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 compromising/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. At that point, the agents confiscated Roberts iPad, MacBook Pro and several external hard and thumb drives. 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. Senior law enforcement officials said Sunday that no evidence gathered thus far suggests that such a capability, as outlined by Roberts, exists. 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. During those interviews, Roberts told agents that he had exploited the vulnerabilities he had discovered "approximately 15 to 20 times" between 2011 and 2014. 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. 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." Roberts told the agency he was furnishing the information because he wanted the vulnerabilities fixed. 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. 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. 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 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 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 was open and helpful, showing the agents wiring schematics for multiple airplane models. 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." 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. 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.
– 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.