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Malware Allegedly Brought Down Plane



 
 
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  #1  
Old August 21st, 2010, 04:06 PM posted to rec.travel.air
Robert Cohen
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 433
Default Malware Allegedly Brought Down Plane

In Spain

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38790670...ience-security
  #2  
Old August 21st, 2010, 11:42 PM posted to rec.travel.air
Robert Neville
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 43
Default Malware Allegedly Brought Down Plane

Robert Cohen wrote:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38790670...ience-security


No, it didn't. Typical MSNBC sloppy reporting. The ground based maintenance
computer back at the airline headquaters that receives digital messages from the
onboard computers was infected, thus slowing it down.

While it would have received a message indicating that the aircraft had been
configured unusually for takeoff, that message wouldn't have arrived in time for
anyone to do anything about it as the messages are not transmitted until after
the event, are not delivered in real time, those logs aren't watched real time
and couldn't have been acted on in real time.
  #3  
Old August 22nd, 2010, 04:25 AM posted to rec.travel.air
DevilsPGD[_3_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 79
Default Malware Allegedly Brought Down Plane

In message Robert Neville
was claimed to have wrote:

Robert Cohen wrote:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38790670...ience-security


No, it didn't. Typical MSNBC sloppy reporting. The ground based maintenance
computer back at the airline headquaters that receives digital messages from the
onboard computers was infected, thus slowing it down.

While it would have received a message indicating that the aircraft had been
configured unusually for takeoff, that message wouldn't have arrived in time for
anyone to do anything about it as the messages are not transmitted until after
the event, are not delivered in real time, those logs aren't watched real time
and couldn't have been acted on in real time.


But why let facts get in the way of a story?
  #4  
Old August 23rd, 2010, 04:47 PM posted to rec.travel.air
Robert Cohen
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 433
Default Malware Allegedly Brought Down Plane

On Aug 21, 11:25*pm, DevilsPGD Still-Just-A-Rat-In-A-
wrote:
In message Robert Neville
was claimed to have wrote:

Robert Cohen wrote:


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38790670...ience-security


No, it didn't. Typical MSNBC sloppy reporting. The ground based maintenance
computer back at the airline headquaters that receives digital messages from the
onboard computers was infected, thus slowing it down.


While it would have received a message indicating that the aircraft had been
configured unusually for takeoff, that message wouldn't have arrived in time for
anyone to do anything about it as the messages are not transmitted until after
the event, are not delivered in real time, those logs aren't watched real time
and couldn't have been acted on in real time.


But why let facts get in the way of a story?


I think I may get what y'all are saying that happened

You're saying it was the on-ground maintenance computer that was
"slowed" down by
infection (?)

A virus has allegedly led to crash and wherever it came from--yes or
no

Last week, Intel buys McAfee, almost EIGHT billion bucks, i sense
there is enormous concern

  #5  
Old August 24th, 2010, 12:36 AM posted to rec.travel.air
Robert Neville
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 43
Default Malware Allegedly Brought Down Plane

Robert Cohen wrote:

You're saying it was the on-ground maintenance computer that was
"slowed" down by
infection (?)


Yes.

A virus has allegedly led to crash and wherever it came from--yes or
no


No. The crash ocurred before the message arrived at airline maintenance. Or put
another way, the maintenance computer could have been turned off and nothing
would have changed.
  #6  
Old August 25th, 2010, 07:51 PM posted to rec.travel.air
Sancho Panza[_1_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 552
Default Malware Allegedly Brought Down Plane


"Robert Cohen" wrote in message
...
On Aug 21, 11:25 pm, DevilsPGD Still-Just-A-Rat-In-A-
wrote:
In message Robert Neville
was claimed to have wrote:

Robert Cohen wrote:


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38790670...ience-security


No, it didn't. Typical MSNBC sloppy reporting. The ground based
maintenance
computer back at the airline headquaters that receives digital messages
from the
onboard computers was infected, thus slowing it down.


While it would have received a message indicating that the aircraft had
been
configured unusually for takeoff, that message wouldn't have arrived in
time for
anyone to do anything about it as the messages are not transmitted until
after
the event, are not delivered in real time, those logs aren't watched
real time
and couldn't have been acted on in real time.


