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It's frightening how easy it is for an foreign actor to knock out a country's railway system. Something similar happened in Germany 2 years ago (https://en.wiki

It's frightening how easy it is for an foreign actor to knock out a country's railway system. Something similar happened in Germany 2 years ago (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_2022_German_railway_attack https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_2022_German_railway_at...). I assume that it's a kind of warning by Russia or some other country. They don't even need weapons to attack countries that rely on public transport. If they'd systematically attack the railway system for a longer time, they could probably disable it for many months or even years. We can be glad we have cars, trucks and roads that are a bit more resistant to attacks.

throwaway5752 2y ago
It's not unique to Europe, or foreign agents. See https://time.com/6244977/us-power-grid-attacks-extremism/ https://time.com/6244977/us-power-grid-attacks-extremism/ as well.
- dralley 2y ago
  That was plausibly a lone actor. This was at least 4 different actors, perhaps 4 different groups of actors, executing a coordinated action simultaneously.
ein0p 2y ago
Why do you assume that it's a "foreign" actor? I think it is utterly idiotic to hold an event of such scale in a country which has seen several consecutive years of mass protests. I mean sure, you can cordon off parts of Paris with fences and razor wire, but you can't do that with all of France.
- IshKebab 2y ago
  Because nobody has claimed responsibility, and it's the sort of thing Russia does.
  - dark-star 2y ago
    Still, why not a disgruntled ex-employee or a crafty IT-security student? Finding out how GSM-R works, where the towers are and what cables you have to cut is not exactly rocket-science If the past has shown anything, then that both politics and infrastructure providers greatly overestimate the skill required for disrupting/hacking such systems and networks...
    - kergonath 2y ago
      > Still, why not a disgruntled ex-employee or a crafty IT-security student? “Simultaneous operations by 4 teams in different parts of the country” does not work well with “a disgruntled ex-employee or a crafty IT-security student” as a hypothesis.
      - ein0p 2y ago
        You don’t need a “team” to do what was done there by the looks of it. You need like 4 dudes, with pry bars and half a can of fuel. I’m actually surprised this does not happen more often. Not only is this infra not protected, it seems entirely infeasible to protect it, and the result to effort ratio is staggering
        IshKebab 2y ago
        4 dudes are not "a disgruntled ex employee".
      - dark-star 2y ago
        well, it does not scream "state actor!" either though
        kergonath 2y ago
        A bit late for this thread now, but the deafening silence since the sabotage is interesting in itself. We’d expect militants to make some noise at some point, after all these sort of things are mostly about communication. And yet I don’t really see this being in the interest of any state actor (if disrupting the country is the point, there are easier and more effective ways of doing it). I look forward to getting more detail a couple of years from now, when information will slowly filter out.
- sofixa 2y ago
  Because it's the only logical conclusion and multiple Russians have already been arrested in France for plotting to disrupt the Olympics, including one who set himself on fire with chemicals in his hotel room. Oh and Russians have been doing this sort of thing all over Europe for the past few years. If this were an internal political entity they would have already claimed responsibility and put out a manifesto.
  - TacticalCoder 2y ago
    > Because it's the only logical conclusion and multiple Russians have already been arrested in France for plotting to disrupt the Olympics In Belgium they arrested seven muslim terrorists who were planning a terror attack during the Olympics, they were from Chechnya (so, technically, russian but it sounded like the usual islamic terror attacks that was planned and not some "russia vs the west" thing).
- mistermann 2y ago
  > It's frightening how easy it is for an foreign actor to knock out a country's railway system It's frightening how easy it is to establish as a cultural norm that guessing is proper thinking.
- holoduke 2y ago
  [flagged]
Dalewyn 2y ago
>It's frightening how easy it is for an foreign actor to knock out a country's railway system. I get phishing mail with very pertinent information only JR West would know any time I make train or rental car reservations with JR West. Yes, I am willing to bet hard money that they've been backdoored and/or compromised at the human level. Standard fare for Japanese IT, honestly; see Kadokawa.
drewrv 2y ago
