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How Dangerous Could a Hacked Robot Possibly Be?
alphadogg writes "Researchers at the University of Washington think it's finally time to start paying some serious attention to the question of robot security. Not because they think robots are about to go all Terminator on us, but because the robots can already be used to spy on us and vandalize our homes. In a paper published Thursday the researchers took a close look at three test robots: the Erector Spykee, and WowWee's RoboSapien and Rovio. They found that security is pretty much an afterthought in the current crop of robotic devices. 'We were shocked at how easy it was to actually compromise some of these robots,' said Tadayoshi Kohno, a University of Washington assistant professor, who co-authored the paper."
No matter how "fixed" things are someone will always find a way to circumvent security.
Fortunately, my insurance company, Old glory, can already protect you TODAY from the danger of robots. Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel. And when they grab you with their claws, you can't break free... because robots are made of metal, and they are strong.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
They speak of "compromising" these robots as if user programmable devices are inherently bad. I don't want to see devices locked down into black box "no touch" state because of some fear mongering.
That said, it has always been the case with computers (and robots are just computers with moving appendages) that if a hacker has physical access to the device, you're basically screwed anyways.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Old news. Chancellor Palpatine already hacked a whole army of robots in a galaxy far away.
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
The hacked robot is as dangerous as the person who hacked it.
'We were shocked at how easy it was to actually compromise some of these robots,'
So I take it that they have pictures of a Robosapien getting nekkid with a couple of Roombas?
could possibligh go wrong!
Nothing will happen if the 3 laws are present. Now you can go to buy that transvestite robot you allways wanted!
See Isaac Asimov for the exact quote, but it basically says robots may not harm humans. Because the law is encoded *in the hardware* there's no way that it can be altered.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
All the early generation industrial robots were just as easily compromised. In fact, most all industrial machinery still is.
Luckily most of that is bolted to the floor. You can make those AGV forklifts do frightening things though.
"Sacrifice for the good of The State" - The State
So, they're checking the security features on toys?
There's a pretty simple solution here: turn it off lock it up after you're done with it.
"Our goal each year should be to increase the number of goals we set for ourselves!"
Are not these examples of toys, where the companies are actively cultivating the hacking community -- so, they want them to be hacked / hackable ?
I, for one, welcome our hacked robot overlords.
http://twitter.com/OLDTELEGRAM
This needs the "whatcouldpossiblygowrong" tag. Just think: we'll hire a former hacker inmate to program the jail's robo-security and before you know it we'll have a new Terminator movie on our hands.
Just make sure the uplink to USR is disabled
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
but my cat is screwed.
With an Austrian accent ANY robot could be potentially dangerous. Even that gay ass AT&T free battery replacement robot with the rope skipping shit.
Is it just my observation, or is eldavojohn an idiot?
I'm more concerned about someone hacking a Predator or Reaper.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Irrelevant????
I see someone skipped the last few minutes of the Battlestar Galactica Finale!
They found that security is pretty much an afterthought in the current crop of robotic devices.
That pretty much defines how security is thought of most of the time, it's why software is so easily compromised, and why even physical security is often easily broken through. Why do they expect it to be any different with robots? Not that that justifies it, it just doesn't surprise me.
I half agree with you; user-programmable devices are very useful, and easily tailored to efficiently perform specific tasks.
The crux of the argument, though, is "which user is giving the instructions?" Long ago on /. I made a comment differentiating security vs. transparency in government. This is much the same thing.
On the one hand, you (and a lot of people) want the device to be as programmable, flexible, and useful as possible. That means it must be able to do a lot of things. On the other hand, people might want to use such devices for nefarious, invasive purposes like spying, theft, vandalism, etc.
The two are not mutually exclusive, but remember:
You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert until you read it in the original Klingon.
In the near future, a police officer specializes in malfunctioning robots. When a robot turns out to have been programmed to kill, he begins to uncover a homicidal plot to create killer robots... and his son becomes a target. Magnum Pi in 1984
...that'll fix robot security real fast.
It doesn't matter if a robot is "pwned" by Dr. Evil or if it bought, paid for, and run by Dr. Evil - it's equally dangerous either way.
