www.aec.at  
 
 
 

Back to:
last page

Prix1998
Prix 1987 - 2007

 
 
Organiser:
ORF Oberösterreich
 


HONORARY MENTION
Byte
Christoph Ebener, Uli Winters


It is well known that animals have been trained and employed as war aids for over fifty years. Dolphins as underwater mine seekers, dogs as land mine seekers, cats as spies armed with cameras, infected rats as instruments of biological warfare and so forth. The purpose of our project is to breed a specialized mouse population for attacking computer networks, which would be able to paralyze these in the briefest amount of time by destroying the cables. The mice are kept in a room, in which the day/night rhythm is reversed using artificial light. In this way, the animals may be observed by day during their training through viewing windows or with infrared cameras.There are five to ten cages in the room with one mouse in each of them. A computer cable connected to a computer goes through each of the cages. A food dish connected to a feeding machine is placed in each cage near the cable. Each time the mouse bites through a cable and cuts through one of the main wires, it is rewarded with food. Simultaneously, the performance of each individual mouse is recorded and displayed on a screen for comparison. In this way, it is possible to quickly determine the performance capacity of each mouse, in order to make a selection of the most capable individuals.

Little imagination is required to see how easy it would be to have these kinds of animals infiltrate the sensitive centers of information power and the devastating results this infiltration could have. According to the same principle, it would be equally simple to transform other creatures, for instance ants causing short circuits in computers, into dangerous weapons in the information war.