4 ms·
What does it even mean to “not be networked” and on a Galactic spaceship? I can imagine all of those systems need to communicate within their domain somehow, s
by heavenlyblue 6y ago
What does it even mean to “not be networked” and on a Galactic spaceship?
I can imagine all of those systems need to communicate within their domain somehow, so they need to be connected. You could make a point that they have “not been connected to the internet”, but then it only takes one node to become a bridge between WAN and LAN and you are Pwned.
It’s even worse now because there’s a tendency in software development to discount security this way: “we don’t need to think about security because we have a firewall”.
I don’t think this is a valid scenario.
- monocasa 6y agoI always took it to mean fixed purpose control signals rather than sitting on a common bus.
- heavenlyblue 6y agoIt takes only one buffer overflow within a fixed purpose control signal handler to convert any bus into a general purpose bus.
- monocasa 6y agoNo buses, only fixed purpose control signals. It's pretty hard to buffer overflow if (read_gpio(Ignition_Enable_Pin)) {
- nitrogen 6y agoBut if that GPIO triggers an interrupt, you might be able to get the processor to do interesting things by oscillating the signal faster than the processor can disable interrupts and run the ISR.
- monocasa 6y agoThat's almost always explicitly handled for line glitch reasons.
- nitrogen 6y agoHaven't there been mod chips for consoles that worked by glitching the lines at just the right time?
- monocasa 6y agoThe one I know of that glitched lines at the right time (the xbox 360 reset glitch hack modchips) worked by glitching the reset line at the right time via a CPLD that had been attached in such a way as to bypass the analog filtering. I agree that this scheme doesn't protect against hardware implants modifying lines, but the threat model discussed thus far was around propagation of software implants throughout a system.
- TaylorAlexander 6y agoI think the various ship subsystems were isolated and they used analog voice telephones to request various ship operations from crew in those sub areas.
- jfengel 6y agoThey're talking about a TV show[1], where one early episode revolved around the fact that they had avoided connecting the computers to keep the bad guys out. (Sorry if I'm telling you something you already knew; the question you started with made it unclear.) The show created an aesthetic like an old submarine, even using set pieces salvaged from other submarine movies. That was an aesthetic choice, making everything look cluttered and cramped and slow, increasing tension in exactly the way old submarine movies used to. In those movies, the computers weren't connected because they didn't exist. Actions were coordinated by phone. It's a bit contrived that they had computers but not networks. It was just a conceit of the show, and actually it was really mostly just in that one episode. But the aesthetic carried through and made for great atmosphere. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlestar_Galactica_(2004_TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlestar_Galactica_(2004_TV_...