“Packet Sweepers: Using the Internet for Nanoscale Kinetic Effects” 

In my 2016 novel Johnny Winger and the Europa Quandary, I had a one character describe a small vehicle called a ‘packet sweeper.’  He said this: “With this little guy, we’ll be able to travel around the Net at will, chase down suspect packets, code, malware, what have you, inspect it, quarantine it and if necessary, alter it. We think MARTOP bots have somehow entered the Net, so the sweeper will enable us to track them down, capture and destroy them.  Or at least, render them harmless.  These bots are of the same dimensions as the signal waves that already carry packets around the Net.  So in a sense, we’ll be using sweepers like this to literally surf the Net.”

Could a nanometer-scale vehicle actually be designed to do this?  Let’s take a look at what was involved in Quantum Corps’ foray into the world of the Net.

The Environment

The world of the Net is a world of cables, wireless signals, routers, hubs, switches, servers and nodes too numerous to count.   The signal waves that carry data around the Net in the form of packets are electromagnetic waves, streams of electrons transporting data which is formed and organized into logical blocks called packets (on a packet-switched network).   How big physically are these packets?   Packets are groups of bits, binary digits, imposed on a carrier stream, which is itself composed of electrons. 

Electrons are tiny.  The basic radius of an electron is about a million times smaller than a single nanometer.  For our Quantum Corps packet sweeper to ‘surf’ an electron stream, like a carrier wave, it would have to be only a few nanometers in dimension.  In previous stories in Tales of the Quantum Corps, a single ANAD system is said to be about the size of a virus…about fifty nanometers tall. 

A packet mobile designed to ride carrier waves through the Net has to be smaller than this.  Think of a small boat surfing waves along a beach and you get the idea.  In physical dimension, our packet sweeper isn’t much bigger than a packet itself…only a few nanometers at best.  A masterpiece of miniaturization.  And we still have to add propulsors, effectors, maybe a place for a nanobotic brain. 

The Vehicle

In the above-mentioned novel, one character describes the packet sweeper as being a descendant of ANAD-type devices.  He goes on to say: “Well, strictly speaking, a packet is just a data unit in a network.  Physically, the packets are just streams of bits impressed on a signal, a carrier that travels around the network.  The sweeper is an actual nanobotic device, similar in dimension, with embedded logic and controls that can ride along that bitstream.”

So the packet sweeper is like a submarine that surfs the Net.  It has propulsors, effectors, everything a typical ANAD device would have.  Here’s a conceptual layout:

Note that the packet sweeper is designed with a compartment that can house a separate ANAD—style nanobot, complete with acceleration mount and scaffolding.  And the bot can even exercise some control over sweeper operations, though in normal Quantum Corps practice, the bots use the sweeper to ride to their destination, like an armored personnel carrier.

As you can see from the layout, the packet sweeper has forward and aft jets, plus some flagellar devices for maneuverability.  The forward bay houses devices for inspecting a given packet, determining its viability and trustworthiness and, if necessary, destroying or disabling it.  The suspect packet could even be captured by ANAD and brought inside the sweeper housing through an airlock, for ingress and egress.  Note also the interior hatch between the Containment Bay and the Lockout Bay, allowing the bot to move inside and outside the vehicle. 

Power is supplied from a Power Bay, with batteries and banks of other types of power cells.  The aft end of the sweeper is dedicated to aft jets and flagellar thrusters, lending the vehicle unmatched maneuverability.

The entire vehicle is just nanometers in dimension and is designed to be inserted into a bitstream, attached to a carrier wave and to ride that wave around the Net at near light speed.  It can follow any designated heading, any IP address or any suspect packet stream to wherever needed to perform its mission. 

And, as we’ll see in the next section, it can also insert new packets  or alter existing ones as well, which gives the sweeper the ability to take offensive action as mission needs dictate.

 

Weapons and Tactics

In my Tales of the Quantum Corps episode entitled Johnny Winger and the Europa Quandary, the bad guys are trying to get inside the control system of a major hydroelectric dam in the western U.S. and open some valves, to cause extreme flooding downstream.    Tactically, the response is a joint operation between Quantum Corps and Cyber Corps, wherein the packet vehicle, called Sweeper One, engages the bad packets at the point of attack and diverts and ultimately quarantines them in a specially constructed logical enclosure.

