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Could You Hack Into Mars Curiosity Rover?
MrSeb writes "NASA's Curiosity rover has now been on the surface of Mars for just over a week. It hasn't moved an inch after landing, instead focusing on orienting itself (and NASA's scientists) by taking instrument readings and snapping images of its surroundings. The first beautiful full-color images of Gale Crater are starting to trickle in, and NASA has already picked out some interesting rock formations that it will investigate further in the next few days. Over the weekend and continuing throughout today, however, Curiosity is attempting something very risky indeed: A firmware upgrade. This got me thinking: If NASA can transmit new software to a Mars rover that's hundreds of millions of miles away... why can't a hacker do the same thing? In short, there's no reason a hacker couldn't take control of Curiosity, or lock NASA out. All you would need is your own massive 230-foot dish antenna and a 400-kilowatt transmitter — or, perhaps more realistically, you could hack into NASA's computer systems, which is exactly what Chinese hackers did 13 times in 2011."
To think that they only got to where they are due to the greed of Western companies sidestepping the workforce in their own countries and outsourcing to China. Then they start hacking us, an ungrateful bunch of savages if there ever was one.
Sorry to nitpick..."Bullseye" is a target, Bull's Eye is an eye belonging to a Bull.
If I had an Ass, I'd call it Fanny Bottom, then I could slap my Ass; Fanny Bottom, on the Arse.
Huh huh, yeah, because AT&T/Comcast should give you and everybody else a 1 Gbps pipe to the Internet for the price of a 20 Mbps connection. They are running an Internet charity, right?
Curiosity has 2GB of onboard radiation-hardened Flash storage - not enough to fit both the Flight software and the Rover software at the same time. So they devised a system where they would fly the rover to Mars with the Flight software, and considering they wouldn't be performing a return trip, decided that they could remote-wipe the flight data and install rover software in its place.
So... the rover was responsible for the flight systems of its own delivery mechanism? If that's the case (which I cannot confirm nor deny, lacking NASA's rover specs), then it's stupid. Having the inter-planetary firmware update ability as a fallback is a good idea, but making it your default, especially knowing all the shit that could very easily go wrong and turn Curiosity into a multi-billion dollar brick? Stupid.
Due to Curiosity's nature, the onboard electronic systems need to be radiation-hardened. Not jjust "tin-foil cover" hardened. I'm talking engineered from the ground-up to resist data corruption from external radiation sources.
No shit, thanks Captain Obvious. Hard to recognize you without the mask and cape.
And of course, the people working at NASA are incapable of making mistakes or poor decisions, right?
This comes at extreme cost, both financially and physically. Every little bit of extra RAM or Flash storage adds weight to the rover unit, and by extent, tons (literally) of extra fuel to carry it that full 225,000,000km.
looks at identical 2GB and 8GB flash drives sitting on desk
...
Citation needed.
It's not as easy as plugging in a thumb drive or popping an extra disk in there. If it really were, do you think the rocket scientists at NASA would have thought about that before they shot a billion-dollar robot into the sky?
"rocket scientist" != infallible, omniscient deity. I know this is probably a tough pill to swallow, but just because someone has a particular title next to their name, does not, in any way, indicate their ability to complete every task sans mistakes and oversights.
I know you think you're being all geeky and clever, but seriously.
Actually, I was making a joke (figured the PS3 reference was a dead giveaway). You know, one of those little sentences or short stories that are made with the intent of causing the audience's corner mouth muscles to pull up slightly, and encourage a repetitive "ha ha" sound to be emitted from the throat?
Of course, you may be one of those poor, sad, creatures who are apparently incapable of anything resembling happiness or humor. If so, please disregard (and get a damn sense of humor)
If you aspire to second-guess every engineering decision that NASA makes, perhaps you should apply for a management position there.
Maybe I should. That way, NASA would have at least one employee who isn't completely infatuated with themselves purely because they have a certain piece of paper hanging on the wall. Everyone needs a hacker, right?
Fun Fact: The airplane was invented by a couple of hillbillies, in a bike shed. Education can be overrated.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
There are plenty of deeply flawed people out there who would break it just to break something that was important, damn the consequences.
Why is this modded insightful? Are we this fucking cynical now?
I have never, ever, once in my life seen someone break something that was important deliberately. Perhaps I'm naive (I don't think so, I've got plenty on my criminal record), but seriously - I've never personally seen someone do this.
Yes, sometimes people break insignificant things to make a point - but seriously, when did you see someone break something important just for the sake of it?