this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2023
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Polish Hackers Repaired Trains the Manufacturer Artificially Bricked. Now The Train Company Is Threatening Them (www.404media.co)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/technology
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.

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[–] Aceticon 1 points 1 year 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.