> We can be glad we have cars, trucks and roads that are a bit more resistant to attacks. Cars/trucks/roads are so much more dangerous than train travel that it actually seems worth the tradeoff to me even if these sorts of attacks were a regular occurrence. Putin (or whoever did this) sucks but they have not killed 1,105 Americans in a single year. That's just the number of cyclists killed by cars in 2022. Deaths of pedestrians and drivers/passengers are significantly higher. https://www.usnews.com/news/top-news/articles/2024-06-24/us-traffic-deaths-fall-in-early-2024-but-above-pre-covid-levels https://www.usnews.com/news/top-news/articles/2024-06-24/us-...
- rplnt 2y ago
  And that doesn't include effects of local pollution in dense city emvironments. Both air and noise kills us.
  - mbivert 2y ago
    Nor does it include the lack of physical exercise induced by cars, the time spent driving, oil related conflicts, etc. It's surprising how little people know about how cars came to be so prominent: https://web.archive.org/web/20230216004635/https://libraryarchives.metro.net/dpgtl/testimony/1974_statement_bradford_c_snell_s1167.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20230216004635/https://libraryar...
mschuster91 2y ago
> We can be glad we have cars, trucks and roads that are a bit more resistant to attacks. Hack traffic light controls and set them to all-green (assuming the safety interlock is done in software), all-red, or just off. Dumbass drivers will do the rest for free. Alternatively, disrupt Google Maps and Waze. Barely anyone has a dedicated offline navigation system any more - take these two out or "suggest" fake traffic jams to overload side streets [1] will also cause a lot of chaos. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/03/berlin-artist-uses-99-phones-trick-google-maps-traffic-jam-alert https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/03/berlin-ar...
- Animats 2y ago
  > assuming the safety interlock is done in software It's not. There's a conflict monitor unit that is completely separate from the signal controller. It has direct inputs from all green or other permissive lights, and a diode matrix that determines which combinations are allowed.[1] If it detects a conflict, all signals go to flashing yellow. "This monitor uses a standardized programming card for channel compatibility (permissives), minimum flash time, per channel Minimum Yellow Change Disable, CVM latch, and 24 volt monitor latch. Programming of this card is accomplished through the use of soldered wire jumpers. The programming card plugs into the monitor through a slot in the front panel." All 4-way intersections use the same interlocking pattern, so there's a standard card that covers most cases. Only unusual intersections need a custom programming card soldered up. [1] https://www.editraffic.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/MMU2-1600G-Operation-Manual-889-3819-00-.pdf https://www.editraffic.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/MMU2-1...
- Talanes 2y ago
  >Hack traffic light controls and set them to all-green (assuming the safety interlock is done in software), all-red, or just off. Dumbass drivers will do the rest for free. Have you never driven during a blackout? People get a little awkward figuring out four way stop priority, but it's not pure chaos.
  - mschuster91 2y ago
    > Have you never driven during a blackout? People get a little awkward figuring out four way stop priority, but it's not pure chaos. Maybe I'm biased but I've seen incredibly dumb shit happening in urban areas (Munich in winter to be precise). People forget how to drive when lights go out and street markings are covered by snow. Rural drivers in contrast have zero problems because they're used to driving without constant guidance.
squarefoot 2y ago
> We can be glad we have cars, trucks and roads that are a bit more resistant to attacks. Cars with so much electronics on board are just vulnerable as the worst cellphone out there; always connected may seem a cool buzzword, but in reality means always ready to be exploited. The reason they're not commonly exploited is that usually who is motivated to do that would rather look for bigger targets that give back more media coverage or potential ransom money.
- mdp2021 2y ago
  > always connected may seem a cool buzzword Which shows a cultural disaster - an idiocracy - that should be taken as a priority.
  - bobthepanda 2y ago
    I do not think that the general public is nearly as hopeless as people make it out to be. The march to touchscreen controls in cars has happened despite massive consumer complaints across the board.
    - mdp2021 2y ago
