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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

#171

Post by bsder »

btown wrote: post #135
fdhfqbu wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've done security auditing of ADA and C avionics code. (including for DAL-A components). As a language, I'd take Rust any day (in terms of security/robustness properties). However, the rust/LLVM compiler pipeline is nowhere near mature enough for use in high-criticality environments.

> However, the rust/LLVM compiler pipeline is nowhere near mature enough for use in high-criticality environments. I love Rust, but I wouldn't want it to fly a plane I'm on. For instance, here's a bug in LLVM that Rust developers happened to discover - before they disabled their use of the buggy features, Rust/LLVM was producing _numerically incorrect_ code. https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues/54878#issuecomment…

Um, if you read the bug report, gcc also had the same bug.

Age doesn't automatically protect you from bugs.

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

#172

Post by jdavis703 »

brokenmachine wrote: post #148
jdavis703 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can tell you traffic lights are extremely insecure. Last month there was a traffic light that was turned the wrong way, such that it was impossible to tell if the light was green. So I climbed the poll and turned it to the right direction. Another fellow pedastrian thanked me. A bad actor could do anything from a DOS (positioning it the wrong direction) to tampering with the bulbs (for example swapping out all the…

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?

I'm in the USA. This particular incident happened in Washington, DC. I also saw a driver do this once in Palo Alto in Silicon Valley.

Anyways, even if lights are too big to climb up you can put on a yellow vest and get a flashing light on your van and people wouldn't really think twice.

Here's some photo evidence from Palo Alto, CA, USA: https://imgur.com/a/NxmphG6

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

#173

Post by jasonjayr »

johannes1234321 wrote: post #156
winter_blue wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, the rust/LLVM compiler pipeline is nowhere near mature enough for use in high-criticality environments. I don't know about Rust, but LLVM isn't mature? Nearly ever program running in the Apple ecosystem was compiled using LLVM. Swift is compiled using LLVM. Since Xcode 4.2, Clang is the default compiler. So iOS and macOS apps are built with LLVM. I'd also wager a guess that Apple uses Clang to compile key…

MacOS and related don't run the airplane. Pilots have an iPad for some checklists and other things where "have you tried turning it off and on again" works as failure prcedure. If a failure, caused by a compiler bug leading to an overflow in a rare flight situation, happens on an airplane system a reboot is not really the option you want to depend on.

Ironically, I recall reading about a mid-flight incident where the procedure to bring things back involved turning the entire plane off and on again.

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

#176

Post by jdavis703 »

Waterluvian wrote: post #164
johannes1234321 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Here's some photo evidence from Palo Alto, CA, USA: https://imgur.com/a/NxmphG6. Note how both lights are parallel when they should be perpendicular.

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

#177

Post by MaupitiBlue »

fishywang wrote: post #121
blackflame7000 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look at the Top 7 safest airplanes in terms of accidents per hours flown you get: 1) Airbus A340 - No crashes 2) Boeing 777 - 5 crashes, 2 intentional (Malaysia x2), 1 engine-related (Rolls-Royce problem), 2 pilot-error (Asiana/Dubai) - [Thanks fishywang] 3) Boeing 747-8 4) Boeing 737-NG 5) Boeing 767 6) Airbus A320 7) Boeing 757

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

Sum Ting Wong

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

#178

Post by mlindner »

blunte wrote: post #86
passivepinetree wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work for an airline as a software engineer (different from a company that makes airplanes, but you brought up airlines, so I think it's valid). We definitely attempted to write the best code as we could given the circumstances, but we had issues doing so: * airline margins are razor thin, so salaries are comparatively low, which means * the best employees frequently left for other opportunities, causing * m…

> * airline margins are razor thin, so salaries are comparatively low Excluding executive pay, of course. Oh and excluding stock buybacks (which increases shareholder value, consequently greatly increasing the value of executive compensation). https://www1.salary.com/AMERICAN-AIRLINES-GROUP-INC-Executiv... https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/4515/000000620118000... Razor thin margins which result in $200 million…

Arguments like this are absurdity taken to the max. Any executive's pay is a tiny tiny fraction compared to the combined salary of all the employees. Even if you set that salary to zero and divided it up all equally to all the employees (fractionally, so those who already make more get a bigger cut) the engineers would only get a couple dollars extra.

Secondly stock buybacks are similarly tiny compared to how much money a company actually has to give to its employees. Run the calculation some time. You need to be looking at revenues, not profits.

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

#179

Post by mikeash »

brokenmachine wrote: post #153
mikeash wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A statement like that would also be corporate suicide. Imagine the lawsuits.

Would it really be worse than having a government agency forcibly ground your planes for safety reasons?

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

#180

Post by Gibbon1 »

shakna wrote: post #147
winter_blue wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, the rust/LLVM compiler pipeline is nowhere near mature enough for use in high-criticality environments. I don't know about Rust, but LLVM isn't mature? Nearly ever program running in the Apple ecosystem was compiled using LLVM. Swift is compiled using LLVM. Since Xcode 4.2, Clang is the default compiler. So iOS and macOS apps are built with LLVM. I'd also wager a guess that Apple uses Clang to compile key…

LLVM is still in disagreement as to whether or not infinite loops are UB [1], and others. It is becoming more mature... But the argument about how to handle an empty infinite loop has been going on since 2015. [1] https://bugs.llvm.org/show_bug.cgi?id=24078

Offhand thought of the day. The Motor Industry Software Reliability Association should ban compilers that allow optimization based in UB.

Because seriously these people need to be stopped.

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