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FBI Accuses Researcher of Hacking Plane, Seizes Equipment
chicksdaddy writes: The Feds are listening, and they really can't take a joke. That's the apparent moral of security researcher Chris Roberts' legal odyssey on Wednesday, which saw him escorted off a plane in Syracuse by two FBI agents and questioned for four hours over a humorous tweet Roberts posted about his ability to hack into the cabin control systems of the Boeing 737 he was flying. Roberts (aka @sidragon1) joked that he could "start playing with EICAS messages," a reference to the Engine Indicating and Crew Alerting System.
Roberts was traveling to Syracuse to give a presentation. He said local law enforcement and FBI agents boarded the plane on the tarmac and escorted him off. He was questioned for four hours, with officers alleging they had evidence he had tampered with in-flight systems on an earlier leg of his flight from Colorado to Chicago. Roberts said the agents questioned him about his tweet and whether he tampered with the systems on the United flight -something he denies doing. Roberts had been approached earlier by the Denver office of the FBI which warned him away from further research on airplanes. The FBI was also looking to approach airplane makers Boeing and Airbus and wanted him to rebuild a virtualized environment he built to test airplane vulnerabilities to verify what he was saying.
Roberts refused, and the FBI seized his encrypted laptop and storage devices and has yet to return them, he said. The agents said they wished to do a forensic analysis of his laptop. Roberts said he declined to provide that information and requested a warrant to search his equipment. As of Friday, Roberts said he has not received a warrant.
Roberts was traveling to Syracuse to give a presentation. He said local law enforcement and FBI agents boarded the plane on the tarmac and escorted him off. He was questioned for four hours, with officers alleging they had evidence he had tampered with in-flight systems on an earlier leg of his flight from Colorado to Chicago. Roberts said the agents questioned him about his tweet and whether he tampered with the systems on the United flight -something he denies doing. Roberts had been approached earlier by the Denver office of the FBI which warned him away from further research on airplanes. The FBI was also looking to approach airplane makers Boeing and Airbus and wanted him to rebuild a virtualized environment he built to test airplane vulnerabilities to verify what he was saying.
Roberts refused, and the FBI seized his encrypted laptop and storage devices and has yet to return them, he said. The agents said they wished to do a forensic analysis of his laptop. Roberts said he declined to provide that information and requested a warrant to search his equipment. As of Friday, Roberts said he has not received a warrant.
“Find myself on a 737/800, lets see Box-IFE-ICE-SATCOM, ? Shall we start playing with EICAS messages? “PASS OXYGEN ON” Anyone ? :)”
Looks like he threatened to turn on the Passenger Oxygen Light (as someone with the skill and tools to do it that's not an idle threat), Nothing that would cause a mass panic on a plane or anything like that. I mean you post a public comment like that I would far more surprised if the FBI didn't forcibly remove you from the plane. The article itself seems very biased as well.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
“Find myself on a 737/800, lets see Box-IFE-ICE-SATCOM, ? Shall we start playing with EICAS messages? “PASS OXYGEN ON” Anyone ? :)”
His mistake is obvious. He used a smiley face instead of a winky face.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
For FIVE years he has be stating, as well as others, that there are serious issues with this. For FIVE years. F that. The jokers are the FBI. We don't care about peoples lives, we care about the perception that there is terrorism and that we are receiving the necessary funds to enrich ourselves with. It's funny! Very Funny to me. We spend great sums of money to arrest people who do our work for us, who pose no threat but we do NOT fix the threat. We do not spend any money fixing the threat.
A real terrorist would not post to twitter until after the plane was down. When are we gong to wake up? When there is another 9/11?
After they finished with him the FBI should have gone over to Boeing and Airbus and detained the executives and seized their equipment to verify if the allegations were true. If they are true then they should ground all Boeing and Airbus vulnerable airplanes.
This in not about securing America, this is about terrorizing America so more funds can be spent on protecting Americans. When a plane goes down they can say see we need more funds.
Roberts has been demonstrating vulnerabilities in the avionics systems used on modern airplanes for the past five years, warning that modern planes have converged critical systems and non-critical systems such as in-flight entertainment and wi-fi in ways that create serious security and safety risks.
