Possible FLR Hacking?

[Matt Krass]

Originally Posted by BrandonD-1528

As a result of certain recent events, I am revoking my comments about the possibility of hacking at FLR. I realized from the start that it was highly unlikely and was simply posting to point out possible causes to the issues that we saw occurring. Sorry if I started any controversy, and I certainly hope I haven't begun a whole new rumor about what could happen at future events. Hopefully I've learned my lesson about posting anything controversial on a high-traffic site.

You have nothing to be ashamed of. There's no reason to be afraid of controversial topics, and you should never be afraid to question the system. Maybe your initial post could have been written better, and that is the lesson you should take from this, but don't think you did anything wrong by discussing this topic.

It's better to be a little disgruntled and aware of a potential problem then blissfully ignorant until the bus hits you. While FIRST has a pretty decent system in place, the only reason is because people looked at it and said "How can I break this system?". And honestly, it still has a lot to be desired in my opinion, but it's getting there.

I reiterate my point, you did nothing wrong, and there is no reason such topics should be so problematic. If anyone disagrees with, bring it on

Matt

[boomergeek]

Originally Posted by Matt Krass

You have nothing to be ashamed of. ...
If anyone disagrees with, bring it on

Matt

ORIGNAL POST: (but I embolded key phrases):
"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."


Curiosity is one thing: casting aspersions as to a significant likelyhood of intentional unfairness perpetrated by someone is something else. It calls into question the fairness and the legitimacy of the entire competition.
I thnk Brandon no longer thinks such sentiments are appropriate to a large public forum without greater evidence.

The gracious thing is to assume a team's problems are it's own fault and to ask for help isolating them and not assume someone associated with FIRST or attending FIRST is out to get them by nefarious means.

The volunteer field crews work very hard. I know from personal experience that if a robot "misbehaves" on the competition field but does not misbehave on the practice field or on tether, it can be very frustrating. Isolating the cause of the difference of behavior can sometimes be very hard.

As demonstrated in Update #17, the technical staff is working quite hard to help teams identify issues with their robot prior to connecting to the FMS.

Teams should also know how and be ready to reset their robot if it "bricks" on the competition field.
We weren't.

[Matt Krass]

Originally Posted by boomergeek

ORIGNAL POST: (but I embolded key phrases):
"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."


Curiosity is one thing: casting aspersions as to a significant likelyhood of intentional unfairness perpetrated by someone is something else. It calls into question the fairness and the legitimacy of the entire competition.
I thnk Brandon no longer thinks such sentiments are appropriate to a large public forum without greater evidence.

The gracious thing is to assume a team's problems are it's own fault and to ask for help isolating them and not assume someone associated with FIRST or attending FIRST is out to get them by nefarious means.

The volunteer field crews work very hard. I know from personal experience that if a robot "misbehaves" on the competition field but does not misbehave on the practice field or on tether, it can be very frustrating. Isolating the cause of the difference of behavior can sometimes be very hard.

As demonstrated in Update #17, the technical staff is working quite hard to help teams identify issues with their robot prior to connecting to the FMS.

Teams should also know how and be ready to reset their robot if it "bricks" on the competition field.
We weren't.

If you read my post (instead of just looking for something to be annoyed about) you'll see I also stated he should learn from this is regards to how he wrote the post. I believe he also understands he approached this thread the wrong way, and that is a valuable lesson to learn. However, another, incorrect lesson, that is being pushed here is that uncomfortable topics need to be tiptoe'd around and those who dare to confront them are wrong strictly because it's an uncomfortable topic.

Yes, he jumped to conclusions, and yes he made a mistake. And yes, he acknowledged that. That doesn't mean broaching the topic was a bad idea, just that next time, be a bit more careful how it is done, and I'm sure he will be.

Nobody ever did anything great by playing along and not making waves, sometimes waves need to be made. As far as your teams troubles go, I'm sorry you had them and I'm sorry you were unprepared. Personally, I don't think there's any shame in getting caught by something you didn't know was a problem, now you learned your lesson and you'll watch out for it next time. I'm sure you wouldn't appreciate someone coming on CD and ripping in to you for not thinking to check your robot for a problem you weren't aware existed.

