Originally Posted by
ShotOne
What are these wicked hackers alleged to be planning? My airliner has a red "OFF" button on the automatics and two individuals with a honed sense of self-preservation to press it if we ever started heading off somewhere we don't want to go.
In a modern transport aircraft, one cannot really turn the automatics off -- even "flying manually" relies on a lot of computing. The engines simply cannot run without the FADEC and a whole lot of other computer stuff. As for the pilot's eyes and ears, yes, there may be a couple of steam gauges on the panel, but most of the information displayed to the pilots is processed by a large number of computers before appearing on the displays. As for heading off somewhere you don't want to go, it's entirely feasible for an attacker to have your instruments telling you that you are on course to your selected destination when in fact something entirely different is actually happening.