U.S. authorities are investigating whether or not Chris Roberts, a computer security expert, was able to hack into the computer system of a plane he flew aboard and cause it to bank sideways for a brief time. 
 
 The seal of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. (Photo: FBI) 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO — U.S. authorities are probing whether a computer security expert was actually able to hack into the computer system of a plane he flew aboard and cause it to bank sideways for a brief time. 
 
 Chris Roberts, a well-known cybersecurity researcher, had previously alerted authorities to what he said were security flaws in several common airliners. 
 
 He told FBI agents in April that he had hacked into the in-flight entertainment systems on numerous planes and, in one case, made a plane briefly fly sideways by telling one of the engines to go into climb mode. 
 
 Senior law enforcement officials said Sunday that no evidence gathered thus far suggests that such a capability, as outlined by Roberts, exists. The official was not authorized to speak publicly. 
 
 "While we will not comment on specific allegations, there is no credible information to suggest an airplane's flight control system can be accessed or manipulated from its in flight entertainment system. Nevertheless, attempting to tamper with the flight control systems of aircraft is illegal and any such attempts will be taken seriously by law enforcement." 
 
 Roberts did not respond to requests for comment, but did tweet on Saturday that he's been advised to keep quiet on the topic. "There's a whole five years of stuff that the affidavit incorrectly compressed into 1 paragraph....lots to untangle," he tweeted. 
 
 Over last 5 years my only interest has been to improve aircraft security...given the current situation I've been advised against saying much — Chris Roberts (@Sidragon1) May 17, 2015 
 
 Roberts told Fox News in March that he knew how to "take planes out of the sky" by hacking into their entertainment systems. 
 
 The FBI filed an affidavit in a New York court for a warrant to search Roberts computers April 17, first reported by a Canadian news service on Friday. 
 
 Sometime before Feb. 13, Roberts apparently alerted the FBI to potential vulnerabilities he said he had discovered in the in-flight entertainment (IFE) systems used on Boeing 737-800, 737-900, 757-200 and Airbus A-320.​ 
 
 According to the warrant request, he was interviewed about these issues by FBI agents on Feb. 13 and March 5. Roberts told the agency he was furnishing the information because he wanted the vulnerabilities fixed. 
 
 During those interviews, Roberts told agents that he had exploited the vulnerabilities he had discovered "approximately 15 to 20 times" between 2011 and 2014. 
 
 Roberts told the agents that at least once he took control of a flight's thrust management computer and had been able to tell one engine to climb, causing the plan to briefly go into a "sideways movement." 
 
 On April 15, as he was flying from Denver to Chicago, Roberts tweeted a joke about whether he should hack into plane's engine indication and crew alerting system. 
 
 Roberts then changed aircraft in Chicago for a flight to Syracuse.The plane he had been riding continued on to Philadelphia. When it landed in Philadelphia, FBI agents boarded it and found a damaged Seat Electronic Box in the area where Roberts had been sitting. 
 
 "The outer cover was open approximately 1/2 inch and one of the retaining screws was not seated and was exposed," according to the warrant application. 
 
 
 
 During their previous interviews, Roberts had told them that he was able to hack into the entertainment system by accessing the Seat Electronic Box located under certain seats in a plane. 
 
 When Roberts' flight to Syracuse landed, he was met by FBI Special Agents. 
 
 Roberts told the agents he had not compromised the airplane network on the flight from Denver to Chicago, according to the warrant request. He was open and helpful, showing the agents wiring schematics for multiple airplane models. 
 
 At that point, the agents confiscated Roberts iPad, MacBook Pro and several external hard and thumb drives. The search warrant application was a request to electronically search them. It is not know whether the court granted the search request. 
 
 When Roberts tried to fly back to Denver two days later, United Airlines informed him he was not welcome on its planes. He was, however, able to buy a ticket on another airline and continued his journey. 
 
 Law enforcement authorities and an aircraft manufacturer have cast doubt on whether the breach described by Roberts was possible. 
 
 According to a statement from Boeing, which makes three of the four jets Roberts said he was able to hack into, IFE systems on commercial airplanes are isolated from flight and navigation systems. 
 
 "While these systems receive position data and have communication links, the design isolates them from the other systems on airplanes performing critical and essential functions," Boeing said in a statement provided by spokesman Doug Adler. 
 
 In addition, the company noted that its airplanes have more than one navigational system available to pilots. Changes to the flight plans loaded into the airplane systems cannot take place without pilot review and approval. 
 
 Boeing said its planes meet or exceed "all applicable regulatory requirements for both physical and cyber security," but that for security security reasons, it does not give specific airplane design features. 
 
 Contributing: Kevin Johnson in Washington, D.C. 
 
