Cybersecurity boss banned from flights after boasts he can hack plane systems

Chris Roberts, boss of cybersecurity firm One World Labs, appears to have shot himself in the foot after tweeting that he thought he could hack into a plane's systems and deploy the oxygen masks. He planned to fly from Colorado to San Francisco to speak at a major security conference Saturday, but United Airlines refused to let him board the flight.

Last week, the FBI removed Roberts from another United flight, took away his laptop and questioned him for four hours. United says it is confident its systems can't be hacked in the way Roberts describes, they've just banned him because he made comments about tampering with aircraft equipment.

Roberts' attorney says he's working to get his client's laptop returned.

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-32380071

Here's Roberts company but he hasn't linked his twitter on it, strangely.

https://oneworldlabs.com/

ETA: Here is his twitter. Can't see the tweets but they're a bit too tedious for me to read them all.

https://mobile.twitter.com/Sidragon1/tweets

This tweet that metaphorically landed him in squarely in the Fed spotlight. And here is the EFF (electronic frontier foundation) version of what occurred.

Thanks for those links, they help explain a lot.

I've been flying quite a bit recently with a very nervous companion, following the Germanwings crash. Clear information about possible security issues I can handle, but I have to be honest, I just don't like this guy's style. He seems to be trying to frighten passengers with those careless, jokey tweets - or at least doesn't care if he frightens them or not.

I wouldn't hire him as a reliable, discreet source on cyber security, myself. If he really knows these security issues where hundreds of lives could be lost, why the heck doesn't he just inform aviation authorities? What are poor passengers about to board a plane with him expected to do, when he's said he might start messing with the plane systems, seemingly for fun or to prove a point?

zwiebel said:

Clear information about possible security issues I can handle, but I have to be honest, I just don't like this guy's style. He seems to be trying to frighten passengers with those careless, jokey tweets - or at least doesn't care if he frightens them or not.

Click to expand...

Imnsho, his style tends to be the rule and not the exception. That is, among high-profile information security types. To get a feel wrt what I mean, back in 2011, and shortly after the HB Gary breach, I wrote a three part series, titled "Surfing the Hackpocalypse," that touches upon this particular culture.

• The New Old War
• Hacker Gangs
• Cyber Jihadists

NB: the above is also posted to Digital DNA, here

That said, I've been keeping up on the so-called state of "cyberwar" since the mid-1990s. And now, with all things connected, ala, the Internet of Things (IoT), it seems to me that we've made our lives both easier and vulnerable. And, at some point, people will need to educate themselves and learn new ways of being, so to speak, to keep themselves safe.

Anyway, just my 2¢ and ramble. lol