In fact, most of the time hackers hack for knowledge, for fun, and simply to understand how things work. That is what true hacking is. It is the art of stripping a system down to its core, understanding how it works, and then manipulating its bits and pieces to make the system do what you want it to do, not necessarily what it was designed to do. Hacking always should start with the question "What can I make this do?" and end with "What's next?" because to me, true hacking is a constant process with no definite end. Its over when you've run out of ideas in your head, or when you're dead.
You may be wondering why I'm going on and on about what true hacking is, and you'd have a valid point. I've just now seen a project on dangerousprototypes.com that is both an amazingly cool accomplishment and a horrifying innovation.
SamyKamkar, as he is known on the site, has developed a program that forces drones to surrender their control over to his device. I won't get into all of the technical jargon, because that is not what I am writing about today, but he accomplishes this by applying a Raspberry Pie computer to a small drone that anyone can buy for roughly $300. These drones are extremely easy to use and are operated by iOS and Android devices. Really, any device that supports WiFi can control the drone. On SamyKamkar's computer, there is a program that searches for other drone's signals as Samy flies his drone around. Once Samy's drone finds a signal, it logs off the original user and secretly logs in Samy as if he were the original user. After that, Samy has complete control of the drone and can command it to do whatever he likes.
As you're reading this you can probably see why I am so concerned about this application. The first thought that came to my mind was that this procedure could easily be used for terrorist attacks. Especially with the United States Government increasing their use of unmanned air craft both abroad and nationally. However, I'm positive that the US Military has a much more complex security system than the household drone that Samy is demonstrating with. Where my concern lies is that as I continued to think about this project, there were no beneficial applications. You can either steal a drone and use it against someone maliciously or steal a drone to steal someone's Amazon package.
And now maybe you see why I introduced this Blog with my own personal definition of hacking. What SamyKamkar has done is, in my opinion, truly hacking. He took a device, thought of an idea, and made the device do what he wanted. However, this is the "hacking" that you might see in a movie some day! SamyKamkar might not be an evil villain, but just the fact that this act is possible scares me.
But that's the dangerous world we live in. I am glad that Samy posted this online because it truly is a fantastic hack. Also, it now gives me some time to go work on a counter measure to make sure no one can hack into any drones protecting my interests!
No comments:
Post a Comment