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Germanwings plane crash: Co-pilot 'wanted to destroy plane'

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Germanwings plane crash: Co-pilot 'wanted to destroy plane'

#251

Post by Piskvorrr »

fapjacks wrote: post #237
danellis wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, because that signal would never get hacked.

That's not what he's saying. The world isn't as black-and-white as "it can be hacked, so it's not worth it"... He's talking about raising the barrier to entry for this kind of situation via automation, much like TCAS would have prevented the Uberlingen collision.

Preventing accidents and stopping a rogue insider are very different issues. Remote control opens a bunch of new attack surfaces, while not helping with the original problem.

Re: Germanwings plane crash: Co-pilot 'wanted to destroy plane'

#252

Post by Piskvorrr »

frevd wrote: post #165
toyg wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would biometrics protect from an authorized party controlling the plane he is supposed to control ?

Overriding the override ;]. But yeah, it's kind of a race-condition. Not sure, how about some majority vote, enough members on the crew there to vote?

Trying to get a quorum aboard a falling plane. Now that's what I call an extreme democratic procedure ;)

Re: Germanwings plane crash: Co-pilot 'wanted to destroy plane'

#253

Post by toyg »

Piskvorrr wrote: post #252
frevd wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Overriding the override ;]. But yeah, it's kind of a race-condition. Not sure, how about some majority vote, enough members on the crew there to vote?

Trying to get a quorum aboard a falling plane. Now that's what I call an extreme democratic procedure ;)

And in a dramatic scenario, rather than "One head, one vote", you'll probably have "One gun, 100 votes" anyway...

Re: Germanwings plane crash: Co-pilot 'wanted to destroy plane'

#254

Post by Piskvorrr »

honzzz wrote: post #247
Piskvorrr wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2025, Q2: Airbus remote execution vulnerability discovered. (Did you just assume 100% reliable HW+SW, on Hacker News ? That's some serious handwaving...)

Did you just assume 100% reliable HW+SW... Why would you think that the parent assumes 100% reliable SW? Having SW more reliable than humans would be enough reason to replace humans with it. This does not seem impossible to me.

Well, the problem with current state-of-the-art flight automation is that it can deal well with routine, repetitive tasks. What it fails at are corner cases (cf. US Airways Flight 1549), and self-diagnostics (sensor readings are inconsistent with current flight profile, e.g. Air France 447). In such cases, what you need is intelligence, not automatics.

This makes your argument another case of "let's assume we have strong AI; then pilotless aviation is easy-peasy." In other words, one of your unstated assumptions is still firmly in the realm of science fiction.

Re: Germanwings plane crash: Co-pilot 'wanted to destroy plane'

#255

Post by Rooster61 »

jcfrei wrote: post #238
Rooster61 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a nice thought, but how would ATC determine what needs to be done? We are only finding out that this was an intentional act long after the plane has hit the ground. For all ATC knows, opening the door to the cockpit could be the WRONG action. If no one is responding from the cockpit, they have no clue what is going on other than the telemetry they are getting from radar and the plane's systems (which in this c…

If you add some additional information on the status of the plane (engines, electronics, etc) in addition to the telemetry you could infer much more on the current situation aboard the plane. In this case the simple reversal of the initiation of the descent (as a precautionary measure) might have prevented the unfolding of events. Obviously we can all think of corner cases where the pilots and the ATC would come to d…

"In this case the simple reversal of the initiation of the descent (as a precautionary measure) might have prevented the unfolding of events."

I think you might have missed my point. What telemetry do you think would have given ATC enough information in 8 minutes that would tell them reversing the descent is the correct course of action? If anything, the data in this flight would have indicated that the dive was initiated by the pilot, and would suggest allowing him to continue the actions. And how long would they have to discuss what should be done? The descent started 8 minutes before the plane hit the ground. That is a very short amount of time for people on the ground without full information to make the call. They would probably spend at least half that time trying to make contact with the pilot.

