Spaceship to spaceship hacking

MDSchafer

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So I'm working on a hard sci-fi story that's basically a battle between two two space ships with no offensive weapons. They're from the same planet, but different cultures, so their computer systems are different, but still human. If you're familiar with 2001 it's like the Discovery and the Leonov. Given that their computer systems are self contained, and they've isolated their communication system could one ship hack the other?
 

RichardGarfinkle

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Hacking depends on communications. Unless their computer systems can talk to each other, hacking isn't possible. Unless, of course, one ship has an agent on the other ship, or can send a robot that can attach to the other ship and communicate back, or some other such method of makng covert contact.
 

MDSchafer

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Hacking depends on communications. Unless their computer systems can talk to each other, hacking isn't possible. Unless, of course, one ship has an agent on the other ship, or can send a robot that can attach to the other ship and communicate back, or some other such method of makng covert contact.

So if you had some sort of hacker bot that could make a physical connection with the on board system they could broadcast a signal that you could hack their computer with, but what about being different operating systems? Assuming both of their OS are different and your programmer doesn't have any knowledge of their system could you still damage it?
 

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So if you had some sort of hacker bot that could make a physical connection with the on board system they could broadcast a signal that you could hack their computer with, but what about being different operating systems? Assuming both of their OS are different and your programmer doesn't have any knowledge of their system could you still damage it?

With no knowledge of their system, no chance. You'd have to stick to physical damage. All the really good hacking tricks depend on an intimate knowledge of the target system and/or a working model to practice on.

Of course, simple things like pumping 120vac into a 5vdc connector are always good for chuckles.
 

BDSEmpire

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So I'm working on a hard sci-fi story that's basically a battle between two two space ships with no offensive weapons. They're from the same planet, but different cultures, so their computer systems are different, but still human. If you're familiar with 2001 it's like the Discovery and the Leonov. Given that their computer systems are self contained, and they've isolated their communication system could one ship hack the other?

It's your story, what do you want to happen?


Is it plausible for two warring cultures to have electronic warfare officers that specialize in wrecking up the enemy's computer systems? Sure! Do you need to get into the details of how that works? Nope!


RichardGarfinkle's idea of using robots to attach to the enemy ship and wreck up their systems is a fine idea. Do you want your bad guys to gain control or just wreck the system?


The movie "Independence Day" is a good example of total nonsense. The idea that the humans could figure out a security backdoor in an alien operating system and use that to drop the shields is laughable. On the other hand, they had plenty of 'splosions so it evened out in the end.
 

wendygoerl

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Hey, it's never stopped Hollywood. Seriously, it depends mostly on how isolated the target system is. If these two are antagonistic, then they've got experts figuring out enough of each other's language to code the software if they want to badly enough. Their success would hinge on how well the target system is isolated from the comm system. For example, you can hack the seatbelts many 21stC cars, because seatbelts are electronically controlled and many cars have some type of internet capability. Twenty years ago, you couldn't have communicated with the car to do it, and forty years ago the belts were strictly mechanical, and therefore, hack-proof.
 

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It seems to me any spacefaring people will rely on long-range communications, which means their computer systems cannot be fully isolated. The game would be figuring out each other's systems and technology (maybe stealing their death star plans) so you can find an attack vector.

Social engineering would still be fair game... try to gain privileged access by manipulating low-ranking people with access to the systems, etc. The equivalent of modern day phishing, DoS attacks, all these things would make some sense. Imagine if you overload the engine's command queue by finding a way to flood it with "self check" messages or something... trivial, doesn't require knowledge of the language only the message syntax and the injection point... then suddenly they can't control the engines from the bridge because the system isn't responding.
 

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I was also curious about using something like a virus or a worm.

This would require pretty specific knowledge of the enemy's systems and platforms. Modern viruses and worms only work because the creator knows about the operating system (and browsers and underlying libraries and toolkits) likely to be running on the victim's computer. The ID4-style generic virus is total fiction.
 

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Howdy MDSchafer,

I have a question that's related to the response from BDSEmpire. If the 'hacking' could miraculously happen, what would YOU want the hacking party to then do? Think precisely about this, not just f*** up stuff. Once you have a clear objective (and you may already), is there any way that could be done by spoofing? Like contriving a false threat to the ship, to get them to take a predictable response. For evil ideas that you'd have to adapt to spaceships, try reading 'The War Magician'. They made the Suez Canal disappear (well, they just moved it), so the bombs fell in the wrong place.

If you think there's any merit to this approach, but you can't think of a method to accomplish your objective for the hacking, ask us again, but about the ultimate objective rather than how to hack.

Techs
 

MDSchafer

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Howdy MDSchafer,

I have a question that's related to the response from BDSEmpire. If the 'hacking' could miraculously happen, what would YOU want the hacking party to then do? Think precisely about this, not just f*** up stuff. Once you have a clear objective (and you may already), is there any way that could be done by spoofing? Like contriving a false threat to the ship, to get them to take a predictable response. For evil ideas that you'd have to adapt to spaceships, try reading 'The War Magician'. They made the Suez Canal disappear (well, they just moved it), so the bombs fell in the wrong place.

If you think there's any merit to this approach, but you can't think of a method to accomplish your objective for the hacking, ask us again, but about the ultimate objective rather than how to hack.

Techs

I'm thinking lighting. Conceptually the ship central lighting would be on an LED system so that you could simulate a day-night cycle and program lighting for special occasions and whatnot. In modern LED installations all those can be controlled from a tablet, so assuming the ship's staff could do the same thing. Obviously that wouldn't give you control over all of their lighting, but it could make it a lot easier to move around the ship and probably wouldn't be that insulated from hacking. I'm thinking they'd have a basic architecture of the opposing ship's computer system (They were all part of one big fleet once upon a time) but no specifics of the current operating system.
 

L.E.N. Andov

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Greetings from Charlotte.

You asked about hacking. Hacking imho is unauthorized changes. If you aren't actually inside or online with the target system then you can't hack it. Physical damage is probably closer to sabotage or vandalism.

There might be one other possibility tho. I am assuming since you said LED that both factions are using electrical based architecture. These are subject to Electro-Magnetic Interference. Unless properly shielded or designed to accept and safely deal with incoming EMI, Electrical systems can be hurt pretty bad pretty quickly.

I liked your idea of using the lighting. I don't think Ive ever seen that one used before. Isnt it always a dirty trick tho to blind the other guy so that you can gain an advantage? Lighting would be tied in directly to the entire ship and accessible from anywhere. Allthough they are probably branched or noded. You might not be able to kill the engines using the LEDs but you certainly could divert a lot of brain power to the problem of solving it.

One way that you could hack the other ship is by using an infiltrator. Someone working for you but on the enemy ship. Assuming you could successfully get someone from your side that far, they would probably have enough knowledge of their language, habits, and systems to at least access the point of entry. Whether they understand how the virus works doesn't matter.

There's also fuel. You could "hack" the engines by sweetening their fuel. You could also rub Vaseline on all their windows :p What would happen if instead of killing that other ship, you forced the gas pedal all the way to the floor in such a way that they could never stop accelerating? See ya, wouldn't wanna be ya!

I think its a wonderful idea to have two factions on the same planet :) I think its incredible that they both have developed space ships technology without one having destroyed the other first.

Cheers
(A)