But why let facts get in the way of a story?


I think I may get what y'all are saying that happened

You're saying it was the on-ground maintenance computer that was
"slowed" down by
infection (?)

A virus has allegedly led to crash and wherever it came from--yes or
no

Last week, Intel buys McAfee, almost EIGHT billion bucks, i sense
there is enormous concern


Following MSNBC isn't always a good idea, even for technical information:
The MS part of the network does not apparently contribute much:

I've been reading breathless and shocking "reports" for several days now
explaining that "malware brought down a Spanish jet." And once again we have
a case study in how the Internet echo chamber works to take a single report
and distort it beyond recognition. I've now read articles from more than 20
online publications repeating this story. Not a single one has done even a
shred of research beyond simply quoting a bad translation of the original
Spanish-language report.

The reality? Yes, the crash of Spanair flight 5022 at Madrid-Barajas Airport
in August 2008 was a tragedy, with the entire crew and 154 passengers losing
their lives. But malware did not bring down that plane. The actual cause of
this crash has been extensively documented in official reports from the
Spanish Civil Aviation Accident and Incident Investigation Commission
(CIAIAC). Their website contains a preliminary report published shortly
after the accident, an Interim Report released last year at roughly this
time, and a Progress Note published just last week. The official English
translation of the most recent report does not mention viruses or malware.
The actual cause is far more prosaic: the pilots missed a crucial item on
their checklist and took off with the flaps in the wrong position:

The investigation has determined that the takeoff was attempted while in
an inappropriate and unapproved configuration, since the flaps and slats
were fully retracted. The system outfitted on the airplane to warn of an
inadequate takeoff configuration (TOWS) also failed to activate.

Was there a problem with the computer on the plane? Not according to the
CIAIAC:

[T]he information stored on the computers for the enhanced ground
proximity warning system (EGWPS), the advanced flight management (AFMC),
central air data (CADC), digital flight guidance (DFGC) and the optical
inertial reference units (IRU) has been extracted. The results from the
analysis of the data recovered from the ground proximity warning system
computer are available and consistent with the data found on the flight data
recorder (DFDR) and from the two air data computers, which indicate that
both units were functioning normally on the previous flights and at the time
of the accident.

In fact, as airline-safety experts noted, the aircraft in question, a
McDonnell Douglas DC-9-82 (MD-82), is not computerized (its design dates
back to 1979 and the last delivery was in 1997). The exact same type of
aircraft was involved in the eerily similar fatal crash of Northwest
Airlines Flight 255 in Detroit in 1987. The investigators in that crash
concluded that the cause was pilot error.

So where did these alarming reports of malware-infested computers come from?
The original article, from Spain's El País newspaper, opens with this
paragraph:

El ordenador central de la compañía Spanair en el que se anotaban las
averías de los aviones estaba contaminado con programas informáticos
maliciosos cuando se produjo, hace hoy dos años, el accidente del vuelo JK
5022. La computadora, situada en la sede de la aerolínea en Palma de
Mallorca, emite una señal de alarma en el monitor cuando registra tres
problemas técnicos similares en el mismo aparato.

My Spanish is rusty, but it's good enough to get the gist of the report: A
computer at the airline's maintenance headquarters in Palma de Mallorca was
infected with some sort of malware ("troyanos," or Trojans) at the time of
the accident. That same computer is used to record incident reports
submitted by mechanics and is programmed to raise an alarm if the same
problem occurs three times on the same aircraft.

On the day of the crash, the plane returned to the gate after the crew
noticed a problem. The mechanics at the airport identified the issue and
cleared the plane for takeoff. They apparently didn't know that this was the
third report of a similar problem in a two-day period. But even if the
headquarters office had maintained its PC perfectly, the plane would still
have taken off. The mechanics were still entering their report at the time
of the crash, and as a May 2010 report in the same newspaper noted, the
headquarters office had a custom of entering data 24 hours after it was
received. None of those three incidents were recorded on the allegedly
infected PC until after the plane had crashed.

