FBI Nabs Chicago Transit Authority Radio Hacker 177
Wh15per writes "The Chicago FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force arrested an individual for misusing Chicago Transit Authority radio systems. Marcel Carter, 20, is charged with violating a US code that forbids interference with transportation operators. A federal complaint alleges he began using a radio to transmit on CTA frequencies in June 2008, often interjecting comments during communications between the agency's control center and train operators. The CTA claims Carter's radio communications were never followed, and passengers were never in danger."
Refreshing Change (Score:5, Insightful)
See, there is some good news occasionally.
Oh, and can we reserve use of the term "hacker" for someone with at least a modicum of technical skills? This guy isn't even a cracker. All he did was talk on a stolen radio.
Oh, and this was funny: (Score:3, Insightful)
Merriwhether said her son knew why he was being arrested, but didn't know that what he was doing was against the law.
Translation: "Merriwhether said that her son was a *@#$%&# idiot."
During an initial court appearance Monday, Judge Morton Denlow set Carter's bond at $4,500 and put him under the supervision of his mother. He was instructed to not use any broadcasting devices.
Interesting. So he can't use wifi? I wonder what the judge's order actually said.
Re:Refreshing Change (Score:4, Insightful)
All he did was talk on a stolen radio.
No kidding. A radio hacker would have made his own radio transceiver. This guy's just a common street thug.
Why is public transport still living in stone age? (Score:5, Insightful)
In a previous life, I was an air traffic controller. For about a month, we had a moron that was transmitting on ATC frequencies, trying to give or override control instructions. Since he didn't have a good grasp of ATC phraseology, he was easy to ignore. But he did succeed in causing quite a bit of frequency interference: ATC still operates on AM, so there is no "capture" effect as with FM, where the strongest station overrides weaker stations. Simultaneous transmissions are garbled, so "Say again" becomes a very automatic response in those situations (hell, I still use that phrase today...old habits die hard).
My point here is that I do not see a reason why public transportation systems still rely on decades-old, non-encrypted technology. With ATC, it's a trivial matter of ordering a handheld on-line that is capable of transmitting on all ATC freqs. Agencies that continue to rely on antiquated systems deserve part of the blame.
Re:Why is public transport still living in stone a (Score:2, Insightful)
If that's not a knee-jerk, I don't know what is.
As for the busses, if they have enough of a problem, they can upgrade on a city by city basis, but until it becomes enough of a nuisance, they won't.
Could be easily worse (Score:5, Insightful)
There's other talk about the ATC issue, but that's harder to solve. CTA should move to encrypted radios. You can't really use that as an option for ATC as train drivers are a limited pool, whereas ATC frequencies are used by anybody flying a plane.
Oh, and attempting to issue orders to trains that may result in lethal collisions deserves a felony. Chicago deserves only bad press, and hopefully a budget line item for better comms. Much nicer than seeing somebody setup for a decade for screwing with an X-Box.
Re:Refreshing Change (Score:5, Insightful)
From TFA
Marcel Carter, of the 200 block of West 37th Place, was arrested Friday after he and his brother asked a CTA employee at a train station if there was a reward for a stolen radio. The employee put Carter on the phone with a dispatcher who recognized Carter's voice and kept him talking until police could arrive.
He sounds like a common moron.
Re:Why is public transport still living in stone a (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, with a closed-loop internal system like bus and train, I see your point. You have a fixed number of authorized users, and life is good. Mischief would be limited to a hacker who has the time and resources to monitor the frequencies long enough to break the encryption (which wouldn't be terribly long, since all the radios would have to use the same encryption keys, but at least the infantile idiots who buy a GPRS radio at WalMart and have trouble inserting the batteries properly would be excluded - so when someone DOES break in they'll celebrate their achievement by something more sophisticated than yelling "AFLAC" in a falsetto duck voice every ten seconds).