There are many tactical approaches and missions such a vehicle might perform, ranging from simple inspection of suspect packets to quarantine to full disabling and destruction of said packets.  Offensive tactics can take a lesson from the Stuxnet computer virus, which infected Iranian nuclear plant centrifuges and caused them to spin out of control and, even more malevolently, to report such high speeds back to their operators in masked form as normal operating conditions. 

Tactics are as wide-ranging as human ingenuity and deviousness can come up with.  Many tactics for using packet sweepers to patrol the Net are drawn from their nanobotic cousins.  To wit:

Operational Strategy and Tactics

1. Deception and concealment:
   Nanoscale assemblers and robots with quantum processors  riding packet sweepers into combat like digital cavalry have the ability to make relatively quick configuration changes.  Packets can be made to resemble any configuration, to display heading information, hop counters, protocols, etc for any destination.  These config changes provide a ready-made source of deceptive countermeasures for concealment, allowing a typical ANAD unit to infiltrate and spring a surprise on even the most suspicious adversary.  The Russians call this tactic maskirovka. 
    
2. Feints and Diversions:
   The Chinese general and strategist Sun Tzu claimed that “all war is based on deception.”  Feints and diversions are part of the same toolkit.   Quantum Corps sometimes uses packet sweepers as part of a larger strategy, to conceal a main axis of assault, or to confuse an adversary as to where the main assault will be.  This is a relatively straightforward task in Net warfare.  Just replicate a few trillion bots, configure them into something the enemy expects and send them in their packet mobiles in the direction the enemy is anticipating.  If your intelligence is good, the enemy will react to these moves and weaken himself along another axis.  The ability to replicate quickly and form swarms, or hide in disguised packet sweepers that can resemble any structure or form gives ANAD-style units unbeatable capabilities.
    
3. Swarming attack (mass):
   The use of replicated mass in nanobotic warfare is one of the simplest tactics to use.  Just slam atoms together like a drug-crazed brickmason on steroids and overwhelm the enemy with sheer mass.  Nanotroopers call this a ‘Big Bang.’  The trick to succeeding with this tactic using packet sweepers is to be able to out-replicate the enemy and fend off any defenses he may have up his nanoscale sleeve…like electron bond disrupters, etc.  Although it’s often said that the best way to defeat a swarm is with another swarm, a High-Energy Radio Frequency (HERF) gun doesn’t hurt.  With enough blasts of rf, any swarm can be shattered and turned into clouds of French fries falling out of the sky.  The best way to defeat ANADs riding in packet sweepers is to confront them with your own packet horses…cavalry against cavalry.  Digital warfare begins to sound more and more like medieval combat, doesn’t it?
    
4. Dispersal
   One of the great advantages of using swarms of nanobots in packet combat is the ability to pulse.  Pulsing means that the normal state of affairs is for the swarm of packet sweepers to be dispersed or scattered to resemble or blend in to the local digital or network environment.  With the right signal, the dispersed sweepers can quickly gather together into whatever configuration or formation is needed, and slam the adversary from multiple directions at once.  Bees do it.  Birds do it.  And now ANAD nanobots in packet sweepers can do it too.  An early form of this tactic was called a botnet. 
    
5. Entrapments and Ambushes
   An ambush is a form of deception.  The point is to draw the adversary into a space where you have the advantage of mass and position.  Ambushes can be ridiculously easy when your swarms have the ability to configure as just about anything, a mountain, a cloud, a body of water.  But all nanobotic swarms inside packet sweepers require vigorous atom-slamming and careful navigation across the Net to maintain structure and formation, and thus give off acoustic, electromagnetic and other atomic effects of this activity.  Thus masking your signature and controlling emissions is critical to an ambush.  As Sun Tzu put it: “Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.”
    
6. Managing Configuration Changes
   Quantum Corps tactics succeed when the proper packet configuration can be deployed in a tactically effective manner.  This means the config templates and drivers have to be up to speed.  It also means the bots that make up a packet swarm have to be designed from the outset to replicate commanded configs quickly and without error, often under combat conditions.  A lot of this depends on intelligence…what do you know about your adversary?  Good intelligence, good communications and effective configuration management…every tactic used by Quantum Corps has all these elements, in abundance, whether in the real world or the Net. 
    
   Combat tactics are combat tactics, regardless of the medium.
    
   These are just some of the basic tactics and maneuvers used by ANAD-style formations in Quantum Corps engagements, using packet sweepers to create kinetic effects in your adversary’s domain. 
    
   The next post to Quantum Corps Times comes on July 1.
    
   See you then.
    
   Phil B.