There's no doubt that this accident was a tragedy. It might even have been
preventable. But the cause was not a piece of malware on a PC hundreds of
miles away. Reports from air safety investigators are written in circumspect
language, reflecting the fact that they are the work of engineers and
potential expert witnesses in civil and criminal actions. In this case, it's
easy to read between the lines of last week's Progress Note, in which the
investigators note that they are continuing to analyze "the operator's
maintenance structure and organization . specifically, the procedures
described in the company's manuals [and] the degree of compliance by
maintenance personnel."

In fact, two mechanics who checked the plane before take-off and Spanair's
head of maintenance at Barajas were hauled before a judge on manslaughter
charges, according to a 2008 BBC report. The fact that a PC used for such a
critical function might have been susceptible to infection suggests that the
entire maintenance operation was lax and poorly run. In other words, the
malware, if it existed, was one symptom among many of a much larger
management problem at an unprofitable airline.

Meanwhile, the publications that teased readers with inflammatory headlines
need to go back to journalism school. "Malware Contributed to Plane Crash"
and "Trojan blamed for Spanish air crash" are simply not accurate. The most
disgusting one of all the headlines I read was "Murder by malwa Can
computer viruses kill?" The editor and author of that post should hang their
heads in shame.


  #7  
Old August 26th, 2010, 03:03 AM posted to rec.travel.air
Robert Cohen
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 433
Default Malware Allegedly Brought Down Plane

On Aug 25, 2:51*pm, "Sancho Panza" wrote:
"Robert Cohen" wrote in message

...





On Aug 21, 11:25 pm, DevilsPGD Still-Just-A-Rat-In-A-
wrote:
In message Robert Neville
was claimed to have wrote:


Robert Cohen wrote:


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38790670...ience-security


No, it didn't. Typical MSNBC sloppy reporting. The ground based
maintenance
computer back at the airline headquaters that receives digital messages
from the
onboard computers was infected, thus slowing it down.


While it would have received a message indicating that the aircraft had
been
configured unusually for takeoff, that message wouldn't have arrived in
time for
anyone to do anything about it as the messages are not transmitted until
after
the event, are not delivered in real time, those logs aren't watched
real time
and couldn't have been acted on in real time.


But why let facts get in the way of a story?


I think I may get what y'all are saying that *happened


You're saying it was the on-ground maintenance computer that was
"slowed" down by
infection (?)


A virus has allegedly led to crash and wherever it came from--yes or
no


Last week, Intel buys McAfee, almost EIGHT billion bucks, i sense
there is enormous concern


Following MSNBC isn't always a good idea, even for technical information:
The MS part of the network does not apparently contribute much:

I've been reading breathless and shocking "reports" for several days now
explaining that "malware brought down a Spanish jet." And once again we have
a case study in how the Internet echo chamber works to take a single report
and distort it beyond recognition. I've now read articles from more than 20
online publications repeating this story. Not a single one has done even a
shred of research beyond simply quoting a bad translation of the original
Spanish-language report.

The reality? Yes, the crash of Spanair flight 5022 at Madrid-Barajas Airport
in August 2008 was a tragedy, with the entire crew and 154 passengers losing
their lives. But malware did not bring down that plane. The actual cause of
this crash has been extensively documented in official reports from the
Spanish Civil Aviation Accident and Incident Investigation Commission
(CIAIAC). Their website contains a preliminary report published shortly
after the accident, an Interim Report released last year at roughly this
time, and a Progress Note published just last week. The official English
translation of the most recent report does not mention viruses or malware..
The actual cause is far more prosaic: the pilots missed a crucial item on
their checklist and took off with the flaps in the wrong position:

* * The investigation has determined that the takeoff was attempted while in
an inappropriate and unapproved configuration, since the flaps and slats
were fully retracted. The system outfitted on the airplane to warn of an
inadequate takeoff configuration (TOWS) also failed to activate.

Was there a problem with the computer on the plane? Not according to the
CIAIAC:

* * [T]he information stored on the computers for the enhanced ground
proximity warning system (EGWPS), the advanced flight management (AFMC),
central air data (CADC), digital flight guidance (DFGC) and the optical
inertial reference units (IRU) has been extracted. The results from the
analysis of the data recovered from the ground proximity warning system
computer are available and consistent with the data found on the flight data
recorder (DFDR) and from the two air data computers, which indicate that
both units were functioning normally on the previous flights and at the time
of the accident.

