10 big ideas from the Pentagon lab that (really) invented the Internet

The Pentagon's DARPA scientists are working to bring to fruition innovations that could affect daily life as dramatically as the World Wide Web. Here are 10 of them.

9. Plan X

Military strategists use their map tables when they’re planning big campaigns. The idea behind Plan X is to build that sort of thing for cyber-warfare strategists, too.

The program lets planners plot routes and weigh their options, expanding maps on a giant table-size iPad à la the movie "Minority Report." Program manager Frank Pound describes it as “like a Google Maps for the Internet.”

In other words, if efforts of America's cyber-warriors to, say, shut down a power plant are thwarted in one direction, they can find another cyber-route into the system.

DARPA describes it as a “foundational cyberwarfare program” that will allow the Pentagon to “plan, conduct, and assess cyberwarfare in a manner similar to kinetic warfare.”

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