They were actively comparing the GPS position of the train to the known location of the workshops of their competitors.

> These things are safety critical and ten days in a workshop is probably a reasonable heuristic for this thing has to be taken out of service and recommissioned from scratch.

This makes little sense. It's pretty reasonable that any machine that is sent for repair may take longer than expected in the workshop. Parts availability for one. Also, manpower shortages, scheduling (we don't need it back until next month) and so on all make this "heuristic" more likely be a scam. This idea that the manufacturer is entitled to a lifetime stream of repair revenue has to stop.

I shudder to think what would happen in the US if an auto manufacturer tried this heuristic on the average owner of a pickup truck.

No, absolutely not.

(1) This was scheduled maintenance service, not a quick repair. Maintenance is complicated and is expected to take more than 10 days:

> Maintenance a train is a complicated affair – it has to be taken apart, the parts sent to the various manufacturers, checked, sent back, the train put back together again and tested. The SPS carries out the maintenance procedures according to the relevant maintenance manual (some 20,000 pages) provided by the manufacturer, but the train does not start after being put together.

From [1].

(2) If this was a legitimate check then there should be a legible error code instead of the train randomly locking up with no explanation why. This was clearly designed to sabotage competing maintenance service companies.

[1] https://badcyber.com/dieselgate-but-for-trains-some-heavywei...

The manufacture's current position is someone hacked their systems and changed the code so that it would make them a lot of money, they totally didn't do that.

>"The president of Newag contacted me," Cieszyński wrote. "He claims that Newag fell victim to cybercriminals and it was not an intentional action by the company. The analysis I saw indicated something else, but for the sake of clarity, I will write about everything.

>Newag president Zbigniew Konieczek said that "no evidence was provided that our company intentionally installed the faulty software. In our opinion, the truth may be completely different—that, for example, the competition interfered with the software."

> These things are safety critical and ten days in a workshop is probably a reasonable heuristic for this thing has to be taken out of service and recommissioned from scratch.

I know HN is a great place to practice PR-speak, but could you please stop fucking with the gullible people?

That’s not a long outage. If someone decided to paint it, the clean, prep and paint could take that long. And now you have a dead train.

"Hey, car 1812 needs a new restroom toilet and a couple of new seats."

"Lead time on the toilet is 21 days from the manufacturer."

"Uff, 21 days? That's more than 10! We will have to junk the whole car."

Of course, because we all know that only the manufacturer of such a complicated device can be trusted to maintain it. Oh wait, maintenance of trains is a competitive process? The manufacturer provides a 20,000 page maintenance specific manual? Maybe trains really are simpler than iPhones.

/s

Parent comment is really an indication that society has lost the plot when it comes to ownership. The trains do not belong to the manufacturer after sale. They can't introduce anti-competitive code and pretend that users want it, like phone companies can.

That would make sense if we were talking about something that changes dramatically over time; like a human heart for transplants. Or a nuclear fission core without its carbon bars. But trains don’t change significantly in a 10-day period. I doubt they degrade much after a full year, even. They need to be sturdy.

Ok so no sarcasm, well, there are many reasons a train can spend a long time in the workshop:

Complete checkup takes time, or one important mechanic is sick, delaying things or whatever. It is not the responsibility of the manufactor anymore. (A different company has the official service contract.) If you have other informations pls share.

Was that sarcasm?

I've tried to explain myself in the comment below, sorry for the confusion.

In absolute values, not relative per ton of cargo or compared to other modes of transport. Maybe I wasn't clear enough, for that I'm sorry. I do support trains everywhere and think they are the best land transport we have by far. I was merely thinking that a diesel engine is a diesel, even if a train vendor fudge the emissions somehow (hence the reference to the Volkswagen dieselgate, I thought it meant) it wouldn't matter much on the planetary scale. Thus not particularly interesting.

But instead this was all about electronics and malicious locks, which wasn't apparent from the headline.

Especially since these trains in particular are electric.

> ... Eh? Trains, to be clear, are not big polluters; not sure what made you think that.

Modern diesel engines yes, but the old ones? They got barely any emission controls, only for locomotives built after the 90s there is regulations [1]. On top of that comes brake dust [2] which is only irrelevant in powered-car electric passenger trains with regenerative braking - every other train releases insane amounts of it, no surprise given that the brakes have power outputs in the megawatt range.

[1] https://www.epa.gov/regulations-emissions-vehicles-and-engin...

[2] https://www.railwaygazette.com/vehicles/reducing-brake-dust-...