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Polish Hackers Repaired Trains the Manufacturer Artificially Bricked. Now The Train Company Is Threatening Them (www.404media.co)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

110 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.

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[+] [email protected] 91 points 11 months ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

[deleted]

[–] [email protected] 26 points 11 months ago (4 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

[–] [email protected] 19 points 11 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

[–] [email protected] 19 points 11 months ago

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

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I'm not firm in polish law, do they have the same laws as in the USA? Because that's what you're comparing right?

[–] [email protected] 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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

This is an EU country, not the US.

Things like the DMCA provisions forbidding working around IP protection mechanisms (and software is copyrighted) don't apply here.

IANAL (so take this it with a pinch), unless the trains are legally theirs rather than the train company's, it's not hacking, it's just "software maintenance" and the only right this company has here is to withdraw product warranties because of "unauthorized changes".

There might or not be a case against the train company (for example, if the contract forbade this or the train company tried to sell those trains onwards as if they were original) but not against the people who did the software changes on the trains when authorized by the owners of said trains.