Slashdot Mirror
Look Ma, No-Hands Fasteners!
theodp writes "Inspired by a daughter who suffered a serious infection from an IV feeding apparatus, the Trib reports an Australian architect has developed high-tech bolts and latches, which can be operated remotely without being touched. The first commercial applications are intended for aircraft, allowing crews to quickly reshape interiors to maximize payload space. BTW, smart fasteners hit Slashdot's radar almost two years ago."
I can't wait until some enterprising hacker duplicates the signal to release the fasteners, and does it in mid-flight. Talk about chaos...
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Now, I think this is really nifty, but... its easily hacked. Why? Because anything transmitted over open air can be hi-jacked. They claim otherwise, but I find it hard to belive that a unit thats small and simple enough to replace standered fixing devices (like bolts) would be smart enough to handle and nearly unbreakable encryption scheme.
Oh well, time will tell.
snowulf.com
Call me paranoid, but they mention the fasteners being secured against access by unauthorized parties.
Why do I have a sneaking suspicion this will include the user, and/or third-party techs?
I can hear the coins rolling in now.
So THAT'S what a self sealing stem bolt is for...
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
Remotely controlled bolts... that will certainly give a new meaning to "disassembler hacking".
There you are, staring at me again.
Most people are less intelligent than bolts and latches:)
*ducks*
hilarious
Don't these require batteries which will eventually go dead, rendering them unable to be released remotely, and possibly difficult to remove at all? Also, if anyone believes these things are truly hack-proof, they must be pretty gullible.
main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
Cost doesn't seem to be an issue here, especially if it'll save man-hours. Labor is usually the most expensive part of a business, especially when Unions are involved (like the airline industry) or when you take your car into the dealer.
So, if this mechanism means that bolts won't back out due to vibration, I'll take it. As long as it means I don't have to dick around with loctite threadlocker anymore. I mean, what genius decided to put the red loctite in a blue tube and the blue in a red tube?
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
FTA:
Perrine, who left Microsoft Corp. to join Telezygology, said intelligent fasteners will cut the costs of designing, building and maintaining products that use them, and this is just the first step in a new direction.
When Balmer heard about this he threw a chair into a wall. Luckily the wall was constructed with intelligent-fasteners and with a push of a button, the wall was back to new.
From TFA:
"I wondered what's to prevent some nut using a garage door opener from pushing the right buttons to make your airplane fall apart," said Harrison. "But everything is locked down with codes, and the radio signals are scrambled, so this is fully secured against hackers."
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! That's rich!
Everyone knows the proper term for a remote control screw is teledildonics.
that game where you try to unfasten girls bras without them noticing.. only instead of bras, its cars.
Its a cool idea, but i'm a bit sceptical about these 'codes'
it Would be cool if, say, in a car accident, firemen could spontaneously deconstruct a car involved, to get at the victim inside, but i doubt that screws have a lot to do with that. Its probably just going to make it easier for people to steal your radio
--AlexC
Just because I dont agree with climate change doesnt make me a troll
Johnny 5 is alive!
While there are no doubt many interesting uses that this can be put to, the one that should chill slashdotters is the example of preventing "unauthorised" removal of vehicle airbags.
Because the DMCA makes hacking the encrypted communication to the fasteners a crime in its own right, only people who the vehicle manufacturer authorises can undo them. They presumably are their franchised dealer service centres and will not include the owner of the vehicle or their chosen unaffiliated repairer.
But why stop at the airbag? Why not bolt the hood down with the same things so that only the dealer can service the vehicle?
Heck, why not bolt the fuel filler cap shut with the same things. I imagine you could afford to give cars away if for their lifetime, they could only be refuelled at a Ford owned gas station.
If the devices become cheap enough, you might never be able to take the cover off anything you own again.
Teams are locked into cages secured by these bolts. Each with a PDA and an RF scanner. First team out wins and losers PWN'd?
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Look ma, no hands! ...
Look ma, no feet!
Look ma, no teeth!
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
"If you give it a bad key, it locks up for, say, an hour, ten minutes, whatever, ignoring all input."
:)
That right there is a DoS
This sounds like nothing more than radio controlled solenoids, similar to what we see in remotely controlled apartment building entrance doors and in automobile power locks. A solenoid is just a coil that is electro-magnetized on demand to push or pull a metal bar through it's center. This bar usually moves something attached to it or touches a contact to close a high current circuit loop, like in a car starter motor. My guess is that the solenoid in a "smart fastener" would push open a latch or release some hooks.
So why all the talk about "smart materials", "intelligent bolts", and materials that "change shape on demand"? It sounds like a bunch of pie in the sky market speak to me, not unlike what is heard in articles written by corporate PR agencys. Such articles are often given to lazy, disinterested journalists as neat & easy pre-packaged stories.
This story has no substance - buzzwords are rampant and technical detail is non-existant. Yet the slashdot editors are proudly proclaiming they broke the story 2 years ago. Even worst, the story is being pitched as using exotic technology that allows self-threading bolts of some kind. The same false pitch was used last time as well. I bet this sort of "mistake" generates lots of $$$^H^H^H click thoughs though.
If you give it a bad key, it locks up for, say, an hour, ten minutes, whatever, ignoring all input.
....
How would you attack this?
Send a bad key once a minute. One useless bolt.
PenguiNet: the (shareware) Windows SSH client
"It gives designers a free hand," he said. "With intelligent fasteners, they no longer have to worry about providing a tool path when they design a product."
:)
But we might need to design a new path to replace the batteries.
(well, I haven't read the spec., may be they doesn't require battery replacement or self-charging something....)
If your data center doesnt use Bolt 2.0 in its racks you are just gonna lose in online ecommerce.
BOLT 2.0 is future of internet hosting.
Call my company now to find out how not to get left behind.
Will I be violating DCMA If I take apart my car and replace this with a 'dumb' bolt? I'm not against these so much as the political BS that could pile up around them. How long until the government starts regulating that the black boxes that are becoming common in cars are bolted in with coded bolts, such that removing it is a violation?
When I read the article, I was concerned not with the ease with which a third party could hack the radio signals, but with the problems this technology could cause for regular users who want to take apart their consumer products. If, as the article predicts, these RF fasteners make visible screws and bolts a thing of the past, to be replaced by internal, remote-controlled fasteners, the main result will not be opening up new avenues for design, but limiting users' ability to take apart their devices. In this dystopian future, only qualified service representatives might be authorized to use the coded signals to open up the case on a PC or a phone, for example. Or the fasteners could be rigged to electronically keep track of "tampering" or "unauthorized access." I would prefer to at least have the option to void the warranty without having to smash open the case with a rock!
Are here: http://www.textronfasteningsystems.com/pressroom/p r/intevia/photos.htm.
I'd be seriously tempted to earn my millions...
1) Wait for full deplyoment.
2) Design a tiny transmitter, they seemed to be saying these things could be "Daisy Chained" so you would only need to be near one bolt--that means a good transmitter taped to a watch battery could be as small as a quarter. You worked at the company, so figureing out the codes should be a no-brainer, they are probably as easy to hack as RFID.
3) Place the transmitter somewhere under/in a chair (maybe slit the fabric somewhere or bubble-gum attach it underneath on a few dozen planes.
4) It mid-flight, five flights later one goes of and unlatches all the seats, then starts sending an invalid signal every 5 minutes so they cannot be re-latched for landing.
5) send a letter to the airlines saying there are more set to go off in the future, but you'd be glad to sell them the locations
6) profit.
Yeah, I guess that sucks--probably why I'm not a theif.