deals.venturebeat.com — In a scary presentation at the Defcon hacker conference, a security researcher showed how easy it is to compromise the Federal Aviation Administration’s air traffic control system. I feel safer already.
Aug 2, 2009 View in Crawl 4
natimusrexAug 2, 2009
OH MY GOD LIKE THAT ONE DIE HARD
crossmrAug 2, 2009
wow thanks..I only had to hunt and peck through digg comments to get that info rather than read the article. Good thing they tossed in "(which is illegal)" otherwise I might go out and do it..
Closed AccountAug 2, 2009
Just because you are one a flight plan and that plan as been modified by someone else down not mean anything. Especially if you are already in flight. Normally the ATC (Air Traffic Controller) will clear you as filed. You program that into your GPS or FMS (Flight Management System) take off and away you go. If the plan changes later, you are not looking at it and most likely neither is the ATC. If a situation where to come up where this is a problem then the controller would rerouted as required or have which ever aircraft hold at current position. This is assuming that the aircraft is in a radar environment. If it is non-radar than the required position reports will settles the possible problem. Either way these aircraft have pilots in them so when the system "breaks" the pilots and controllers can make the appropriate changes.
lilrabbitfoofooAug 2, 2009
Buried as inaccurate.
darbAug 2, 2009
In all honesty, it would be more disruptive to jump on the airport frequency and transmit a loud tone, obnoxious chatter, etc. A lot of general aviation is conducted without the constant direction of ATC, sure - they have a flight following service, which is used as a resource and a tool for pilots (hence some of these flight plans), but you're not falling out of the sky and crashing into other aircraft if their flight plan system gets plugged up.By plugging up the radio transmission, however - you could cause some serious difficulty at large airports. Now you've got a bottleneck of planes trying to land all via light-gun signals, or other means of non-radio communication.You'd probably have to plug up quite a few frequencies, many airports have multiple frequencies for tower and ground communications...but hey, if you're determined that's a much more low-tech hack. Just...don't be around your radio when the fed's arrive.
zakool21Aug 2, 2009
You can submit as many flight plans as you want but nothing happens with them until they're opened with a control facility. If you open one and don't close it, they send out a rescue team and you're liable for the cost. That's where there might be an issue.