Everyone sing along now, robots are our friends.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
It always amuses me when people worry about robots going wrong or turning on us, or being used by The Bad Guys of the Week to do us harm. I know a lot of very smart people who are involved in robotics research, and they will tell you that making robots do anything is hard. Making robots do something with surreptitiously poisoned programming would be even harder. Seriously,
if you're smart enough to remotely modify a robot's code to do something usefully nefarious, you're smart enough to sell a usefully nefarious to the government for megadollars.
There's a lot more money to be made will legitimate killbots. It might be nice to protect robots from script kiddies who just want to throw a spanner in the works but until robots are ubiquitous enough that domestic cybernetic terrorism becomes attractive (ie, doing it for the lulz) I don't think we need to be overly worried now.
That said, now -is- the time to be thinking about these things so that we're ready before we get to that point. Thinking, but not worried.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
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That depends on the size of the robot. I'm thinking a hacked Aibo is not much of a threat. Something the size of the Stay Puft Marshmallow man... that's a whole different kinda problem.
Play me online? Well you know that I'll beat you. If I ever meet you I'll "/sbin/shutdown -h now" you. -Weird Al, kinda.
Did we really need to research this, we know the answer... VERY! Of course, this depends on the robot of course.
Robot A is tasked with going into a nuclear reactor and removing spent fuel rods. If Robot A is hacked and re-programmed to smash the shit out of the reactor, this might be dangerous.
Robot B is tasked with preventing people from entering into an access point in a secure building by 'restraining' them. If Robto B is hacked and re-programmed to 'hack' the people at random then this might be dangerous.
Hacking a roomba to spell your name in the carpet is not dangerous... It is all about what the level of responsibility of the robot is. It is funny that we needed research on this.
so in the future, pranksters could repeat the "caution! zombies ahead!" traffic sign hack, and expand the prank by actually delivering on what the traffic sign is warning about. awesome
http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/austin/entries/2009/01/28/sign_hacker_broadcasts_zombie.html
sigourney weaver's voice repeatedly warning "caution, rogue robots" after the robots escape from the psych ward in the movie wall-e doesn't seem so far off in the future anymore
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
A simple but functional roomba makes for a perfect mobile landmine. Hide under a car then run out at the opportune time.
A compromised robot can become a lethal, disposable, and potentially untraceable WMD.
Teddy that taking bear deal could easily be compromised to issue malicious voice commands that, given someone foolish enough to use voice command on a computer and leave it unlocked when away, could be used to download malware.
A robosapien that has been compromsed could easliy be tasked to go into the kitchen sink area and spill as many bottles of liquids as possible. What are the odds of some ammonia and chlorine products getting mixed?
Any automated critter could easily scurry out into 70mph traffic triggering an accident...
The list goes on... Just watch a Batman episode with the toy maker... creepy...
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
ignorant
It's unfortunate that the only robots they had a chance to test were toys. I'm sure the government wouldn't want any studies done on the security of their robots yet. Still, toys are not a good subject to make a point with. They're for kids (or young adults I suppose), and the conditions and effort required to make this work and be of any value to the hacker is immense. They have to know that their target is worth spying on. they have to know there's a robot inside the house, or get one inside. (If you know this much, can't you just steal what you need anyway?) Sniff through network traffic to find an access code. Roll a robot around the house without anyone noticing. I've never had any of these, but I've seen quite a few. They're pretty bulky and not at all subtle. As far as the sound they make, I'm not sure but I'd assume that they're not very stealthy, are they? You're better off sitting in the kiddie pool out back with binoculars trained on the bathroom window.
...with networked printers.
Sometimes, it can be trivial to print a few hundred pictures of dicks to an IP printer on someone elses network. Or http or telnet into the printer and wreck all kinds of havoc, or just print a ream of test pages. Or use the MFP's fax function for moar great pranksterism. Maybe get a copy of the last x scans....
Of course, years of ubiquitous networked printers have yielded us "some serious attention to the question of" MFP security. Oh...nope? Don't expect much for robots.
THL phish sticks
Just three words come to mind:
LOST IN SPACE.
Nuff said.
