Possible FLR Hacking?

[Jeffy]

Originally Posted by Bongle

We were doing some testing with last year's robot today, and it's in pretty hurting shape. Even with a full battery, some very weird stuff can happen due to motors stalling. It is configured as a long-base 4WD tank drive with grippy wheels on front, slick wheels on back, and riding on carpet. Clearly, this configuration is really bad at turning.

This configuration should have no trouble turning unless it is direct driven by CIMS.

[Steve Ketron]

Everyone knows that every event does not get finished without a couple unsolved issues. One of those issues at the FLR was the few events were some robots seemed to be doing things on their own. I have seen similar things at other events every year. Is this worthy of being called hacked? No. Do I think my student jumped to a rash decision and posted this thread before he thought of what it is implying? YES Hopefully he has thaught of what he did so when we talk about it he will have learned a lesson and this will all be over.

FLR, was a great event. Thanks to everyone that put in a lot of long hours to make it a success. This was the first regional that the students on my team have attending and they had a great time. Lets give congrats to the winners, praise the great job that every team did and learn from our mistakes and get ready for the next week.

[BrandonD-1528]

I realize that this was likely not hacking but it was still a possibility. I was trying to gather opinions with this thread, nothing more. FLR is still the best event I've attended outside of the Championship thus far, and I have nothing against any of the teams or volunteers that were there. Sorry if it came off otherwise.

[gblake]

Originally Posted by Steve Ketron

Hopefully he has thaught of what he did so when we talk about it he will have learned a lesson and this will all be over.

Steve,

The original post was coherent and well-written.

The discussion since has been calm, thoughtful and informative.

The topic is one that is always present and does not need to be kept locked away in the attic.

You are reacting very strongly to something, but I'm not sure what that something is. However, using only what is written in this dicussion thread as a guide, I see nothing troubling.

Blake

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by BrandonD-1528

I realize that 10 volts is low (someone on our team put the wrong tag on it), but it was a little unusual to see a robot lose connection right at the beginning and regain it immediately when the match ends.

To everyone else, I know the hacking theory is a bit out there, and it is possible FMS was being a total butthead of a system. On the first day of practice matches they almost made us switch to the 2009-2010 gaming adapters because the field failed to connect to the new ones for a good 8 hours.

Of course, it turned out that the wifi in the gym there was interfering with FMS.

And to anyone who was at FLR, I really hope none of you tried to connect to the "Free Publlic Wifi" adhoc network.

This too happened to team 3467 on Friday. The reason for this is when the voltage drops too low the cRIO will shutdown and restart to conserve battery power. We were out for about a minute before we started moving. This is one of the reasons that I will NEVER hit the stop button unless the robot is smoking or running about erratic.

[Radical Pi]

Our team found similar issues both on and off field at FLR. We've traced control lockups to overuse of the cpu on the cRIO (or possibly the network stack), although we have no explanation as to why this would cause the code to fail without watchdogs tripping and all controls zeroing after a disable-enable cycle.

One other thing you might want to check out is the I/O board. We found that it occasionally goes crazy and crashes if the classmate is plugged into wall power (but never occurred on battery power).

[Xaviermw191]

For example, team 843, X-CATS, and Sab-BOT-tage all had their robots act oddly

Hey, I am the coach for 191 (X-CATS) here and although we did experience some issues (largely on thursday though), we never experienced any issues with our connection going in and out and the drives being altered during the competition. Not sure why our team is mentioned here. We have absolutely no suspicions of us being "hacked" during the competition.

Thanks,
Xavier

[BrandonD-1528]

*edits*
Sorry about that. I didn't think you guys were one of them, but I was told you were.

[Ryan_Davis]

Originally Posted by BrandonD-1528

Hey everyone,
I know this is nothing more than speculation, but it's extremely fishy. While our team was at the Finger Lake Regional in New York, several teams had their robots suddenly act erratically during teleop, sometimes in a very suspicious manner.

For example, team 843 and Sab-BOT-tage all had their robots act oddly. One of them even had their robot completely out of their control, as in, it kept playing the game correctly during teleop without any hands on the controls. The other two teams had similar encounters. When the robots started to act strangely, things like spontaneous minibot deployment occurred, as if someone was trying to figure out their controls.

In addition to that, our robot at one point lost the link to FMS just as the match started, and then magically gained it back immediately when the match ended. During this time, we found out their last reading for our battery was 3 volts, and when we checked, it was actually still charged to 10 volts, so an underpowered bridge is most likely not the issue.

All of this happened to the red side only on Friday. What do you all think of this? Out of control robots that can still play the game are hardly the result of field or user error.

Well we noticed with us personally, that our autonomous was at fault for our disabling.

[Xaviermw191]

Sorry about that. I didn't think you guys were one of them, but I was told you were.

Yeah its fine. The field staff did come and talk to us at one point after a match as they thought they saw our connection going in and out, so I'm guessing thats where you got it from which is understandable. It was kind of funny their reaction when we were telling them that everything worked fine and the drives went perfect ("you sure everything was correct? nothing at all went wrong? you sure?"). It sucks that that happened to you guys though, I would hate to not be able to preform on the field because of something that was out of your control.

[Norman J]

Originally Posted by Steve Ketron

Is this worthy of being called hacked? No. Do I think my student jumped to a rash decision and posted this thread before he thought of what it is implying? YES Hopefully he has thaught of what he did so when we talk about it he will have learned a lesson and this will all be over.

I don't think your team has anything to be ashamed of about what Brandon did. He thought of a possibility and presented it in a clear and objective manner. The original post was devoid of unreasonable accusations and was well-written. I do not think anyone thinks worse of your team due to this thread.

Edit: That being said, there are numerous reasons why robots would act erratically. My team had a match where our robot would turn right every time our driver let go of the controls, but this turned out to be a fault with our control system. I think the joysticks weren't zeroed correctly or something like that.

[Steve Ketron]

Originally Posted by gblake

You are reacting very strongly to something, but I'm not sure what that something is. However, using only what is written in this dicussion thread as a guide, I see nothing troubling.

Blake

Blake,

Unless you know the situation , then you don't know what is reacting strong or not. This has nothing to do with how it is written.

[whackedwatchdog]

Originally Posted by Steve Ketron

Blake,

Unless you know the situation , then you don't know what is reacting strong or not. This has nothing to do with how it is written.

At the risk of being rude, it sounds as if you might be reacting a little strongly. Blake might not (and probably does not) know the situation, but I see no reason to respond snidely to someone who is simply offering their opinion. If there is perhaps, something more to the situation, then let it go at that.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Steve Ketron

Everyone knows that every event does not get finished without a couple unsolved issues. One of those issues at the FLR was the few events were some robots seemed to be doing things on their own. I have seen similar things at other events every year. Is this worthy of being called hacked? No. Do I think my student jumped to a rash decision and posted this thread before he thought of what it is implying? YES Hopefully he has thought of what he did so when we talk about it he will have learned a lesson and this will all be over.

Mr Ketron, I agree that your student probably jumped to conclusions but I have to wonder if this isn't something we should look into. What safe guards are in place to prevent such an occurrence from happening? What would the reaction be if it did occur (as far as FIRST goes)? How could it be proved (or disproved)?

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

What safe guards are in place to prevent such an occurrence from happening?

I believe the burden of breaking WPA2 alone is great enough to prevent this from being an issue, ever.