this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2023
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In one of the coolest and more outrageous repair stories in quite some time, three white-hat hackers helped a regional rail company in southwest Poland unbrick a train that had been artificially rendered inoperable by the train’s manufacturer after an independent maintenance company worked on it. The train’s manufacturer is now threatening to sue the hackers who were hired by the independent repair company to fix it.

After breaking trains simply because an independent repair shop had worked on them, NEWAG is now demanding that trains fixed by hackers be removed from service.

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[–] ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world 265 points 10 months ago (13 children)

This story should be on every newspaper front page right below war correspondents.

[–] Lev_Astov@lemmy.world 24 points 10 months ago

Yeah, especially in the EU where apparently their laws regarding circumventing DRM might make the people who fixed this the bad guys instead of this comically evil manufacturer who put GPS kill switches on public passenger trains.

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[–] BloodSlut@lemmy.world 238 points 10 months ago (3 children)

"We didn't add a kill switch to our trains to force the use of our maintenance service, but fuck the hackers that removed the kill switch we didn't implement, and the trains that were hacked and don't have the kill switch we didn't add should be removed from service."

[–] Jessvj93@lemmy.world 47 points 10 months ago

"And how dare those hackers go through all the trouble of finding those (literal) GPS coordinates of train maintenance centers not in our system to circumvent us getting more money."

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[–] andrewrgross@slrpnk.net 164 points 10 months ago (2 children)

That's awesome. Man, fuck that company. Bricking a train? Outrageous.

[–] Bizarroland@kbin.social 77 points 10 months ago (8 children)

Poland ought to ban that company from ever working or operating or selling any products inside of its country and any trains made by that company that are not currently owned by Poland should be prevented from traveling on the tracks that cross through Poland.

[–] SpookyUnderwear@eviltoast.org 31 points 10 months ago

This is the kind of government intervention I can get behind. This story is so outrageous, it's hard to believe it's true.

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[–] thefartographer@lemm.ee 42 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Run by fucking criminals. We should brick them like they're The Sticky Bandits

[–] AlwaysNowNeverNotMe@kbin.social 12 points 10 months ago

Better to brick them like The Cask of Amontillado.

[–] pelotron@midwest.social 8 points 10 months ago

Great idea, Marv.

[–] DacoTaco@lemmy.world 143 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

The person is doing a talk about it in hamburg, germany (37c3) next week. Its on my to watch list because that sounds hella interresting.

Edit : 37c3 list of talks : https://halfnarp.events.ccc.de/#dec115da17562cebafa9ba7a150a4fc607c25c880c03593dcc8da6087c9441a4

[–] khannie@lemmy.world 35 points 10 months ago (7 children)

That actually does sound hella interesting. I'm saving your comment to try to remember but actually look it up in about two years when I scroll back though my saved posts.

[–] YoorWeb@lemmy.world 14 points 10 months ago (2 children)
[–] Holyginz@lemmy.world 12 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Went to subscribe to it until I remembered i don't speak German lol

[–] example@reddthat.com 16 points 10 months ago

nearly all talks are either in English or have English translations. not sure if they're available on YouTube but you should be able to find everything on https://media.ccc.de

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[–] pwalker@discuss.tchncs.de 12 points 10 months ago (2 children)

It's 37c3, but thx for the hint. The talk is called Breaking "DRM" in Polish trains by Redford, q3k, MrTick

I will try to watch it on stage, unfortunately still no final schedule available

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[–] Syo@kbin.social 84 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Steam engine breaks, you can fix it.

Steam engine with digital circuit breaks, you're a hacker, a pirate. DRM was a mistake.

[–] Player2@sopuli.xyz 47 points 10 months ago

But how else could companies make more money off of something you already paid for? Will someone think of the shareholders‽

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[–] helenslunch@feddit.nl 80 points 10 months ago (1 children)

This reminds me of the hacked McDonalds ice cream machines. Except the shitty manufacturers won that one.

[–] damirK@lemmy.world 22 points 10 months ago (9 children)

Sadly they will probably win this as well. Some claim there could safety concerns and it isn’t certified or could damage their brand… time for people’s manufacturing of products? Hehe

[–] Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world 13 points 10 months ago

But if the people controlled the means of production... that would be...

[–] psud@aussie.zone 10 points 10 months ago

I think this one might go well. Company preventing a country's trains from being serviced by a third party. I expect that train builder has already tanked their business, but it would be an interesting one to be litigated, the sort of case that can get the law changed

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[–] WashedOver@lemmy.ca 69 points 10 months ago (3 children)

I wonder if they were taking notes from John Deere and the automotive industry or will it be the reverse here soon?

