Technology

Deutsche Bahn is the circus and Siemens in this case the clowns.

If the system can't run perfectly on its own by now.... I can teach them how to play the snakes game on it.

Simple solution: Don't connect it to the Internet. Hackers hate this one weird trick.

It really depends if these systems (that appear to control arrival boards) are on a network or not. If they're not, then there is minimal risk to leave them the way they are. Somebody would need physical access to the devices to do harm. If they are on a network then that's a pretty big deal, but some attacks could be mitigated against by tunnelling and/or additional packet filtering to ensure the integrity of messages.

Continuing on a railway theme you should be FAR more worried all the devices that run up and down the side of railway lines - PLCs that talk with each other and operations centres to control things like lights, junctions, crossings etc. If they're more than 5 years old then chances are then all that traffic is in the clear, and because these things live in boxes by the railway line, it wouldn't take much to break into a network and potentially kill people by running two trains into each other.

they can execute their intended tasks without incident

Now if only the Deutsche Bahn could do that too

Cybersecurity != Safety Critical

I would love it so much. I’d feel right at home. I miss sitting in my room and learning everything I could about DOS. That was the best time I ever had with computers.

I once built, setup, and maintained about 20 computers for a Christian school for free just because I loved doing it so much.

I wish I still had that enthusiasm for tech.

Well, DOS is open source now. And that old hardware was quite reliable. Fewer moving parts, I'd expect fewer things to break.

Some retired old fart who can't be bothered to learn fancy-schmancy Web 2.0. Rock on like it's '93

They're gonna party like it's 1989

I'm a COBOL developer. For old COBOL systems it's not just a case of it being expensive to "migrate away", it's extremely risky and for no significant benefit.

Businesses have essentially two options, modernize what they already have, or tear everything apart and start from scratch. COBOL programs don't "just work", they're good at what they need to do (business transactions). Therefore, there isn't a significant need to rewrite everything, especially when it's possible to modernize and reuse existing business logic contained within COBOL programs. For example, COBOL programs aren't tied to old hardware, you can run your COBOL applications on the cloud instead. This is much safer and cheaper than rewriting everything.

Isn't pretty much all airport scheduling based off software from the 80s or something?

Edit: Found a video about it.

And in many cases if it gets replaced it's for a system that looks fancier but actually has more problems than the original... See Phoenix for the Canadian government employees pay.

You might, actually. Provided there is no available EU applicant.

They’re probably still running on their own Netware network. Is there still Win16 compatible malware going around?

Until it becomes obsolete, unsupportable, the crux of your operation, and/or the basis for all of your decisions 😬

(Yes, I read the article, it’s just the signs, but yes, the above still applies!)

Too critical to be upgraded is something I wish I'd never hear or see again in my professional career.