Lot of misinformation regarding what a "hack" actually is. The ability to secure root access is largely a function of a true operating system allowing you to reach a command prompt that will accept an executable file. On a system like an avionics "computer" you have a fundamentally different purpose and architecture entirely. As mentioned by those with an intimate working knowledge even with full access and source code the system is not easy to manipulate.


Certainly not an expert but I'd wager very few entities have the combination of specific system knowledge and expertise to accomplish this, basically it would take major resources at a governmental level.


The real question is would access enable someone with lesser experience to degrade or destroy the system or interfere with the genuine inputs in such a way as to render the system inoperable. This is entirely different then actually hacking the system.

xgjunkie
 

According to governments monitoring the area with sophisticated satellites watching for flashes, explosions, etc....none seen

The scenario is possible that the plane came apart with no fireball and is near where you say.

Never has been a verification about batteries. Just questions

I just don't think so.

Yes!
 

FREDAcheck, as an IT professional I agree completely with that statement.

Some systems are more robust than others but none anr beyond compromise. As you correctly stated the human who build these systems are a security risk/weak point in their own right.

"If the aircraft descended to FL100 the crew and all the passengers would have recovered from the effects of hypoxia"

Even a slow descent to FL100 would be recoverable.

What part of that is incorrect?

Has the recording of supposed contact with the Naritan bound pilot been examined?
From my understanding this has not been convincingly ruled out as a vital piece of evidence.
Why?

Where is MH370?
 

Start with a circle centered on KUL and radius A/C endurance.
Now eliminate areas covered by other states civil radar if they confirm no radar trace.
Do the same for other states military radar.
Ask neighbouring states for any reports of A/C wreckage reports on land. This is not a sparsely populated area.
Continue in this vein until most likely area for search established.

An empirical method like this is more likely to produce a result than grasping at straws of 'possible turns' or 'fire in the sky' reports.
At the moment it seems the Malaysian authorities are jumping to solutions and that's never a good thing to do.

I just can't see that as a possibility. Just grabbed a trade a plane and looked. B747-200 combi $2 million US. Last time I looked 727's were going for under $250K. I would think that anyone that could come up with a nuke would have the scratch to just go buy a plane, and not draw the attention a hijacking would bring.

Your tablet can't be tracked if the wi-fi is turned off. Your phone can't be tracked if it's in 'airplane mode'. Neither can be tracked if they're 2,000m underwater.

Similarly, you can't track an aircraft by ADS if it's not sending ADS messages anywhere, due to transmitter failure or whatever. Had they continued sending ADS messages, we'd already know where they were to within a few tens of miles.

Hmmm ... thought so - last time I'll question what a woman tells me, no matter how ridiculous it seems!!! LOL

Yes I know who Bruce Schneier is, and yes I agree with the general statement that nothing is unhackable given enough time.

However the basic sanity test of viability still very much puts WiFi / remote control of a Boeing 777 firmly into the Hollywood fiction category. I doubt Mr Schneier would disagree with me there.

Yes. It was so reported in the news. (Boeing, Not sure of RR).
NTSB has a team either on the way or already there. Also reported in the press.
The acoustic beacons should last about 30 days underwater. You can find info about them here.

EDIT:
More info on TSO-C121 spec beacons here ....
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2012.../2012-5213.htm
http://estock.aviall.com/pdf/catpage/1991.pdf
http://www.sea-avionics.com/lc/cart....bstring=DK-100

Ture but . . .
 

"Yes I know who Bruce Schneier is, and yes I agree with the general statement that nothing is unhackable given enough time.

However the basic sanity test of viability still very much puts WiFi / remote control of a Boeing 777 firmly into the Hollywood fiction category. I doubt Mr Schneier would disagree with me there."

mixture, what you say here is true however, a hacker doesn't have to take control of the aircraft to cause an incident.

They could just target specific components of the system (for example disable comms) and cause an accident without actually trying to fly the aircraft.

worth pointing out pax oxy pointless above about 25k.

"Not your typical windows desktop"
 

Maybe not, but laptop based scanning & sniffing tools will soon expose open ports and capture and analyze traffic going in & out of the server including interfacing app ID's and passwords (even if encrypted). Non-mainstream O/S's did not stop Flame or Stuxnet which were specially crafted to target SCADA systems. It is not beyond the bounds of probability that sooner or later the bad actors will figure out how to craft malware that has been specifically tailored to interface with aircraft borne servers such as the T7.

The prospect of Windows like O/S's being used on the 787 and A340's is even more scary.

Please explain what you mean.....

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y17...1.jpg~original

This news report states that Malaysian Airlines does receive ACARS data from its Boeing jets, but that it declined to have these data shared with Boeing. Further, it cites Malaysian Airlines as stating that it received no ACARS data from the missing jet.
Malaysian Air Said to Opt Out of Boeing Plan to Share Jets? Data - Yahoo Finance

Of course the problem with this whole situation is that other than for knowing that the jet has not landed at any major airport, we are sure of absolutely nothing else about this flight. So much has been stated and retracted, nothing can be relied upon.

truckflyer (and it seems others)

No, that's not in the Boeing procedure for a rapid descent.

General point and as I believe has been stated - on some 777's (if not all, customer option's and all that) the passenger oxygen is supplied from bottles located under cabin floor and aft of the wing.

DME is a very old system. All the ground station does is listen for a pulse pair and sent out a reply after a fixed delay (50uS for X channel 56uS for Y channel) it has no idea what interrogated it.

So you are saying the B777 does not have the correct Pax O2 masks?

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y17...1.jpg~original

Hacking a Plane
 

I will not add anything to the speculations on this thread, and I am for sure not suspecting that computer security issues are the source of the problem.

I am not a pilot, but I am an active researcher in the area of computer security, and I want to add my two cents. While it may be science fiction to think of a plane being remotely controlled by an attacker, the possibility of vulnerabilities allowing for serious damage to a modern aircraft is a serious possibility.

Our community has been very successful in surfacing a number of vulnerabilities in modern cars. It is for instance possible to seriously endanger the safety of the occupants by using the embedded GSM connection used for diagnostics by car manufacturers. Similarly, the brakes could be disabled via the audio system. These and many more attacks have been widely documented in the academic research community (and tested on actual cars): Some more information can for example be found on the webpage of a joint research group established by the University of Washington and the University of California, San Diego -- cf. CAESS - Home

With airplanes being far more complex systems, it would be pretentious to expect the absence of vulnerabilities. The only barrier preventing us from finding security issues is the simple unfeasibility of obtaining a whole 777 to play with, rendering it unusable via different types of attacks. But the consensus is certainly that there has been a lack of interaction between the computer security community and the aviation industry -- add to this the fact that the 777 is an older design (in IT years) and we learnt so much about security vulnerabilities over the last 15 years.

Overall, I would never confidently claim such vulnerabilities do not exist, as such claims have always proved themselves wrong in the past. The car industry made at first similar claims, but has in the meanwhile undergone massive investments to improve the situation after the above attacks have been exhibited 4 years ago.

Hope this puts things into perspective a bit better.