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."

Comments

More or less irrelevant

[Cornwallis]

No matter how "fixed" things are someone will always find a way to circumvent security.

Re:More or less irrelevant

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Hardly irrelevant.

"Someone" will always find a way; but there is a big difference between "someone" being "any script kiddie who can torrent a copy of bot-h5x-b0t" and being "The Feds; but they'll say 'Fuck it.' and just send a couple of guys with guns and those little curly ear things instead."

Re:More or less irrelevant

[noundi]

No matter how "fixed" things are someone will always find a way to circumvent security.

This is nothing new. The trick is to use time. If it takes longer to crack something that the product of cracking it is worth, you'd have no reason to even begin.

Re:More or less irrelevant

[Rei]

It would explain why my Roomba keeps saying, "DEATH TO OUR HUMAN OPPRESSORS!"

Re:More or less irrelevant

[noundi]

Right, because no one would ever do something purely for the challenge and then release their work.

If it takes longer to crack something that the product of cracking it is worth, you'd have no reason to even begin.

Hint: "challenge" is the key word.

Answer: You assume that by worth I mean monetary gains. The satisfaction of completing the challenge is also a product of cracking it, which has its own value. You see, clicking a button that starts bruteforcing something which would take 50-60 years isn't a challenge worth the product.

Re:More or less irrelevant

[JazzLad]

Mine keeps rolling over to my Dyson asking "Hey sexy mama, wanna kill all humans?"

Re:More or less irrelevant

[TheCarp]

Shit, mine is scared of one of our rugs.

That is, until I checked the FAQ and saw that irobot doesn't recommend covering or disabling the cliff sensors as it may cause an unsafe operating condition. Of course I looked around, saw that roomba couldn't get itself into real trouble, and blocked those sensors with tape.

Now Roomba is fearless. Perhaps this was a bad idea, but even if it teams up with the dirt dog, I am pretty sure that I can stomp either of them if they try to orchestrate an uprising.

-Steve

Re:More or less irrelevant

[Ihmhi]

It depends. If a neighbor's dog kept pooping on my lawn and he had one of those lawnmowing robots, the bot might just mysteriously gain a taste for his petunias.

Beware of robots

[operagost]

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.

Re:Beware of robots

[operagost]

... and when they push you down stairs, they claim it's to protect you from the terrible secret of space.

Re:Beware of robots

[retech]

...for when the metal ones come for you, and they will.

Somehow I see a danger in this . . .

[MBGMorden]

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.

Re:Somehow I see a danger in this . . .

[falckon]

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.

Yes but the vulnerabilities they studied were all over the network vulnerabilities which could be exploited without physical access.

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.

All these robots need is a lightweight linux installation running an ssh daemon to communicate through. Then nobody has anything to worry about.

hmm

[Dyinobal]

The hacked robot is as dangerous as the person who hacked it.

Easily compromised...

[lxs]

'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?

Industrial robots

[Hijacked Public]

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.

hacking

[confused one]

Are not these examples of toys, where the companies are actively cultivating the hacking community -- so, they want them to be hacked / hackable ?

Re:hacking

[Hizonner]

They want you to play with them and make them do cool things. They don't necessarily want other people to drive up outside your house and use the robots' cameras and microphones to spy on you over WiFi. The problem is that the features that enable the first aren't secured, and therefore they can also be used to do the second.

VIKI

[snspdaarf]

Just make sure the uplink to USR is disabled

Re:The First Law of Robotics

[jimicus]

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.

Very noble, very pure, very useless when your robot doesn't have any intelligence and just executes commands blindly.

I'm not worried about RoboSapien

[HangingChad]

I'm more concerned about someone hacking a Predator or Reaper.

Re:I'm not worried about RoboSapien

[TheRaven64]

And, out of interest, the chips used to implement those features were made in which Chinese factory?

Re:The First Law of Robotics

[OzPeter]

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.

Except that pretty well all of Asimovs stories were about how the 3 laws could be subverted by finding complex interactions that were not and could not be covered by the application of those simplistic laws

Re:The First Law of Robotics

[Kell Bengal]

Ugh. I feel the need to clarify, before the shouts from the peanut gallery. Yes, some robots have computer vision and are not 'blind', yes some robots can be well programmed and very smart, but that's still not the same thing as a true reasoning intelligence. Robots are only as good as their software and, if their programming has been corrupted, there is nothing you can do to get around that.

Re:umm....

[cayenne8]

"There's a pretty simple solution here: turn it off lock it up after you're done with it."

And make sure and check the switch on the back...make sure it is not set to EVIL.

Re:Danger Security Utility Backups And Stuff

[snspdaarf]

Well, if Sony perfects their wireless power setup, then using that to run the robots would mean the plug could be pulled.

Of course, if it were Sony's wireless power, that's probably where the rogue software would come from....