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 Whitewings681/YouTube screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET 
 
 When Chris Roberts was pulled off a United Airlines flight last month -- and banned by the airline -- was it just because of a tweet that he deemed humorous? 
 
 The security expert seemed to suggest in the tweet that he could make the oxygen masks deploy, just by hacking into a box under his seat. 
 
 Now, a search warrant application connected with that event has emerged -- first noticed by Canada's APTN -- that puts even darker nuances to the tale. 
 
 In it, FBI agent Mark Hurley describes an interview with Roberts on April 15 at Syracuse airport, after he'd been detained. 
 
 Hurley claims that Roberts "exploited/gained access to, or 'hacked' the [in-flight entertainment] system. He stated that he then overwrote code on the airplane's Thrust Management Computer while aboard a flight. He stated that he successfully commanded the system he had accessed to issue the climb command. He stated that he thereby caused one of the airplane engines to climb resulting in a lateral or sideways movement of the plane during one of these flights. He also stated that he used Vortex software after compromising/exploiting or "hacking" the airplane's networks. He used the software to monitor traffic from the cockpit system." 
 
 The mere thought that someone could be on a plane and use their technical skills to control it might cause some to resist flying. Or, at least, to check their flight for anyone who looks like they might know how to hack into a computer system. 
 
 Roberts, though, denies the specific allegation that he hacked that United flight. 
 
 However, he admitted to Wired that he has infiltrated in-flight networks around 15 times, solely for the purpose of observation. The affidavit said that the last time he had accessed an aircraft's in-flight entertainment system had been some time "in the middle of 2014." Each incident allegedly involved seats with a video monitor in the back of seats. 
 
 As to the FBI's suggestion that he made a plane fly sideways, Roberts told Wired: "It would appear from what I've seen that the federal guys took one paragraph out of a lot of discussions and a lot of meetings and notes and just chose that one as opposed to plenty of others." 
 
 The affidavit claims that, in his discussions with the FBI, Roberts "advised that he had identified vulnerabilities with IFE [in-flight entertainment] on Boeing 737-800, 737-900, 757-200 and Airbus A320 aircraft." 
 
 I contacted Boeing and Airbus at the time of the incident. A Boeing representative told me: "Boeing has put in place, and demonstrated to the airlines and regulatory agencies, the appropriate cybersecurity safeguards, both hardware and software. IFE systems on commercial airplanes are isolated from flight and navigation systems. While these systems receive position data and have communication links, the design isolates them from the other systems on airplanes performing critical and essential functions" Airbus did not comment. 
 
 It seems we've drifted sideways into some very serious legal areas. I have therefore contacted the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which represented Roberts at the time of his detention and the confiscation of a number of his gadgets, and the FBI. I will update, should I hear. 
 
 Roberts hasn't been charged with a crime. However, he did admit to Wired that investors in One World Labs, a company that he co-founded, had withdrawn their money after his contretemps with the FBI. This, he said, led to some layoffs. 
 
 At the core of all this is where genuine concern for the security of in-flight systems ends and a genuine threat to passenger safety begins. ||||| A security researcher kicked off a United Airlines flight last month after tweeting about security vulnerabilities in its system had previously taken control of an airplane and caused it to briefly fly sideways, according to an application for a search warrant filed by an FBI agent. 
 
 Chris Roberts, a security researcher with One World Labs, told the FBI agent during an interview in February that he had hacked the in-flight entertainment system, or IFE, on an airplane and overwrote code on the plane's Thrust Management Computer while aboard the flight. He was able to issue a climb command and make the plane briefly change course, the document states. 
 
 "He stated that he thereby caused one of the airplane engines to climb resulting in a lateral or sideways movement of the plane during one of these flights," FBI Special Agent Mark Hurley wrote in his warrant application (.pdf). "He also stated that he used Vortex software after comprising/exploiting or 'hacking' the airplane's networks. He used the software to monitor traffic from the cockpit system." 
 
 Hurley filed the search warrant application last month after Roberts was removed from a United Airlines flight from Chicago to Syracuse, New York, because he published a facetious tweet suggesting he might hack into the plane's network. Upon landing in Syracuse, two FBI agents and two local police officers escorted him from the plane and interrogated him for several hours. They also seized two laptop computers and several hard drives and USB sticks. Although the agents did not have a warrant when they seized the devices, they told Roberts a warrant was pending. 
 
 A media outlet in Canada obtained the application for the warrant today and published it online. 
 
 The information outlined in the warrant application reveals a far more serious situation than Roberts has previously disclosed. 
 
 Roberts had previously told WIRED that he caused a plane to climb during a simulated test on a virtual environment he and a colleague created, but he insisted then that he had not interfered with the operation of a plane while in flight. 
 