      Well Bob, they bought them anyway, did they not? And thus made that market a success. Edit: myself, I have seen an overwhelming majority of users that just shrug. (Plus, a number of shocked users that could not believe the situation when told - but that does not mean they will not conform when pressed by the lack of options.) Now: there are documented proofs of people in pornographic delight handling cars through smartphones; the facts are reachable of gadgets in contemporary premium cars that would be refused by a seventies' pimp; there are definite anecdotes of large amounts people not having the slightest idea of the security and privacy faults of contemporary cars (etc.). To discuss how «hopeless» a population is we should probably assess and throw numbers in: "uninformed | unaware | drooling | flabbergasted, etc.". Even if the number of the «cool buzzword» enthusiasts were smaller than thought by some, the elements are there for concern and societal action.
woodruffw 2y ago
I don't think it's this simple: someone could do significant damage to the US's economy by sabotaging a small number of bridges that transit or cross I-95. Meanwhile, Ukraine appears to be operating military railways with relative success, given that it's currently engaged in the largest European land war in 80 years.
- KittenInABox 2y ago
  You could bring the entirely of NYC to a standstill by simply abandoning a large bus or truck in a single artery of manhattan or one of the bridges. Literally just drive into a tunnel, then get out and walk off. The amount of chaos this would cause would take ages to get any towing services in to clear it.
  - geodel 2y ago
    I wonder if Kubernetes/Cloud Cluster guy jumps in conversation telling how they could resolve this issue by using Cloud resiliency techniques. Real world has lot to learn from IT infrastructure management. :-)
  - drjasonharrison 2y ago
    While many bridges and tunnels have tow trucks and operators stationed at both ends for normal vehicles, they probably do not have heavy-duty towing available quickly. These specialized trucks can tow other semi-tractor-trailers, dump trucks (both garbage and material haul trucks), etc. Extra points for putting the large bus or truck on it's side, requiring a crane or much more work to get it on its wheels. And you don't have to walk off, you can unload your electric scooter and zip away to start your new life as a fugitive.
    - KittenInABox 2y ago
      No need to put on its side. Slash the tires!
      - hollerith 2y ago
jandrese 2y ago
If you ever want to turn your hair grey prematurely consider an attacker that infiltrates Tesla's Full Self Driving development and adds a "crash into the nearest X at maximum acceleration" hidden subroutine that can be triggered via an over-the-air signal. Millions of Teslas suddenly deciding to point at the nearest power pole or transformer and flooring the accelerator in the hopes of crashing hard enough to start a battery fire. A mere decade ago this was pure science fiction, but over the past few years it has become a possibility.
- tedivm 2y ago
  This has been a concern for well over a decade, and self driving cars only changes it a little bit. You can google "remote car hacking 2010" or earlier to find great examples and reports of this going back pretty far. It's been awhile since this was science fiction. Basically every modern car can have software that says "slam the gas pedal as far as possible". Combine that with cars that are heavily integrated into their infotainment system or even include built in wifi and you've got the "over the air signal" covered.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - jandrese 2y ago
    Telling the car to aim and steer at a specific type of object is something that has only recently become possible. Computer vision has come a long way in the past few years, especially computer vision built into automobiles. I also believe that drive by wire systems are going to become even more commonplace in the future and eliminate the possibility of a driver attempting to muscle the car back into control.
    - bobthepanda 2y ago
      A sufficiently hard left would get most cars into either a barrier or a head on collision, no aiming required
- 2y ago
kylehotchkiss 2y ago
Who needs foreign actors when you have `climate protestors` who traditionally face way too little consequence for their actions and annoy their fellow citizens so persistency they do their entire movement a disservice?
- wolfpack_mick 2y ago
  Didn't five climate activists in the UK just get 4-5 years for being on a zoom call for merely planning to block a junction?
tim333 2y ago
The railways get hit fairly often in Russia and nearby but while they are easy to knock out they are also easy to repair and are usually back running in a day or two. Large bridges would be an exception.
sudosysgen 2y ago
