Hacker News Reader

You are putting forth some general rules that seem reasonable, but they don't really apply in this situation.

From what I've read, the train operator bid out the maintenance for these trains, and the manufacturer lost the bid to a third party. So your "opt-out" system should absolutely have been triggered here.

If there was some reason to believe that the low bidder would be incapable of safely performing the maintenance, the train manufacturer should have raised that issue publicly, not silently sabotaged the low bidder's ability to perform the maintenance.

Maybe? I'm speculating here as it's not my field. The obvious explanation to me is very different to the obvious explanation to every other comment I've seen so far. That difference seemed interesting enough to be worth posting.

The question of where liability falls after a repair isn't covered in the articles linked unfortunately. It seems plausible that it was initially whoever wrote the software and is now someone else.

I think it's extremely likely that this disable-train-on-various-conditions behaviour is exactly as specified and documented since train software is a bit obsessed with formal methods and documentation. It's then only "silent sabotage" to the extent that said docs were ignored.

It's credible that a way to easily disable these safety checks for the case where it's now someone else's liability wasn't considered worth paying for by whoever bought the train. It's tomorrow's problem after all. Also the customer may not be totally convinced of the necessity of the software dev paranoia, especially if they're not liable for failures.

So sure, maybe this is evil/negligent software people at the train company. I don't see that conclusion well supported by the article.

Your argument is based on an incorrect understanding of liability, and is also nullified by the fact that these measures, allegedly justified on safety grounds, were not just undocumented (see other sources) but clearly deliberately hidden, to the point where the manufacturer pretended not to know why the trains would not start.

Update: here's a quote from the Ars Tech. article itself, showing a) no tampering with the trains' software or hardware was necessary to get them running, and b) there's no even slightly plausible case for believing the manufacturer was unaware of this. Furthermore, if it really was somehow unaware of what was going on, then these 'features' cannot be justified as a safety measure.

Dragon Sector got the trains running after discovering "an undocumented ‘unlock code’ which you could enter from the train driver’s panel which magically fixed the issue."

Update 2: It is barely plausible that the ability to track the trains' presence in other maintenance shops was initially added to gather evidence for liability and warranty purposes, and then someone had the dumb idea of using this to covertly disable trains when this happened.

Note that the use of a third-party maintenance operation was not a secret: the train operator solicited bids for the work, and the manufacturer tendered one. Clearly, third-party maintenance was not in violation of any contract (and if somehow it was, the manufacturer did not need to gather any covertly-acquired evidence for a breach-of-contract suit.)

>It's then only "silent sabotage" to the extent that said docs were ignored.

From what I've read, the maintenance company did scour all documentation and found no explanation for why the train was disabled. It was an entirely undocumented feature. Maybe they were just lying, but this idea you have in your head that it was just a fly-by-night operation who couldn't be bothered to read the documentation is contradicted by the available public record.

I haven't read the Ars article yet, but imo the evil/negligence of the train manufacturer is reasonably well supported by this article: https://www.404media.co/polish-hackers-repaired-trains-the-m...

So all of this obviously biased and incorrect speculation on your part is based on.... not being an expert in the field... and not having read the actual article? Thanks man, very insightful.

Sorry to be blunt, but your longwinded "speculation" in fields you don't understand is not a useful contribution to the discussion.

The difference is:

- there's a proper registry of who is responsible for maintenance of the train, including chain of liability. Crucially, the vendor wasn't in it for the affected trains - they'd only be liable if design issues were found.

- maintenance companies was appropriately certified and verified - we're talking professional MRO, not random workshop

- owners of the trains were also registered as responsible parties for maintenance and repair

- vendor was supposed to provide documentation that would allow such a workshop to perform maintenance and repairs up to P5 (largest scale) maintenance

- vendor never disclosed lockouts they implemented, thus committing fraud at the very least.

Sounds reasonable to me. Plus you've used domain specific terminology which suggests you know more about this than I do. Thanks for the context.

I definitely haven't gone looking for the documentation on the train system, partly because I assume it's unavailable to the public and mostly because I assume it's enormous in extent.

The same viewpoint applies to any motor vehicle too. How many road accidents are due to mechanical error introduced by a mechanic (that does not operate on behalf of the car manufacturer)? What makes an "official" mechanic employed by the manufacturer superior to a third party?

This is an interesting discussion, thank you for your nuanced opinion. I don't know where I stand on it but you are spot on about the demographics of HN. I certainly have a knee-jerk reaction in the direction of operator freedom.

