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Aviation Instruments Encrypt Engine-Monitor Data
kitplane01 writes "Airplanes engines need to always work, and are monitored by engine monitors. JP Instruments' engine-monitor units have begun to encrypt the data output of its monitors so it can't be read by third-party software. Whether this is to protect itself liability-wise or to discourage competitors is unclear. It seems the company is working on a fix, which may require a fee from users to translate the file format."
I think its to prevent terrorists from listening in on engine data.....God Bless America
this seems like an incredibly stupid and public way of locking customers into paying for information they were already previously getting for free.
Hopefully no more companies in the industry will follow
feeling lonely? grab a balled up pillow for company
It sounds like propriety lock-in to me. There is no other reason to encrypt diagnostic data.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
The article was sparse to say the least...
As long as the auto industry doesnt follow. There was a big deal over the use of car makers to provide info to third parties for the onboard electronics. I dont know what the status is now, I heard a while ago that the information is disorganized and hard to utilize. Auto dealers love it because it forces you to use their facilities at highly marked up prices, and puts 3rd party auto mechanics into a corner.
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
How about letting the moderators who read the articles in question handle it instead?
You should also take a look at Lexmark and how they used DMCA to sue Static Control Corp, an aftermarket inkject cartridge manufacturer. Earlier Slashdot story
I doubt this has to do with anything but liability concerns. The aviation industry has been the hardest hit by product liability. It's a miracle anyone is still in business.
Not really a whole lot different that PACE Anti-Piracy's latest crap.
I use some software that is protected using PACE's Interlok system. Unfortunately, the anti-piracy software is stopping me from legitimately using the software, refusing me the ability to serialize it on my machine.
PACE's response? Send us the encrypted log file! They won't tell me what's in the log file, nor will they allow me to see it before sending it.
Any amount of personal information could be in there, so I refuse to send it to them.
Since when doesn't everything need to be encrypted to keep legitimate users from reading it?
Jory
The Gemini goes about data-logging quite differently. When you want to see what's been happening, simply point the supplied Hewlett-Packard HP200LX palmtop at the Gemini's faceplate and the information will be transferred by infrared link. The information remains encrypted in the HP200LX--it cannot be altered by the user- -so it may be more useful to resolve a warranty dispute or to see how renter-pilots are treating your leaseback bird.
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.
EGAD, who on EARTH keeps modding this guy 'informative'???
It's NOT like that post hasn't appeared in EVERY FREAKING THREAD recently.
And frankly, the poster should either a) fix their own durn problem, or b) return the computer to the store and tell the clerk that you're too stupid to use it.
Yeah sure. Not. To waste modpoints in the troll talk stuff which no one is reading anyway... Moderators: Use your points only in the relevant article only...
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
I don't know much about these kinds of systems, but I would've always assumed that partial unencrypted data would be much easier to recover in a plane crash situation. I guess it would pretty much instantaneously stop transmitting from the engine in question when the system failed.
However, wouldn't encrypted data bring with it the risk that you couldn't get the data back? What happens if you have partial encrypted data in the system? Is there a risk that the encryption could make piecing together accidents more time-consuming or render the data useless to the investigation?
In theory, could it even assist denying responsibility if the engine itself was the cause of a crash?
KNOWN TROLL alert!!!
I never knew Nikon made aircraft equipment...
Any particular reason "kitplane01" came within a sentence or two of posting the entire story in his/her submission?
It's completely uncredited, and presented as material he/she wrote; that's called plagiarism, folks. Though things have gotten better over the years (I remember when more than half of the stories on the front page were like this), this still happens too often.
It's also pretty pointless. The story summary is supposed to accurately describe the story, to help us determine if we want to follow the link, or read commentary.
Please help metamoderate.
Why would engine monitor data need to be encrypted? All it is is fuel flow rates, its pressure and temperature, FTIT, etc. The pilot needs to see this data anyway to monitor in-flight. Maybe they're talking about when this information goes through engine diagnostics or is stored for looking at later? Oh, and do these guys just do civilian aircraft, or military too? I'd think no one would buy their engine monitor units if they couldn't look at the logs to monitor their own aircraft statistics [think nascar]. Could be a good way to lose customers. What do you think?
www.meinherz.net
I know there are laws in place to keep automobile manufacturers from doing the same thing (since I make auto scantools for a living). That's one of the main reasons why the industry moved towards OBDII - to be compliant with the disclosure law.
Maybe the rules apply to aircraft as well, and there's already a legal fix?
I won't be able to ask anyone at work about which laws are in place until Monday, but this article has me curious about the legality of encrypting this kind of data for non-automobiles. If I find anything out, I'll post it here.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Typical inept Slashdot editing: the data is *encoded* (as the original AvWeb article states), not encrypted. Sure, JPI is an evil company with a history of slimey dealings as shown here http://home.earthlink.net/~timrv6a/jpi.html but lets be accurate about what they've done. If JPI (or someone else) was to provide info on the format of the encoded data there would be no news story.
this seems like an incredibly stupid and public way of locking customers into paying for information they were already previously getting for free.
You are assuming civilian applications only. If they are making equipment for the military, or hope to, then this makes sense. As for doing so in civilian equipment the parts may be common, or will be, with military equipment, or this may be a test. If the appropriate maintenance and investigatory personnel are given unfettered access to the actual data this would be a non-issue.
Cheese is grated by cheese graters
Books are shelved on bookshelves
You try it, it's easy!
__noun__ is __verb__ by __noun+verb__
What is this crap?? I read this article that's a tease to an article on some aviationconsumer.crap website, search for it and find out you have to Pay to read it!!!
