All United Flights Grounded Due to Mysterious Problem • Hacker News Board

Re: All United Flights Grounded Due to Mysterious Problem

#31

Post by TheCapn » Tue, Jun 02, 2015, 4:55 PM UTC

dba7dba wrote: post #24

krschultz wrote: post #2

I was flying from Dublin to Newark on Saturday on a United flight. At some point during our flight the entertainment system needed to be rebooted. When it came back up, the splash screen hit me with a huge amount of nostalgia. It was RedBoot with a kernel build date from 2004. Obviously this is the entertainment system and not something more critical, but it's telling. There is a huge cadence mismatch between softwar…

Considering the ridiculous amount of testing required (rightly so) for any change on the jetliners, they probably cannot keep up with the patches. One Windows running company I worked for long time ago simply didn't apply the patches. They said it broke things...

Depends on the risk it poses and the attack vectors available. If you can assume jetliners use a custom hardware with no web tie ins and no physical access (USB/otherise) then security patches covering attacks that require those vectors are kind of moot aren't they? A whole lot of testing and verification would go into applying a patch that is rendered useless by other security precautions.

Re: All United Flights Grounded Due to Mysterious Problem

#32

Post by jsingleton » Tue, Jun 02, 2015, 4:57 PM UTC

Could be a similar issue to the recent electronic flight bag issue. Certainly reads that way from the article. They seem very quick to blame a hack when it could very easily be a bug in the system or an administrator error.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/apr/29/apple-ipad...

Re: All United Flights Grounded Due to Mysterious Problem

#33

Post by cgy1 » Tue, Jun 02, 2015, 4:58 PM UTC

Hope it's not due to people using unopened cans of Diet Cokes as weapons.

Re: All United Flights Grounded Due to Mysterious Problem

#34

Post by georgeglue1 » Tue, Jun 02, 2015, 4:59 PM UTC

Interesting, United recently added a pretty lucrative bug bounty program (a rarity among airlines) a couple of weeks ago. http://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/Contact/bugbounty.as...

It would be ironic if the bug bounty program directly/indirectly lead to this.

Re: All United Flights Grounded Due to Mysterious Problem

#35

Post by theseatoms » Tue, Jun 02, 2015, 5:01 PM UTC

georgeglue1 wrote: post #34

Interesting, United recently added a pretty lucrative bug bounty program (a rarity among airlines) a couple of weeks ago. http://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/Contact/bugbounty.as... It would be ironic if the bug bounty program directly/indirectly lead to this.

Ironic? Maybe "fitting" instead?

Re: All United Flights Grounded Due to Mysterious Problem

#36

Post by Cacti » Tue, Jun 02, 2015, 5:02 PM UTC

arca_vorago wrote: post #3

From what I understand of the Chris Roberts fiasco, their avionics systems weren't airgapped from the other systems. If that is the case and not just hype, then no fucking wonder shit like this can happen.

So it's clear, Chris Roberts was referring to tests conducted in a simulator, not a plane. In fact it was a virtualized simulator at that, and one where the systems were purposefully put on the same bus in contradiction of what you'd find on an actual plane. On top of that, his claims to affect the engine were bunk and the most he accomplished was to listen in to network traffic, even with such a contrived scenario.

The whole fiasco is BS. Airplane networks are as safe as it gets.

Re: All United Flights Grounded Due to Mysterious Problem

#37

Post by jobu » Tue, Jun 02, 2015, 5:02 PM UTC

Not sure if it's related, but the United website was down this morning for a while as well.

Re: All United Flights Grounded Due to Mysterious Problem

#38

Post by jkestner » Tue, Jun 02, 2015, 5:05 PM UTC

theandrewbailey wrote: post #22

krschultz wrote: post #2

I was flying from Dublin to Newark on Saturday on a United flight. At some point during our flight the entertainment system needed to be rebooted. When it came back up, the splash screen hit me with a huge amount of nostalgia. It was RedBoot with a kernel build date from 2004. Obviously this is the entertainment system and not something more critical, but it's telling. There is a huge cadence mismatch between softwar…

This is the Achilles heel of the entire Internet of Things and smart appliance trend, and I think this will bite everyone bad. After 50+% of these vendors go out of business in the next decade, their products won't get updated, and people will wonder why their "smart" TV can't watch movies from whatever replaced Netflix/new whizbang video service. They won't be as likely to buy any "smart" thing again.

That will only matter if companies don't train customers to expect frequent upgrade cycles. It's worked for consumer electronics, but there will be strain in previously "came with the house" objects. You'll need to sidestep people's habits, in the way that the microwave did, perhaps.

And we're only worried about vendors going out of business because it's the early days and it's largely startups pushing the trend. With a Samsung or Apple, it's more that they'll quickly (by home equipment standards) stop supporting whatever doesn't stick to the wall.

There is a case to be made for self-contained objects that don't derive most of their value from an ecosystem, but work normally with no network. Work up from a toaster, not down from a computer.

Re: All United Flights Grounded Due to Mysterious Problem

#39

Post by lucaspiller » Tue, Jun 02, 2015, 5:06 PM UTC

georgeglue1 wrote: post #34

Interesting, United recently added a pretty lucrative bug bounty program (a rarity among airlines) a couple of weeks ago. http://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/Contact/bugbounty.as... It would be ironic if the bug bounty program directly/indirectly lead to this.

Except:

  Bugs that are not eligible for submission:  
  * Bugs on internal sites for United employees or agents (not customer-facing)  
  * Bugs on onboard Wi-Fi, entertainment systems or avionics

Re: All United Flights Grounded Due to Mysterious Problem

#40

Post by a3n » Tue, Jun 02, 2015, 5:07 PM UTC

theandrewbailey wrote: post #22

krschultz wrote: post #2

I was flying from Dublin to Newark on Saturday on a United flight. At some point during our flight the entertainment system needed to be rebooted. When it came back up, the splash screen hit me with a huge amount of nostalgia. It was RedBoot with a kernel build date from 2004. Obviously this is the entertainment system and not something more critical, but it's telling. There is a huge cadence mismatch between softwar…

This is the Achilles heel of the entire Internet of Things and smart appliance trend, and I think this will bite everyone bad. After 50+% of these vendors go out of business in the next decade, their products won't get updated, and people will wonder why their "smart" TV can't watch movies from whatever replaced Netflix/new whizbang video service. They won't be as likely to buy any "smart" thing again.

Roughly OT: I have yet to have seen anything that makes me look forward to the IoT, and when I talk to the voices of vendors in my head I'm basically telling them "Stay out of my refrigerator, my furnace, my toilet and my smart doorlock that I'll never have."

I just don't feel that anything relevant to the IoT is missing from my life. At all.