This is a bit ironic given the fact that Russia makes a conscious choice to rely on railways for military logistics. Why? Because they are more resilient and easier to repair than roads - Russia has railroad engineering units in their military and can repair just about anything you could do to a railroad in a couple of hours, and in fact they do as Ukrainian partisans (rightly) go after railways. Meanwhile if someone throws spike strips on a busy highway/tunnel/bridge between two chokepoints, you're effectively screwed. If this is done in a concerted manner it will probably take at least a day to fix. If you have more resources (say a state actor attacking a nation that isn't on a wartime footing), you can also exploit the fact that asphalt is a petroleum fraction and therefore soluble : spill a lot of diesel or hydraulic oil, for example (and optionally set it on fire) and you will unrecoverably ruin that section of asphalt, which could take weeks to fix: this is why gas stations are paved with concrete. So while it's not as easy to do this as it is to derail a train or screw around a signaling system, it's far more difficult to repair professional roadway sabotage than railway sabotage, and in the end the railways are probably more resilient.
jokoon 2y ago
oil refineries are also quite a weak point for gas vehicles caltrops could also paralyse entire highways also bridges I could also imagine that it's not difficult to insert sugar into gas stations
yuliyp 2y ago
Having a railroad functional enough for military purposes is easy enough: get the rails hooked up. Put soldiers at switches to flip them, use radio for coordination. For high speed high frequency passenger travel it's more complicated: you need automation flipping switches at the right times, automatic block signaling to ensure that trains are where they're supposed to be and won't crash into each other, etc. That's why they were able to get some of the trains back to operation: they can't run them as close together as before, but can still use the tracks.
mrighele 2y ago
We could make our railway more resilient to such attacks, but in general why bother ? It is probably cheaper to pay the cost whenever the disruption happens. At least in times of peace. There are two issues here though. The first is that the Olympics is a special event and it is more likely for somebody to try to cause the disruptions, and as such more control is probably warranted. The second is that somebody else (Russia) is not acting like they are at peace with us so we should act accordingly
TheRealPomax 2y ago
Who's "we" in this case though?
wongarsu 2y ago
Damaging highways isn't exactly hard, even if they don't contain any roads or bridges. And if you take out the highways the rest of the roads don't have nearly enough capacity.
TaylorAlexander 2y ago
Cars are vulnerable to attacks on fuel stations, attacks on bridges, dumping a load of nails on the road during rush hour, etc. I’m not sure I’d automatically assume disrupting thousands of car passengers is necessarily harder than disrupting thousands of train passengers.
consumer451 2y ago
> We can be glad we have cars, trucks and roads that are a bit more resistant to attacks. Now that Russia's invasion of Ukraine has occurred, and cheap armed quad-copters are a publicly known thing, I can say this openly: Are you kidding me? Because we are still petro-centric, we are extremely fragile. For example, the West Coast has a handful of oil refineries. To shut down the West Coast's road traffic it would take one guy, and less than $10,000 in equipment. This could all be accomplished in 3 days, and there are no deployed defenses for this attack vector.
- drewg123 2y ago
  This is one of the best non-environmental arguments I've heard for the conversion to EVs.
  - consumer451 2y ago
    Thank you. I have been trying to argue that the transition to EVs is a natsec issue for 10+ years. However, I am just some forum schmuck, and it has not been going well. Any help with moving this thinking up the chain would be greaty appreciated. A possible analogy: The Internet was designed to be a multi-path, decentralized, and distributed communications system to withstand attack. That's what EVs are for transportation.
    - gjsman-1000 2y ago
      Wait until you hear how ridiculously easy knocking out a power substation is. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pL9q2lOZ1Fw&pp=ygUSaGFja2luZyBwb3dlciBncmlk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pL9q2lOZ1Fw&pp=ygUSaGFja2luZ..., Meanwhile, FERC found that knocking out just nine strategically located substations, of 55,000 at the time they did the assessment in 2014, would plunge our country into darkness. https://time.com/6244977/us-power-grid-attacks-extremism/ https://time.com/6244977/us-power-grid-attacks-extremism/ https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304020104579433670284061220 https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304020104579433...
      - 2y ago
rrnechmech 2y ago
Not to mention, bridges falling apart on their own
baby 2y ago
How France seems to communicate on this is that it's French people who are behind these
cafard 2y ago
Have a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1987_Maryland_train_collision https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1987_Maryland_train_collision

