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It's a bit of a non story, even with the fake image. From the article: Trains were halted after a suspected AI-generated picture that seemed to show major d

by defrost 11mo ago

It's a bit of a non story, even with the fake image. From the article: Trains were halted after a suspected AI-generated picture that seemed to show major damage to a bridge appeared on social media following an earthquake. ... Railway expert Tony Miles said due to the timing of the incident, very few passengers will have been impacted by the hoax as the services passing through at that time were primarily freight and sleeper trains. "They generally go slow so as not to disturb the passengers trying to sleep - this means they have a bit of leeway to go faster and make up time if they encounter a delay," he said. "It's more the fact that Network Rail will have had to mobilise a team to go and check the bridge which could impact their work for days." Standard responsible rail maintainance is to investigate rail integrity following heavy rains, earthquakes, etc. A fake image of a stone bridge with fallen parapets prompts the same response as a phone call about a fallen stone from a bridge or (ideally !!) just the earthquake itself - send out a hi-railer for a track inspection. The larger story here (be it the UK, the US, or AU) is track inspections .. manned or unmanned? Currently on HN: Railroads will be allowed to reduce inspections and rely more on technology (US) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46177550 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46177550 https://apnews.com/article/automated-railroad-track-inspections-waiver-derailments-fra-d3c4b0f313585303e305e84fb4c03aef https://apnews.com/article/automated-railroad-track-inspecti... on the decision to veer toward unmanned inspections that rely upon lidar, gauge measures, crack vibration sensing etc. Personally I veer toward manned patrols with state of the art instrumentation - for the rail I'm familiar with there are things that can happen with ballast that are best picked up by a human, for now.

hedora 11mo ago
They should already be able to detect line breaks using old technology. They send current pulses down the line to detect stuck switches, since stuck switches can cause collisions. Also, the pulses are conducted through the wheels and axles of any trains, so they can use resistance and/or timing to figure out where the trains are. Having said that, if it was 2020 and you told me that making photorealistic pictures of broken bridges was harder than spoofing the signals I just described, I’d say you were crazy. The idea that a kid could do this would have seen even less plausible (that’s not to say a kid did it, just that they could have). Anyway, since recently-intractable things are now trivial, runbooks for hoax responses need to be updated, apparently.
- defrost 11mo ago
  > They should already be able to detect line breaks using old technology. Yes. That doesn't do much to detect a stone from a parapet rolling onto the line though. Hence the need for inspection. > runbooks for hoax responses need to be updated, apparently. I'd argue not - whether it's an image of a damaged bridge, a phone call from a concerned person about an obstruction on the line, or just heavy rains or an earthquake .. the line should be inspected. If anything urban rail is in a better position today as ideally camera networks should hopefully rapidly resolve whether a bridge is really damaged as per a fake image or not.
  - ceejayoz 11mo ago
    > I'd argue not - whether it's an image of a damaged bridge, a phone call from a concerned person about an obstruction on the line, or just heavy rains or an earthquake .. the line should be inspected. Ideally? Sure. But when someone can generate plausible disaster photos of every inch of every line of a country's rail network in mere minutes? And as soon as your inspection finishes, they do it again?
    - defrost 11mo ago
      plausibly correlated with what? This correlated with an earthquake - this is the event that should have triggered an inspection regardless. > But when someone can generate plausible disaster photos of every inch of every line of a country's rail network in mere minutes? In the UK (and elsewhere) a large percentage of track is covered by cameras - inspection of over the top claims can be rapidly dismissed. > And as soon as your inspection finishes, they do it again? Sounds like a case for cyber crimes and public nuisance. It's also no different to endless prank calls via phone, not a new thing.
      - ceejayoz 11mo ago
        > This correlated with an earthquake… Plenty of disasters don't. "No earthquake, no incident" obviously can't be the logic tree. > In the UK (and elsewhere) a large percentage of track is covered by cameras - inspection of over the top claims can be rapidly dismissed. "Yes. That doesn't do much to detect a stone from a parapet rolling onto the line though. Hence the need for inspection." Sounds like you now agree it's less a need? > Sounds like a case for cyber crimes and public nuisance. "Sorry, not much we can do." As is the case when elderly folks get their accounts drained over the phone today.
lambdas 11mo ago
90% manned. A lot of money and time goes into getting track access. And collecting unmanned data is still such a pain. At the moment, you stick calibration gear to a train and hope it gets as much noise free data as it can. All whilst going at least 40mph over the area you want - you’re fighting vibrations, vehicle grease, too much sunlight, not enough sunlight, rain, ballast covering things, equipment not calibrated before going out etc etc.
tiew9Vii 11mo ago
Regardless of how many people it disrupted or not, it’s not a non story. It’s highlighted a weakness. It’s easy to disrupt national infrastructure by generating realistic hoax photos/videos with very little effort from anywhere in the world.
- defrost 11mo ago
  It's not a new story, nor has it highlighted a new weakness - people have had the ability to claim tracks are covered in stone or by a dead cow for a good many years now. Tracks have cameras to rapidly discount big claims, in this specific case there was an actual earthquake which should (and likely did, the story doesn't drill down very deep) have triggered a manual track inspection for blockages and ballast shifts in of itself.
  - silversmith 11mo ago
    If I do a prank call, it's easy to see the intent to disrupt. If I post AI generated images to twitter, and those get amplified by my followers (that might or might not be real people) enough to surface on some rail engineers feed, well, that's just me showcasing my art, no harm intended, right?
    - defrost 11mo ago
      If I if enough hypothetical if's that's just a giant empty if, right? It'd be useful if commenters view this from the pragmatic real world track maintainance PoV. Verifiable calls from the public about blocked lines made to official numbers with traceback etc. carry more weight than social media buzz. In urban rail the bulk of AI generated images can be discounted via camera feeds and sensors (eg: there's no indication of a line break so that image is BS). There are already procedures to sift prank calls from things that need checking, to catch serial offenders and numbnuts that push bricks from overpasses. In the specific instance of you hypothetically "just me showcasing my art, no harm intended" .. in a UK jurisdiction that would fall to the estimation of the opinion held by a man on the Clapham omnibus as channeled by a world weary judge with an arse sore from decades of having such stories paraded before them by indolent smirking cocksures. YMMV.

