Comment on 'It's Possible to jailbreak F-35 like iPhone', Says Dutch State Secretary of Defense Tuinman

• boonhet@sopuli.xyz ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  In production since 2006 and of course they were designing the things earlier than that, so…

  Wouldn’t be surprised if it’s like some cars of the late 90’s and early 00’s and you need a computer with an RS-232 port to connect to a multiplexer of some sort that connects to the plane

  E.g to get full dealer level access to old Mercedes cars, you’d need one of these:

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• RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  That would seem like an awful idea that would be a dangerous security risk to the fighter.

  So they probably did it anyway.

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  • FauxLiving@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Well, let me be the one to surprise you and tell you that this is exactly how software and encryption keys are loaded onto the aircraft.

    At no time would any combat aircraft have an operating system which even has the capability to receive software updates wirelessly, that would be an incredible vulnerability during wartime.

    It requires a specific device that looks like it was made in the 1980s and deletes itself if it is bumped too hard and this device has to be directly connected to NSA controlled infrastructure in order to be loaded with any updates. The resulting material is physically carried by an Airman in the wing’s comm squadron, escorted by at least one other service member from the secure terminal where it was loaded directly to the aircraft. It’s uploaded via internal connections (which may or may not look to be from the 80s) which are accessed by a maintenance hatch on the belly of the plane. Once the hatch is closed, if it is opened again at any point the aircraft will dump all of the key material and the resulting party will have a lot of paperwork and counseling to deal with and some other set of airmen will have to repeat the entire process all over again.

    This has to be done for pretty much every flight, the aircraft cannot even start without this package of key materials and software.

    It is likely that the Secretary of Defense was referring to their understanding of how this system operates and how they have scientists and engineers and the resources to reverse engineer any components. They have intact and working copies that they can tear apart and none of these systems are magic, they’re just secret and obtaining an intact war plane to reverse engineer is incredibly difficult in normal times. The Dutch have plenty of intact war planes to study.

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