So, don't buy their products. Or are they another messy, politically granted monopoly?
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
It's simple, really.
"Can you say, with absolute certainty, that no third party fault detector would have found the problem with your engine?"
"No, but..."
"So, you intentionally embarked on a development program that hid problems with your engines. Thank you."
This exchange, vaguely hinted at by FAA, would be quite enough.
Since when is data outputed by a device called a "FILE" format? We seem to be getting this a lot on slashdot posts. Isn't it a PROTOCOL?
Should it be:
from who? Or. from whom?
Didnt they get burnt by something similar to this with their ECM's and told by the Fed's they cant restrict 3rd party access with dirty tricks like this?
True airplanes engines are not quite the same thing, or as large a market but the principle is the same.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Is it a "fix" when you deliberately broke it in the first place?
This is to stop people from modifying the data to cover up the fact that they are saving money by not following the maintenance schedule.
It has nothing to do with military, crashes, spying on you, blackboxes, etc.
Don't know nuthin'? Consider not posting! Go outside and play instead.
S/N ratio mighty low on this one. Oh well, it is harmless nattering after all...
Hope they will not opt to DRMfy they data. Just try to imaging message on plane: "Dear guests our plane is crashing down due to expired license for motor control protocol encryption. Please festen your belts and pray."
Well, IIRC, this [CENSORED] was already tried in medicine and failed. No system is allowed to use encryption for sake of encryption when human life is at stake. Both medical life support equipment and aviation equipment generally classified as mission critical for that very reason - human lives depend on them.
I have no experience nor information about mission critical systems, but I have just started working for safe equipment producer - and already have clue as what "mission critical" means. Safe equipment is right one step below mission critical equipment: safe equipment has to shutdown system in case of alarm, while mission critical stuff has to work as long as it possibly could - whatever situation/alarms/malfunctions are - someone's arse depends on it.
Development of such equipment is kept as transparent as possible - any mistake might cost way too much. Adopting encryption doesn't seem to me as step in right direction.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
In a nutshell JPI's owner has some vendetta against a competing company that was selling software to read and analyze the data from the JPI analyzer. JPI changed the format of the data output from the serial port of the device, and the format it was stored in the device's non-volatile RAM.
JPI had sold software for Palm OS that would connect to the serial port and display the data in graphical format in real time on a Palm Pilot. Since the data stream was ASCII text you could do the same with any laptop.
JPI had also supplied what at first they sold, but later became a free DOS utility called EZ-Save that would download the data and uncompress it to a comma separated plain text file. They also made available some Excel spreadsheets with macros that would turn the data into some nice charts for easy analysis.
At some point recently the owner got bug up his backside about some competitor that is selling a competing program to analyze the data. JPI changed the steam and the stored data on current products to use encryption and removed all traces of the utilities on their web site. Of course this did not affect the 1000s of products already installed in planes. What they were doing though, was updating the firmware on any that came in service to have the encryption. Based on that, I vowed I wouldn't send mine in for repair if it burst into flames.
Some excerpts from a aircraft owner mail list:
Their web server runs as poorly as the elevator....only six comments and already slashdotted into oblivion.
Wrong article. I think you meant to put it somewhere else. This article is about aviation equipment.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
JPI sold this unit for years, with the key feature being you could archive your flight data into MS Excel after each flight.
Now they want all the units back for a software upgrade, which consists mainly of restricting access to YOUR data. NOTE: they didn't notify anyone in advance that they're removing the feature.
Now, JPI claims the data belongs to them, not the pilots the purchase the device.
Plus
Yes, this is right. The JPI engine analyzers are mostly installed in general aviation piston-engined aircraft, the vast majority of which are single-engine (your familar Cessnas, Pipers, etc)
These instruments measure a number of parameters, including cylinder head temperature (CHT), exhaust gas temperature (EGT), and outside air temperature (OAT).
A pilot monitors CHT to help maximize the lifetime of the cylinders and uses EGT to optimally adjust the mixture of fuel and air into the engine (these planes have manual control of the fuel-air mixture).
My guess is that less than 10% of pilots using these instruments ever download the time-series data on a regular basis. However, the switch from an open to closed data format is annoying.
ACARS etc mentioned in other posts applies to the big ol' jet airliners.
As an owner of an airplane with a similar monitor, allow me these observations:
1) The data in the engine monitor of my airplane will help me diagnose problems before they become serious. I had an intake valve get sticky on me once. It happened while decending from 5000 to 3000 AGL. I was too damned busy configuring for best glide, scrambling for my engine out check list, and considering whether to declare an emergency to look over at the monitor. By the time I had the presence of mind to do that, the problem "fixed" itself. We couldn't get it to repeat.
Several flights later we identified the problem as a sticky intake valve. When that engine monitor needed to be replaced, I chose one with recording features built in. I plan on showing these sorts of events to my mechanics in the future so that I can show typical profiles and abnormal profiles to them.
2) JPI's choice about encryption is a ploy to sell software --or at the very least, a driver.
3) This information ought to have some sort of user assignable encryption feature so that others can't misuse the data. I don't want the FAA or NTSB using my own data against me in the event of an incident or crash.
4) AvWeb isn't a perfect source of information. JPI may have been seeking to do just what I suggested in note 3 above and they may have been misinterpreted by AvWeb. I saw nothing on JPI's web site regarding this issue.
5) I use a GEM engine monitor. It uses an old DOS program with a 1200 BPS IR port reader for an HP Palm-top. The protocol is "proprietary" --but I'm sure that with reasonable effort, one could reverse engineer it. If folks don't like JPI, there are alternatives; though they're really not much of an improvement...
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