It is also easily hacked and it does robotic acts. I stopped using it because of it. I'm wanting for an open sourced encrypted version of remote controlling devices but don't expect to see anything any time soon. I could make my own with gumstix for about $230 per device and that may be the only way to be secure considering none of the commercial stuff is willing to let us know there encryption and with closed source encryption why should we trust it the might have back doors.
That was my first thought: "How dangerous could a hacked 20 mm Gatling gun firing upwards of 4,500 rounds per minute be?" Very!
3 words: klaatu baratu nikto
... and guns kill robots. And so do stamping machines.
yes, you are correct that it is not conceivable a hacker would reprogram a robot with entirely new PhD thesis level code that took months to write just for a prank. but a wartime enemy or a well-paid industrial saboteur might for the purposes of seriously destructive intentions
furthermore, an effectively dangerous hack might be nothing more than instructing a robot to do nothing when it is supposed to be doing something, to simply erase or freeze the robot. hitting the off switch remotely is orders of magnitude easier conceptually than writing novel code. so even the benign prank-intentioned hacker might create a life-threatening situation if that robot is depended upon to do something vital. which is usually the case, for someone to invest a function to the care of an expensive robot, its probably important
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I think you'll find that it was "In a paper published on Thursday". In the same way that when a person said "Thursday" they said the word "Thursday" and when they said something "on Thursday" they said something. The use of the preposition "on" stops you sounding as if your reading an autoque on CNN and the sentence is easier to parse. Its always better to say something when you've something to say.
How has it taken so long for this to get modded into oblivion? And me without points...
Write your representatives! Repeal the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics!
I have compromised all the printers at my work. Now instead of "Ready" they say random stuff.
:)
And only because I'm good, I don't do anything more nasty with them.
Yeah I know, I'm bored. But it seems people like more "human" printers and no one complains.
Now I need to move to the coffee machine.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
"Runaway" was a near-future movie about a police division that dealt with hacked robots that starred Tom Selleck and was written and directed by Michael Crichton (of Jurassic Park fame). The thrust of the main plot was about a terrorist that devised a hack that turned service robots into killing machines...
The Daleks are coming.
Have gnu, will travel.
There have been a couple instances recently where the Predator drones have been malfunctioning in odd ways. They have programming that when they loose communication with the controller they return automatically to base. These have been running away to less than convenient locations. Either on their own or hijacked they haven't said exactly.
Couple hellfire and sidewinders could do a hell of a lot of damage.
Be scared.
* Robots may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
* Robots have seen things you people wouldn't believe.
* Robots are Your Plastic Pal Who's Fun To Be With.
* Robots have shiny metal posteriors which should not be bitten.
And they have a plan.
Best Slashdot Co
i'm certain the air force is paying attention to security, but i'll bet the chinese and the russians and the indians and the pakistanis are paying very close attention too. examining communication protocols used and logging command and control signals sent and received to reverse engineer standard operating procedure, and perhaps engaging in espionage in the usa, spying on and stealing the crafts' code from its makers
the idea of course being so that they can shut these things down or turn them against their makers in the event of war with the usa. and then to simply sit on these secrets, and perhaps never use them. but as the case of abdul qadeer demonstrates, these military espionage secrets sometimes wind up for sale to the highest bidder
al qaeda and the taliban will never have their own predator or reaper, but its not inconceivable for them to perhaps buy the hack necessary to simply send signals up there to turn around and fire on us servicemen instead
the irony of course is that the technologies that violent jihadists already use are the fruits of the sciences of open and tolerant societies. these sciences would never flourish in the types of societies religious fundamentalists wish to create. allah did not give them the means to wage war in the infidels, the infidels did
and most of iranian "advancement", such as their satellite or their nuclear program, is just tech stolen from the west and rebranded as blessings of the revolution. its good propaganda, but its not the truth, and its hard to hide the fact the west is always leading in science because the west's principles of more open and tolerant societies results in better scientific minds. to be a good scientist, you need to question everything, and in the islamic world, questioning some things is simply a path to your arrest and censure. you can't call yourself an advanced modern society when you have to steal your tech from other more tolerant parts of the world. sadly, the islamic world was in fact the basis for much of scientific advancement while the middle ages swallowed europe in barbarity. but its been a long time since then, and now barbarity is trying to swallow the islamic world
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
GP isn't actually offtopic. This article is directly or indirectly about fear mongering. Pointing out that there are carnivorous child-eating lizards, but that they live on the other side of the planet, is ontopic for "Under the Bed Monster fears" because it's reality, and the more of it you connect to the less subject you will be to irrational fears.