I don't know how much more encrypted radios are, but I'm assuming it's more of a budget issue than a technological one, and the very real possibility that the system can be broken anyway. Heck, I'd think using the cellular network would give them more secure communications with better voice quality and less need to maintain expensive radio towers. But that's point-to-point communications and not broadcast like a radio would be (which means a switch operator can't get on a radio and yell that anyone approaching switch XYZ had better stop right now or risk a crash, for example).
Re:Pranks now felonies (Score:4, Insightful)
Now, issuing false instructions that endanger the lives of tens or hundreds of people, THAT's felony territory, and anyone who does that should be locked up.
Re:Why is public transport still living in stone a (Score:3, Insightful)
A new secure, encrypted system (or at least one that implemented digital signatures for each transmitter) would probably wind up being smaller and lighter than many of the older radios installed on many planes.
The problem is:
Key/certificate infrastructure?
Transition period? Planes will need new antennas and potentially both systems installed simultaneously, unless the new system operates in the old frequency bands (may be too crowded for this)
In general, it's a massive organizational nightmare, and if the new system is in a different frequency band, there's the challenge of integrating it onto a massive pile of legacy aircraft platforms. Adding a new antenna to an aircraft is NOT necessarily an easy task. (Physically it is, but planning its location isn't always so easy.)
Re:Pranks now felonies (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why is public transport still living in stone a (Score:4, Insightful)
Becasue the system works fine. When an asshole does screw with it ti gets headlines. That means it's a non common occurrence.
Plus, this guy had an official radio.
Re:Taking bets (Score:3, Insightful)
So, who will get the worst punishment, this guy or the guy who modded consoles? Taking bets now!
The guy who modded consoles, sadly. One year for this guy and a ban from using radio bands for broadcast.
Re:Why is public transport still living in stone a (Score:5, Insightful)
The real issues are threefold:
1. Money: Encrypted radios cost, and there are a LOT of the old AM-band radios out there that would need to be replaced. Most planes have one, and most pilots carry at least one handheld for emergency backup and to get ATIS and just to monitor the frequency while they are preflighting to get an idea of what traffic is like, etc.
2. Range: With an AM, unencrypted radio, you can lose a surprising amount of signal and still make out what the person on the other end is saying. Once you encrypt the signal, your signal has to be pretty close to perfect or the decryption doesn't work. So you either just cost radios serious amounts of range, or you have to find a new frequency band where more information can be packed into the same frequency and you have more discrete frequencies to ensure a clear transmission free of interference.
3. Security: In order to use them, pilots will need to purchase them. So every pilot shop is going to need to offer these radios for easy sale. If pilots can buy them, so can other people, unless you want to get into a registration system as complex and useless as a gun ownership database. Then, of course, you can't really issue unique encryption keys to each radio because registering them is going to require a hellishly complex system. So you'll end up with something that is easily replicated and easily acquired, and therefore offers no real security.
Re:Pranks now felonies (Score:2, Insightful)
FTFA: "interfering with the operation of a mass transportation vehicle, a felony under the USA PATRIOT Act."
Yelling at a bus driver? Felony Leaning in front of an oncoming train? Felony Talking on the transit radio band? Felony Putting pennies on train tracks? Felony
Somehow, my youth was filled with felonious behavior. Perhaps the Homeland needs securing from scamps like me.
Peeing on the "third rail"? Felony
Re:Why is public transport still living in stone a (Score:4, Insightful)
Point 3 is misleading. Yes, pilots could purchase them, and you might not want to go to the trouble of uniquely identifying every pilot, but that's not the same as pilots being able to transmit as a controller! It'd be possible to use public keys to identify known-good control towers, and only distribute keys to those towers after proper investigation, rescind keys if they get out into the wild, etc. Pilots need to know that the control tower really is a control tower -- it's not quite as important the other way around. As long as a light indicates "you're hearing the voice of a real, authorized controller", you can ignore messages when that light isn't on. For that matter, you could auto-exclude them. Like auto-muting advertising.
We've managed to encrypt and authenticate large chunks of the internet without assigning unique IDs to every internet user. We can do this too. Not that this is the only hurdle. Your other points stand. It's still a huge challenge.
