this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2023
1436 points (99.4% liked)

Technology

59656 readers
2704 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
L3s@lemmy.world
L3s@fry.gs
L4s@fry.gs
L4s@lemmy.world
enu@lemmy.world
1436
Polish Hackers Repaired Trains the Manufacturer Artificially Bricked. Now The Train Company Is Threatening Them (www.404media.co)
submitted 11 months ago by btp@kbin.social to c/technology@lemmy.world
119 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Aceticon@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

As far as I know, there is no such thing as DMCA provisions against working around software protection mechanisms in the EU and in fact at an EU level the direction is to increase ownership rights, not decrease them.

However depending on the contract the train company might not legally own those trains (for example, it's structured as a Lease), but if the hackers can show proof that the train company authorized them to do those changes it would be a case against the train company, not the hackers.