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."

Comments

Terrorism

[Anonymous Coward]

I think its to prevent terrorists from listening in on engine data.....God Bless America

Re:Terrorism

[xlv]

Call me dense, but how would this help?

In this post 9/11 world, sarcasm is no longer allowed as it is unpatriotic. If you need proof of that, remember that it is often practised in old Europe and thus not in line with American values...

Re:Terrorism

[Alsee]

Yeah yeah yeah... it's there to help defend against terrorists too...
but this is content encryption. Obviously the main justification for it is to stop the pirates. God Bless the DMCA.

Oh, and it's also there to protect our children against the child molestors. Uhhhh... but I haven't quite figured out that part yet.

-

proprietary lock in?

[dclaw]

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

Re:proprietary lock in?

[Jorkapp]

this seems like an incredibly stupid and public way of locking customers into paying for information they were already previously getting for free.

We can still get it for free. Just set a camcorder in front of the instrument panels and press "RECORD".

Re:proprietary lock in?

[hsenag]

The right way to achieve that would be a digital signature, not encryption.

It sounds like...

[uberdave]

It sounds like propriety lock-in to me. There is no other reason to encrypt diagnostic data.

Re:It sounds like...

[uberdave]

A few points:

1. Military aircraft are maintained by military personnel.
2. Data encryption, if needed, should be end user selectable, not locked in by the equipment vendor against end user wishes.
3. I seriously doubt that you could determine anything more than altitude from the engine performance data. You would need data feeds from the navigation system to determine where the plane was.

Auto industry

[doormat]

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.

Re:Auto industry

[ScrewMaster]

I remember Congress was looking at legislation to require automakers to make OBDII data more readily available to car owners and independent service shops. Does anyone else know what, if anything, became of that?

Re:Auto industry

[dougmc]

Its more or less required that you can have an engine fail and still be able to fly and make it to land safely.

That's the goal, but it depends on where and how the engine fails, and the skill of the pilot.

For example, there was a case some time ago where the propeller came apart in a commercial plane (this was not obvious at the time) and the engine vibrated itself to bits in a few seconds (THAT was obvious, once the pilots actually looked at the engine. Before that, they'd thought they'd just lost the engine in a more `normal' way.) The plane had enough thrust to maintain altitude after losing an engine under normal conditions, but in this case the destroyed engine had much more drag than a normal non-functional engine, and the plane could not maintain altitude, and eventually crashed.

The crash was bad, but controlled. Nobody was killed by the crash, but the plane was basically destroyed. Unfortunately, destroyed planes tend to leak fuel, and this one did, which promptly ignited, and ultimately about half the people aboard died due to the fire.

This was all described in a show about aviation disasters on the Discovery Channel. Maybe somebody else can provide more details.

Or, if a two-engine plane were to lose an engine in the middle of the ocean, that would increase drag as the plane would slip due to mismatched thrust, and might not have enough fuel to make it to land. Hopefully they plan for this, and provide enough extra fuel for this kind of emergency.

But yes -- pretty much most 2+ engine airplanes can maintain altitude and even climb slightly if they lose one engine in a `normal' way. (Exploding/disintegrating engines don't really count. Fortunately they're very rare.)

However, when you talk about private planes, the fatal accident per flying hour ratio is signifigantly actually higher for two engine planes than single engine planes. This is because a two engine plane is quite difficult to fly with an engine out, and this tends to cause fatal accidents. In a single engine plane, when you lose your engine, all you can do is look for a good place to land (or crash, if you can't find a good place.) But even if you crash, you're likely to be in control of the plane and while the plane is likely to be destroyed, you're likely to survive.

But in a dual engine plane, what often happens is that the sudden yaw as the engine is lost causes the plane to turn into a lawn dart, killing all aboard. Yes, a good and alert pilot can prevent this from happening, but mistakes are often made.

Re:Auto industry

[Richard_at_work]

Or, if a two-engine plane were to lose an engine in the middle of the ocean, that would increase drag as the plane would slip due to mismatched thrust, and might not have enough fuel to make it to land. Hopefully they plan for this, and provide enough extra fuel for this kind of emergency.