Common Moron (Score:5, Insightful)
Who is about to get pwnt by the full weight of the post 9/11 hysteria.
Throw in a healthy dollop of "omg there have been numerous subway accidents recently" and he's screwed.
He was formally charged Monday with knowingly interfering with the operation of a mass transportation vehicle, a felony under the USA PATRIOT Act.
The FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force has been investigating the case for more than a year...
...
If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in jail and a 200,000 fine.
One would have thought that this would be a case for the FCC and the Chicago Transit Police.
Re:Think before you speak (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course it does.
It distracts the driver.
From what? The comment was simply "yelling at the bus driver", under the SUBJECT "Pranks...". If you are standing at the entrance of the bus yelling at him while he's waiting for you to pay so he can close the doors and move on, you aren't distracting him from anything -- his job at that moment is to watch you pay your fare, so he's already dealing WITH YOU. So no, simply "yelling at the bus driver" as a "prank" isn't a felony because it isn't interfering with the mass transport system.
Now, if you run up behind him while he's DRIVING DOWN THE STREET and start yelling at him out of the blue, yes, I suppose that's something that should be punished and is dangerous, which is why I wouldn't call it a PRANK.
Someone dies.
Yes, if you cause the death of someone, except under specific circumstances, it is a crime and you should go to jail. That's not "a prank". Simply yelling at a driver does not mean "someone dies".
At the very least, you've done your bit to make the mass transit experience singularly unpleasant for everyone.
And now you're trying to define "making something unpleasant" as a felonious interference with a mass transport system that endangers lives and property. Shit, most of the people riding on the bus make the experience unpleasant for the others. They smell, they spit, they yak yak yak, they play radios, they step on your toes as they walk by. They cough, they sneeze, they wheeze and gasp, they spill their drinks on you. If you want to claim that "make the experience unpleasant" is a felony, then there are a lot of people who need to be arrested.
That doesn't help boost ridership and revenues, it sure as heck doesn't make it any easier to recruit and retain drivers.
You really need to get a grip on the difference between "interference with a mass transport system" and "being obnoxious". Or don't, and continue to whine about how the Patriot Act ruins your life because it makes everything you do illegal, and look stupid when you tell people exactly what you're doing that you think is illegal. No, "yelling at a bus driver" isn't. "Putting pennies on a train track" isn't. "Interfering with mass transport communications and safety systems" is.
Re:Common Moron (Score:3, Insightful)
The FCC doesn't use interrogation rooms. They send letters. "Notice of Apparent Liability". You get a certain amount of time to respond, and then an administrative law judge decides the case. Then you get a letter telling you the fine.
Now, it rates a vacation in Southeastern Cuba.
What utter nonsense.
You forgot to read one important clause: "in order to cause harm or death to passengers". Yelling at the bus driver as you get on that the fares are too high isn't "in order to cause harm or death" of anyone.
Now, it's all in how you read it, and they'll probably read it to screw him.
Well, he deserves it. He was deliberately countermanding safety orders.
You could just knock on the train drivers door, and that could be enough to qualify for the same thing. You interfered with the driver, while he was operating a train (even if it wasn't moving) with passengers on it.
What utter nonsense. If the train isn't moving, knocking on the driver's door isn't going to cause harm or death to anyone. Even knocking on the door while it IS moving is unlikely to cause such harm. On the other hand, ordering a train to proceed through a stop, or to proceed when it was otherwise verbally ordered to stop, IS likely to cause harm.
You could probably technically get in trouble by walking across a road or railroad tracks.
What utter nonsense. Walking across a road is somehow damaging the control systems?
You may have distracted the driver of the vehicle into doing an emergency stop,
What vehicle? Do you typically cross railroad tracks just in front of an oncoming train? Or jump in front of a bus to cross the street? Wow. I guess you'd be better off in a prison somewhere instead of risking your life; don't even think about the effects on the driver if you succeed in killing yourself by stepping in front of the bus.