 He told WIRED that he did access in-flight networks about 15 times during various flights but had not done anything beyond explore the networks and observe data traffic crossing them. According to the FBI affidavit, however, when he mentioned this to agents last February he told them that he also had briefly commandeered a plane during one of those flights. 
 
 He told the FBI that the period in which he accessed the in-flight networks more than a dozen times occurred between 2011 and 2014. The affidavit, however, does not indicate exactly which flight he allegedly caused to turn to fly to the side. 
 
 He obtained physical access to the networks through the Seat Electronic Box, or SEB. These are installed two to a row, on each side of the aisle under passenger seats, on certain planes. After removing the cover to the SEB by "wiggling and Squeezing the box," Roberts told agents he attached a Cat6 ethernet cable, with a modified connector, to the box and to his laptop and then used default IDs and passwords to gain access to the inflight entertainment system. Once on that network, he was able to gain access to other systems on the planes. 
 
 Reaction in the security community to the new revelations in the affidavit have been harsh. Although Roberts hasn't been charged yet with any crime, and there are questions about whether his actions really did cause the plane to list to the side or he simply thought they did, a number of security researchers have expressed shock that he attempted to tamper with a plane during a flight. 
 
 "I find it really hard to believe but if that is the case he deserves going to jail," wrote Jaime Blasco, director of AlienVault Labs in a tweet. 
 
 Alex Stamos, chief information security officer of Yahoo, wrote in a tweet, "You cannot promote the (true) idea that security research benefits humanity while defending research that endangered hundreds of innocents." 
 
 Roberts, reached by phone after the FBI document was made public, told WIRED that he had already seen it last month but wasn't expecting it to go public today. 
 
 "My biggest concern is obviously with the multiple conversations that I had with the authorities," he said. "I’m obviously concerned those were held behind closed doors and apparently they’re no longer behind closed doors." 
 
 Although he wouldn't respond directly to questions about whether he had hacked that previous flight mentioned in the affidavit, he said the paragraph in the FBI document discussing this is out of context. 
 
 "That paragraph that’s in there is one paragraph out of a lot of discussions, so there is context that is obviously missing which obviously I can’t say anything about," he said. "It would appear from what I’ve seen that the federal guys took one paragraph out of a lot of discussions and a lot of meetings and notes and just chose that one as opposed to plenty of others." 
 
 History of Researching Planes 
 
 Roberts began investigating aviation security about six years ago after he and a research colleague got hold of publicly available flight manuals and wiring diagrams for various planes. The documents showed how inflight entertainment systems on some planes were connected to the passenger satellite phone network, which included functions for operating some cabin control systems. These systems were in turn connected to the plane avionics systems. They built a test lab using demo software obtained from infotainment vendors and others in order to explore what they could to the networks. 
 
 In 2010, Roberts gave a presentation about hacking planes and cars at the BSides security conference in Las Vegas. Another presentation followed two years later. He also spoke directly to airplane manufacturers about the problems with their systems. "We had conversations with two main airplane builders as well as with two of the top providers of infotainment systems and it never went anywhere," he told WIRED last month. 
 
 Last February, the FBI in Denver, where Roberts is based, requested a meeting. They discussed his research for an hour, and returned a couple weeks later for a discussion that lasted several more hours. They wanted to know what was possible and what exactly he and his colleague had done. Roberts disclosed that he and his colleague had sniffed the data traffic on more than a dozen flights after connecting their laptops to the infotainment networks. 
 
 "We researched further than that," he told WIRED last month. "We were within the fuel balancing system and the thrust control system. We watched the packets and data going across the network to see where it was going." 
 
 Eventually, Roberts and his research partner determined that it would take a convoluted set of hacks to seriously subvert an avionics system, but they believed it could be done. He insisted to WIRED last month, however, that they did not "mess around with that except on simulation systems." In simulations, for example, Roberts said they were able to turn the engine controls from cruise to climb, "which definitely had the desired effect on the system—the plane sped up and the nose of the airplane went up." 
 
 Today he would not respond to questions about the new allegations from the FBI that he also messed with the systems during a real flight. 
 
 The Tweet Heard Round the World 
 
 Roberts never heard from the FBI again after that February visit. His recent troubles began after he sent out a Tweet on April 15 while aboard a United Airlines flight from Denver to Chicago. After news broke about a report from the Government Accountability Office revealing that passenger Wi-Fi networks on some Boeing and Airbus planes could allow an attacker to gain access to avionics systems and commandeer a flight, Roberts published a Tweet that said, "Find myself on a 737/800, lets see Box-IFE-ICE-SATCOM,? Shall we start playing with EICAS messages? 'PASS OXYGEN ON' Anyone?" He punctuated the tweet with a smiley face. 
 
