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Hacking a 'Smart' Sniper Rifle
An anonymous reader writes: It was inevitable: as soon as we heard about computer-aimed rifles, we knew somebody would find a way to compromise their security. At the upcoming Black Hat security conference, researchers Runa Sandvik and Michael Auger will present their techniques for doing just that. "Their tricks can change variables in the scope's calculations that make the rifle inexplicably miss its target, permanently disable the scope's computer, or even prevent the gun from firing." In one demonstration they were able to tweak the rifle's ballistic calculations by making it think a piece of ammunition weighed 72 lbs instead of 0.4 ounces. After changing this value, the gun tried to automatically adjust for the weight, and shot significantly to the left. Fortunately, they couldn't find a way to make the gun fire without physically pulling the trigger.
What they are saying is: If you reprogram a computer, you can get it do to the wrong thing!
I could mess up any computer by going through the config files or even recompiling binaries to intentionally break stuff.
It gets more interesting if they could show how to do this remotely on a real battlefield instead of just taking a device and acting all shocked that it behaves differently when reprogrammed.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
Every redneck knows how: Just clean it.
Have gnu, will travel.
The company filed bankruptcy a few months ago. http://arstechnica.com/gadgets...
He also pointed out that the Wi-Fi range of the hack would limit its real-world use. âoeItâ(TM)s highly unlikely when a hunter is on a ranch in Texas, or on the plains of the Serengeti in Africa, that thereâ(TM)s a Wi-Fi internet connection,â he says. âoeThe probability of someone hiding nearby in the bush in Tanzania are very low.â
High-gain directional antenna what what? They've got hills in Texas, too, little-known fact.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Was kind of thinking the same thing, actually... I'm pretty sure** that no one would be stupid enough to have the thing accessible over wireless, which leaves you the task of actually sneaking up on the damned thing to reprogram it. At that point it becomes a physical access problem.
** not perfectly sure mind you, but it counts as a fair no-brainer.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
And how are you contributing to that 'reasonable discussion'? Hmmmm?
...and TFA says it's accessible over WiFi.
I think I know what would get disabled first on the damned thing if I owned it...
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Anyone who ever says "we are incapable of having a reasonable discussion on X" really means "everyone doesn't just accept my opinion on X as gospel, poor me".
This would be ideal! If we prevent all the guns from firing, no more war! Any technology that could neutralize all weapons would be most welcome.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I thought this would be a bad idea from the first time I heard about it, just like all the other "smart" guns. Makes it entirely too easy for NSA types to remotely disable weapons, and they have access to a lot better equipment than Sandvik & Auger do.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
because in Murica we are incapable of having reasonable discussion regarding guns.
"Reasonable discussion" usually just means "my ideas are reasonable, and yours aren't, and as long as you're disagreeing with my ideas, you're being unreasonable."
The WiFi is there primarily for remote viewing capability. As in someone with a tablet (iPad, Android, whatever) can view the video from the rifle as the gunman uses it. They'll get access to the positioning and tilt of the gun on all the axis as well as what target is marked and what it's tracking.
It's also one of the newfangled "smart" guns in that the user has to wear a special ring in order for it to fire.
Also, the computer can only inhibit it's firing, it can't fire on its own. It's why once it's tracking a target, it calculates the necessary positioning to get a hit on the target once you squeeze the trigger (and wear the right ring).
The goal is to turn basically anyone into a marksman.
https://youtu.be/p47eWpzzGtY?t...
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Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
From your link:
"he expectation from a number of different sites is that TrackingPoint will soon be filing for bankruptcy."
Did they? Nothing seems to say they actually did, The homepage doesn't say anything about not taking orders...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Consider though that it's *Likely* that users of these firearms will be turning on wifi as one of the key features is to be able to have a spotter seeing what what the shooter sees via ipad connected with wifi.
The good news is that most of these layman shooters are just hunters that are not really hacker targets by anyone except PETA. Though it's still concerning that in military/LEO applications the vulnerability is at least in latent existence.
The other good news is that this sounds like a GREAT plot device for a movie. "Mission Impossible X: Bernardo's Revenge" ... in order to extract stolen classified tech from a bank vault, Tom Cruise hobbles into the bank with his walker (he is getting old) and stages an elaborate bank heist. When the police snipers zero in to take him out with their smart rifles he remotely hacks their rifles to make them all miss. Ok, maybe it's just B movie material.
“There’s a message here for TrackingPoint and other companieswhen you put technology on items that haven’t had it before, you run into security challenges you haven’t thought about before.”
They waited till the end of the article to put the most important part? "If you ware going to hook something up to any network you might want to at least think about security"
is that you won't know it's there before you've been shot.
I suppose if you see someone planning to shoot a third party you might manage to hack their rifle, but there's several ways to interfere with sniping if you can manage to be behind the sniper.
Except if it's the wrong person...
Non-Linux Penguins ?
You're saying that connecting to a WiFi setup that has a default password, that is not on by default, which is not actually marketed as a "sniper" rifle (and all of the military connotations that go with it), to change a setting that will do nothing but adjust a calibration that may cause a hunter to miss slightly, is "hacking"? Oh, forgive me, oh mighty so-and-so...!
No - that's not what I'm saying, I'm saying I read the referenced article. Clearly you didn't or you wouldn't be talking such wank. Try reading what they actually did - hint they didn't make use of existing capabilities - they found a flaw and exploited it to achieve a desired outcome by an unconventional method. The "person" I was responding to (you?) probably believes putting a fork in a power socket is a hack.
And no, you're not forgiven for being an arseclown. You can go back to moderating down anything that contradicts your misguided belief that you're clever - good luck with that.