

Who's the guy in the in-flight entertainment system? - nilssonanders
https://anders.io/whos-the-guy-in-the-in-flight-entertainment-system/

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callesgg
I have been tempted to play with the entertainment screen in airplanes a
couple of times.

But as it is on an airplane traveling 900km/h 10 000m in the air. I dont feel
like poking at stuff that is connected to the stuff that is keeping me and the
other passengers alive.

Also it i don't feel like speeding life in prison.

But those things don't exactly feel like top quality stuff. They feel more
like something that than be crashed and taken over in 20 minutes using a
teensy++ and a Linux laptop.

~~~
witty_username
In-flight entertainment system is barely connected to the important parts of
the airplane, if at all.

~~~
Grue3
Future HN headline:

Hackers Remotely Kill a Boeing during Flight - With Me in It

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anseljh
I noticed the unmistakable X Windows "X" cursor and gray loading screen on an
in-flight entertainment system that crashed on me. I think it was Virgin
America, one of their early flights after they launched.

~~~
facetube
The Delta in-flight entertainment systems also (at least as of a couple years
ago) seem to be Linux-based. I had one crash and reboot spontaneously while I
was using it, and was greeted by a couple Tux logos and a verbose Linux 2.4
boot process when it came back up.

~~~
objclxt
I used to freelance at one of the big two major IFE manufacturers. Their
systems are a bit of a hodgepodge of platforms. Currently, the dominant
platform is Linux, running either a) a QT based GUI or b) a HTML based GUI.

But most new planes coming off the ground today are moving to Android based
systems, since they have many advantages - it's much easier to get content
like games and apps, and cheaper to engineer and develop for.

One of the problems with IFE systems today is that both A380 and 787
deliveries have been significantly delayed - often the IFE hardware is just
sitting in a warehouse for several years waiting for the plane to catch up to
it. So by the time the plane finally is delivered to the customer the IFE
system may already be 4-5 years out of date.

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Smushman
Several years ago, on a transatlantic flight, I observed some strange behavior
in a game when I specified a high score name with some special characters. I
noticed it would crash and exit back to 'home'.

I tried to hack at it by specifying the semicolon and such, but could not get
it to do more.

I observed they had it at least mildly secure - it would not accept input for
some special characters when typed; they would simply not appear on the screen
within the game. But clearly there are holes in these. Without more
information on the construction it was not trivial though.