 The tweet was meant as a sarcastic joke; a reference to how he had tried for years to get Boeing and Airbus to heed warnings about security issues with their passenger communications systems. His tweet about the Engine Indicator Crew Alert System, or EICAS, was a reference to research he'd done years ago on vulnerabilities in inflight infotainment networks, vulnerabilities that could allow an attacker to access cabin controls and deploy a plane's oxygen masks. 
 
 In response to his tweet, someone else tweeted to him "...aaaaaand you're in jail. :)" 
 
 Roberts responded with, "There IS a distinct possibility that the course of action laid out above would land me in an orange suite [sic] rather quickly :)" 
 
 When an employee with United Airlines' Cyber Security Intelligence Department became aware of the tweet, he contacted the FBI and told agents that Roberts would be on a second flight going from Chicago to Syracuse. Although the particular plane Roberts was on at the time the agents seized him in New York was not equipped with an inflight entertainment system like the kind he had previously told the FBI he had hacked, the plane he had flown earlier from Denver to Chicago did have the same system. 
 
 When an FBI agent later examined that Denver-to-Chicago plane after it landed in another city the same day, he found that the SEBs under the seats where Roberts had been sitting "showed signs of tampering," according to the affidavit. Roberts had been sitting in seat 3A and the SEB under 2A, the seat in front of him, "was damaged." 
 
 "The outer cover of the box was open approximately 1/2 inch and one of the retaining screws was not seated and was exposed," FBI Special Agent Hurley wrote in his affidavit. 
 
 During the interrogation in Syracuse, Roberts told the agents that he had not compromised the network on the United flight from Denver to Chicago. He advised them, however, that he was carrying thumb drives containing malware to compromise networks—malware that he told them was "nasty." Also on his laptop were schematics for the wiring systems of a number of airplane models. All of this would be standard, however, for a security researcher who conducts penetration-testing and research for a living. 
 
 Nonetheless, based on all of the information that agents had gleaned from their previous interview with Roberts in February as well as the Tweets he'd sent out that day and the apparent signs of tampering on the United flight, the FBI believed that Roberts "had the ability and the willingness to use the equipment then with him to access or attempt to access the IFE and possibly the flight control systems on any aircraft equipped with an IFE systems, and that it would endanger public safety to allow him to leave the Syracuse airport that evening with that equipment." 
 
 When asked by WIRED if he ever connected his laptop to the SEB on his flight from Denver to Chicago, Roberts said, "Nope I did not. That I’m happy to say and I’ll stand from the top of the tallest tower and yell that one." 
 
 He also questions the FBI's assessment that the boxes showed signs of tampering. 
 
 "Those boxes are underneath the seats. How many people shove luggage and all sorts of things under there?," he said. "I’d be interested if they looked at the boxes under all the other seats and if they looked like they had been tampered. How many of them are broken and cracked or have scuff marks? How many of those do the airlines replace because people shove things under there?" 
 
 Regardless of whether the authorities have a case against him, however, there has already been some fallout from the incident. Roberts told WIRED that today investors on the board of directors of One World Labs, a company he helped found, decided to withdraw their investments in the company. As a result, One World Labs had to lay off about a dozen employees today, half of its staff. 
 
 Roberts said there were other factors contributing to the board's decision but his legal situation "was probably the final straw." 
 
 "The board has deemed it a risk. So that was one factor in many that made their decision," he said. "Their decision was not to fund the organization any further." ||||| These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved.Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors.The goal is to fix all broken links on the web . Crawls of supported "No More 404" sites.
– Can a passenger with a laptop really electronically hijack a plane via its in-flight entertainment system? That's what security researcher Chris Roberts has confessed to doing, according to an FBI search warrant application, but there's little to indicate that such a thing is possible. A senior law enforcement source tells USA Today that while he won't comment on the specific case, "there is no credible information to suggest an airplane's flight control system can be accessed or manipulated from its in-flight entertainment system. Nevertheless, attempting to tamper with the flight control systems of aircraft is illegal and any such attempts will be taken seriously by law." Roberts—who allegedly claimed he was able to make the plane briefly fly sideways—tells Forbes he has been advised to stay quiet about the case, though he adds that software that can be accessed through entertainment systems is typically "for monitoring only, not influencing." Earlier, he told Wired that the information about the sideways flying was "one paragraph out of a lot of discussions, so there is context that is obviously missing, which obviously I can't say anything about." Boeing appears to agree that such a feat is impossible, at least on its aircraft: Entertainment systems are by design isolated "from the other systems on airplanes performing critical and essential functions," a rep tells CNET, which notes that Roberts has not been charged with any crime. Click for more on Roberts' claims about the sideways-flying plane.