Quote:
Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz
There was no evidence of a second attack. The original attacker suspected that other failures (for known and documented reasons) were being caused by the attack method that had been discovered. As to the three second attack, please read the report again! Once a device had attempted to communicate with a robot, the disruption could last the entire match. The attacker could easily move on to another robot(s) after the first disruption.
If others knew or suspected an issue at other events, they did not come forward with that info. The Einstein Investigation had a clear set of goals and that was to determine what caused so many failures on the Einstein Field. We were not tasked with investigation outside of Einstein and the twelve robots involved in that part of the competition.
|
Al Skierkiewicz, thank you for pointing out that what might seem obvious to me might be completely contrary to others' points of view. To address your comments using my interpretation of the report:
First, the official FRC report describes a Galxey Nexus running Android 4.0.4 was probably used for at least one attack ("Failed Client Authentication on Einstein") that we recently learned was committed by the 548 mentor. Another section of the report ("Alternative Source Testing") describes in detail the attempts to bring down communications with the failed client authentication attack, and that downtimes in communications could be as low as three seconds with that device and by using a specific strategy. Especially if the mentor had tried this before (which I'm certainly not trying to imply!), he certainly could have only brought down communications for only three seconds.
The second attacker was, to me, implied by the fact that the mentor left the field before Final 1 and 2 and that continued attacks occurred. Also, witnesses saw an individual selecting teams to take down from a cell phone, who may or may not have been the same mentor. Although they believe they are one and the same, the mentor repeatedly denies doing this attack more than once (and if he had, why wouldn't he have used the strategy that would have resulted in only 3-second downtimes? Malicious intent?). He certainly may have been lying, but the fact of the continued attacks considerably longer than three seconds and their continuance even after this person left the field remains.
I think the question of whether there was knowledge in FIRST about this type of hole is a fair question. It states in the Eisenstein report that they only discovered this error accidentally
after championships. Shouldn't the actions of this individual, as well as their attempt to contact field personal, given them at least a hint that something was up? Did someone know about this, and was not heard? I certainly don't know, and I don't really expect that anyone on CD can answer all of my questions conclusively.
As always, no offense meant. Hopefully my comments are seen as constructive.