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Look Ma, No-Hands Fasteners!
Posted by
CowboyNeal
on Mon Apr 03, 2006 01:41 AM
from the assembly-liners dept.
from the assembly-liners dept.
theodp writes "Inspired by a daughter who suffered a serious infection from an IV feeding apparatus, the Trib reports an Australian architect has developed high-tech bolts and latches, which can be operated remotely without being touched. The first commercial applications are intended for aircraft, allowing crews to quickly reshape interiors to maximize payload space. BTW, smart fasteners hit Slashdot's radar almost two years ago."
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Hardware: Remote-controlled Bolts and Screws 318 comments
Winter writes "SMT Magazine has an article on intelligent fasteners (screws, bolts...) that can fasten themselves or by remote control.
Usage for this seems mainly to make sure normal people cannot change parts in their car themselves, and only allow for authorized parts and service.
Of course, a hacker might also have fun and disassemble the neighbours car."
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Hacker's Delight (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hacker's Delight (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Hacker's Delight (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Hacker's Delight (Score:2)
Re:Hacker's Delight (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Hacker's Delight (Score:2)
Reminds me of a Far Side cartoon.
Re:Hacker's Delight (Score:2, Funny)
This whole idea is nuts!
-Lasse
Easily Hacked (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh well, time will tell.
Here's how you secure it: (Score:2)
I wouldn't think that it would be too hard to key them with, say, 1,000 keys, 128 bits per key. That's 16,000 bytes, and 3.4 * 10^38 odds against you per guess. (I'll wager I don't need quite so many bits per key.)
The procedure is this: (1) Listen for my address to be spoken. (2) Listen for fasten/unfasten command. (3) Listen for password.
If you give it a good key, it follows the command, and throws away that key.
If you give it a bad key, it locks up for, say, an hour, ten minut
Re:Here's how you secure it: (Score:3, Informative)
That right there is a DoS
Re:Here's how you secure it: (Score:3, Interesting)
How would you attack this?
Send a bad key once a minute. One useless bolt.
Re:Easily Hacked (Score:4, Funny)
Don't worry they will design a nice obscure protocol for it.
Parent
Re:Easily Hacked (Score:2)
Well, not that I don't agree with your point, but I just want to point out;
Since the real world isn't binary with two extremes only, 'not nearly unbreakable does' not imply 'easily hackable'.
Secured against unauthorized parties? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do I have a sneaking suspicion this will include the user, and/or third-party techs?
I can hear the coins rolling in now.
Re:Secured against unauthorized parties? (Score:2, Interesting)
Oh, you didn't use the right code to open the case? We're gonna brick it now.
This is the future, where you will need the manufacturer's permission to do anything to an item that you supposedly own.
Re:Secured against unauthorized parties? (Score:5, Insightful)
Capitalism is an equal opportunity for wealth.
You seem not to realise that the quote above is the direct outcome of the one below. The ultimate purpose of Capitalism, from a perspective of a powerful participant, such as a multi-national corporation, is to enslave everybody who can be enslaved by making them dependant on your products and destroy or marginalize the rest, by any means one can get away with. An ability to deprive the consumers of control of the things they supposedly own, or ensuring that such things have built-in obsolesence and are as disposable as possible, to be replaced with even less controllable and more disposable "goods", are perfectly valid strategies from a purely capitalist perspective, where greed and bottom line are the only overriding concerns and where definitions of the nature of "private property" are simply naive holdovers from earlier, simpler times and easily circumvented by technological chickanery.
Parent
Re:Secured against unauthorized parties? (Score:4, Insightful)
No, it is those, like yourself, who apparently think that anyone to the "right" of Benito Mussolini is a "communist" who are really funny. In a pathetic sort of way. What amuses me personally, is their propensity for firing broadside, ad hominem, wholly off target and unsubstantiated attacks, in response to just about any questioning which would demand a most modest amount of logic and reason on their part to respond, and then hiding behind asine one-liners when called on their non-sequiturs.
Parent
Re:Secured against unauthorized parties? (Score:3, Insightful)
My original post is anything but "unsubstantiated", it describes the general mechanisms in play in a Capitalist marketplace, which I am willing to discuss at length. Yours, on the other hand, speaks of my "commuting with nature", a hypothetical activity about which you have no way of knowing and accuses me of being a "communist", which by any sane definition, I am far, far away from being.
You are certainly no teacher in
Re:Secured against unauthorized parties? (Score:2)
Thinking the same thing == redundant at Slashdot
AHA! (Score:5, Funny)
Disassembler? (Score:2, Funny)
well (Score:2)
Intelligence!! (Score:4, Funny)
Most people are less intelligent than bolts and latches:)
*ducks*
Umm, batteries? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Umm, batteries? (Score:2)
http://2005.recon.cx/recon2005/papers/Jonathan_We
Re:Umm, batteries? (Score:2)
Re:Umm, batteries? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Umm, batteries? (Score:2)
Re:Umm, batteries? (Score:2)
Whilst intelligent fasteners are a step down from screws for ease of customer access, they can only be a step up from these damned tabs.
