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posted by martyb on Sunday April 19 2015, @04:18AM   Printer-friendly

The FBI seized equipment from noted security researcher Chris Roberts on Wednesday, alleging that Roberts may have tampered with the systems aboard a United flight to Chicago. Roberts denies the claim.

Chris Roberts (a.k.a sidragon1), a leading researcher delving into the security of airplanes, was pulled off a plane in Syracuse, New York, on Wednesday by the FBI and questioned, apparently over concerns that he attempted to hack into critical systems aboard a United flight earlier in the day.

His laptop and a variety of external storage devices were confiscated by the FBI, which said it wanted to determine whether Roberts, an authority on security vulnerabilities in modern aircraft, may have accessed sensitive systems on a flight from Colorado to Chicago earlier in the day.

Roberts is the founder and Chief Technology Officer of One World Labs, a security research firm.

In response to mentions of his earlier research on Twitter, Roberts, using the @sidragon1 handle, had tweeted about his ability to hack into in-cabin control systems on the Boeing 737.

“Find myself on a 737/800, lets see Box-IFE-ICE-SATCOM, ? Shall we start playing with EICAS messages? “PASS OXYGEN ON” Anyone ? :)”

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 19 2015, @04:05PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 19 2015, @04:05PM (#172858)

    Schwartz, the original author of O'Reilly's popular "Learning Perl" book, was arrested for using Crack to harvest passwords on Intel's intranet while he was teaching Perl classes there. Schwartz claimed he was doing ad hoc research on the quality of user passwords within corporations. Intel, which is pretty paranoid about security, pressed charges, and Schwartz was convicted of a felony. Much later, the charges were dropped:

    http://news.cnet.com/2100-7350_3-6164113.html [cnet.com]

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 19 2015, @04:45PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 19 2015, @04:45PM (#172870)

    I guess you're ok with me pentesting your grandparents pacemakers while they're helping their heart beat. Or your parents' insulin pumps. After all they are vulnerable and why should I even let you know I am going to do it? Better yet I should tweet it.

    This is nothing like Schwartz's case. Schwartz technically was given some access. He probably did overstep ethical bounds but aside from that, no. Roberts was grossly unethical and irresponsible whether he even accessed the systems or not. And I would say it was probably illegal if he didn't (but somewhat on the fence) and definitely 100% illegal if he had any access at all.

    You want no police state but you people never seem to get that it takes a responsible citizenry to show that it deserves better. Why doesm't everyone just tweet that stuff? He had means and motive and perhaps access. The FBI would have been derelict not to at least investigate this. And if he did access systems he shouldn't have then he should be charged as such. The potential for great harm existed if he did access those systems. What gives him the right? Extreme hubris? Being a "whitehat"? Shouting wasn't enough, so let's post a maybe joke tweet that if accurate could have actually gotten people killed (turbulence never made you accidentally mistype?)

    It was at a minimum worthy of investigation, and possibly worthy of more if there was even a whiff of access.

    I am grossly displeased with the EFF for misrepresenting his case - and for representing it in the first place at this stage. I want my donations to go towards helping people who are actual victims of overreach not protecting asshats with no sense of ethics who want fame and a pulpit.