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FBI Alleges Security Researcher Tampered With a Plane's Flight Control Systems
Salo2112 writes with a followup to a story from April in which a security researcher was pulled off a plane by FBI agents seemingly over a tweet referencing a security weakness in one of the plane's systems. At the time, the FBI insisted he had actually tampered with core systems on an earlier flight, and now we have details. The FBI's search warrant application (PDF) alleges that the researcher, Chris Roberts, not only hacked the in-flight entertainment system, but also accessed the Thrust Management Computer and issued a climb command. "He stated that he thereby caused one of the airplane engines to climb resulting in a lateral or sideways movement of the plane during one of these flights. He also stated that he used Vortex software after comprising/exploiting or ‘hacking’ the airplane’s networks. He used the software to monitor traffic from the cockpit system." Roberts says the FBI has presented his statements out of their proper context.
Somehow I doubt this actually happened. While I can believe that in theory it might be possible. I just dont see this guy, a security researcher from what I understand has a great reputation would have done this.
More likely the government is trying to save face right now. and since the TSA cant seem to catch any real terrorists, might as well make an example out of someone instead.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
No researcher would be so reckless as to actually screw with an airplane's engines mid-flight. The fact that the FBI alleges that he did means that they know damn well they have nothing to do on, but need to paint this guy as a terrorist in order to save themselves looking like idiots for arresting a guy based on a single twitter message.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
Of course, if it were possible to take control of a plane like this, the government would immediately ground all those planes until the security flaw could be fixed, right? Funny, haven't heard that they've done that.
Do not under any circumstance EVER talk to law enforcement. It's that simple stupid. I don't care if the cop threatens to tow your car and take your children. STFU. If they have something on you they will do it anyway and if they don't then they're trying to get you to say something for which they can arrest you. Nothing you say will ever help you in a court of law. Law enforcement are TRAINED TO LIE in order to get the responses they're after. "Sir- I'll need to ask you to step out of your car so I can search it". He's not ordering you to step out of your car. He's asking permission to search your car. If you comply he'll testify in court you gave permission for them to search your car. The exact phrasing will never be heard in court as the cop will just summarize it as "I asked for permission to search he responded yes". Had you STFU and only surrendered your name and address and if driving your ID, insurance, and registration you would never have ended up arrested. Yes- cops will "get angry" if you don't "cooperate". They will threaten to arrest you. However these are generally lies to get you to do what they want (allow a search, etc). If you don't "cooperate" they won't actually arrest you 99% of the time because they haven't got anything on you.
As I professional pilot can I say that while I have no insight into what may or may not actually have happened on this flight, the write-up in the article is utter bollocks from a flight dynamics perspective. If the case really rests on such a flimsy explanation of what happened than the FBI need some above from somebody who knows anything whatsoever about aircraft and flight dynamics.
Did he use Excel to land the aircraft?
ID: the nose did not occur naturally, how would we wear glasses otherwise? (apologies to Voltaire)
He said if he was an attacker he could "access the control computer, ... issue a climb command..." etc.. FBI has just taken those quotes out of context to justify its warrant.
In this case he was dumb and was reporting what he thought was a vulnerability to the FBI, and explaining the possible attack scenarios, and the FBI have thought "great! finally we can justify our terrorism budget!" and arrested him.
As to whether there is a cat5e ethernet port that connects to the flight computer under a passenger seat. Why would there be such a thing? The only network there is the inflight entertainment system and those systems have no physical route to the flight controls.