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Comment by netsharc | Hacker News Reader

To me this is just a distraction. Yes there's a hardware camera. I will bet some money that they have not been used nefariously by AA or SQ. Some are raging about the non-existant theoretical privacy violation (again, not 100% non-existant, but I will bet money there's no surveillance through this camera), meanwhile we are ignoring actual privacy violations being done by e.g. Facebook or Twitter, or the millions of ad networks (which that webpage has too, btw).

One might say "But what about hackers?", luckily unlike Alexa or Google Home, it's hard for hackers to tinker with one these devices and find remotely-triggerable exploits.

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I don't know, there are literal spy agencies out there(like people getting trained to extract information, being paid to do things etc.).

Would be very convenient for them if there were "unused" microphones and cameras everywhere and just tap the one when they need it.

What makes you think that people with full time jobs and careers based on obtaining private information would not be interested in listening to their targets who are sitting on a chair next to their business partner/colleague for hours?

> Yes there's a hardware camera. I will bet some money that they have not been used nefariously

Talk about the tag line for the past decade.

Indeed, I am far more discomforted by the "Google snuck a microphone into products it sold consumers and placed in their homes" than "very visible cameras exist in airplanes which are already operating between the most heavily camera-covered facilities on the planet".

And AA can fix this with stickers. Occasionally a kid will peel one off, but nobody will really care.

> One might say "But what about hackers?", luckily unlike Alexa or Google Home, it's hard for hackers to tinker with one these devices and find remotely-triggerable exploits.

Yes, very hard for people with skills, indeed.

https://thehackernews.com/2016/12/hacking-in-flight-system.h...

https://www.wired.com/2015/05/feds-say-banned-researcher-com...

https://ioactive.com/in-flight-hacking-system/

meanwhile we are ignoring actual privacy violations being done by e.g. Facebook or Twitter, or the millions of ad networks

I'm not sure who you think is ignoring these issues. They're in the mainstream news, and on HN almost every day.

>>I will bet some money that they have not been used nefariously by AA or SQ.

not yet

Given the last 20 years of bad behavior from tech companies overall, and the steady erosion of privacy in nearly all quarters, I question your confidence and must ask "based on what?"

AA isn’t a tech company. There revenue isn’t based on selling eyeballs.

They can always diversify and milk out even more money out of their customers.

To exit plane, PLEASE DRINK VERIFICATION CAN

Those in seat screens have advertisements on them you know.

Don't forget the brainwash about their company they make you watch while you're strapped into a seat with nowhere else to look.

Based on my belief that developing software for it would not be cheap (hello, contractors), and that I don't see a use case how it could make more money for the airline (fine maybe I'm just not creative enough).

They could have analytics that say "Passenger X (profile: male, paid with a platinum credit card, flew 5 times in the last 6 months) watched movie Y for 40 minutes before looking up the price for the WiFi connectivity and deciding against it (pressing Cancel) after 2 minutes. Passenger turned off the display and only turned it on again 2 hours later at 9:45 PM (the flight attendants started serving food at 9:40 PM), suggesting the passenger slept until they started serving dinner.", but for that they don't need a camera, they can just use analytics software that already monitor your activity inside mobile apps.

>Based on my belief that developing software for it would not be cheap (hello, contractors)

It would be extremely cheap, that's why they chose android based tablets in the first place and the government has deep enough pockets to try to break TLS. Developing an app that records a video to storage is completely trivial.

I think the more important point here is the normalisation happening.

> More and more devices have cameras built into them. From smartphones to tablets to Alexa-powered smart speakers, cameras have become the norm, rather than the exception, for most hardware

From a tech side, I can understand the coolness factor of equipping all your devices with microphones and cameras - however, even though this particular example didn't do much, I think we're i for a lot of risks if this trend continued.

> unlike Alexa or Google Home, it's hard for hackers to tinker with one these devices and find remotely-triggerable exploits.

I took this 13-second video on when the flight I was on last year rebooted the in-flight entertainment system upon landing. I sat there for an hour with an opportunity to poke around the menus.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/mVKBumqkwPMewWLV6

Is it that hard? I've seen one get stuck on an Ubuntu boot screen (of a 5+ year old Ubuntu version, no less) with messages about loading MySQL.

I mean, at least they weren't using Win98, but that's a pretty low bar.

If the hardware exists, and just because it is likely disabled (or not utilized) in software by the airlines, does not mean it cannot be enabled by a nefarious actor.

Security researchers have shown it is possible to gain access to the on-board computer systems:

https://thehackernews.com/2016/12/hacking-in-flight-system.h...

https://thehackernews.com/2014/08/airplanes-can-be-hacked-th...

And one man appears to have elevated that access to actually control the plane:

https://www.wired.com/2015/05/feds-say-banned-researcher-com...

https://www.cnn.com/2015/05/17/us/fbi-hacker-flight-computer...

So, no, I don't think this is a distraction whatsoever. We have the capacity to cover both of these issues.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. It is highly unlikely that 'controlling the plane' is even possible.

All we have is a word from some dude. A very irresponsible one, if his claims are true.

> meanwhile we are ignoring actual privacy violations being done by e.g. Facebook or Twitter, or the millions of ad networks (which that webpage has too, btw).

Oh, I don't think we're ignoring those things.

If no one opposes the cameras then they will be added to every aircraft by default. They're just a distraction after all! When those cameras are everywhere, suddenly someone (most likely the government) will turn them on. No one will realize. They're just a distraction after all...

> meanwhile we are ignoring actual privacy violations being done by e.g. Facebook or Twitter, or the millions of ad networks

This is becoming a form of digital whataboutism and false equivalence. I can't read comments about seatback airline cameras without being reminded of these other "violations" as though they are related. Maybe the collective "we" are ignoring them because "we" don't consider them privacy violations or just don't care, despite the fact that those bombarding us want us to.

I'm always torn on whataboutism. On one hand, yes, these are all problems that should be addressed, and you shouldn't dismiss one just because there are some worse problems elsewhere.

But I think a lot of what we sometimes label whataboutism is just people marveling how people in general are just so terrible at risk assessment that they'll latch onto minimal-risk items and get outraged about them, while at the same time engaging in higher-risk activities in the same context.

But there's also the fact that the "what about"-er has no idea what the parent poster is concerned with; saying they're "ignoring actual privacy violations being done by e.g. Facebook or Twitter, or the millions of ad networks" might be entirely false. Maybe they're concerned about both things.

> I'm always torn on whataboutism

I'd say there's a difference between idly attempting to gain perspective/compare, and dismissing/shaming the original content and its interested receivers via contrast. The latter is the problem, especially when it's framed as a mutually exclusive option between the primary subject and the contrasted subject, as though there is a fixed maximum of concern that can be had.

You being willing to bet money gives me little confidence.

I'm not sure what you're trying to convey with your comment.

Do you have reason to believe otherwise? If so, you should take the bet. Otherwise, readers have no reason to believe someone who isn't willing to put their money over their mouth is, over someone who is. Especially if you don't even bother to give reasons for your belief.

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