write a paper describing their strategy, both in network-building and in launch-day data collection.
Luftballon (Score:1, Offtopic)
Did you ever wonder how many English speakers think "luft" is German for "red" thanks to the English lyrics of Nena's song?
Satellite? (Score:1)
What I want to know is .... (Score:3, Funny)
High tech vs low tech contest? (Score:2)
Laughing at you for not RTFA: the balloons are on the ground.
But seriously, I think what they'll be doing is looking for the red balloons using satellite surveillance. As I've posted before [slashdot.org], I think this is the non-secret half of a cameras-vs-eyeballs contest: can satellites find objects of interest faster than a motivated network of humans?
Had to try... (Score:1)
DARPA is mapping society. (Score:1)
That concerns me. What does the Department of Defense need from understanding the intimate social structures of the nation? So, for free, you're going to voluntarily tell the Department of Defense--those who were once involved in the search for Communists during McCarthy's heyday--everybody you have contact with, or influence over?
Sure, the auspices of the data, in an abstract, non-personally identifying manner, are relevant. But there's another purpose entirely by adding incentive to participate.
First a
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, spot on.
Except, of course, the only information being submitted to DARPA is the location of the ten balloons.
The ones "mapping society" and whatnot are MIT, and all the other teams that participate - teams that are nothing else than loosely connected people trying to accomplish something together.
So, it's a number of groups of loosely connected people mapping their respective interconnections. It's a true threat to society, I tell you!
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Well, the MIT terms and conditions suggest that the data will be anonymized for MIT's purposes, so MIT will not use the data in a personally identifiable way. But, the terms and conditions also state:
"You grant us a non-exclusive, royalty-free, fully-paid, worldwide, irrevocable license to use, reproduce, adapt, modify, publish, translate, create derivative works from, communicate to the public and display the Tracking Data."
So, while they limit their own use, they grant themselves the right to provide the
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I'm sure you read the fine article.
The MIT may reserve whichever rights they want, and it still won't be DARPA secretly mapping society.
The Red Menace (Score:2)
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Allow me to posit an alternative interpretation. DARPA is not interested in mapping our society. They're interested in learning what the most effective strategies are for quickly locating things that they *know* exist and are "out there", but don't know their exact locations. Perhaps the application of such a strategy could be useful for one of DoD's other pet projects. You know, the one where they're trying to find Osama bin Waldo and his Al Quaedian friends.
Nah, clearly that would just be too far-fetched
Other teams (Score:2)
it is at http://redballoon.wikispaces.com/Groups [wikispaces.com].
MIT Won (Score:2, Informative)
Congratulations to MIT for winning. https://networkchallenge.darpa.mil/ [darpa.mil]
Would have been amusing... (Score:2)
...had it been won by a group that did not use the Internet at all.
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ScuttleMonkey just made lots of $$$? (Score:1)