Your post is similarly on topic, since the robots that we should seriously worry about are indeed well secured against hackers.
Spykee is too loud to "sneak" up on anyone, but despite this and the "hype phrasing" of the articles, we finally have robots that are capable of external abuse. Spykee could instruct a trusting child as to how to unlatch a gate and fall down the stairs. Rovio could wait patiently by the stairs and slide exactly under a falling foot at a critical moment. These things can be done today, over the Internet, from the other side of the world. While Usenet is still in operation, it's pretty clear that the police are not well equipped for catching telemurderers.
Now would seem a good time to consider the issue. If we're posting on /. we can probably set our WPA-Enterprise security and require ssh tunnelling to access our home networks. Less than 10% of the people buying these robots can say the same. The infantile geek attitude of "serves 'em right for not securing it" needs to be discarded.
We geeks of the world are a significant force in the robot-buying market. Without exception all my friends would ask me first if they were going to buy a robot. We should let the manufacturers know that we won't buy or recommend "hard to secure" bots for our homes. Robot makers are one group that would actually listen to us. And since the tools for doing it right are freely available (though cost money to integrate), it's not an unreasonable stretch for the manufacturers.
While it's obvious how computer-people make the world an incrementally better place, this is one places where taking on some principals could save real living breathing humans. Seems worthy of some effort.
Did they test sharks with frickin' lasers?
you: "Robot, make me a sandwich"
robot: "No."
you: "sudo Robot, make me a sandwich"
robot: *punches you in the face*
Ultraviolet.
All cows eat grass!
Sorry, I slept late.
Hacking into digitally enhanced humans (and robots: androids/gynoids) in the future. Excellent animated SciFi movies.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113568
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0347246
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Great. Now we have to worry about "good" iTouching vs. "bad" iTouching.
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"Look, I gave him a six-foot extension cord so he can't chase us." -- Dwight
Ask Tom Selleck!
Any machine or robot that performs an automated task could theoretically be reprogrammed. Ever been to a car factory? You nolonger have armies of people welding the frame together. One could potentially instruct one robot to create a few weaker welds. Then it's up to the QA team to catch it. If the number was low enough, they might not be able to trace it back to the robot being hacked or programmed incorrectly since 98% of the time it makes that one out of 500 welds correctly.
I'd speculate that the robots' designers have been too busy building the robots to be properly socialized with the acceptable amount of paranoia. Who's got time for TV when you're building an artificial nervous system?
This is old news!
From Tobor we learned to NEVER give the remote to a hostile DA.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047590/
Yeah, tell them. Our invisible imaginary friend can beat up your invisible imaginary friend! And we are willing to fight to the death just to prove so!
Makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?
"But this one goes to 11!"
Robot Voyeur MILF Porn: the next big thing for bot net targets.
"Honey, I swear that robot is watching us."
Can we stop with this completely illogical fear-mongering? Hacked robots? Are you people insane?
When you say "robot", people think of the sort of mindless, strangely powerful, totally mystical automotons found in sci fi movies and television shows. People think cylons and centurions, not a couple of servos and some sensors.
Are hacked robots dangerous? No. Or at least they are no more dangerous in the "hacked" form than their unhacked form. My advice is to not build robots with energy-weapons for arms.
If the "robot" that builds your car gets "hacked" (and by this I mean the PC that has some hydraulics connected to it gets somehow "hacked"), unplug it.
Done.
NewslilySocial News. No lolcats allowed.
As long as the robots don't find religion and decide to wipe out the human race again like they did about 150,000 years ago.
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
Those are just toys, and toys at low price points. They're too weak to do much except look around and transmit video and audio.
Now look at the PR2 Personal Robot. That has real manipulation capabiilty and can be teleoperated over WiFi. Now there's a potential problem.
