Cracker Endangered Astronauts

DAldredge was one of a huge number of people that wrote in with the news that the BBC has reported that a cracker(s) endangered the lives of astronauts in 1997 by "overloading NASA's communication system". Charming.

Comments

Murder?

[Uruk]

So, out of wild speculation just because I'm interested, if a cracker really screwed something up and the astronaut died as a result, is it murder? Manslaughter?

Cracking is all fine and good for 14 year old packet monkeys when they're doing it with each other's systems, but this is freakin' nuts.

BTW, why the hell are these systems even accessible in any way through the internet? I thought most of the government's really important systems had gotten hip to the fact that the only way to really be secure on the internet is to not be connected. And I can't imagine that the astronauts need yahoo stock quotes....

Re:Murder?

[levendis]

IANAL, but yes, this would be murder, or at least manslaughter, if someone died as a direct result of the hackers actions. What's the difference between hacking into a hospital computer and deactivating someone's life support, versus simply walking up to and clipping the cords with a bolt cutter? Just because the former was done with a computer doesn't make the action any less deadly.

Also, your question about why these systems were connected to the internet: first, you don't know that for sure, it may have been a dialup or even someone overriding the actual satellite link up. Second, its becoming more & more clear that everything is going to be on the internet soon enough. As we move to a fully "wired" and interconnected world, issues like this are going to become more & more serious. I have no doubt that pretty soon we will have to deal with the legal question of whether a cracker can be judged as a murdered.

Re:Involuntary Manslaughter

[spezz]

Perhaps we should have a new acronym to follow INAL. We could use BIWCS (But I Watch Cop Shows)

Just sayin' is all

Re:Involuntary Manslaughter

[TheNecromancer]

My guess, being a careful student of Law & Order and NYPD Blue (which makes me a legal expert, you know), is that he/she would be charged with Involuntary Manslaughter.

Sorry to disagree, but the hackers would be charged with 1st-degree murder, Party to a Crime. I was the head juror on a murder case where a guy arranged to rob his drug dealer, and in the process, killed him. The law read that if you intend to commit a crime, and another crime is committed as a result of your actions, you are responsible for both crimes. Since hacking into a government agency is considered a crime, if an astronaut died as a result of the hacking, the hacker would be liable for the death(s) of the astronauts.

It just goes to show that television courtroom shows are very inaccurate when it comes to the actual judicial system.

Re:Isn't the shuttle comms system isolated?

[kzinti]

Yes, it is. All the data systems within Mission Control are isolated within a LAN that has only a couple of connection points to the outside world. These connection points are guarded by firewall hardware. The firewalls allow only outgoing connections, and only then on a couple of ports. The machines connected to the outside of the firewalls only have a couple of services enabled, and only allow connections out to a limited set of IP addresses.

Furthermore, all connections to the outside world -- both voice and data -- can be physically disconnected at the throw of a switch.

A couple of years ago, a group I work with wanted to enable a new "tap" into the MCC telemetry systems. We wanted to allow outcoming data only, and proposed the same kind of firewall protection used by existing connection points. It still took nearly an act of Congress to get our tap installed.

I've talked with NASA's information-security people, and they're nothing if not overcautious. They're not all technical geniouses, but they do employ some. For example, I know that they employ "white-hat" crackers to perform penetration tests of their systems.

So, are NASA's security arrangements foolproof? Certainly not, but I have a hard time taking that article at face value. The suggestion that a cracker from somewhere out on the net penetrated NASA's systems doesn't seem as likely as other explanations: That the reporter got the story wrong -- that the problem wasn't actually within MCC. Or that there was a problem, but NASA's technical people, unable to come up with the real explanation, invented a cracker to blame. Or even that the cracker existed, but came from within the MCC.

--Jim

Shouldn't have brought him

[dave]

Heh, I'm surprised that you left out the obvious parallel with the time Homer caused havoc by bringing potato chips into space with him.

Where's that Inanimate Carbon Rod when you need it? :)