Just imagine all these vehicles that could be bricked for not going back to the stealerships for outrageous prices on parts and incompetent service.

Also the vehicles that could be disabled for not paying for device protection plan that allows your vehicle to operate safely. It would be a shame if your vehicle stopped working on your way to work or the hospital.

I suspect Tesla, BMW, and John Deere are the closest to this reality.

I sure hope the government doesn't help with another great cash for clunkers national program to get rid of more cars too old for these measures. Sure is a great way to drive new car sales though...

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 21 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Oh don't count GM and a Ford out of it. They're already kicking android auto and Apple car to the curb so they can control more stuff and get access to more data. The savvier they get the closer that comes to reality.

Of course, by the end of our lives you won't own a car at all. You'll subscribe to a car company that will act like a hybrid ride share and rental program. Commutes will be on a rideshare basis and you'll be able to rent a car for a weekend road trip.

[–] WashedOver@lemmy.ca 13 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

I just heard about GM this morning in my tech news. I didn't realize that about Ford too.

I've drawn a line in the sand with my vehicles at about 2011 for tech. I love tech and I love cars but just not into the current versions of everything being touch screen controls.

Give me knobs for climate controls, gear shifters, and gauges for the rest. They don't need all of these computer systems that fail or become outdated as soon as they are released like the manufacturer's nav systems. We also don't need them to stop working completely because a sensor failed and can only be replaced by the dealer.

My phone in a holder can be the smartest part of the car for me thanks.

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[–] roguetrick@kbin.social 67 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

SPS became desperate and Googled “Polish hackers” and came across a group called Dragon Sector, a reverse-engineering team made up of white hat hackers.

Hilarious. I hope 404 continues with this level of high quality journalism.

Dragon sector, who they hired, is a security capture the flag team.

https://dragonsector.pl/

Edit: Socials of those who worked on it

https://social.hackerspace.pl/@q3k
https://infosec.exchange/@mrtick
https://infosec.exchange/@redford

[–] sukhmel@programming.dev 19 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

TIL that [security CTF](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capture_the_flag_(cybersecurity)) is

an exercise in which participants attempt to find text strings, called "flags", which are secretly hidden in purposefully-vulnerable programs or websites

Never heard of this and I may not be alone in that. Thanks for pointing this out.

[–] khannie@lemmy.world 9 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

I did one before. They are SO MUCH FUN. Now I have too many children.

sob

edit: There are other ways of capturing the flag like having your team name on the home page of a local web server or whatever.

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[–] yamanii@lemmy.world 60 points 10 months ago (4 children)

The anti-circumvention clause is being abused for some years now, it's disgusting.

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[–] sanqueue@lemmy.world 57 points 10 months ago (1 children)

This is good. Someone did that for printers too

[–] Lemminary@lemmy.world 32 points 10 months ago (2 children)

And American Weight (?) digital scales. The ones that brick themselves after 2,000 uses because how dare you only pay once.

[–] jucelc@lemmy.wtf 27 points 10 months ago

Lol. Always suspected there was a scam there, but every time I bring it up in a conversation - people just call me a conspiracy theorist.

This goes for pretty much everything though. Planned obsolescence is real, but people think it's just the natural way of things.

[–] DeafeningDistance@feddit.ch 9 points 10 months ago (1 children)

is there an article about this? Would love to read about it

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[–] Ruscal@sh.itjust.works 47 points 10 months ago (1 children)
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[–] Dio9sys@lemmy.blahaj.zone 24 points 10 months ago

I like how, instead of recognizing that they got caught, now the train manufacturer is claiming this is some kind of dark PR strategy.

If it is, then please show the public that it's a dark PR strategy by explaining the hidden unlock codes and the DRM code!

[–] btr_fan87@lemmy.world 13 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Artificially bricked?! Who the hell keeps giving Viagra to trains? Evil bastards.

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[–] KeenFlame@feddit.nu 12 points 10 months ago

Spewing bs about how they can't guarantee the safety and other outrageous shit pouring out their mouths as they provide clearly practiced lawyerspeak to squeeze money from public service into their owners pockets which will then be invested probably in war and killing children for profit.

But let's discuss ethics and shit! Fuck faces need to be brought to moral justice for the evil they commit every day of their brainwashed miserable hateful lives where they pretend to not harm people because they don't do it themselves but via money grabbing schemes. One day all of this shit will seem to be as stupid as hitting kids are these days

[–] simin@lemmy.world 10 points 10 months ago (2 children)

the world's not one's to fix, learn to protect yourself.

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