throwaway5752 2y ago

It's not unique to Europe, or foreign agents. See https://time.com/6244977/us-power-grid-attacks-extremism/ https://time.com/6244977/us-power-grid-attacks-extremism/ as well.

dralley 2y ago
That was plausibly a lone actor. This was at least 4 different actors, perhaps 4 different groups of actors, executing a coordinated action simultaneously.

ein0p 2y ago

Why do you assume that it's a "foreign" actor? I think it is utterly idiotic to hold an event of such scale in a country which has seen several consecutive years of mass protests. I mean sure, you can cordon off parts of Paris with fences and razor wire, but you can't do that with all of France.

IshKebab 2y ago
Because nobody has claimed responsibility, and it's the sort of thing Russia does.
- dark-star 2y ago
  Still, why not a disgruntled ex-employee or a crafty IT-security student? Finding out how GSM-R works, where the towers are and what cables you have to cut is not exactly rocket-science If the past has shown anything, then that both politics and infrastructure providers greatly overestimate the skill required for disrupting/hacking such systems and networks...
  - kergonath 2y ago
    > Still, why not a disgruntled ex-employee or a crafty IT-security student? “Simultaneous operations by 4 teams in different parts of the country” does not work well with “a disgruntled ex-employee or a crafty IT-security student” as a hypothesis.
    - ein0p 2y ago
      You don’t need a “team” to do what was done there by the looks of it. You need like 4 dudes, with pry bars and half a can of fuel. I’m actually surprised this does not happen more often. Not only is this infra not protected, it seems entirely infeasible to protect it, and the result to effort ratio is staggering
      - IshKebab 2y ago
        4 dudes are not "a disgruntled ex employee".
    - dark-star 2y ago
      well, it does not scream "state actor!" either though
      - kergonath 2y ago
        A bit late for this thread now, but the deafening silence since the sabotage is interesting in itself. We’d expect militants to make some noise at some point, after all these sort of things are mostly about communication. And yet I don’t really see this being in the interest of any state actor (if disrupting the country is the point, there are easier and more effective ways of doing it). I look forward to getting more detail a couple of years from now, when information will slowly filter out.
sofixa 2y ago
Because it's the only logical conclusion and multiple Russians have already been arrested in France for plotting to disrupt the Olympics, including one who set himself on fire with chemicals in his hotel room. Oh and Russians have been doing this sort of thing all over Europe for the past few years. If this were an internal political entity they would have already claimed responsibility and put out a manifesto.
- TacticalCoder 2y ago
  > Because it's the only logical conclusion and multiple Russians have already been arrested in France for plotting to disrupt the Olympics In Belgium they arrested seven muslim terrorists who were planning a terror attack during the Olympics, they were from Chechnya (so, technically, russian but it sounded like the usual islamic terror attacks that was planned and not some "russia vs the west" thing).
mistermann 2y ago
> It's frightening how easy it is for an foreign actor to knock out a country's railway system It's frightening how easy it is to establish as a cultural norm that guessing is proper thinking.
holoduke 2y ago
[flagged]

Dalewyn 2y ago

>It's frightening how easy it is for an foreign actor to knock out a country's railway system. I get phishing mail with very pertinent information only JR West would know any time I make train or rental car reservations with JR West. Yes, I am willing to bet hard money that they've been backdoored and/or compromised at the human level. Standard fare for Japanese IT, honestly; see Kadokawa.

