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A Boeing Code Leak Exposes Security Flaws Deep in a 787's Guts

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Re: A Boeing Code Leak Exposes Security Flaws Deep in a 787's Guts

#161

Post by jquery »

tempguy9999 wrote: post #99
jquery wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I have no idea how that company will ever earn back my trust Millions of ongoing safe flights? I dunno. I feel like they're getting savaged (which they deserve... to a point... but we will cross that point I am pretty sure, if we haven't already...) The thousands (tens of thousands?) of safe flights per day don't make the news. Boeing has been a pioneer in the safest form of transportation in existence. Mentour Pilo…

If that quote is so[x], that casts a very deep shadow over the FAA. They've gone from handing off their responsibility for validation to outright rejecting the safety advice of the maker of the aircraft. [x] and I don't mean that to doubt you but I hope you understand I can't be absolute on this without verification

Keep in mind I don’t know exactly how those conversations went between Boeing and the FAA, nor do I know exactly who my dad was referring to when he said Boeing (the head of engineering? head of safety? A group of people inside Boeing? Was Boeing unified in its opinion or was this concentrated in the area of engineering my father worked in?) Grounding an entire class of plane is not a decision made lightly because of the huge financial and political implications. My takeaway is Boeing leaned towards grounding and the FAA did not and on balance the plane stayed in the air while Boeing worked on the fixes.*

*EDIT: This is probably a conversation that happens after every crash/major-incident and hindsight is 20/20.

Re: A Boeing Code Leak Exposes Security Flaws Deep in a 787's Guts

#162

Post by MrOwen »

Lukeas14 wrote: post #97
usrusr wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The moving map could easily be fed from a separated consumer grade GPS. Same for all other metrics that the median passenger would care about (height, speed over ground), except for the ever-impressive outside temperature.

Consumer grade GPS actually won't work at 30,000+ feet at speeds the plane would be flying. This is to prevent someone from using the GPS system to steer a ballistic missile.

The gps on my phone begs to differ. You can (sometimes) acquire enough gps locks to get a signal and subsequent gps data like speed, position, etc. Worth a shot trying because there's very few other times where you'd be able to see your gps sensor read 600mph. You're probably right though, it's just that the cutoff speed is higher than whatever a commercial jetliner speed is.

Re: A Boeing Code Leak Exposes Security Flaws Deep in a 787's Guts

#163

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

Lukeas14 wrote: post #97
usrusr wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The moving map could easily be fed from a separated consumer grade GPS. Same for all other metrics that the median passenger would care about (height, speed over ground), except for the ever-impressive outside temperature.

Consumer grade GPS actually won't work at 30,000+ feet at speeds the plane would be flying. This is to prevent someone from using the GPS system to steer a ballistic missile.

The ITAR/COCOM limits used to be (according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordinating_Committee_for_Mul...) "faster than 1,000 knots (1,900 km/h; 1,200 mph) at an altitude higher than 18,000 m (59,000 ft)".

They have been relaxed since then, but all current commercial jetliners would stay comfortably within both limits.

Re: A Boeing Code Leak Exposes Security Flaws Deep in a 787's Guts

#164

Post by Waterluvian »

johannes1234321 wrote: post #158
brokenmachine wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the traffic lights here in Australia are honking great big metal poles that you'd need some serious equipment to reposition. Swapping bulbs would be a big operation too. What country are you in that has rotatable traffic lights?

Even if the traffic lights can't be rotsteted it's relatively trivial for an bad actor to break it in some way and hanging up your permanent green light at night and then watch the chaos. As gp said: The amount of such bad actors is low. And gains from an individual hack are low and there's a chance of getting caught.

"Relatively trivial" must be relative. Traffic lights where I am require a cherry picker in the intersection to get at.

This is like hacking servers. If you can get all the way to physical access with the device, of course it's exploitable. But that doesn't actually say a lot about how secure something is.

I imagine the quality of the lights around the world differ. If you can climb up and adjust it, these aren't the kinds of lights I'm thinking of.

Re: A Boeing Code Leak Exposes Security Flaws Deep in a 787's Guts

#165

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

jjtheblunt wrote: post #77
SilasX wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or to driving control! But, engineers keep making this mistake. Hackers were able to take over Jeeps via the entertainment system: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-33650491 HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9942647

Take over as in turn off, not steer, right?

Some of the hacks demonstrated disabling brakes. All that's needed is disabling them, and then when the driver (or rather, passenger in the drivers seat of the death express) is frantically stomping on the brake, selectively re-enable them on one side.

Re: A Boeing Code Leak Exposes Security Flaws Deep in a 787's Guts

#166

Post by jquery »

mikeash wrote: post #100
jquery wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I have no idea how that company will ever earn back my trust Millions of ongoing safe flights? I dunno. I feel like they're getting savaged (which they deserve... to a point... but we will cross that point I am pretty sure, if we haven't already...) The thousands (tens of thousands?) of safe flights per day don't make the news. Boeing has been a pioneer in the safest form of transportation in existence. Mentour Pilo…

Boeing probably doesn’t have the ability to ground their fleet with legal force, but if they said, “these planes aren’t safe, don’t fly them until we can investigate and fix,” most airlines would listen and I don’t think the FAA could somehow block this.

I’m not absolving Boeing of responsibility, just adding some color to the conversation.

Re: A Boeing Code Leak Exposes Security Flaws Deep in a 787's Guts

#167

Post by jquery »

FDSGSG wrote: post #125
fishywang wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you miss the Asiana 777 at SFO? Or is that engine-related?

That one was stupidity-related.

I was always irrationally nervous flying into SFO, worried about precisely what ended up happening. We should all be glad the plane mostly held together through the cartwheel, saving many lives.

Re: A Boeing Code Leak Exposes Security Flaws Deep in a 787's Guts

#168

Post by magduf »

blunte wrote: post #98
magduf wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The FAA was satisfied with Boeing's design for the 737MAX. Sorry, but I now have zero trust in the FAA.

Given in the US that corporations are allowed to contribute to political campaigns, and that one party has a very strong sense of "regulation is bad", there is intense pressure to deregulate as much as possible. And with the current administration and its choice to not staff many positions while cutting budgets (and while enacting executive orders to eliminate some regulations), the FAA is really unable to do anythin…

That's not true, because they just did something: they said they were satisfied with Boeing here. They could have been honest and said "we're not competent to properly evaluate Boeing's design decisions".

Re: A Boeing Code Leak Exposes Security Flaws Deep in a 787's Guts

#169

Post by debatem1 »

basilgohar wrote: post #32
debatem1 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Used to be done with a literal diode.

The funny thing is that LEDs (granted, not all types of diodes) can be used to read data as well as transmit it. Videos of such interfaces can be found on YouTube. So, they are not as one-way as some folks may think. https://youtu.be/aLP-OF4nesY

Usually wasn't an LED. Just a normal diode.

Re: A Boeing Code Leak Exposes Security Flaws Deep in a 787's Guts

#170

Post by snickerbockers »

henryfjordan wrote: post #11
toomuchtodo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it should be one-way communication (entertainment can only read FMS data, not send any), for the purpose of driving the moving map displays for passengers. Would you agree that this logical boundary should be physically enforced? Such as an opto-isolator?

> Boeing maintains that other security barriers in the 787's network architecture would make that progression impossible. They probably do something to that effect

"security barrier" is a vague, meaningless phrase that they don't define. There shouldn't be any connection at all between flight systems and the in-flight entertainment.
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