I have thought the same solution could be found here as for Soccer hooliganism. Why not provide a few large arenas where people who want to fight and maybe kill each other can go and do it. Today, muslims from the east entrance, all comers from the west. Whichever side is left standing moves on to the next round robin.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
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I'm a little rusty on my Dune (novel) lore but isn't the reason they don't have wide-spread use of robots because there was a man vs machine war in the history behind the lore of Dune?
Here's why I ask - so far, Science Fiction writers have been visionaries either predicting the future or paving its way (I.e., the Star Trek communicator looks a lot like the cell phone, space exploration, etc).
Let's ask ourselves: Why exactly do we want/need robots? Can't we build non-intelligent, non-combat capable solutions for what we plan on building robots for? I don't know ... the lessons of the visionaries are being treated as "fantasy" and all the while - it's us who create monsters without thinking.
L'esperienza de questa dolce vita (The experience of this sweet life) - Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy
...it will be initially written in Awk, and its' native operating system will be NetBSD.
all ur botz r belong to us!!
I'm shocked at how easily one can hack a kitchen knife to make a deadly weapon!
The robot witchhunt will begin the day after someone taps into the wireless video feed of a device in a child's bedroom and then posts the video on YouTube.
Hell, I'd pay good money to see Pat Robertson and Osama bin Laden in a no-holds-barred cage match! We could probably pay off a lot of the national debt just by selling tickets.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
Honey! Somebody hacked the Roomba again and sucked up the cat. Get my screwdriver and crowbar.
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
SWEET!! Commandeering a robot for nefarious reasons? We al lknew someone was "watching" us behind the roomba eye.. Yikes!
Strawman. OP made no such claim. Your ignorance betrays you as Muslim filth. Go wallow in the shit of your own childish but deadly expressions of rage, pig...
Hear, hear! Mod parent up!
Note to parent: why be AC? You've got something to say that's worth listening to -- I'd like to know who you are, so I can follow your thoughts on future posts.
-kgj
"Klaatu barada nikto", please repeat that.
In Asimov's actual stories, the Three Laws were NEVER violated, and nobody ever was killed by a robot.
The missing word here is "knowingly."
The killer in the novel uses robots as his proxies. The Three Laws can be violated if the robot can't foresee the consequences of his actions.
The victim is an amateur chemist who routinely uses common household glassware for his experiments.
Robot A is instructed to prepare a mixture in the lab.
Robot B is instructed to retrieve a decanter of wine from the lab and return it to the dining room table.
i specifically alluded to the flourishing of the sciences in the islamic world in the middle ages already in my comment you responded to. why are you pointing out to me what i already wrote?
"Islam is not necessarily intolerant, nor is Christianity (or atheism) necessarily tolerant"
absolutely correct, and i never said or implied anything remotely like that
"I submit that barbarity is trying to swallow up not merely the Islamic world, but the entire world"
the islamic world (the geographic region, not the religion), right now (not 1000 years ago) is obviously and genuinely far more intolerant in its laws and social norms than western countries. the islamic world obviously has a problem, and it does no good for the islamic world or yourself to deny the plainly obvious. it doesn't have to turn into a criticism of islam, nor does it have to ignore historical realities when the islamic world was the light of the world, but right now, the islamic world specifically is in trouble, and it will begin getting out of trouble just as soon as everyone agrees it deserves some harsh criticism, instead of blindly prideful deflections from within and willfully know nothing deflections from well intentioned but clueless westerners
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
When nanobots get hacked, we might as well forget about H1N1 or other biological viruses.
"What? Insecure robots? Bite my shiny metal ass, chump!"
See Isaac Asimov for the exact quote, but it basically says robots may not harm humans. Because the law is encoded *in the hardware* there's no way that it can be altered.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Bite my shiny metal ass.
No, really, you're alright, I like you.
Don't underestimate the power of The Source
Well Asimov had 4 laws of robotics! (But he started of with only 3) He added the Zeroth law that allowed a robot to harm one group of humans if it gave a greater benefit to a larger number. The Zeroth law was required for robots that controlled things on a planet wide basis and law enforcement robots, otherwise such robots would be unable to act. Consider someone about to shoot down an aeroplane with hundreds of people on it - one life against many.