I don't think Newagg stands a chance. The hackers didn't hack a third party IT network/system. They hacked a train that was owned by the railway company, not Newagg.
If a company hires me to inspect their systems, and it's not shady (i.e. everything seems legitimate), then I'm not hacking anything. It's really no different to working on a CRUD (well, it's more interesting :)).
There might be some legal provisions (DRM laws, some EULA, etc.) that muddy the water. But that doesn't change the fact, that I can't find any ethical problem with what the Dragon Sector folks did[1]. And for me hacking is something unethical--criminal aspect is secondary.
[1] based solely on the articles I read
The ethical distinction is between white hats and black hats. The people in the article are white hats, that is, they work legally, ethically, and they are open about their activities.
Note: I mean hacking as it is most commonly known now. Not MIT-style hacking.
But of course on technical forums like HN we call it hacking ("we" includes myself).
To address some of your points:
> they did something someone attempted to prevent them to do
Well, Newag claims they didn't add any shady stuff to the firmware, i.e. they didn't prevent anyone from anything. Which means Dragon Sector didn't break any protection mechanism, they were just debugging potential glitches! :)
I've debugged a lot of software in my life and no one has ever called me "hacker" for finding that missing CSS class :)).
> Hacking a train so that it accepts third party repairs and hacking a credit card reader to steal your money make use of the same techniques.
This is a very low level discussion ("low level" as in "assembler", and not intellectually, for the lack of a better word), but in this case there's one significant different--train firmware is supposed to be unchanged (according to Dragon Sector).
And credit card reader's fw has been modified.
So for me, again, they acted as forensic investigators/"debuggers".
> The ethical distinction is between white hats and black hats. The people in the article are white hats, that is, they work legally, ethically, and they are open about their activities.
Yes, I agree. But I would still prefer if the non-tech world called them something like "forensic investigators", as white hats are still a kind of hackers.
However, this was a huge step backward. The company bypassed the legal system via code, to add obligations, and secret functionality to the client. How was this found? By others who would and do circumvent the law for their own reasons.
These reasons might be as noble. Just. Enlightened.
Having spent some time online, I of course, am skeptical.
The article seems to say the hackers were hired by the maintenance place that the owner of the trains (Lower Silesian Railway) hired.
Newagg is the manufacturer of the trains which were bought, not the owner of them.
Still, to put such restrictions in code and threaten the people who found them with legal action... I'm not even sure how to describe it.
https://www.traple.pl/legalna-dekompilacja-programu-komputer...
Article in polish, but you can auto-translate easily.