The Way Forward for Chris Roberts, One World Labs

The plight of One World Labs Founder Chris Roberts has been picked to death on social media this past week. There’s all the trouble he’s in with the FBI for his airplane-hacking claims. There’s the hit to his company, which had to let a lot of good security talent go last week.

Some shake their heads in disbelief because he apparently spoke to the FBI about his activities without a lawyer present. Others saw this saga as an example of hackers shooting off their mouths without the scruples to back it up.

Me? I’m looking at this and seeing a way forward for Chris Roberts (@Sidragon1 on Twitter).

First, let’s get my opinions out of the way regarding the specifics of the case:

• If Roberts did indeed talk to the FBI about all this without a lawyer present, that was a big mistake. He left the door open for the FBI to nail him to the wall. The FBI has a record of abusing power.
• His tweet about messing with the systems of a plane he was boarding last month was a blunder, and I said so at the time. To Roberts’ great credit, he owned up to it.
• Roberts apparently told the FBI he was able to briefly make a plane fly sideways after hacking the in-flight entertainment system. I’m highly skeptical of this. If a plane had unexpectedly done that, I imagine the passengers would have gotten quite a jolt and talked about it. Planes have been grounded for far more mundane reasons and reported on in the news.

Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way…

Roberts may have made some bad mistakes. But his intent was never malicious. He’s not a villain and we shouldn’t treat him like one. He deserves a chance to get past this and make lasting contributions to security. Airplane security is certainly a worthy goal.

In the past, hackers have succeeded and become agents for good despite public relations setbacks and even convictions. (Kevin Mitnick comes to mind.)

When the current mess blows over, Roberts will have a golden opportunity.

He can continue to work on airplane vulnerabilities, and he can become an experienced voice on how to conduct and publicize research. There’s no better advocate for doing things right than someone who is open about having done it wrong and demonstrating that he/she has learned from it.

Here’s hoping that Roberts gets this mess behind him so he can have a shot at these things.