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More likely, they may be worried someone is going to find a vulnerability and take control of their multi-jillion-dollar piece of equipment. At least in this c

More likely, they may be worried someone is going to find a vulnerability and take control of their multi-jillion-dollar piece of equipment. At least in this case physical access is an extremely improbable attack vector...

mod 6y ago
That occurred to me as well, but I imagine this is separated from the communications. Maybe it's not controlled at all... it does say autonomous, after all.
- amself 6y ago
  I imagine all commands have to get signed for the rover to accept them, but even if their keys were compromised and some vulnerability was found in the software, wouldn't you also need a network of really big dishes (see DSN) to actually send the commands to the rover?
  - laurent92 6y ago
    > Wouldn’t you also need a big network of dishes Nah, you can subscribe to big-dishes-on-demand using AWS Ground Station. Wait, they did exactly that: https://aws.amazon.com/ground-station/ https://aws.amazon.com/ground-station/ While some innovate, once again AWS reaps the margins of the whole space conquest by discretely providing the infrastructure that everyone needs. Clever!
    - folli 6y ago
      I honestly chuckled because of your AWS parody. Than I clicked the link...
      - alvarlagerlof 6y ago
        Same. Now I'm wondering what they're not offering.
dheera 6y ago
Reminds me of this: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-48743043 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-48743043
ampdepolymerase 6y ago
If a third party can break into the satellite and communications firmware of two different spacefaring nations (you have to hijack an orbiter too) then there are bigger problems to worry about. The number of countries (counting the ESA as one big country) with objects in orbit around Mars can be counted on one hand.
- laurent92 6y ago
  On the other hand, I’m not sure satellites launched years ago have auto-upgrades enabled and up-to-date security policies (and certificates!), especially upgrade policies for the embedded chipsets. That must be an interesting problem to solve.
- tester756 6y ago
  Well, I asked people who are world class competitive security competitors and had succes in HACK A SAT how's the satelites and stuff security and they said that it aint good
- drewzero1 6y ago
  True. I'm not saying they should be worried about that at all, but it seems like something somebody might be worried about anyway.

mod 6y ago

That occurred to me as well, but I imagine this is separated from the communications. Maybe it's not controlled at all... it does say autonomous, after all.

amself 6y ago
I imagine all commands have to get signed for the rover to accept them, but even if their keys were compromised and some vulnerability was found in the software, wouldn't you also need a network of really big dishes (see DSN) to actually send the commands to the rover?
- laurent92 6y ago
  > Wouldn’t you also need a big network of dishes Nah, you can subscribe to big-dishes-on-demand using AWS Ground Station. Wait, they did exactly that: https://aws.amazon.com/ground-station/ https://aws.amazon.com/ground-station/ While some innovate, once again AWS reaps the margins of the whole space conquest by discretely providing the infrastructure that everyone needs. Clever!
  - folli 6y ago
    I honestly chuckled because of your AWS parody. Than I clicked the link...
    - alvarlagerlof 6y ago
      Same. Now I'm wondering what they're not offering.

dheera 6y ago

Reminds me of this: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-48743043 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-48743043

ampdepolymerase 6y ago

If a third party can break into the satellite and communications firmware of two different spacefaring nations (you have to hijack an orbiter too) then there are bigger problems to worry about. The number of countries (counting the ESA as one big country) with objects in orbit around Mars can be counted on one hand.

laurent92 6y ago
On the other hand, I’m not sure satellites launched years ago have auto-upgrades enabled and up-to-date security policies (and certificates!), especially upgrade policies for the embedded chipsets. That must be an interesting problem to solve.
tester756 6y ago
Well, I asked people who are world class competitive security competitors and had succes in HACK A SAT how's the satelites and stuff security and they said that it aint good
drewzero1 6y ago
True. I'm not saying they should be worried about that at all, but it seems like something somebody might be worried about anyway.