Re: Malicous RC Code?
 

I believe if you have a programming link (IE serial cable in prog port connected to laptop) to the RC at power-up you don't need to press the program button.

The old Pbasic controller had these modems (EWave Stampers) you could buy to debug and program the robot remotely (very useful, cut debug time in half). I could not get them to work on this year's RC (but they possibly could be modified to work). Maybe Ewave will develop new modems for the PIC RC in the future. If you were to plant the modem on a robot (well a 2003 bot) then you could program it from the stands to do a dance or whatever (would make an interesting practice round).

As for this year, small device could handshake with the program port on power-up and then download the machine code for the aforementioned "Dance Program" from an EEPROM in the device. Now there is an offseason project for you ;)

Disclaimer: I am just kidding and tossing ideas around (like hopefully everyone on this thread). Actually reprogamming a competitor's robot maliciously during a match would probably be the worst violation of Gracious Professionalism in FIRST History. However, it is fun to joke about these things. Come on, Who hasn't proposed an EMP burst bot or Tesla coil bot during Brainstroming? :D

Re: Malicous RC Code?
 

Wouldn't an EMP bust the computers running the match? Just wondering: that would be a lot of field errors in a row.

Re: Malicous RC Code?
 

Earlier this year, I asked a guy from IFI about setting the radio channel. He said you can do it with the little switches OR by using some serial-ish thingummy through the competition port. So, your code probably can't affect the channel unless it convinces a human to plug something into the competition port. The RC must still control its channel, though.

You might be able to do viral stuff by changing the team number and/or the backup battery behavior. Many people forget to reset their RCs after turning the robot off, letting it run on backup power. If you could change the firmware, you could have the RC use the radio while the robot is truned off. Then, you could scan channels and team numbers to establish contact with another robot.

Don't forget, this is entirely for your own entertainment. You'd better not actually use it at a competition (well, not at mine, at any rate :) ...)

Re: Malicous RC Code?
 

If you could find a way to do buffer overflow, you could change the firmware. But since buffer overflow is based on a terminating character, not likely.

Re: Malicous RC Code?
 

Yes it would. That was a counter arguement. One would have to tweak the power of the burst to only affect things in a yard radius (it would take tremendous amount of power just for this) and deploy it when you bump another bot. Also, one would need to shield the electronics on one's own bot (or temporarily turn them off like in Broken Arrow).

Re: Malicous RC Code?
 

If you could figure out the 'robot disable' message of competition control...... :ahh: :ahh: :ahh: :ahh:

Re: Malicous RC Code?
 

I hope you guys remember that these boards are read by LOTS of people in the FIRST community, many of them having very important roles. I'm not saying what you are trying to do is a bad idea, but if something does happen at a competetion, they will know exactly who to look for. :rolleyes:

Re: Malicous RC Code?
 

Not me, I'm sure...

Just in case it does, I was asleep. ;)

Re: Malicous RC Code?
 

Okay, time for a rant! :D
Anything I say after this point is not intended to offend anyone, yada yada, etc.

We should ALL be interested in "malicious code" and other "scary hacker things." If there is a vulnerability (and this goes for all complex systems) someone, somewhere, will find it. The responsible (and challenging/fun) thing to do is to hunt down the vulnerability and inform those responsible to make the world a more secure place. What you should not, under any circumstances do, is try to get your point across by releasing your code into the wild, to the detriment of the common good, to fuel your ego.

FIRST strives to be a microcosm of the engineering world. Security is a very real facet of any system, and if we really want to educate FIRSTers we should pay attention to this.

What really bothers me is that if someone does go out and release code similar to what I've described, I stand a good chance of taking heat for it.

This bothers me, because I've had something similar happen in school and if anything goes wrong on the network it's always "that uppity linux kid's fault." I remember one of my friends being carefully monitored while on the computer, simply because he hung around me a bit and liked to talk computers :rolleyes:

So then, when I get some spare time (see: Summer-Vacation) I plan to seriously look into this, because it would really [expletive deleted] hard to have a competition high-jacked by a few broadcast happy l33t kiddies.

End Rant. End Self-righteous indignation.

Re: Malicous RC Code?
 

Now you just need a small nuclear reaction :rolleyes:

Re: Malicous RC Code?
 

Nope. I have plans for an emp device sitting in my room. I didn't realize it until I actually read my book. Its not really that complicated but deadly if you don't know what you are doing.

Re: Malicous RC Code?
 

Small Soldiers anyone?

Seriously, you should go about the robot comms as a wireless network, if you can interfere with the data from OI to RC and impersonate it, with a stronger signal, you can very easily override another controller....in theory. As far as reprogramming it goes doesn't that button connect to a digital input? I bet you could find some way to trigger it if you dig deep enough in the code.

Re: Malicous RC Code?
 

I'm sure just garbling the signal is enough. Freaking someone out wouldn't be difficult. But there is a laptop that monitors com and such.

Re: Malicous RC Code?
 

They'll never find me!!!!!

Whoops. And by the way, I'm on your team if anyone asks. :)

Re: Malicous RC Code?
 

I JUST THOUGHT OF IT! :evil:

Find out the memory location of team number/channel/alliance info and change it at run time. MUAH HA HA HA!!!

Like, change it to 0 so you don't stop at the end.