Matt

[boomergeek]

Originally Posted by Matt Krass

If you read my post (instead of just looking for something to be annoyed about) you'll see I also stated he should learn from this is regards to how he wrote the post. I believe he also understands he approached this thread the wrong way, and that is a valuable lesson to learn. However, another, incorrect lesson, that is being pushed here is that uncomfortable topics need to be tiptoe'd around and those who dare to confront them are wrong strictly because it's an uncomfortable topic.

Yes, he jumped to conclusions, and yes he made a mistake. And yes, he acknowledged that. That doesn't mean broaching the topic was a bad idea, just that next time, be a bit more careful how it is done, and I'm sure he will be.

Nobody ever did anything great by playing along and not making waves, sometimes waves need to be made. As far as your teams troubles go, I'm sorry you had them and I'm sorry you were unprepared. Personally, I don't think there's any shame in getting caught by something you didn't know was a problem, now you learned your lesson and you'll watch out for it next time. I'm sure you wouldn't appreciate someone coming on CD and ripping in to you for not thinking to check your robot for a problem you weren't aware existed.

Matt

I did read your whole post: my point is: the heat of a loss is never the time to publicly insinuate that someone may have the ability to cheat and used it against you. I don't know how Brandon could have written it publicly and still be graciously professional. Maybe you can suggest a few sentences of what he could have publicly written that would have been appropriate to get his sentiments across.

Insinuating problems should be investigated or blamed on the dishonesty efforts of others without any real evidence is a "sour grapes" meme that unintentionally disparages the competition. Brandon seems to have acknowledged this: you seemingly have not.

If you play a friendly card game and lose, it is not appropriate to immediately publicly ask if one of the friendly players cheated in the timeframe that the valid winners are enjoying their props.

One can choose the level of awareness to the potential for cheating. FIRST tries to be friendly, professional, and gracious.

I do not know how Brandon could have publicly approached the subject of his feeling his team was likely a recent victim of cheating at a FIRST competition in a manner would be seen as graciously professional.

If you can, I will certainly admit I was wrong and apologize to you.

I don't think Brandon should be ashamed: in fact, he's better for having made a mistake and admitting it and moving on. You seemed to imply that Brandon had just chosen the wrong words. I think it's not the words that were the issue- it was the sentiment, timing and location of that sentiment.

There is a huge amount of this competition that is mostly an honor system.
There are also many EASY ways to cheat that do not involve hacking- I'm going to assume that those ways to cheat aren't used sufficiently to worry about and I'm going to spend my energy elsewhere.

Are you starting with the position that there are likely enough cheaters involved in FIRST that we should spend our brainpower looking for them?

I have focused my brainpower on looking for the understanding of the laws of nature on highly complex equipment causing the seemingly nefarious robot behavior. I view it as time better spent.

I think we can agree that the right time to be broadcasting talk about potential hacking victimization is not the day the winning team is supposed to be celebrating their win.

[BrandonD-1528]

Originally Posted by boomergeek

I did read your whole post: my point is: the heat of a loss is never the time to publicly insinuate that someone may have the ability to cheat and used it against you.

Whether or not we lost the match is not relevant to me, and I already know the battery was at fault. I'm only pointing out a possibility as to the cause of certain specific problems, not necessarily with our team or alliance. Please don't take it as if I think people are actually cheating at all.

[gblake]

Originally Posted by boomergeek

I ... win.

Apparently we disagree.

Written English is an imperfect medium. You saw an accusation of cheating and an attitude of sour grapes. I saw someone writing what many other people are curious about. When it looks like the system has been hacked, has it really been hacked? or are there other explanations? It is a fascinating topic.

The answer was that "Yes" there are many explanations other than malicious mischief.

Your last message describes many assumed motivations and attitudes that might be truly present in some minds, or might not. They certainly aren't declared in what I remember reading. If you found them between the lines, you might want to stop reading that part of this thread.

Unless you know something about the situation that the rest of us don't, please don't be so quick to assign negative motivations to an author when other explanations for their curiosity exist.

Gee, that last sentence contains a meme that sounds familiar.

