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Crashing an In-Flight Entertainment System

Posted by kdawson on from the stress-testing dept.

rabblerouzer writes "Hugh Thompson, who was interviewed by Slashdot on the dangers of e-voting, now has a cool blog entry on how he was able to bring down the gaming/movie console on an airplane. He calls it one of the most interesting examples of a software 'abuse case' he has ever seen." Fortunately the IFE system is totally disjoint from the avionics.

2 of 322 comments (clear)

  1. Old news by basslineshift · · Score: 0, Redundant

    I read this somewhere over a week ago it seems.

  2. Re:Err by nexuspal · · Score: 0, Redundant

    I believe you... The programmer had a if statement saying, if the number is at 4, and the user press's +, do not incriment the integer. By bypassing the screen input, and using the phone, you were able to get the value 5 in (= 5 instead of 5). Once you got the 5 in, the plus button never got caught by the value =ing 4 because it was already at 5, therefore allowing you to incriment to your hearts content. Thats my take on it anyway...

    --
    I've read Slashdot for the last 5 years, and now I start posting... Go figure :-P