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.
I thought white hat hackers only do their shitty CTF exercise everyday. Wouldn’t hacking a DRM’ed national train be a black hat interaction? I’d like to know if that company can press charges.
If you RTFA, they were paid by the repair company who was paid by the private train operator to fix the train. In doing so, they reverse engineered the hardware/firmware and found the DRM added by the manufacturer to prevent the repair company from doing the repairs by bricking the train.
Yes yes, how dare they unbrick public transportation infrastructure.
Fuck off.
Depends on your definition of “ethical”
If the train owner allowed it, it’s just maintenance that happens to affect software.
Hacking would be if it was not authorized by the owner.
Any maintenance not authorized by the train maker entitles them at most to suspend the Warranty.