this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2025
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Polish Train Maker Is Suing the Hackers Who Exposed Its Anti-Repair Tricks (www.ifixit.com)
submitted 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) by Pro@programming.dev to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] TauZero@mander.xyz 53 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Newag [train maker] claims that the Dragon Sector [whitehat hacker] team endangered passengers’ safety by modifying the software without proper experience. But Newag then turns right around and claims that Dragon Sector did not modify the software at all. They point out that EU law only allows reverse engineering of software in order to fix bugs. And if Dragon Sector did not actually modify the software, it cannot have fixed any bugs, in which case their reverse-engineering must be illegal.

[–] Venus_Ziegenfalle@feddit.org 11 points 4 days ago (1 children)

So if they just say they were gonna get to the bug fixing part but haven't yet they're in the clear. Boom, another decisive victory for the Dragon Sector.

[–] Cort@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago

Train company response: it's a feature, not a bug, so you're still guilty

[–] defaultusername@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Do they... not know what reverse engineering means?

[–] TauZero@mander.xyz 20 points 4 days ago (1 children)

It's worse. They are saying that the EU copyright law, as written, only allows decompiling/reverse engineering to "fix bugs". A bug fix would involve a software patch of some sorts. But the security researchers did not have time to write a patch yet, what they did is tell the customer "Yep, it's fucked. Your vendor put in a killswitch to make the trains brick themselves." So that does tell them where the problem is, but it is not a bona fide bug fix from the Bugfix region of France, and therefore illegal.

[–] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 14 points 4 days ago

Ah so it's just sparkling engineering