Protecting Cities from Hijacked Planes

Kong99 writes "A group at UC-Berkeley has proposed Soft Walls to stop hijacked planes from entering a protected airspace. Interesting read especially since they claim it is 'hack' proof."

Awesome Caption

[Nintendork]

From the Enforcing a No-Fly Zone picture:

Plane tries hard to fly into zone but soft walls keep it out

I'm sold!

-Lucas

How does this work?

[packethead]

Oh, I get it. Planes will have to use an evil bit if they plan on crashing into a skyscrapper or something.

Is this really a problem?

[sharkey]

I thought this was solved by NOT allowing curbside luggage check-in.

In Other News...

[sxe_p06]

In other news, shipmakers have launched a new 'un-sinkable' ship today, and dubbed her 'The Titanic'...more to come...

Re:Don't make the claim

[Creepy Crawler]

That's the BEST way to find bugs. Simply promise the world that it's HACK PROOF. When there's some published loophole, they fix it. Then comes round 2 of "This versions' HACK PROOF".

How else do you encourage hackers to take their skills on something normal debuggers wont find? You make it a challensge and openly state it's the best secure.

Re:I'm sure pilots will love this

[webguru4god]

I can just see it now... "I can't let you do that Dave"

Re:hack' proof

[jobugeek]

They must use Oracle.

yes, I read the article

Will they add an Easter Egg too?

[ctucker]

Left, right, left, right, up, down, up, down, left pedal, right pedal, barrel roll left, hit the autopilot button, and BLAMMO, the names of the dev team are scrolling over the inflight movie.
Sounds like a recipe for air sickness bag sales!

Re:How close can they get?

[tanguyr]

No no no, this technology would only impose soft wall restrictions on planes flown by terrorists with the intention of crashing into buildings. It would even feature a special subconscious scanning algorythm that would know if the pilot was a terrorist, even if he didn't know it himself!

i mean, if you're going to live in a fantasy world, it might as well be a good one, no? /t

Shocking!

[kvigor]

"In general, pilots are openly hostile," he says. "Frankly it surprises me..."

The devil you say! Those darn whiny pilots and their "control" and their "not dying in screaming terror because their controls have beem r00t3d"!

Re:There's no practical future in this project

[Anonymous Coward]

Raindance is right you know. Nobody will fly planes into the twin towers ever again.

Meanwhile...

[istartedi]

...a group at Bellevue has planned soft walls for anybody crazy enough to believe something "can't be hacked".

Re:Repeat after me!

[FroMan]

Oh, I mean that's why terrorists have been able to bring the air traffic control network down by hacking into it.

Yeah they have! I've seen it in a movie. Die hard something or other.

Re:Will they add an Easter Egg too?

[weston]

Actually, I think that might be the "fatality"....

GPS co-ordinates of all restricted airspaces?

[DukeyToo]

A little box on every plane with GPS co-ordinates of prime terrorism targets? Seems like a wealth of valuable info for some loon with a couple of ICBMs to spare.

Are you REALLY sure?

[bill.sheehan]

This scheme sounds a lot like a puzzle in the old Infocom game, "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." [douglasadams.com]. If memory serves, there's a point at which you try to enter the engine room.

> enter room
This could be dangerous. Are you sure?
> Y
Are you REALLY sure?
> Y
Are you REALLY, REALLY sure?
> Y
I could tell you weren't really sure. You turn around and walk away. Telegrams from all over the galaxy arrive praising your prudence...

Autopilot: "I could tell you didn't really want to avoid that oncoming jumbo jet by turning left into a no-fly zone. Have a nice afterlife..."

Re:Repeat after me!

[Lemmy Caution]

The difference between the stock market and your monitor, is that there aren't hundreds of thousands of people who would like nothing better than to crack into your monitor.

Red or blue?

[GlenRaphael]

So either you shut off the computer somehow and therefore have no control over the plane or you avoid the no fly zones.

And this isn't like opening up your computer's case and switching some wires around. First you have to find out what wires you need to disconnect, which I imagine won't be easy, then you'd have to figure out how to get to them, etc.

No problem. There will be a panel in the cockpit. Remove that panel and you will find two wires leading to the "tamperproof" soft-wall decision box, a red one and a blue one. A bad guy would know which wire to cut because he did his research beforehand, but you're a good guy, so you will have to agonize over the matter. "Do I cut the red wire, or the blue wire?" Beads of sweat break out on your forehead as you position the wire clippers over the blue wire, change your mind at the last instant and clip the red wire. This turns out be the right decision, so you will be able to steer the plane to avoid disaster just in the nick of time. Hurray!

...or have I been watching too many action movies?

Re:Red or blue?

[theLOUDroom]

No problem. There will be a panel in the cockpit. Remove that panel and you will find two wires leading to the "tamperproof" soft-wall decision box, a red one and a blue one. A bad guy would know which wire to cut because he did his research beforehand, but you're a good guy, so you will have to agonize over the matter. "Do I cut the red wire, or the blue wire?" Beads of sweat break out on your forehead as you position the wire clippers over the blue wire, change your mind at the last instant and clip the red wire. This turns out be the right decision, so you will be able to steer the plane to avoid disaster just in the nick of time. Hurray!

That's because terrorists all know and follow the International Terrorist Wire Color Code (I think it's an IEE (Institute of Evil Engineers) standard or something. It's the same standard that requires bombs to have large red LED countdown diplays. It also forbids the use of any boobytraps to prevent someone from opening the box.

Of course this has been done before...

[Cobralisk]

On tractor trailers. [thesimpsons.com]

Re:Repeat after me!

[zaphod_es]

The difference between the stock market and your monitor, is that there aren't hundreds of thousands of people who would like nothing better than to crack into your monitor.

I was thinking of trying it. Are there 99,999 likeminded slashdotters out there?

I'm sorry...

[SerialHistorian]

What do you do when your airplane says, "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that."