Outdated Software and Your Privacy and Safety

By now everyone has heard of Malaysian Air Flight 370, the plane that disappeared somewhere over the Indian Ocean. Early reports were speculative that the aircrafts systems may have been hacked, causing it to become unresponsive and even be remote controlled from somewhere else. There were even claims of proof of concept ideas that this has already been demonstrated using models and Android phones. Is it possible? Yes, it might be.

Do me this favor. Stop and think for a second about how far technology has progressed in the past 34 years. I'm talking 1980 to 2014. I did some research and found that most commercial flights are actually on older aircraft. You can see for yourself  here.  Now this data doesn't say when each may have been retrofitted with newer software and computing equipment (an answer I was hoping to find).


Given the past several years of turmoil in the aviation industry it's probably a safe assumption to say that computer systems are dated just based on the expenses of business operations - recent pay arguments with the pilots union, periods of gas hikes, customers being turned off by paying for baggage, learning of drunken pilots, and the hassles of flying post 9-11.

I was also interested in the policies that govern aircraft software assurance.  The FAA has a great website for this research, and all of their policies are posted for review.  This one specifically covers software assurance.  I only quickly perused it, but one quick gap analysis I could offer is that I did not see any acceptable use policy for testing failures like mean time to failure or mean time between failures. 

While I cannot tell you with any certainty that airplanes can be hacked by phones, I do feel that it is probable when weighing out the age of planes against how expensive it is to update them, and then measuring out the risks of a possible hack while also considering how advanced our newer phones are.  But the threat doesn't stop with just airlines.


Stop and think about anywhere you've been recently that you may have seen antiquated computers and/or computer software. Odds are you can think of a few.  I know I can.  How about hospital equipment, which incidentally is usually lining the halls that are publicly walked.  Another place I've seen this - car dealerships.  The last few I visited were still on Windows 95.  What about department stores?  Many are still on DOS based timecard systems, inventories, and pricing catalogs.

Always be aware of your technical surroundings and how they might affect you.