[FRC Blog] Einstein Report Released

[Chris is me]

Firstly, thanks to everyone in and out of FIRST who made this exhaustive testing and report possible. It is great to have such a thorough analysis of the forces at play on Einstein and the lengths they went to replicate on field conditions were extraordinary. I sincerely hope this leads to dramatically less communications faults at any event this year.

It's absolutely appalling that someone in FIRST would sabotage an alliance (and then some) by exploiting a security vulnerability. It's also appalling that it could be so simple to knock a robot out of commission in any FRC match since Week 4. Cisco's got some 'splainin' to do...

Did this person interfere intentionally? Yes.
Do I believe that this person had malicious intent at heart? No.
Do I believe that the person has been adequately punished? Yes.

I'm having trouble processing the idea that someone could deliberately attack all of the robots on an alliance by exploiting a security vulnerability without "malicious intent". Perhaps they were trying to raise attention of an issue FIRST should have known about (just about the only scenario I can think of that would even resemble "good intent"). Einstein is by no means whatsoever the proper time and place to demonstrate this problem.

And does it even matter what his / her intent was? Are the affected teams supposed to feel better about being cheated out of a fair chance at victory because "oh, he / she had good intentions"?