The bottom line is that the person best appraised of how to fly the plane is the one behind the controls, and that is how aviation has traditionally treated these situations. If a pilot wants to bring down a plane bad enough, it's mighty hard to stop them.

Anyways, and this is my speculation, I am fairly certain that remote control has been brought up many times before in aviation, and that there is a good reason why it isn't presently implemented. And as for the corner cases, those corner cases matter. This isn't a software engineering problem we are talking about.

Re: Germanwings plane crash: Co-pilot 'wanted to destroy plane'

#256

Post by ben1040 »

ptaipale wrote: post #164
s_kilk wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't many biometric controls trivial to defeat though? For instance, to replicate someones fingerprints all you need is a high res photo of their hand from a distance.

Or, a less high-tech solution: use the knife of your airline meal set to cut away the finger. Then the airline will move on in the arms race by responding with a fingerprint reader that wants to have a pulse in the finger, and then it doesn't work when the user is in distress and has an extremely high pulse. And then there is an accident and we the armchair security experts come up with more bright ideas.

>Or, a less high-tech solution: use the knife of your airline meal set to cut away the finger.

Last time I had an airline meal, even in first class, the knife "blade" was hard rubber mounted on a blunt metal handle. It could barely cut the food cleanly, never mind someone's finger.

Re: Germanwings plane crash: Co-pilot 'wanted to destroy plane'

#257

Post by fapjacks »

Piskvorrr wrote: post #251
fapjacks wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what he's saying. The world isn't as black-and-white as "it can be hacked, so it's not worth it"... He's talking about raising the barrier to entry for this kind of situation via automation, much like TCAS would have prevented the Uberlingen collision.

Preventing accidents and stopping a rogue insider are very different issues. Remote control opens a bunch of new attack surfaces, while not helping with the original problem.

Just because they're "very" different issues doesn't preclude there being a technical solution that helps solve parts of both problems.

Re: Germanwings plane crash: Co-pilot 'wanted to destroy plane'

#258

Post by ptaipale »

ben1040 wrote: post #256
ptaipale wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, a less high-tech solution: use the knife of your airline meal set to cut away the finger. Then the airline will move on in the arms race by responding with a fingerprint reader that wants to have a pulse in the finger, and then it doesn't work when the user is in distress and has an extremely high pulse. And then there is an accident and we the armchair security experts come up with more bright ideas.

>Or, a less high-tech solution: use the knife of your airline meal set to cut away the finger. Last time I had an airline meal, even in first class, the knife "blade" was hard rubber mounted on a blunt metal handle. It could barely cut the food cleanly, never mind someone's finger.

Yes, I was being sarcastic. You do, however, occasionally get real cutlery, even in economy class, with some airlines.

Re: Germanwings plane crash: Co-pilot 'wanted to destroy plane'

#259

Post by brc »

jordigh wrote: post #149
osullivj wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your brother is an alcoholic in recovery, or a 'functioning' alcoholic? Don't the airlines breathalyse pilots before they fly? An old school friend who's now a commercial pilot told me they're not allowed to drink for 24hrs before flying. I guess if there are no actual checks they can ignore the rules til they get caught...

He's been... all kinds of alcoholic. He always was able to stop drinking two days before his flights, but I think he slipped once. I don't know if they breathalyse him. He doesn't like to tell me details about it. From what I can tell, he's doing better now. Alcoholism is very common with pilots, though. This much I know, because I met many pilots through him and my father, and boy do they enjoy their drinks. In my d…

I have a friend who is a senior pilot with a large airline, and the drinking/hazing/partying stories he told me from his younger years were eye-widening. They generally all try and stay sober for the pre-flight period, but outside of that, especially when not at home, boy do they party.

Not sure how much of that still goes on - a lot, I would guess.

Re: Germanwings plane crash: Co-pilot 'wanted to destroy plane'

#260

Post by u04f061 »

Let's call this a suicide attack and this co-pilot a terrorist. Secondly, find out his religion and prefix this with terrorist. Prefixing his race will also be a plus point. Once all unknowns are calculated, ask his religion/race fellows to apologize this act of terrorism.
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