Blake

[Matt Krass]

Originally Posted by boomergeek

I did read your whole post: my point is: the heat of a loss is never the time to publicly insinuate that someone may have the ability to cheat and used it against you. I don't know how Brandon could have written it publicly and still be graciously professional. Maybe you can suggest a few sentences of what he could have publicly written that would have been appropriate to get his sentiments across.

Insinuating problems should be investigated or blamed on the dishonesty efforts of others without any real evidence is a "sour grapes" meme that unintentionally disparages the competition. Brandon seems to have acknowledged this: you seemingly have not.

If you play a friendly card game and lose, it is not appropriate to immediately publicly ask if one of the friendly players cheated in the timeframe that the valid winners are enjoying their props.

One can choose the level of awareness to the potential for cheating. FIRST tries to be friendly, professional, and gracious.

I do not know how Brandon could have publicly approached the subject of his feeling his team was likely a recent victim of cheating at a FIRST competition in a manner would be seen as graciously professional.

If you can, I will certainly admit I was wrong and apologize to you.

I don't think Brandon should be ashamed: in fact, he's better for having made a mistake and admitting it and moving on. You seemed to imply that Brandon had just chosen the wrong words. I think it's not the words that were the issue- it was the sentiment, timing and location of that sentiment.

There is a huge amount of this competition that is mostly an honor system.
There are also many EASY ways to cheat that do not involve hacking- I'm going to assume that those ways to cheat aren't used sufficiently to worry about and I'm going to spend my energy elsewhere.

Are you starting with the position that there are likely enough cheaters involved in FIRST that we should spend our brainpower looking for them?

I have focused my brainpower on looking for the understanding of the laws of nature on highly complex equipment causing the seemingly nefarious robot behavior. I view it as time better spent.

I think we can agree that the right time to be broadcasting talk about potential hacking victimization is not the day the winning team is supposed to be celebrating their win.

I already said, multiple times, I think he approached the topic wrong, and I would hope he learned that. That being said, being concerned (albeit and admittedly mistakenly) about the security of the arena network is not sour grapes. It's a concern. He voiced it, he was educated, he has learned something, this thread was enlightening for many people, myself included.

As far as an example, I would have approached it something like this:

Originally Posted by Alternate Universe Me

I noticed some strange behavior with our robot and others at the FLR regional, and I was concerned it may have been a result of teams tampering with the communications network and attempting some kind of malicious gameplay. What do you guys think? Do you have any other suggestions for what could be the cause?

For reference, the symptoms I noticed were:
(symptoms go here, perhaps without naming specific teams or matches)

Thanks for your input in advance!
Matt

I also do not think Brandon has anything to be ashamed of, and I do believe he has certainly learned. I also don't think his concerns cast a shadow on the teams that won the event, it wasn't as if he accused them of cheating, and I certainly don't believe they'd have taken it that way.

FIRST is supposed to inspire STEM and show students what the 'real life' does with it, and in the real life there will always be people looking to undermine the system to their own personal gain. I don't think (thankfully) it's present at a great capacity in FIRST, but I am concerned it could be if people stop asking "What's really keeping us secure here?" however I think you'd have to be a fool to think it's not there at all.

It seems to me your gripe is more with being disagreed with, than the topic at hand. Based on that, and the fact that at this point I believe I've made my case on this matter as abundantly clear as I can, and I am stepping out of the discussion unless the topic becomes more relevant to the actual original topics of this thread. If you really insist on following up, then you're welcome to PM, IM, email or carrier pigeon me.

[BrandonD-1528]

Originally Posted by Matt Krass

If you really insist on following up, then you're welcome to PM, IM, email or carrier pigeon me.

Really now, how many quotes am I going to have to put in my signature?

[Matt Krass]

Originally Posted by BrandonD-1528

Really now, how many quotes am I going to have to put in my signature?

I find it amusing you like my jokes, my kids on my team tell me they're 'old person' jokes, call me Dark Ages and throw tomatoes at me...

Matt

[BrandonD-1528]

Originally Posted by Matt Krass

I find it amusing you like my jokes, my kids on my team tell me they're 'old person' jokes, call me Dark Ages and throw tomatoes at me...