Edit: Additionally, if something like this goes wrong (say the train derails) it will be a massive blow to right to repair. Even if it is later found that the third party repair is not responsible, the media will scoop up this story and it will forever warp the public's ideas about right to repair.

That's what we have regulations for. If the shops follow the regulations and have the appropriate certifications we know that the work they did is up to spec. Also, obviously in case of some problem the inspectors will check for the root cause and if the repair shop is established as the reason they are liable, not the train company. This is all established law since .. ages.

This is just the next episode in an age old battle. Old cars were easy to repair, so people often went to independent repair shops. Companies obviously didn't like this, so they started using proprietary screws. Then laws were made to forbid this. Next round came when cars got computers and companies didn't give the repair shops the required software and/or hardware to work with them. So, laws got made which forced them to. And so on. Each time there's some new technology companies will try to find ways to misuse it to the detriment of customers. And each time law makers will have to get involved and put the screws on them. And then people later go around "why do we have so many laws" .. because companies are shit, if they can get away with it. It's their natural impulse.

> That's what we have regulations for.

Regulations don't work. There needs to be legal liability for the fraud perpetrated by the vendor against the customer, not prescriptive rules that vendors influence, then follow dogmatically so they can cite compliance in order to disclaim liability for their intended bad outcomes.

Regulations are the basis for legal liability. You cannot put someone in prison or fine them without a law that says what they did was wrong.

Statute and common law are the basis for legal liability. The modern concept of regulation, as promulgated via various administrative agencies, is distinct from, and often displaces, the traditional function of law.

In theory, I agree with your viewpoint. Yes, obviously, safety critical systems need to remain safe, and a workshop that isn't capable of performing maintenance to the degree mandated by the train software shouldn't be doing it at all.

That is not the case here.

If that was indeed the case, one would expect the train's diagnostic systems to report that it has detected certain issues that need to be resolved before the train will start up again. But that didn't happen, instead the train simply refused to start, no error codes, nada.

Not only that, but further investigation revealed that the train's firmware contained code that would disable the train if it was present in a competitors shop for a considerable time.

> There should be an opt out system

This mechanism for disabling the trains, was never mentioned in the discussions or contracts for purchasing the train (which is why a third-party could win the repair contract). There was never an option presented to "opt out", that is why people are saying that the trains were sabotaged.

> to what extent is that Tesla's fault?

It isnt. You made unsafe modifications that can be clearly shown to have caused damage, it's your liability.

> Say Tesla made all reasonable steps they could take to detect third party mods and refuse to start the car, do we hate them too?

Depends, did their software present an actionable error or not? If the car gave an error code, and you look in the manual and it says that too much current is going to the motors (idk), and then you fix that and the car starts? Great! But if the car just refuses to start without any indication as to what is wrong, and further even if all repairs are reversed it still no longer starts? That sounds like deliberately sabotaging third-party repair.

> This is on the general topic of right to repair and freedom of fixing and so forth so naturally HN hates the train company.

Actually, the issue here is that the train company is on the wrong side of this issue.

> Further, if your company is financially liable for a product failure, and another company is not, that second company can totally fix it more cheaply than you can. As it's not their liability.

There are tons of cases where the repairer, not the OEM is held liable. The manufacturer is at fault for the defective parts/product. The repairer is liable for a defective repair. Courts have been sorting this kind of thing out for centuries and it's not a difficult thing to deal with.

> "we want to use this cheaper repair shop, and it's now our problem when the budget train fix kills people" - that seems totally legitimate to me.

Except that really isn't the case at all, and hasn't been the case. If the repairer does not do the repair correctly, the repairer is liable, not the manufacturer. Most mechanical shops even carry insurance and offer their own warranties on their work. Most cities (and hopefully consumers) will only do business with repair shops that are insured for this exact reason.

> Say Tesla made all reasonable steps they could take to detect third party mods and refuse to start the car, do we hate them too?

Yes. It is not their car. It is my car.

Ford is not liable if that variable geometry camshaft I installed in my Mustang causes the engine to blow, killing six people with shrapnel. I would be liable for that. Why should Tesla be liable for someone hacking the software? The issue here is the world doesn't work the way you are describing, where manufacturers are held liable for the work of third parties. Tesla is held liable for their own warranties and laws applying to product safety.

I once saw a Boeing 727 that had been retrofitted with winglets. That was allowed, but Boeing no longer guaranteed the wings.

So yes, it works just as you describe. (Planes, not trains, I know, but it's still a datapoint on how liability works out there.)