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It's a matter of ethics, not logic. I don't think there's any similarity to putting a washing machine on a train track. According to the article the hacker had

by efnx 11y ago

It's a matter of ethics, not logic. I don't think there's any similarity to putting a washing machine on a train track. According to the article the hacker had reported this vulnerability years ago. That means every time the plane takes off all the passengers lives are at stake.

ghshephard 11y ago
If you are a criminal and wish to kill people, it's pretty straightforward to de-rail a train. Every time a train leaves a station, all the passengers lives are at stake. It is 100x more easy for your average person to derail a train than it is to fuck with the avionics system on a modern jet. There are lots of opportunities to kill people if you are evil. Thankfully, being evil is a fairly uncommon situation. But, as in the case of this hacker, being stupid apparently isn't. You don't execute the thing that can hurt people to demonstrate that people can be hurt if that thing is executed. Presuming (big presumption by the way) that he actually did break through the avionics firewall of an actual plane, and attempt to send commands to the flight-control system - then he deserves pretty much all the pain he's going to experience for the next 10-15 years. But, on the flip side, if it turns out that he wasn't actually ever hacking with the flight systems of operating planes, then I wish him the best, and I hope he's able to convince people that all of this was hypothetical, a misunderstanding, and the only testing he's done has been with research systems, or test environments made available by various plane manufacturers.
- efnx 11y ago
  You're making a number of judgements about the danger of the situation. The train analogy is also misleading. We're now essentially arguing about which situation puts the passenger's lives at stake the most. Which is the most dangerous situation? If we absolutely have to use an analogy we should make the train and the plane situations equal. In the case of the plane no one was hurt. Nobody even knew what had happened - not even the pilots. This might be analogous to a train "hacker" placing a washing machine on the tracks...and then removing the washing machine while the train is still at a safe distance. There we go - the train "hacker" has shown that a washing machine can be placed on the tracks successfully and now the train companies can start to think of a solution. Maybe breaks. Or horns. Or those big cute scoops ;) I think if you wanted to send the hacker to rot in jail (and keep your conscience) you'd have to prove that the hacker was very reckless and had no experience with avionics systems. Something tells me he knew how to run these systems though - at least enough to hack into them.

by efnx 11y ago

ghshephard 11y ago

If you are a criminal and wish to kill people, it's pretty straightforward to de-rail a train. Every time a train leaves a station, all the passengers lives are at stake. It is 100x more easy for your average person to derail a train than it is to fuck with the avionics system on a modern jet. There are lots of opportunities to kill people if you are evil. Thankfully, being evil is a fairly uncommon situation. But, as in the case of this hacker, being stupid apparently isn't. You don't execute the thing that can hurt people to demonstrate that people can be hurt if that thing is executed. Presuming (big presumption by the way) that he actually did break through the avionics firewall of an actual plane, and attempt to send commands to the flight-control system - then he deserves pretty much all the pain he's going to experience for the next 10-15 years. But, on the flip side, if it turns out that he wasn't actually ever hacking with the flight systems of operating planes, then I wish him the best, and I hope he's able to convince people that all of this was hypothetical, a misunderstanding, and the only testing he's done has been with research systems, or test environments made available by various plane manufacturers.

efnx 11y ago
You're making a number of judgements about the danger of the situation. The train analogy is also misleading. We're now essentially arguing about which situation puts the passenger's lives at stake the most. Which is the most dangerous situation? If we absolutely have to use an analogy we should make the train and the plane situations equal. In the case of the plane no one was hurt. Nobody even knew what had happened - not even the pilots. This might be analogous to a train "hacker" placing a washing machine on the tracks...and then removing the washing machine while the train is still at a safe distance. There we go - the train "hacker" has shown that a washing machine can be placed on the tracks successfully and now the train companies can start to think of a solution. Maybe breaks. Or horns. Or those big cute scoops ;) I think if you wanted to send the hacker to rot in jail (and keep your conscience) you'd have to prove that the hacker was very reckless and had no experience with avionics systems. Something tells me he knew how to run these systems though - at least enough to hack into them.