From: Ryan Anderson <randerso@ece.eng.wayne.edu>
Date: Sun, 6 Jul 1997 18:49:30 +0800
To: Lucky Green <shamrock@netcom.com>
Subject: Re: Hack the Mars rover
In-Reply-To: <3.0.2.32.19970705221647.0072d660@netcom10.netcom.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.3.95.970706063925.4547A-100000@ece>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



On Sat, 5 Jul 1997, Lucky Green wrote:

> With the solar system's hottest RC vehicle on Mars, how hard would it for a
> hacker to take control of the rover? Is NASA using any
> encryption/authentication of the commands issued to the rover?

Somehow, I don't think that's the place to mount an attempt to take it
over.  The prohibitive cost of getting an antenna into space where you can
counter some of the effects of Earth's spin and keep the damn rover in
contact all the time would be the biggest problem.  The trick would be to
get into NASA's flight control computers.  They're almost definitely as
top-secret military systems in terms of access.  (i.e, no outside
connections to unsecure nets, controls almost certainly limited to certain
stations...)

Besides, how much encryption is needed between two points if intercepting
the traffic is expensive, the communications protocol is undocumented (as
far as anyone outside NASA is concerned), and the actual frequency is also
hard to find? 

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Ryan Anderson - <Pug Majere>     "Who knows, even the horse might sing" 
Wayne State University - CULMA   "May you live in interesting times.."
randerso@ece.eng.wayne.edu                        Ohio = VYI of the USA 
PGP Fingerprint - 7E 8E C6 54 96 AC D9 57  E4 F8 AE 9C 10 7E 78 C9
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