Hacking 2000 years from now...

One issue of any security is the cost benefit analysis. It is not efficient to spend more money to secure something then it is actually worth.


You security is also depends on your personal not doing stupid things like letting a defector any where near the computer that runs your ship.

pnakasone wrote:One issue of any security is the cost benefit analysis. It is not efficient to spend more money to secure something then it is actually worth.

How much were the OPM files worth? Their theft provided a way to identify every intelligence agent working for, or ever worked for, the US government. It also provides a nearly exhaustive list of, and a list of possible methods to compromise, every single person who has access to US government classified data. What is the recovery plan for that?

kzt wrote:

pnakasone wrote:One issue of any security is the cost benefit analysis. It is not efficient to spend more money to secure something then it is actually worth.

How much were the OPM files worth? Their theft provided a way to identify every intelligence agent working for, or ever worked for, the US government. It also provides a nearly exhaustive list of, and a list of possible methods to compromise, every single person who has access to US government classified data. What is the recovery plan for that?

That has always been the question how much is what you are protecting worth?

Even the most elaborate security systems can fail due to personal getting sloppy or over confident.

kzt wrote:

pnakasone wrote:One issue of any security is the cost benefit analysis. It is not efficient to spend more money to secure something then it is actually worth.

How much were the OPM files worth? Their theft provided a way to identify every intelligence agent working for, or ever worked for, the US government. It also provides a nearly exhaustive list of, and a list of possible methods to compromise, every single person who has access to US government classified data. What is the recovery plan for that?

Well its a starting point to compromise them. In theory nothing actually in those files should be able to be used to compromise someone because by definition they're all the information that person was willing to disclose to the government - and from which the government judged them to not be a significant security risk. (Otherwise they'd have denied the clearance)

However it's definitely a starting point to target foreign family members or friends, monitor for changes in their economic well being, and narrow down your focus on people you know have clearances to work on classified material. So it's still a big problem - just not automatically blackmail material.

The E wrote:

Annachie wrote:Social hacking is a different kettle of fish.
And is what Sir Horace used to gain access.

That's what got him in the door, but he had to do a bunch of priviledge escalation attacks afterwards in order to get access to the various subsystems he is commandeering later.

The only thing I found unbelievable about Harkness's hacking was that he was able to hack the pinnace's safety systems to bring up its impeller wedge to destroy the StateSec vessel.

Peregrinator wrote:The only thing I found unbelievable about Harkness's hacking was that he was able to hack the pinnace's safety systems to bring up its impeller wedge to destroy the StateSec vessel.

How so? What was so difficult about:

In Enemy Hands, Chapter wrote:The small craft of all impeller-drive navies have at least one thing in common. They may be larger or smaller, armed or unarmed, fast or slow, but every single one of them is fitted with safety features to prevent it from bringing up its drive when any solid object large enough to endanger it—or to be endangered by it—lies within the perimeter of its impeller wedge. And above all, it is impossible to accidentally activate an impeller wedge while still within a boat bay.
But those safeguards, while as near to infallible as they can be made, are designed to prevent accidents, and what happened in PNS Tepes' Boat Bay Four was no accident. The only vessel left in it was the pinnace upon which Scotty Tremaine had labored, and now Horace Harkness' last program brought its systems on-line. But Scotty had made one small alteration: he had physically cut the links between the pinnace's sensors and its autopilot. The flight computers could no longer "see" the boat bay about them. As far as they could tell, they could have been in deepest, darkest interstellar space, and so they felt no concern at all when they were commanded to bring the pinnace's wedge up while it still lay in its docking buffers.

Italics are the author's, boldface and underlined text is my emphasis.

Thanks for posting the details, which I had forgotten, but I'm afraid that's no more believable. The autopilot should not bring up the impeller wedge if it isn't receiving data from its sensors.

Peregrinator wrote:Thanks for posting the details, which I had forgotten, but I'm afraid that's no more believable. The autopilot should not bring up the impeller wedge if it isn't receiving data from its sensors.

You just wire the connection to the sensors to simulate the no impeller wedge situation. you may need a replacement for the sensor system to make the interface - or you may simply need to short/remove some wires, depending on how it's wired.

Edit: Or basically what Theemile just said

Peregrinator wrote:Thanks for posting the details, which I had forgotten, but I'm afraid that's no more believable. The autopilot should not bring up the impeller wedge if it isn't receiving data from its sensors.

Depends on how bright it is. It's probably just looking for an "am I inhibited" signal from the computer processing the sensor data. And at that it's just a backup system for the good sense of the trained pilot - it supposed to prevent inadvertent activation, not malicious intent.

Maybe it would have been more believable if Scotty and Harkness had had to leave a tablet behind, spliced into the bus to send false sensor data - instead of just physically cutting the wire. But ultimately you can't stop a skilled person with physical access from overriding your safety mechanism and ordering a mechanism to power on.

Peregrinator wrote:Thanks for posting the details, which I had forgotten, but I'm afraid that's no more believable. The autopilot should not bring up the impeller wedge if it isn't receiving data from its sensors.

It has to remain a capability or it couldn't be done if need be, in case of damage to the sensors during an actual outing.

I think Horace could have achieved it with an extra software routine.