Matt

Don't mind me, I have a strange sense of humor. Even explosions make me laugh.

...and I'm out of tomatoes.

[boomergeek]

Don't cast aspersions on your friends- even the ones you don't know.
Especially in a public forum.

If someone uses phrases like "extremely fishy" and "very suspicious manner" and the team's teacher writes: "Do I think my student jumped to a rash decision and posted this thread before he thought of what it is implying? YES"

Intent and implication are two separate concepts.

I'll assume the teacher has a better read on the situation and I'll assume the people of FIRST are friendly and I don't need to worry about cheaters. You are welcome to assume other things.

Intentional misquotes are generally never welcome.

[BrandonD-1528]

I don't believe that any of the teams have any reason to cheat, though there still may be some out there that might want to try. My original thoughts were that some students might want to hack for fun. You know, we're all geeks here, that's entirely possible. After all I've read, I still believe it's possible, but I no longer think that it has any likelihood of having occurred at FLR.

It's probably worth mentioning that I wrote the original post at 1 AM and my judgment wasn't the greatest, and I do regret parts of it, but I am unable to edit the post, so I guess what happens happens. It might also be worth mentioning that I was nearly barred from going to competitions with my team and am not currently on good terms with some people because of that post, but I felt I was doing the right thing by bringing hacking up as a possibility in the competitions.

All I wanted was to gather opinions and maybe get someone looking into what might be breachable in the system, and that's exactly what happened. There is also the unfortunate outcome of people who misunderstood my post, or understood it in the incorrect way that I wrote it. I'll admit I'm at fault for not waiting until I was awake enough to make proper sense.

Hopefully someone will read through the whole forum before accusing me of accusing someone of cheating next time, and hopefully my team will understand what I was trying to do.

[gblake]

Well, I'm glad we averted the downfall of Western civilization.

Anyone have anything interesting left to say about the original topic?

[Greg McKaskle]

I think the original topic was something along the lines of ...

" At the FLR regional, there were a number of robots that seemed to not be controlled by their team DS. They seemed to ignore inputs, would deploy minibots on their own, or lose comms and come back just as the match was ending. What are some possible explanations? Is is possible or likely that someone hacked the field or some of the networks and took control of the robots?"

On that topic, I'd say that another possible explanation for some of the robot movement that doesn't obey joystick input is that the team autonomous code wasn't finished. In NJ, I believe we saw five teams using Java and C++ whose exit condition for autonomous was not correct or whose autonomous would destroy objects that teleop would try to use. The result was that their tests worked fine in the pits, but on the field, their robot would mostly sit there and ignore controls. Sometimes the robot would crash due to null objects or invalid objects. Running a DS practice mode test would usually reproduce the effect in the pits. Other times it was necessary to alter the device boot sequence and run the practice match. If this happened, and a team had a more active autonomous, their robot would effectively be taking the DTF challenge of full auto. That may explain some of the odd behavior.

Other explanations -- low batteries can cause intermittent dropout of pretty much anything on the robot, and devices take different amounts of time to boot. If the robot reanimates after about a minute, I look at power to the radio. If it reanimates after ten to fifteen seconds, I look at the cRIO power.
Mechanical difficulties or loose wires can easily cause some inputs to make sense and others to be ignored. Robots that lose chains or PWM cables are really hard to drive, and until the team finds the smoking gun their mind is racing as to what caused that behavior.

As to whether or not it is possible to hack the field, I'd say that it was made my man and can be broken by man. It is possible. However, it is far more likely that a tornado will tear off the roof and six lightning bolts simultaneously scorch each of antennae on the field radio.

Also, if the field is hacked, hackers almost always leave footprints. I'm pretty sure FTAs and FIRST would quickly spot it and have tons of data to identify how it took place.

Finally, there are tons of easy ways to have fun at a FIRST regional. I suspect even the most hardened hacker would rather collect buttons or watch scoring trends. Making a team's robot sit still for 90 seconds just isn't that great by comparison. Maybe it would be fun to make their BFL blink morse code messages such as "Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!", "I'll be back", "Hasta la vista, baby", or "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.". When I see that, I'll believe the field hack is more likely.

Greg McKaskle