US Army Spent $2.7 Billion On Crashing Computer

An anonymous reader writes "According to two former US Army intelligence officers, the multi-billion-dollar DCGS-A military computer system that was designed to help the US Army in Iraq and Afghanistan simply doesn't work. DCGS-A is meant to accrue intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, and provide real-time battlefield analysis and the current location of high-value targets — but instead, it has hindered the war effort rather than helped. Major General Michael Flynn, the top intelligence officer in Afghanistan, says that DCGS-A's faults have even resulted in a loss of lives (PDF)."

Re:What's so special about this computer system?

[kevinNCSU]

I think it's even simpler then that:

1. 1. Military has it's own system, not controlled by Palantir (Oh noz!!)
2. 2. Officer requests additional tools for system, and highlights reasons why those tools are needed
3. 3. Someone twists the Need Statement to claim Army's system is broken and just happens to start pushing Palantir (remember them from the BoA scandal?)

Read the PDF before you read the article and it's absolutely impossible to come to the same conclusions that the article did, especially the DCGS-A responsible for lives lost part. All he's doing is requesting new analytic tools and the only time he mentions DCGS-A is when he requests that the analytic tools be able to interface with that system. This is clearly a fluff piece for Palantir and with the amount of money they throw around for congressmen, advertising and track suits so their developers look super hip, it's not surprising.