Yes they do, its called ETOPS (Extended-range Twin-engine Operation Performance Standards) and it governs how far a twin engined commercial airliner can be from an alternate airport at any given moment, usually in minutes and reachable on a single engine within that time. Standard ETOPS times are 180 minutes for nearly all major twin engine aircraft, including the A330 and 767, while the 777 gets 207 minutes due to uprated engines and higher safety statistics.

Private jets are excluded in the FAA jurisdiction, but must stick to 120 minutes in the JAA jurisdiction.

But yes -- pretty much most 2+ engine airplanes can maintain altitude and even climb slightly if they lose one engine in a `normal' way. (Exploding/disintegrating engines don't really count. Fortunately they're very rare.)

Again, all civilian airliners are required to be able to loose an engine on takeoff, be able to complete the takeoff and the go around without issue and land again.

Just like Auto Engine Computers and Lexmark

[Tangurena]

The auto companies did something similar with OBD2 compliant engine computers. As a result, the association that represented independant repair shops had to sue the automakers and SAE to get the diagnostic information released.

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

PACE AP

[yroJJory]

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?

Also the Gemini:

[Monf]

This is from AOPA's review of the JPI model and the Insight model - the blurb below refers to the Insight Gemini. Maybe this is what JPI is now doing and why:

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.

Re:Also the Gemini:

[wcdw]

Encrypting the data to provide a 'blackbox' is doomed to failure; someone somewhere (outside the US, sad to say) is bound to hack it.

And if format of the stored data can be reverse-engineered (e.g. by decompiling the reader code), the decryption process becomes that much easier.

Although the 'article' sounds like it's designed to sell magazines more than anything else. No links to any of those forums where the users are supposedly up in arms, for example.

Re:Also the Gemini:

[VidEdit]

It would seem that JPI is using data integrity as an excuse for DMCA lock in. All they really need for integrity is a signature. Since their are federal regulations about engine overhauls for aircraft, I would think that there is a state interest in the data being accessible, but signed. This is a clear case of the miss-use of encryption.

Re:Also the Gemini:

[wjsteele]

I'm sorry, but I fail to see how having a 'blackbox' on an airplane is doomed to failure. Blackboxes are standard equipment on larger/complex commercial craft and I think all aircraft should be equipped with one... so that if an accident ever occurs, we can analyze what went wrong. It's always better to have more information than not enough in an accident investigation. And yes, I am a pilot. The state of technology is now available to equip all aircraft at a very resonable cost (including GA.)

Now, I completely disagree with having the data in a encyrypted format. There is abolutly no reason to do that. A checksum/hash should be good enough to ensure the integrety of the data. They are choosing to encrypt the data for their own (financial?) reasons.

Bill

ACARS telemetery data

[AndroidCat]

ACARS is an aircraft data telemetery system that transmits data, sometimes including engine performance, and can be receive with a simple scanner/computer setup.

In this series of two messages, we see a takeoff (TO) engine performance report.

ACARS mode: 2 Aircraft reg: .N651UA
Message label: H1 Block id: 5 Msg. no: D89C
Flight id: UA0978
Message content:-
#DFB97418853250111173 5541565144173614933782162 261527 15
0201 89 -2 0 0 671 146 27 A6F4039C8000080000D32000000000000000000000423

Not that the unencoded info makes much sense, but I guess this will be another thing hidden away from view of nosey geeks. Poot!

Re:ACARS telemetery data

[Derling Whirvish]

You can break out the coded ACARS messages. Here's one example of how.

Re:ACARS telemetery data

[AndroidCat]

There's plenty of software that will listen to the scanner via a sound card and break out the data, but I wasn't sure if anyone had decoded the blocks of engine performance data into anything useful. (Just the altitude/position data is good for a display like this.)

Re:ACARS telemetery data

[lxw56]

It's not hidden, you just aren't 31337 enough. It means "left engine 3045 RPM, right engine 3230 RPM, right engine chopped up 2 birds since last reset."

Aircraft crash data?

[Aphrika]

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?

plagiarism

[SuperBanana]

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.

There's no practical reason?

[Perryman]

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?

Re:There's no practical reason?

[krray]

I think that if one of our (pick your country :) military planes goes down in enemy territory that I don't want said enemy to have access to how well, or poorly the plane may or may not operate in certain circumstances...

Well, I know it's illegal for cars

[Weaselmancer]

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.