In fact, as airline-safety experts noted, the aircraft in question, a
McDonnell Douglas DC-9-82 (MD-82), is not computerized (its design dates
back to 1979 and the last delivery was in 1997). The exact same type of
aircraft was involved in the eerily similar fatal crash of Northwest
Airlines Flight 255 in Detroit in 1987. The investigators in that crash
concluded that the cause was pilot error.

So where did these alarming reports of malware-infested computers come from?
The original article, from Spain's El País newspaper, opens with this
paragraph:

* * El ordenador central de la compañía Spanair en el que se anotaban las
averías de los aviones estaba contaminado con programas informáticos
maliciosos cuando se produjo, hace hoy dos años, el accidente del vuelo JK
5022. La computadora, situada en la sede de la aerolínea en Palma de
Mallorca, emite una señal de alarma en el monitor cuando registra tres
problemas técnicos similares en el mismo aparato.

My Spanish is rusty, but it's good enough to get the gist of the report: A
computer at the airline's maintenance headquarters in Palma de Mallorca was
infected with some sort of malware *("troyanos," or Trojans) at the time of
the accident. That same computer is used to record incident reports
submitted by mechanics and is programmed to raise an alarm if the same
problem occurs three times on the same aircraft.

On the day of the crash, the plane returned to the gate after the crew
noticed a problem. The mechanics at the airport identified the issue and
cleared the plane for takeoff. They apparently didn't know that this was the
third report of a similar problem in a two-day period. But even if the
headquarters office had maintained its PC perfectly, the plane would still
have taken off. The mechanics were still entering their report at the time
of the crash, and as a May 2010 report in the same newspaper noted, the
headquarters office had a custom of entering data 24 hours after it was
received. None of those three incidents were recorded on the allegedly
infected PC until after the plane had crashed.

There's no doubt that this accident was a tragedy. It might even have been
preventable. But the cause was not a piece of malware on a PC hundreds of
miles away. Reports from air safety investigators are written in circumspect
language, reflecting the fact that they are the work of engineers and
potential expert witnesses in civil and criminal actions. In this case, it's
easy to read between the lines of last week's Progress Note, in which the
investigators note that they are continuing to analyze "the operator's
maintenance structure and organization . specifically, the procedures
described in the company's manuals [and] the degree of compliance by
maintenance personnel."

In fact, two mechanics who checked the plane before take-off and Spanair's
head of maintenance at Barajas were hauled before a judge on manslaughter
charges, according to a 2008 BBC report. The fact that a PC used for such a
critical function might have been susceptible to infection suggests that the
entire maintenance operation was lax and poorly run. In other words, the
malware, if it existed, was one symptom among many of a much larger
management problem at an unprofitable airline.

Meanwhile, the publications that teased readers with inflammatory headlines
need to go back to journalism school. "Malware Contributed to Plane Crash"
and "Trojan blamed for Spanish air crash" are simply not accurate. The most
disgusting one of all the headlines I read was "Murder by malwa Can
computer viruses kill?" The editor and author of that post should hang their
heads in shame.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -


Mucho gracias, because I think I now grasp the valid explanation--we
the people are concerned about mistakes media make, I noticed two
minor errors tonight in my local tv news

I'd like to now ask this about an insuror angle

I noticed in the financial crisis that apparently AIG--U.S. Govt took
eighty percent for the bailout--insures for risks in the airplane/
airlines insdustry

Here goes my question which also has a semi-ideological debunk tint
too

Do not the pertinent insurance companies, AIG, Lloyds, others,
perform inspections and have safety standards beyond FAA standards,,
or at least as a backup?

Some insuror insured ValueJet which allegedly cheaply-expediently
contracted-out its maintenance to an alleged uninsured company whose
personnel
allegedly could not read the caveat about shutting the door, and/or
were ignorant about an FAA warning about tranporting oxygen cannisters
because the cannister had
previously been linked to a crash years before the apparent ValuJet
over south Florida repeat debacle

My semi libertarian debunking political point: It would seem that
ValuJet's private insuror would make it his/her function to know
everything that can go wrong and watch the maintenance operations for
snafus

p.s. My luggage was lost/stolen a year or two ago, so I don't expect
airlines and Homeland Security aka we mortal humans to be perfection
personnified


 




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