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Can you explain further? I am pretty sure the Predator drones do not feature in-flight entertainment, so unlike the plane + entertainment system in this article

by soult 15y ago

Can you explain further? I am pretty sure the Predator drones do not feature in-flight entertainment, so unlike the plane + entertainment system in this article, the infected computer systems must be related to flight operations.

Jtsummers 15y ago
The infected computer systems were ground side, not the aircraft themselves.
- nosequel 15y ago
  Exactly. This is sort of a stretch of a metaphor here, but consider the predator having a server system that provides an API. The ground station is just a client putting out requests to that API. The ground station computers had the virus. That whole series of articles in the press was kind of stupid. If I use github, have a virus on my computer, it doesn't mean that github has a virus on their computers.
  - soult 15y ago
    But that virus might steal the password for my github account. Or even delete one of my repositories. And by deleting a repository I mean firing a Hellfire missile.
    - Jtsummers 15y ago
      Yes, in this case though the virus was apparently a keylogger on a system that isn't (supposed to be) connected to the internet. So while it may have gathered information on what the operators typed in, it wasn't getting any magic passwords. Most of that (if done properly) would involve some secret keys that operators don't directly access.
ArbitraryLimits 15y ago
With the Predator, it was more or less a flight- vs ground-software distinction, as my sibling commenter says. But even with the inflight entertainment system, where everything's in flight, there are separate computer systems (meaning, CPU's, software loads, operating systems, power busses, communications networks, air supplies for cooling - the whole nine yards) for the flight critical software (flight-critical meaning that an error or malfunction could cause the plane to be unable to fly) and the in-flight entertainment center or any other system of lesser criticality. Even with UAV's, it's not just a flight-vs-ground distinction either. For example, any drone that's being used for reconnaissance is going to keep a big imagery database on board, simply because there's not enough satellite bandwidth to stream lots of data back to the ground while it's on the air. That server could be running Unix or Windows or whatever, and probably is, because the UAV designers will have gone to a lot of trouble to make sure it can't interfere with any flight critical software.

by soult 15y ago

Jtsummers 15y ago

The infected computer systems were ground side, not the aircraft themselves.

nosequel 15y ago
Exactly. This is sort of a stretch of a metaphor here, but consider the predator having a server system that provides an API. The ground station is just a client putting out requests to that API. The ground station computers had the virus. That whole series of articles in the press was kind of stupid. If I use github, have a virus on my computer, it doesn't mean that github has a virus on their computers.
- soult 15y ago
  But that virus might steal the password for my github account. Or even delete one of my repositories. And by deleting a repository I mean firing a Hellfire missile.
  - Jtsummers 15y ago
    Yes, in this case though the virus was apparently a keylogger on a system that isn't (supposed to be) connected to the internet. So while it may have gathered information on what the operators typed in, it wasn't getting any magic passwords. Most of that (if done properly) would involve some secret keys that operators don't directly access.

ArbitraryLimits 15y ago

With the Predator, it was more or less a flight- vs ground-software distinction, as my sibling commenter says. But even with the inflight entertainment system, where everything's in flight, there are separate computer systems (meaning, CPU's, software loads, operating systems, power busses, communications networks, air supplies for cooling - the whole nine yards) for the flight critical software (flight-critical meaning that an error or malfunction could cause the plane to be unable to fly) and the in-flight entertainment center or any other system of lesser criticality. Even with UAV's, it's not just a flight-vs-ground distinction either. For example, any drone that's being used for reconnaissance is going to keep a big imagery database on board, simply because there's not enough satellite bandwidth to stream lots of data back to the ground while it's on the air. That server could be running Unix or Windows or whatever, and probably is, because the UAV designers will have gone to a lot of trouble to make sure it can't interfere with any flight critical software.