Encoded (Not Encrypted)

[dubner]

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 wont last long

[Effugas]

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.

Re:This wont last long

[Effugas]

AC--

In case you see this:

A problem with the engine can take down the plane.

FAA policy is that plane crashes are very, very bad. Absurd amounts of procedures are created to prevent plane crashes. Liability for plane crashes can be massive.

The engine manufacturer can't rule out that third party tools would find different problems than their own; the whole point of you owning this third party device is that, as a pilot, you've made a judgement call that the manufacturer's supplies were insufficient. Your call is being overridden by an overprotective manufacturer, treating you as an enemy to be obfuscated against.

If you crash -- it cannot be ruled out that you might not have if you had this extra information. All the FAA needs to say is -- those who interfere with pilot judgement may face consequences for such decisions -- and the potential liability will outweigh anything else.

--Dan

"Fix"?

[John Jorsett]

Is it a "fix" when you deliberately broke it in the first place?

Re:Auto Makers

[Vegeta99]

Well, yes, but OBD-II (On Board Diagnostics, Version II) is federally mandated, and the Society of Automotive Engineers has a set of standard codes for most every fault an ECM would detect. They also, however, made it possible for manufacturers to have proprietary codes, starting with 1. For example, if the oxygen sensor on my engine's #1 cylinder bank is indicating that the engine is running lean more than is allowed, and the ECU is correcting by running it intentionally rich, the SAE code would be P0130. However, my car, a Ford, gives the code P1311. Same exact meaning, but it's a Ford specific code. Fortunately for me, a quick search on the 'net found out what the code meant, but it wasn't in my book.

Fortunately, the Feds have said they cannot hide the definitions of codes like these as not only is it federally mandated that the diagnostics system be there, there is already a standard set of codes and definitions that works just fine.

Re:Liability

[SilverspurG]

Within Doc's context, however, he was making a valid point.

As for the smaller aviation industry, Doc's jibe is still perfectly valid. It was a jibe against the federal government, and it's the federal regulations controlled by federal politicians and influencing the opinions of federal judges which allows the liability lawsuits to decimate any company which may have a chance at competing with the big aviation industry.

So, next time, be more polite and consider what the other person is saying before you drop a ton of poop on them.

The encryption is for MSOffice-style lock in

[Anonymous Coward]

I own a JPI Engine analyzer in my plane. To respond to some misinformation above, they make various model of engine analyzers used in piston engine planes. The plane does not depend on the JPI to fly. It's used to gather the parameters from the engine as it runs for instant and with some models, stored for later analysis. It does warn of problems with the engine like overheating. The major feature is assisting with leaning the air/fuel mixture going to the engine, which pilots must do manually.

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:

JPI has recently made a decision to prevent the download of raw data from their EDM series of engine monitors. In the past, an EDM user could use a free piece of software, called EZSave, to transfer all the saved engine performance data from an EDM to a PC. The information was decoded and then stored in a plain text file as numerical values separated by commas (commonly called "CSV" format). This simple format made it possible to import this data in to most any software product, including Excel or any other graphing program. But recently support for EZSave was withdrawn and the program disappeared from JPI's website. In its place was a free version of JPI's fancy engine data graphing program, EZPlot. At the same time this was done, the firmware on new EDM units was updated to alter the data transfer format (from EDM to PC) so that existing copies of EZSave would no longer work. The result is that only EZPlot can talk to new EDM units, and EZPlot does not provide any way to save the raw data. This locks the user in to viewing the data only in ways that EZPlot allows. If you don't like the way EZPlot shows data, you are pretty much out of luck. Existing units in the field continue to work the way they always have, of course. But should you ever send your unit in for repair, it is likely that it will be "upgraded" with the latest firmware and EZSave functionality will be lost.

This change puzzled me a bit, as it seemed to have no purpose other than secure an additional revenue stream for JPI (the feature-full version of EZPlot costs money) at the expense of interoperability. It also seemed designed to intentionally shut out a competing engine analysis program called EGTrends. Personally I don't care for either of those programs: I want the raw data so that I can graph it in a manner than makes sense to me. Oddly enough, the way in which I like to view the data is very similar to the way used by EZPlot's predecessor: a primitive (but effective) Excel template that JPI distributed years ago. So I decided that while I was at Sun 'n' Fun I would go talk to someo