Virginia Gun Owners Forum - VGOF

Frankly I much prefer the KISS philosophy when it comes to fire arms engineering.
If these sniper rifles can be hacked what are the odds of "smart" personal defense handguns being hacked?
What are the odds of law enforcement professionals deciding to carry this type of weapon?

Hackers Make Smart Rifle Go Rogue

Security researchers Runa Sandvik and Michael Auger have hacked a TrackingPoint smart rifle that was designed to deliver sharpshooter results, even for novices.

They demonstrated their feat for Wired and will present their findings at the week-long Black Hat 2015 security conference in Las Vegas, which begins Saturday.

The two purchased a pair of US$13,000 rifles and spent a year working on them.

They developed a set of techniques that could let hackers compromise the rifles -- which are computerized and run a version of Linux -- through the weapons' WiFi connection.

I'm not surprised. Its got a computer OS and WiFi. I'm shocked it took a year.

They leave out the part where even if it wasn't hackable, anything with electronics to be made to act erratically or not at all by exposing it to high voltage or magnetism.

Smart guns are phone to talk about and play with, but the second "technology" gets introduced, its no longer reliable in my opinion. Its very rare that mechanical objects fail to work as intended. Its also very rare that complex electronics actually does work as intended. Thank God for that too, or I wouldn't have the cushy job I do now.

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Shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.

Nope. Not surprised.

The ability to hack these things is the least of my problems with them.

Wonder how long it will take before someone figures out an efficient hack from a smart phone?

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SHMIV wrote:Nope. Not surprised.

The ability to hack these things is the least of my problems with them.

Wonder how long it will take before someone figures out an efficient hack from a smart phone?

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Like Marc said I was surprised it took them that long, as for the smart phone thing, already out there. Lots of free tools to hack smart phones.

What I meant was, I wonder how long before someone figures out how to use a smartphone, instead of a computer, to hack one of these "smart" guns. I believe that the criminal element would find that to be super convenient if law enforcement got stuck having to carry "smart guns".

At the rate that cops seem to be getting gunned down, these days, I'd refuse to carry and weapon that could be remotely compromised. They'd have to fire me.

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If that gun has a Linux OS and a WiFi connection, it can already be hacked from an Apple phone or tablet. It would take less than a day to convert it to work on a Windows or Android phone or tablet... assuming they haven't already.

What Marc said, I like him work in IT security and we already have converted phones that run custom pen testing tools right from the phone. They are able to use Wi Fi, and the cell network both. So yes it already exists.

The safest thing about so called "smart guns" is their price tag. No one can afford to buy one.