He isn’t alone. Ruben Santamarta a Principal Security Consultant for the firm IOActive demonstrated at the 2014 Black Hat Briefings how satellite based communications devices (SatCom) used to provide Internet access to planes in flight could be used to gain access to cockpit based avionics equipment. Brad “RenderMan” Haines has also demonstrated methods for moving from in-flight entertainment systems to critical control systems aboard planes.
If plane manufacturers are putting in-flight entertainment systems on the same network that a planes control systems are on, then Roberts are doing the public a great service by exposing this horrible security debacle.
This guy who fancies himself a "aviation hacking expert" goes around the country giving lectures on all sorts of things he sees as "risks" in all sorts of things just got himself in trouble by saying stupid things at the wrong time. It's like a security expert who gave talks about preventing Hijacking was talking about his presentation as he goes though the TSA checkpoint or with the flight attendant. Somebody took exception to the topic being discussed because of the context (he was actually ON an airplane at the time) and in the abundance of caution he was detained and questioned. I'll bet he never attempted any hacking, much less validated any of his perceived risks, most likely he made some inane statement like "I could hack into this plane and cause .... to happen" which got the attention of the flight crew who called the FBI who stops him as he gets off the plane.
But NOW this guy has a PR angle to play. And why not? Here is some self proclaimed "expert hacker" who has even been questioned by the FBI about possible hacking attempts and had his electronic devices taken in the process while he was on his way to give a talk on the very subject. Play that up, get more speaking gigs by playing up your qualifications.
This guy has nearly zero credibility with me. He's never really tested any of his theories on real equipment, doesn't work for anybody who would have access to the actual design specifications. Never worked for Boeing, Airbus or any avionics manufacturer. Has never demonstrated any successful attack and to my knowledge hasn't even attempted to hack anything. About all he has are a series of power point presentations that outline a lot of perceived risks he's come up with, but never verified, yet now he's the subject of international news? I sure hope he wasn't stupid enough to actually have tried his theories out on an actual commercial flight because the FBI is going to make an example of him if he did.
This guy's angle is all about milking the PR now. He's hit the short term jackpot and will be the featured speaker at "aviation security" conferences and I hope he makes some money. He's going to need it to pay the lawyers. However, IMHO, he's a nut job with power point skills and very little actual knowledge. He's just some lucky nut with a big mouth who fancies himself an expert on some issue that happens to be the news story of the day.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I know that seems logical, but that's not how it works.
For the moment, accept the notion that threatening people with scary behavior (O2 mask dropping) is a crime. Be real, it's a crappy thing to do. Then the laptop is the tool used (threatened to be used) in the commission of that crime. If the O2 masks were triggered on a Morsecode interface, and he had a morse code key, they would take that too. They can hold that evidence until the DA decides to press charges. No, they can't come into his home now and take things, but what other tool would he be using to commit the crime with?
If he was waving a pitchfork around threatening skewer people's luggage, they'd have the pitchfork in evidence. If you slam a cream pie into an official's face, they'll hold onto your pie plate.
He has every right not to reveal his password, and if they try to keep his laptop after the court system is through with case, this is wrongful seizure. But while the legal process is working, the pitchfork, the pie plate and the Macbook are going to get to know each other a little better.
I don't think they need a warrant at all to seize his laptop. Warrants attest to the "reasonableness" of a search. The 4th amendment protects from "unreasonable search and seizure."
Officers can seize any evidence of a crime that is in plain sight when they are somewhere they are authorized to be.
The officers were fully within their authority to board the plane, and probably did so with the permission and appreciation of the plane's owner and the pilot. There, in plain sight, is the laptop of the person who announced to the world that he was considering tampering with the flight computers. Why would they need a warrant to seize the tool with which he said he might do so?
Replace "tweet" with "stand up and announce" and "laptop" with "metal pipe" and the story becomes "Man stands up in aircraft cabin and announces he 'could disable flight instruments' with metal pipe." Not that he necessarily was going to. Just that he could...and he's got to the tool to do so right here...kinda maybe thinking about it...
How would it be "unreasonable" to seize the man's metal pipe on the spot? No warrant required.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.