Crashing an In-Flight Entertainment System

rabblerouzer writes "Hugh Thompson, who was interviewed by Slashdot on the dangers of e-voting, now has a cool blog entry on how he was able to bring down the gaming/movie console on an airplane. He calls it one of the most interesting examples of a software 'abuse case' he has ever seen." Fortunately the IFE system is totally disjoint from the avionics.

Looks like the airline got their own back.

[LighterShadeOfBlack]

TFA:

Unable to connect to database server

Profit?

[delirium of disorder]

0. Install wireless NIC to In-Flight Entertainment System
1. Connect to wireless WAN and Internet
2. Install web server and post link to slashdot
3. Short sell airline stock
4. ???
5. Profit!

Probably redundant by now, but...

[EvanED]

Hugh Thompson, who was interviewed by Slashdot on the dangers of e-voting, now has a cool blog entry on how he was able to bring down the gaming/movie console on an airplane

What, did they link /. to it?

Re:Slashdotted already?

[f_raze13]

The real title: How to crash a personal blog Summary: Post a link to it on /.

Re:Err

[iluvcapra]

Well, gee. I hope that that little map of the Atlantic Ocean with my plane superimposed on it only has read privileges on /dev/autopilot :).

Re:Slashdotted already?

[linuxmop]

So an article about hacking into insecure software is hosted on a site that displays information about its internals whenever there's high load... Fantastic.

Re:The blog post

[Gothic_Walrus]

Shit. Beaten to it multiple times in the space of the two minutes it took me to put my post together. So much for noble intentions... >_

TFA?

[Pikoro]

Wow, 5 entire copies of TFA in the comments so far... Do you people not browse the comments before you post?

Carefull, this may encourage people to actually RTFA...

Re:Err

[Harmonious Botch]

Well, gee. I hope that that little map of the Atlantic Ocean with my plane superimposed on it only has read privileges on /dev/autopilot :).

Load a copy of flight simulator, and find out for sure.

Okay

[Mathness]

Okay, who entered the number 5 and kept pushing +? Congratulation, you just crashed the server.

Some of these systems run Linux, and how I got bla

[Samarian Hillbilly]

I was coming back from a conference wearing a hat with a promenent penguin on it, when our in-flight system crashed. As it was re-booting it was obvious to some of the more tech-minded passengers that it was running through the Linux boot sequence. I started hearing calls of "lynch the guy with the penguin hat", from the seats behind me...

Re:Err

[Bronster]

Well, in your case it's obviously not even an 081 IQ or you would have mastered simple string reversal...

cookie monster

[Tablizer]

"Today, Sesame Street was brought down by the number 5"

TSA

[sidb]

Who let that guy onto the plane with a brain over 3 ounces? Don't they know that thing is a deadly weapon? Heads are going to roll.

Re:Similar Crash

[Marcos Eliziario]

Bad Man, Bad!
Now wait for the folks from IFEAA (IFE Association of America) to send their lawyers at you branding copies of the DMCA and calling you a pirate.

Re:Way too much effort

[Animats]

Virgin Atlantic flight ... to London a couple of years ago

What, that low-end system with an Nintendo NES emulator and an analog TV tuner, run from an under-the-seat box that cuts into legroom?

Re:I once crashed a bowling alley....

[innocent_white_lamb]

The bowling alley here runs their scoring systems on Amigas. No kidding. The guy who runs the place has a stack of them in the back room for spare parts. I have no idea what he will do when he runs out of spares...

Re:TFA?

[Barny]

If their post of the article is modded up funny it would be considered parody though :P

Re:Err

[skoaldipper]

Maybe his was a philosophical or metaphysical question, not mathematical.

> What's the oposite of a 180 IQ? An 018 QI?

QI (or "chee") means balanced life force energy. Notice the 0 and the 8 on either side of the 1; one circle (0) separated from the two smaller stacked circles (8) (or more precisely, the figure eight circle). Therefore, since 1 represents ("one" or "self"), we can infer from this QI degree quotient "018" that "My intelligence has already come full circle in life and will most assuredly half in my next unless my karma improves".

Re:I once crashed a bowling alley....

[zCyl]

The bowling alley here runs their scoring systems on Amigas. No kidding. The guy who runs the place has a stack of them in the back room for spare parts. I have no idea what he will do when he runs out of spares...

Go on strike?

Torture!

[MWoody]

Wait wait wait, so let me get this straight: you have to sit in that seat and stare at the 4 buttons they specifically told you not to push? For hours on end? That is my own vision of a personal hell.

Gnome Competition

[Sapphon]

Sure, but Fruit of the Loom will have to compete with the dirt-cheap Gnome Underpants flooding the market. If you search long enough, you'll find an exact replacement for the ones you lost!

Re:Err

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot one more category

IQ 70-85 - idiot that will buy what advertisers tell them to buy. #1 buyer of 4WD SUV's because they believe they will be safer. Believe that they really are the center of the universe. Prime candidates for Middle managenent, Sales and Marketing departments.

Re:Err

[mikael]

What happens if the plane has to make an emergency landing? Do the authorities shoot it down?

Nightmare at 6,096 Meters

[AndroidCat]

"Gremlins! Gremlins! I'm not imagining it, he's on the LAN! Don't look, he's not out there now. He swaps out whenever anyone might stat him, except me."

Re:As a side note...

[Don_dumb]

She then proceeded to tell us to be sure we didn't push 4 of the buttons on the main screen or else the screen at your seat would crash and they would be unable to fix it in flight.

So what did happen when you pressed the buttons?

Re:Err

[jackbird]

In that case, the landing has definitely caused an emergency.

Re:I once crashed a bowling alley....

[hoggoth]

> The bowling alley...
> ...runs out of spares

+1 unintentionally funny

uh.... yeah....

[Anonymous Coward]

You've been on Slashdot for 5 years, and now you start posting, and you come up with one of the least useful posts possible.

You just summarized TFA's explanation of "what went wrong," but less succinctly and less coherently than TFA.

Way to go.

Typical geek response...

[Anonymous Coward]

Found myself seated next to an IFE tech, a most buxom and cute island chick, on a recent transpacific flight. Took us about 10 minutes to figure out a workable hotbox - joystick interface.

Re:Avionics programmers

[Anonymous Coward]

But, if you didn't press the "turbo" button, it would go a lot slower, right? :)

Re:Err

[Unnngh!]

Once the number in the Tetris game rolls over to -128, the plane is supposed to go down by itself. If the authorities can guide the falling plane to land perfectly between the high rise and the parking garage, they will clear the row and move on to the next level...