drewrv 2y ago

> We can be glad we have cars, trucks and roads that are a bit more resistant to attacks. Cars/trucks/roads are so much more dangerous than train travel that it actually seems worth the tradeoff to me even if these sorts of attacks were a regular occurrence. Putin (or whoever did this) sucks but they have not killed 1,105 Americans in a single year. That's just the number of cyclists killed by cars in 2022. Deaths of pedestrians and drivers/passengers are significantly higher. https://www.usnews.com/news/top-news/articles/2024-06-24/us-traffic-deaths-fall-in-early-2024-but-above-pre-covid-levels https://www.usnews.com/news/top-news/articles/2024-06-24/us-...

rplnt 2y ago
And that doesn't include effects of local pollution in dense city emvironments. Both air and noise kills us.
- mbivert 2y ago
  Nor does it include the lack of physical exercise induced by cars, the time spent driving, oil related conflicts, etc. It's surprising how little people know about how cars came to be so prominent: https://web.archive.org/web/20230216004635/https://libraryarchives.metro.net/dpgtl/testimony/1974_statement_bradford_c_snell_s1167.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20230216004635/https://libraryar...

mschuster91 2y ago

> We can be glad we have cars, trucks and roads that are a bit more resistant to attacks. Hack traffic light controls and set them to all-green (assuming the safety interlock is done in software), all-red, or just off. Dumbass drivers will do the rest for free. Alternatively, disrupt Google Maps and Waze. Barely anyone has a dedicated offline navigation system any more - take these two out or "suggest" fake traffic jams to overload side streets [1] will also cause a lot of chaos. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/03/berlin-artist-uses-99-phones-trick-google-maps-traffic-jam-alert https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/03/berlin-ar...

Animats 2y ago
> assuming the safety interlock is done in software It's not. There's a conflict monitor unit that is completely separate from the signal controller. It has direct inputs from all green or other permissive lights, and a diode matrix that determines which combinations are allowed.[1] If it detects a conflict, all signals go to flashing yellow. "This monitor uses a standardized programming card for channel compatibility (permissives), minimum flash time, per channel Minimum Yellow Change Disable, CVM latch, and 24 volt monitor latch. Programming of this card is accomplished through the use of soldered wire jumpers. The programming card plugs into the monitor through a slot in the front panel." All 4-way intersections use the same interlocking pattern, so there's a standard card that covers most cases. Only unusual intersections need a custom programming card soldered up. [1] https://www.editraffic.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/MMU2-1600G-Operation-Manual-889-3819-00-.pdf https://www.editraffic.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/MMU2-1...
Talanes 2y ago
>Hack traffic light controls and set them to all-green (assuming the safety interlock is done in software), all-red, or just off. Dumbass drivers will do the rest for free. Have you never driven during a blackout? People get a little awkward figuring out four way stop priority, but it's not pure chaos.
- mschuster91 2y ago
  > Have you never driven during a blackout? People get a little awkward figuring out four way stop priority, but it's not pure chaos. Maybe I'm biased but I've seen incredibly dumb shit happening in urban areas (Munich in winter to be precise). People forget how to drive when lights go out and street markings are covered by snow. Rural drivers in contrast have zero problems because they're used to driving without constant guidance.

squarefoot 2y ago

> We can be glad we have cars, trucks and roads that are a bit more resistant to attacks. Cars with so much electronics on board are just vulnerable as the worst cellphone out there; always connected may seem a cool buzzword, but in reality means always ready to be exploited. The reason they're not commonly exploited is that usually who is motivated to do that would rather look for bigger targets that give back more media coverage or potential ransom money.

mdp2021 2y ago
> always connected may seem a cool buzzword Which shows a cultural disaster - an idiocracy - that should be taken as a priority.
- bobthepanda 2y ago
  I do not think that the general public is nearly as hopeless as people make it out to be. The march to touchscreen controls in cars has happened despite massive consumer complaints across the board.
  - mdp2021 2y ago
    Well Bob, they bought them anyway, did they not? And thus made that market a success. Edit: myself, I have seen an overwhelming majority of users that just shrug. (Plus, a number of shocked users that could not believe the situation when told - but that does not mean they will not conform when pressed by the lack of options.) Now: there are documented proofs of people in pornographic delight handling cars through smartphones; the facts are reachable of gadgets in contemporary premium cars that would be refused by a seventies' pimp; there are definite anecdotes of large amounts people not having the slightest idea of the security and privacy faults of contemporary cars (etc.). To discuss how «hopeless» a population is we should probably assess and throw numbers in: "uninformed | unaware | drooling | flabbergasted, etc.". Even if the number of the «cool buzzword» enthusiasts were smaller than thought by some, the elements are there for concern and societal action.

