Protecting Cities from Hijacked Planes

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Protecting Cities from Hijacked Planes

Posted by michael on Thursday July 3, 2003 @04:58AM from the father-knows-best dept.

Kong99 writes "A group at UC-Berkeley has proposed Soft Walls to stop hijacked planes from entering a protected airspace. Interesting read especially since they claim it is 'hack' proof."

11 of 971 comments (clear)

Awesome Caption by Nintendork · 2003-07-03 05:03 · Score: 4, Funny

From the Enforcing a No-Fly Zone picture:
Plane tries hard to fly into zone but soft walls keep it out
I'm sold!
-Lucas
Is this really a problem? by sharkey · 2003-07-03 05:05 · Score: 5, Funny

I thought this was solved by NOT allowing curbside luggage check-in.

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"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
In Other News... by sxe_p06 · 2003-07-03 05:05 · Score: 5, Funny

In other news, shipmakers have launched a new 'un-sinkable' ship today, and dubbed her 'The Titanic'...more to come...

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-- p06 "On religious wars: They're essentially wars over whoo's imaginary friend is better"
Re:Don't make the claim by Creepy+Crawler · 2003-07-03 05:05 · Score: 5, Funny

That's the BEST way to find bugs. Simply promise the world that it's HACK PROOF. When there's some published loophole, they fix it. Then comes round 2 of "This versions' HACK PROOF".

How else do you encourage hackers to take their skills on something normal debuggers wont find? You make it a challensge and openly state it's the best secure.
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Will they add an Easter Egg too? by ctucker · 2003-07-03 05:08 · Score: 5, Funny

Left, right, left, right, up, down, up, down, left pedal, right pedal, barrel roll left, hit the autopilot button, and BLAMMO, the names of the dev team are scrolling over the inflight movie.
Sounds like a recipe for air sickness bag sales!

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My other computer is your IIS server.
1. Re:Will they add an Easter Egg too? by weston · 2003-07-03 05:20 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Actually, I think that might be the "fatality"....
  
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Re:How close can they get? by tanguyr · 2003-07-03 05:08 · Score: 5, Funny

No no no, this technology would only impose soft wall restrictions on planes flown by terrorists with the intention of crashing into buildings. It would even feature a special subconscious scanning algorythm that would know if the pilot was a terrorist, even if he didn't know it himself!

i mean, if you're going to live in a fantasy world, it might as well be a good one, no? /t

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Meanwhile... by istartedi · 2003-07-03 05:15 · Score: 4, Funny

...a group at Bellevue has planned soft walls for anybody crazy enough to believe something "can't be hacked".

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For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Re:Repeat after me! by Lemmy+Caution · 2003-07-03 05:54 · Score: 4, Funny

The difference between the stock market and your monitor, is that there aren't hundreds of thousands of people who would like nothing better than to crack into your monitor.
Red or blue? by GlenRaphael · 2003-07-03 06:03 · Score: 4, Funny

So either you shut off the computer somehow and therefore have no control over the plane or you avoid the no fly zones.
And this isn't like opening up your computer's case and switching some wires around. First you have to find out what wires you need to disconnect, which I imagine won't be easy, then you'd have to figure out how to get to them, etc.

No problem. There will be a panel in the cockpit. Remove that panel and you will find two wires leading to the "tamperproof" soft-wall decision box, a red one and a blue one. A bad guy would know which wire to cut because he did his research beforehand, but you're a good guy, so you will have to agonize over the matter. "Do I cut the red wire, or the blue wire?" Beads of sweat break out on your forehead as you position the wire clippers over the blue wire, change your mind at the last instant and clip the red wire. This turns out be the right decision, so you will be able to steer the plane to avoid disaster just in the nick of time. Hurray!
...or have I been watching too many action movies?

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1. Re:Red or blue? by theLOUDroom · 2003-07-03 06:23 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  No problem. There will be a panel in the cockpit. Remove that panel and you will find two wires leading to the "tamperproof" soft-wall decision box, a red one and a blue one. A bad guy would know which wire to cut because he did his research beforehand, but you're a good guy, so you will have to agonize over the matter. "Do I cut the red wire, or the blue wire?" Beads of sweat break out on your forehead as you position the wire clippers over the blue wire, change your mind at the last instant and clip the red wire. This turns out be the right decision, so you will be able to steer the plane to avoid disaster just in the nick of time. Hurray!
  
  That's because terrorists all know and follow the International Terrorist Wire Color Code (I think it's an IEE (Institute of Evil Engineers) standard or something. It's the same standard that requires bombs to have large red LED countdown diplays. It also forbids the use of any boobytraps to prevent someone from opening the box.
  
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