I guess this vulnerability has been ignored for years, because hackers also ignored it for years.
There’s not a lot you can gain from this kind of vulnerability.
The only hackers skilled enough to pull this off also happen to have thing for trains.
Everyone’s joking but this is a serious problem. Imagine you’re a billionaire and someone wants to assassinate you. The would-be assassin could figure out when you have a doctor’s appointment (or similar) and force a train to get stuck, blocking their route.
It would leave the billionaire stuck in traffic with no escape until the train(s) started moving again. An entire cavalcade of security personnel would also be stuck (if they had one).
Aside: It could also work for robbing something like a Brinks truck but let’s be honest: In this dystopian world it’s more likely that this vulnerability would be used to rob a food shipment 🙄
Imagine being so poor you’re driven to a doctor’s appointment rather that having them come to you.
Now that is the kind of story that would trigger a new attempt to fix this.
Billionaires take private jets or helicopters.
To a doctor appointment? Where are they gonna land? Not every hospital or building has a waiting helipad just ready for joe billionaire.
If the doctor is unimportant enough to have a helipad, the doctor can come to the billionaire.
Not the ones you can afford! Lol
The bigger hospitals most likely do have a helipad.
All 3 in my town have one and it’s only 160k population.
I just had an idea for a movie.
As long as it’s also ignored by hacker you should be fine.
I may be misremembering, but wasn’t there a thing
103 years ago or so where trains were randomly stopping somewhere in Europe. And I think it turned out to be a remote shutdown from the manufacturer (according to independent investigators. The manufacturer maintains that hackers added that code to their software) due to 3rd party replacement partsor an unrenewed service contract or some other anticompetitive behavior.Edit: Jiminy Cricket! It feels like it’s been 10 years. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/12/manufacturer-deliberately-bricked-trains-repaired-by-competitors-hackers-find/
It was in Poland but in Poland you can still stop trains with radio signal of a specific frequency. No encryption, no validation. Anyone with a hobbyist level radio equipment can stop freight trains. And they do. Train operators usually just call the station, confirm that it’s a prank and 5 minutes later start again.
https://www.wired.com/story/poland-train-radio-stop-attack/
Poland’s national transportation agency has stated its intention to upgrade Poland’s railway systems by 2025 to use almost exclusively GSM cellular radios, which do have encryption and authentication. But until then, it will continue to use the relatively unprotected VHF 150 MHz system that allows the radio-stop commands to be spoofed.
Cyberpunk train robberies.
Why not?
The economy is crashing, we’ll just return to our Wild West roots, with a modern twist.
Not robberies of people, of course, the vast majority of American rail transit is logistics, moving stuff.
Why rip the copper wires out of an abandoned house or office when you could just get some guys with pickup trucks and get it from the source?
I’m all for it. The social contract was ripped in half a century and half ago. I’m ready AF, I saw this shit coming and prepared, I can live off the land like a motherfucker, and I already don’t own shit.
You got a house, a car, a dog, a family to provide for? Yeah, you drank the koolaid and when the shit hits the fan you’re all gonna die. I can’t fucking wait to see this shit come crashing down- you all pumped money into it, now eat the consequences.
I heard about metro trains getting bricked after 3rd party repairs. This makes it sound like freight trains but it paywalls quickly.
Sounds like a useful tool for any revolutionaries out there.
I was thinking about taking a train ride for my birthday…
