NASA SpaceX Crew enters iPad pin in plain view of camera | Hacker News Reader

NASA SpaceX Crew enters iPad pin in plain view of camera

imgur.com

28 pointssschueller20 comments

Now you need to hop on a rocket to go steal the iPad to make use of that password.

It feels bizarre that a device playing a role in space travel has a password.

But I guess a lot of Space-X stuff surprises me that way. It’s a very consumer focused spaceflight system.

It's probably just joined to an Exchange email server or something that similarly requires a PIN to be set.

How do you do Face ID with a helmet visor? How do you do Touch ID with gloves? You can't leave it unlocked because the device needs to be encrypted. A pass phrase would be more secure but when you're a 400km away from the nearest threat actor there's nothing wrong with a short PIN that is set randomly prior to the mission and cleared immediately on return.

Now, maybe if iOS supported using a USB or Bluetooth key to unlock the device.

> How do you do Face ID with a helmet visor? How do you do Touch ID with gloves? You can't leave it unlocked because the device needs to be encrypted

Does it? There's a lot more mission critical devices and computers involved in launching and piloting that ship onboard. Are they all encrypted? Every microcontroller? A verified chain of possession for everything going on to the ship seems as if it would be necessary, iPad included. And if that is the case, then is encryption truly a necessity? Keeping in mind that a passphrase was just entered mid livestream.

I'm not saying that encryption doesn't help, and that it shouldn't be encrypted. But I think that "needs to be encrypted" is a little strong. That said, I'm really looking forward to hearing from people arguing against me. Having been working from home since March, with only the occasional social contact, I'd love a good debate right now.

> You can't leave it unlocked because the device needs to be encrypted. A pass phrase would be more secure but when you're a 400km away from the nearest threat actor there's nothing wrong with a short PIN

Why have it (PIN or password) at all?

It's an iOS requirement. They would have to get Apple to build them a custom version of iOS, or root it themselves. Neither of which is very maintainable. Probably easier to just use the PIN.

It’s not an iOS requirement (but possibly it makes you make one to start out, I’m not sure).

0530 = May 30 = launch day

That's why device PINs are good - pretty useless without the device.

Can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpedeZopDSo (About 40 min in, can't link directly in a live stream). Not sure how much of a problem this is but if there is sensitive information on it, it should probably also not be used in view of a camera.

The question is, is the iPad set to erase all content if the code is entered wrong 10 times?

Or, if it gets disabled for 25 million minutes could it be reset by sending it through a black hole?? /s

And that's a problem because?

Somebody should build a service that blurs the entered pin on live stream so we can have posts like this a thing of the past.

I got curious about it and it seems the PIN is 06530, which according to https://www.tutorialspoint.com/letter-combinations-of-a-phon.... can be these combinations, which to my dismay are not very meaningful: ['mjd', 'mje', 'mjf', 'mkd', 'mke', 'mkf', 'mld', 'mle', 'mlf', 'njd', 'nje', 'njf', 'nkd', 'nke', 'nkf', 'nld', 'nle', 'nlf', 'ojd', 'oje', 'ojf', 'okd', 'oke', 'okf', 'old', 'ole', 'olf']

EDIT: I thought iOS PINs should be six digit?

It's 4 digits, he has to hit 5 twice as it doesn't register the first time through his glove.

That's not what I see in the replay of the shot but okay...

Another comment pointed out 0530 is May 30 - launch date of the mission.

>EDIT: I thought iOS PINs should be six digit?

It used to be four digits. The default changed to six, but there is an option to use four.

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