I'll take it (Score:5, Insightful)
So, if this mechanism means that bolts won't back out due to vibration, I'll take it. As long as it means I don't have to dick around with loctite threadlocker anymore. I mean, what genius decided to put the red loctite in a blue tube and the blue in a red tube?
Re:I'll take it (Score:2, Funny)
Re:I'll take it (Score:2)
I love this company... (Score:3, Funny)
Perrine, who left Microsoft Corp. to join Telezygology, said intelligent fasteners will cut the costs of designing, building and maintaining products that use them, and this is just the first step in a new direction.
When Balmer heard about this he threw a chair into a wall. Luckily the wall was constructed with intelligent-fasteners and with a push of a button, the wall was back to new.
Right... (Score:3, Funny)
"I wondered what's to prevent some nut using a garage door opener from pushing the right buttons to make your airplane fall apart," said Harrison. "But everything is locked down with codes, and the radio signals are scrambled, so this is fully secured against hackers."
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! That's rich!
Telezygology? (Score:5, Funny)
its the hacker equivalent of (Score:3, Insightful)
Its a cool idea, but i'm a bit sceptical about these 'codes'
it Would be cool if, say, in a car accident, firemen could spontaneously deconstruct a car involved, to get at the victim inside, but i doubt that screws have a lot to do with that. Its probably just going to make it easier for people to steal your radio
Re:its the hacker equivalent of (Score:2)
No (remotely) disassemble.... (Score:2, Funny)
New competition at next HOPE convention? (Score:4, Funny)
Obligatory bicycle reference (Score:3, Funny)
Look ma, no feet!
Look ma, no teeth!
Skynet! (Score:2)
Terminator 3 was on dutch TV yesterday. There must be a link in there somewhere.
Wow.... (Score:2)
Electronic "Bolts"? (Score:5, Insightful)
This sounds like nothing more than radio controlled solenoids, similar to what we see in remotely controlled apartment building entrance doors and in automobile power locks. A solenoid is just a coil that is electro-magnetized on demand to push or pull a metal bar through it's center. This bar usually moves something attached to it or touches a contact to close a high current circuit loop, like in a car starter motor. My guess is that the solenoid in a "smart fastener" would push open a latch or release some hooks.
So why all the talk about "smart materials", "intelligent bolts", and materials that "change shape on demand"? It sounds like a bunch of pie in the sky market speak to me, not unlike what is heard in articles written by corporate PR agencys. Such articles are often given to lazy, disinterested journalists as neat & easy pre-packaged stories.
This story has no substance - buzzwords are rampant and technical detail is non-existant. Yet the slashdot editors are proudly proclaiming they broke the story 2 years ago. Even worst, the story is being pitched as using exotic technology that allows self-threading bolts of some kind. The same false pitch was used last time as well. I bet this sort of "mistake" generates lots of $$$^H^H^H click thoughs though.
A question (Score:4, Insightful)
But we might need to design a new path to replace the batteries.
(well, I haven't read the spec., may be they doesn't require battery replacement or self-charging something....)
This is Bolt 2.0 (Score:5, Funny)
BOLT 2.0 is future of internet hosting.
Call my company now to find out how not to get left behind.
Voiding the Warranty (Score:3, Interesting)
If I worked on such a technology... (Score:3, Interesting)
1) Wait for full deplyoment.
2) Design a tiny transmitter, they seemed to be saying these things could be "Daisy Chained" so you would only need to be near one bolt--that means a good transmitter taped to a watch battery could be as small as a quarter. You worked at the company, so figureing out the codes should be a no-brainer, they are probably as easy to hack as RFID.
3) Place the transmitter somewhere under/in a chair (maybe slit the fabric somewhere or bubble-gum attach it underneath on a few dozen planes.
4) It mid-flight, five flights later one goes of and unlatches all the seats, then starts sending an invalid signal every 5 minutes so they cannot be re-latched for landing.
5) send a letter to the airlines saying there are more set to go off in the future, but you'd be glad to sell them the locations
6) profit.
Yeah, I guess that sucks--probably why I'm not a theif.
Re:Hmf. (Score:2)
Whether it's economical to get it right first time is an entirely different matter.
Ob. Slashdot Paranoia (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the DMCA makes hacking the encrypted communication to the fasteners a crime in its own right, only people who the vehicle manufacturer authorises can undo them. They presumably are their franchised dealer service centres and will not include the owner of the vehicle or their chosen unaffiliated repairer.
But why stop at the airbag? Why not bolt the hood down with the same things so that only the dealer can service the vehicle?
Heck, why not bolt the fuel filler cap shut with the same things. I imagine you could afford to give cars away if for their lifetime, they could only be refuelled at a Ford owned gas station.
If the devices become cheap enough, you might never be able to take the cover off anything you own again.
Parent
Re:Ob. Slashdot Paranoia (Score:2)
Well, it would certainly lead to a run on Dremel tools...