woodruffw 2y ago

I don't think it's this simple: someone could do significant damage to the US's economy by sabotaging a small number of bridges that transit or cross I-95. Meanwhile, Ukraine appears to be operating military railways with relative success, given that it's currently engaged in the largest European land war in 80 years.

KittenInABox 2y ago
You could bring the entirely of NYC to a standstill by simply abandoning a large bus or truck in a single artery of manhattan or one of the bridges. Literally just drive into a tunnel, then get out and walk off. The amount of chaos this would cause would take ages to get any towing services in to clear it.
- geodel 2y ago
  I wonder if Kubernetes/Cloud Cluster guy jumps in conversation telling how they could resolve this issue by using Cloud resiliency techniques. Real world has lot to learn from IT infrastructure management. :-)
- drjasonharrison 2y ago
  While many bridges and tunnels have tow trucks and operators stationed at both ends for normal vehicles, they probably do not have heavy-duty towing available quickly. These specialized trucks can tow other semi-tractor-trailers, dump trucks (both garbage and material haul trucks), etc. Extra points for putting the large bus or truck on it's side, requiring a crane or much more work to get it on its wheels. And you don't have to walk off, you can unload your electric scooter and zip away to start your new life as a fugitive.
  - KittenInABox 2y ago
    No need to put on its side. Slash the tires!
    - hollerith 2y ago

jandrese 2y ago

If you ever want to turn your hair grey prematurely consider an attacker that infiltrates Tesla's Full Self Driving development and adds a "crash into the nearest X at maximum acceleration" hidden subroutine that can be triggered via an over-the-air signal. Millions of Teslas suddenly deciding to point at the nearest power pole or transformer and flooring the accelerator in the hopes of crashing hard enough to start a battery fire. A mere decade ago this was pure science fiction, but over the past few years it has become a possibility.

tedivm 2y ago
This has been a concern for well over a decade, and self driving cars only changes it a little bit. You can google "remote car hacking 2010" or earlier to find great examples and reports of this going back pretty far. It's been awhile since this was science fiction. Basically every modern car can have software that says "slam the gas pedal as far as possible". Combine that with cars that are heavily integrated into their infotainment system or even include built in wifi and you've got the "over the air signal" covered.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- jandrese 2y ago
  Telling the car to aim and steer at a specific type of object is something that has only recently become possible. Computer vision has come a long way in the past few years, especially computer vision built into automobiles. I also believe that drive by wire systems are going to become even more commonplace in the future and eliminate the possibility of a driver attempting to muscle the car back into control.
  - bobthepanda 2y ago
    A sufficiently hard left would get most cars into either a barrier or a head on collision, no aiming required
2y ago

kylehotchkiss 2y ago

Who needs foreign actors when you have `climate protestors` who traditionally face way too little consequence for their actions and annoy their fellow citizens so persistency they do their entire movement a disservice?

wolfpack_mick 2y ago
Didn't five climate activists in the UK just get 4-5 years for being on a zoom call for merely planning to block a junction?

tim333 2y ago

The railways get hit fairly often in Russia and nearby but while they are easy to knock out they are also easy to repair and are usually back running in a day or two. Large bridges would be an exception.

