Wired News is running a story about an experimental Friend-or-Foe system that would answer radar pings with an encrypted response, allowing weapons systems operators to avoid firing on their own people. Which is nice. FoF systems are not new, but the use of a changing key signature could make these Sandia Labs tags less likely to be used by an enemy to hide from targetted attacks.
Update: I have been educated that the correct abbreviation for ‘Friend-Or-Foe’ is not FoF, but in fact IFF. I am crushed to learn that the untold childhood hours playing fantasy space simulations did not leave me an encyclopedic knowledge of military vocabulary.
