Home » We’re in the very best of hands

Comments

We’re in the very best of hands — 7 Comments

  1. Remember the Beltway sniper attacks in the Washington Metropolitan Area? Could we be dealing with another John Lee Malvo or John Allen Muhammad?

  2. Good thing people put computers in their cars, right?

    Like I said before, really funny how those people and reporters died in car crashes because the computer “disengaged the breaks” and then “activated the acceleration”.

  3. Re: access to flight controls via the in-flight entertainment (IFE) system. Colour me *very* skeptical. I did design work on the IFE for two of the airplanes noted and there wasn’t even a *physical* connection between the two never mind a hackable computer controlled connection. Add to that: the throttles for those two planes are controlled by a steel cable that runs from the cockpit to the engine. Another of the planes noted is an older design than the first two but probably very similar in design architecture.

    As to hacking into the IFE, I don’t have any personal knowledge of the system software but would be only mildly surprised if it is possible. And if it is possible, I’d be very surprised if it isn’t corrected quickly.

    Further, the airframe, the engines and the IFE are all designed, and sold, by different companies; the airframe builder just integrates the items selected by the customer buying the airplane. The idea that the engines and the IFE systems would be electronically connected together is absurd and I doubt that *any* airplane manufacturer has *ever* done such a thing.

  4. bob:

    I’m not tech-savvy, but that’s what I would think, as well. The article seems to indicate it’s possible and that his claim is being taken very seriously, but I am highly skeptical.

  5. There’s no way he knows how to do it, because he didn’t test it. If he did, he wouldn’t have reported himself, would he?

    Reporting yourself in and then claiming you tampered already with something, that’s kind of like convicting yourself without a jury or judge.

  6. The most likely explanation for this — so far — is that a journalist reported something about which he or she knew very little, and, in the process, got some crucial details wrong. (I cringe — or laugh — every time I see a news story referring to “.9mm caliber” or a “semi-automatic revolver”. Sometimes there’s just no substitute for finding a knowledgeable proofreader.)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

HTML tags allowed in your comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>