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Obsidian  10mo ago (badcyber.com)   Edited 10mo ago   1882 thread views

The latest in industrial sabotage: geofenced passenger trains that fail when repaired in competitors' yards

badcyber.com

Some were also rigged to fail after a certain date or beyond a certain mileage.

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I realise all that. I'm saying that the reasoning for why this exists might not be nefarious or even intended to sabotage competition.

Newag continues to lie and try to blame others.

That might be possible but it's not stated anywhere in the article. The only mention of communication with Newag is when they stated that the breakdowns was due to a "safety system" which could very well be correct.

The issue isn't that they lied, it's that they failed to communicate what this security system was or how to disable it. This is just glossed over but seems very important.

It could be due to incompetence or malice, or some combination. I'm saying that the existence of these kinds of systems doesn't necessarily imply intentional industrial sabotage. Regardless, they clearly failed to live up to their contractual obligations.

What I'd be interested in is a more detailed explanation of these systems, and the systems in other trains they aren't servicing themselves. Is this a generalised system or tailor-made for each train/competitor? The article isn't clear on this but it seems like a fairly important detail. If it's the latter then intentional industrial sabotage seems like a given, if it's the former it is plausible that it could be due to incompetence and/or poor routines.

I'd also like to know more about what Newag has said and what happened in the communication between the two companies.

The lack of this information and the limited response from Polish authorities makes me suspicious.

Is this a generalised system or tailor-made for each train/competitor?

Newag claims that this system does not exist, and if exist it was added by competition and it is not their fault.

Obviously, competition sabotaging repair service done not be Newag seems quite unlikely. Not sure why they went with this idea.

That might be possible but it's not stated anywhere in the article.

it was in some later articles, including some Polish ones and their PR releases

https://www.newag.pl/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Oswiadczenie-NEWAG-06.12.2023.pdf

They are claiming they never introduced software that simulated failures and if it existed it was added by competition.

They demand withdrawal from service trains that were analysed, threaten legal action against SPS and people who analysed software.

they failed to communicate what this security system was

it was a not a security system

Thanks for the added context. If what you say is true then it sounds like a pretty open and shut case.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=XrlrbfGZo2k CCC publication is making situation quite clear, even if they do not take final step (because it is not fully 100% provable and they will likely end as witnesses in court cases, and what is clearly provable is damming anyway)

spicier bits include Newag making software changes to specific trains, two/three days before being send to be repaired at workshop of their competition ( https://youtube.com/watch?v=XrlrbfGZo2k&t=2369 ), not mentioning software updates in paperwork, train predicted to break down at specific date (due to bug in sabotage code) and then doing this...

overall great presentation, though quite technical (presented at hacking conference)

Very interesting. Thank you!

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