sudosysgen 2y ago

This is a bit ironic given the fact that Russia makes a conscious choice to rely on railways for military logistics. Why? Because they are more resilient and easier to repair than roads - Russia has railroad engineering units in their military and can repair just about anything you could do to a railroad in a couple of hours, and in fact they do as Ukrainian partisans (rightly) go after railways. Meanwhile if someone throws spike strips on a busy highway/tunnel/bridge between two chokepoints, you're effectively screwed. If this is done in a concerted manner it will probably take at least a day to fix. If you have more resources (say a state actor attacking a nation that isn't on a wartime footing), you can also exploit the fact that asphalt is a petroleum fraction and therefore soluble : spill a lot of diesel or hydraulic oil, for example (and optionally set it on fire) and you will unrecoverably ruin that section of asphalt, which could take weeks to fix: this is why gas stations are paved with concrete. So while it's not as easy to do this as it is to derail a train or screw around a signaling system, it's far more difficult to repair professional roadway sabotage than railway sabotage, and in the end the railways are probably more resilient.

jokoon 2y ago

oil refineries are also quite a weak point for gas vehicles caltrops could also paralyse entire highways also bridges I could also imagine that it's not difficult to insert sugar into gas stations

yuliyp 2y ago

Having a railroad functional enough for military purposes is easy enough: get the rails hooked up. Put soldiers at switches to flip them, use radio for coordination. For high speed high frequency passenger travel it's more complicated: you need automation flipping switches at the right times, automatic block signaling to ensure that trains are where they're supposed to be and won't crash into each other, etc. That's why they were able to get some of the trains back to operation: they can't run them as close together as before, but can still use the tracks.

mrighele 2y ago

We could make our railway more resilient to such attacks, but in general why bother ? It is probably cheaper to pay the cost whenever the disruption happens. At least in times of peace. There are two issues here though. The first is that the Olympics is a special event and it is more likely for somebody to try to cause the disruptions, and as such more control is probably warranted. The second is that somebody else (Russia) is not acting like they are at peace with us so we should act accordingly

TheRealPomax 2y ago

Who's "we" in this case though?

wongarsu 2y ago

Damaging highways isn't exactly hard, even if they don't contain any roads or bridges. And if you take out the highways the rest of the roads don't have nearly enough capacity.

TaylorAlexander 2y ago

Cars are vulnerable to attacks on fuel stations, attacks on bridges, dumping a load of nails on the road during rush hour, etc. I’m not sure I’d automatically assume disrupting thousands of car passengers is necessarily harder than disrupting thousands of train passengers.

consumer451 2y ago

> We can be glad we have cars, trucks and roads that are a bit more resistant to attacks. Now that Russia's invasion of Ukraine has occurred, and cheap armed quad-copters are a publicly known thing, I can say this openly: Are you kidding me? Because we are still petro-centric, we are extremely fragile. For example, the West Coast has a handful of oil refineries. To shut down the West Coast's road traffic it would take one guy, and less than $10,000 in equipment. This could all be accomplished in 3 days, and there are no deployed defenses for this attack vector.

drewg123 2y ago
This is one of the best non-environmental arguments I've heard for the conversion to EVs.
- consumer451 2y ago
  Thank you. I have been trying to argue that the transition to EVs is a natsec issue for 10+ years. However, I am just some forum schmuck, and it has not been going well. Any help with moving this thinking up the chain would be greaty appreciated. A possible analogy: The Internet was designed to be a multi-path, decentralized, and distributed communications system to withstand attack. That's what EVs are for transportation.
  - gjsman-1000 2y ago
    Wait until you hear how ridiculously easy knocking out a power substation is. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pL9q2lOZ1Fw&pp=ygUSaGFja2luZyBwb3dlciBncmlk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pL9q2lOZ1Fw&pp=ygUSaGFja2luZ..., Meanwhile, FERC found that knocking out just nine strategically located substations, of 55,000 at the time they did the assessment in 2014, would plunge our country into darkness. https://time.com/6244977/us-power-grid-attacks-extremism/ https://time.com/6244977/us-power-grid-attacks-extremism/ https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304020104579433670284061220 https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304020104579433...
    - 2y ago

rrnechmech 2y ago

Not to mention, bridges falling apart on their own

baby 2y ago

How France seems to communicate on this is that it's French people who are behind these

cafard 2y ago

Have a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1987_Maryland_train_collision https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1987_Maryland_train_collision