Chinese hackers take controll of a 787 in midflight

pyro · 9 Jan 2008 at 21:01

Actually they didn't, BUT it could happen, apparently!

Boeing has been ordered to ensure passengers on its new 787 Dreamliner jet cannot hack into the flight system and take control of the plane.

The ruling has come from America's Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which is concerned that the plane's computer system may be vulnerable.

Boeing said it was in constant dialogue with the FAA to resolve the issue.

The US giant will start to deliver the mid-sized planes from November. British Airways has ordered 24 Dreamliners.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7179823.stm

Well if you find flight simulator boring...

"heh Okay mines a beer"

Muffin` · 9 Jan 2008 at 21:02

Keep them citizens in line!

stevenazari1 · 9 Jan 2008 at 21:06

lol "this is your captin 1337haz04 speaking we are about to hit a spot of turbulence so please strap yourselves in and attach the facemasks now being deployed for your convenience"

Freeman · 9 Jan 2008 at 21:07

I thought everything is eventually hackable? Surely no one can claim something is un-hackable?

pyro · 9 Jan 2008 at 21:09

Freeman said:
I thought everything is eventually hackable? Surely no one can claim something is un-hackable?

I guess if you can't connect to something you can't hack it..

The_TailGunner · 9 Jan 2008 at 21:09

Freeman said:
I thought everything is eventually hackable? Surely no one can claim something is un-hackable?

well...apart from really big rocks. and churches. there may be some other things, but meh.

Viper² · 9 Jan 2008 at 21:10

FS:RL?

andyp · 9 Jan 2008 at 21:10

The Titanic was unhackable.

And look what happened there, Leonardo DiCaprio had to die.

Teki187 · 9 Jan 2008 at 21:11

I R STEALINZ YOUR PLANEZ LOLZ

paradigm · 9 Jan 2008 at 21:11

pyro said:
I guess if you can't connect to something you can't hack it..

Pretty much true, but a system like that must have both wireless comms (for ATC), and wired comms within the plane for monitoring and control systems.

That being the case, there will be "somewhere" that a "hacker" with sufficient knowledge could get into the system at some basic level, even if it were to only mess with some low level sensoring stuff.

The_TailGunner · 9 Jan 2008 at 21:12

andyp said:
The Titanic was unhackable.

And look what happened there, Leonardo DiCaprio had to die.

but thats a positive thing

andyp · 9 Jan 2008 at 21:13

The_TailGunner said:
but thats a positive thing

Good point.

Hmmm, Kate Winslet had to live?

Berserker · 9 Jan 2008 at 21:13

The_TailGunner said:
well...apart from really big rocks. and churches. there may be some other things, but meh.

I'm sure you could hack a church. You could certainly hack my local one. Just imagine what you could put up on the screen during the sermon.

Anyway, I'm sure it's not *that* hard to keep the IFE system seperate from the flight control system. Actually, given the number of times I've seen IFE go wrong I bloody hope they do. Oops - sorry, the IFE just crashed, and oh dear, so did the flight control system. Ctrl+Alt+Del to the rescue?

Of course, they're probably on about vulnerability to physical intrusion which is a different thing.

The_TailGunner · 9 Jan 2008 at 21:15

andyp said:
Good point.

Hmmm, Kate Winslet had to live?

nooooooooo. you ruined my happy memories

The_TailGunner · 9 Jan 2008 at 21:17

Berserker said:
I'm sure you could hack a church. You could certainly hack my local one. Just imagine what you could put up on the screen during the sermon.

Anyway, I'm sure it's not *that* hard to keep the IFE system seperate from the flight control system. Actually, given the number of times I've seen IFE go wrong I bloody hope they do. Oops - sorry, the IFE just crashed, and oh dear, so did the flight control system. Ctrl+Alt+Del to the rescue?

in flight tech support.

outsourced in flight tech support.

instead of 'can anyone fly a plane?' it'll be 'can anyone read a hex dump?'

my moment of fame approacheth!