“Software for airplanes” is a broad term. If I ever get into a position to make software for airplanes, it’s probably not going to be things that can crash the plane. The entertainment system is still software for airplanes.
People in the past have used the entertainment bus to get into the flight telemetry data, hopefully only in a read-only state, but that will only be true if you trust the competence of the IT group that set up the programming for the switches.
Just be careful of where you try to write data and you should be fine! (and stay away from /dev/wing0 and /dev/wing1 on the network mount!)
You’re right. The other side of that is I did a little contract work for a company that is working on software for unmanned commercial flights.
Those guys actually made me feel better. They were all super smart, meticulous, and incredibly good at their jobs. It was the first environment I’ve ever been in where I felt like I could just barely keep up. I always felt one commit away from fucking things up. So I moseyed on down the road as soon as the thing I was contracted for was finished.
It was such a cool job and they offered me a permanent place. I just couldn’t feel behind every single day for the rest of my career until my system destroyed people’s lives.
I didn’t work on the FCC software, I wrote software to test the assembled FCC box, but the feeling was… Similar. I think it was a Moog product that went in an Embraer or the Chinese C919.
I had 150+ connectors, and they had to provide me values to send to every one of them, and then what to measure on every single output to make sure that there were no shorts, no opens, and no damage to a single component inside of it.
I had an interview to work on the platform of a weapon system, obviously would require clearance. I got the job. I went down to check out living possibilities, and while I was there, Saudis had bombed a bus full of kids. I figured out that I’d be working on and air to air missile, but the mere thought that I’d be attached to something delivering death sent me into a panick attack that forced me to decline the job. I now work on healthcare systems. It’s a fuckload nicer knowing I’m making people’s lives easier and and saving lives rather than risking them.
“Both first and business class seats were equipped with a Windows NT 4.0 based In-Flight Entertainment Network (IFEN) system with touchscreen in-seat video displays and magnetic card readers.[3] In the galley, a cabin file server served as a central hub for managing content, which facilitated movie downloads, stored flight and casino information, and collected credit card data transmitted from each seat.[3]: 43 “
“Software for airplanes” is a broad term. If I ever get into a position to make software for airplanes, it’s probably not going to be things that can crash the plane. The entertainment system is still software for airplanes.
Swissair Flight 111 was possibly crashed by its entertainment system. Nothing to do with the software though.
If I recall correctly, it was installed questionably, drew too much power and caused a fire.
That was the wiring and circuit breakers, not the software.
(Also flammable material)
Edit: yes, not software related.
Once again people blaming software people for hardware problems!
People in the past have used the entertainment bus to get into the flight telemetry data, hopefully only in a read-only state, but that will only be true if you trust the competence of the IT group that set up the programming for the switches.
Just be careful of where you try to write data and you should be fine! (and stay away from /dev/wing0 and /dev/wing1 on the network mount!)
Ugh, why the hell aren’t those air-gapped?
Same thing in cars. Why is the infotainment system that is connected to the internet not air-gapped from the critical car functions?
These things aren’t hard to do. I guess we just need people to die before we take such basic safety measures.
dd if=/dev/null of=/dev/eng0Oops!
Use /dev/random for chaos
You’re right. The other side of that is I did a little contract work for a company that is working on software for unmanned commercial flights.
Those guys actually made me feel better. They were all super smart, meticulous, and incredibly good at their jobs. It was the first environment I’ve ever been in where I felt like I could just barely keep up. I always felt one commit away from fucking things up. So I moseyed on down the road as soon as the thing I was contracted for was finished.
It was such a cool job and they offered me a permanent place. I just couldn’t feel behind every single day for the rest of my career until my system destroyed people’s lives.
I didn’t work on the FCC software, I wrote software to test the assembled FCC box, but the feeling was… Similar. I think it was a Moog product that went in an Embraer or the Chinese C919.
I had 150+ connectors, and they had to provide me values to send to every one of them, and then what to measure on every single output to make sure that there were no shorts, no opens, and no damage to a single component inside of it.
I had an interview to work on the platform of a weapon system, obviously would require clearance. I got the job. I went down to check out living possibilities, and while I was there, Saudis had bombed a bus full of kids. I figured out that I’d be working on and air to air missile, but the mere thought that I’d be attached to something delivering death sent me into a panick attack that forced me to decline the job. I now work on healthcare systems. It’s a fuckload nicer knowing I’m making people’s lives easier and and saving lives rather than risking them.
All roads lead to Microsoft 😬
“Both first and business class seats were equipped with a Windows NT 4.0 based In-Flight Entertainment Network (IFEN) system with touchscreen in-seat video displays and magnetic card readers.[3] In the galley, a cabin file server served as a central hub for managing content, which facilitated movie downloads, stored flight and casino information, and collected credit card data transmitted from each seat.[3]: 43 “
They run Linux now.
And the entertainment systems crash and bug out all the time so I sure hope the more important systems are developed more thoroughly lol