by defrost 11mo ago

hedora 11mo ago

They should already be able to detect line breaks using old technology. They send current pulses down the line to detect stuck switches, since stuck switches can cause collisions. Also, the pulses are conducted through the wheels and axles of any trains, so they can use resistance and/or timing to figure out where the trains are. Having said that, if it was 2020 and you told me that making photorealistic pictures of broken bridges was harder than spoofing the signals I just described, I’d say you were crazy. The idea that a kid could do this would have seen even less plausible (that’s not to say a kid did it, just that they could have). Anyway, since recently-intractable things are now trivial, runbooks for hoax responses need to be updated, apparently.

defrost 11mo ago
> They should already be able to detect line breaks using old technology. Yes. That doesn't do much to detect a stone from a parapet rolling onto the line though. Hence the need for inspection. > runbooks for hoax responses need to be updated, apparently. I'd argue not - whether it's an image of a damaged bridge, a phone call from a concerned person about an obstruction on the line, or just heavy rains or an earthquake .. the line should be inspected. If anything urban rail is in a better position today as ideally camera networks should hopefully rapidly resolve whether a bridge is really damaged as per a fake image or not.
- ceejayoz 11mo ago
  > I'd argue not - whether it's an image of a damaged bridge, a phone call from a concerned person about an obstruction on the line, or just heavy rains or an earthquake .. the line should be inspected. Ideally? Sure. But when someone can generate plausible disaster photos of every inch of every line of a country's rail network in mere minutes? And as soon as your inspection finishes, they do it again?
  - defrost 11mo ago
    plausibly correlated with what? This correlated with an earthquake - this is the event that should have triggered an inspection regardless. > But when someone can generate plausible disaster photos of every inch of every line of a country's rail network in mere minutes? In the UK (and elsewhere) a large percentage of track is covered by cameras - inspection of over the top claims can be rapidly dismissed. > And as soon as your inspection finishes, they do it again? Sounds like a case for cyber crimes and public nuisance. It's also no different to endless prank calls via phone, not a new thing.
    - ceejayoz 11mo ago
      > This correlated with an earthquake… Plenty of disasters don't. "No earthquake, no incident" obviously can't be the logic tree. > In the UK (and elsewhere) a large percentage of track is covered by cameras - inspection of over the top claims can be rapidly dismissed. "Yes. That doesn't do much to detect a stone from a parapet rolling onto the line though. Hence the need for inspection." Sounds like you now agree it's less a need? > Sounds like a case for cyber crimes and public nuisance. "Sorry, not much we can do." As is the case when elderly folks get their accounts drained over the phone today.

lambdas 11mo ago

90% manned. A lot of money and time goes into getting track access. And collecting unmanned data is still such a pain. At the moment, you stick calibration gear to a train and hope it gets as much noise free data as it can. All whilst going at least 40mph over the area you want - you’re fighting vibrations, vehicle grease, too much sunlight, not enough sunlight, rain, ballast covering things, equipment not calibrated before going out etc etc.

tiew9Vii 11mo ago

Regardless of how many people it disrupted or not, it’s not a non story. It’s highlighted a weakness. It’s easy to disrupt national infrastructure by generating realistic hoax photos/videos with very little effort from anywhere in the world.

defrost 11mo ago
It's not a new story, nor has it highlighted a new weakness - people have had the ability to claim tracks are covered in stone or by a dead cow for a good many years now. Tracks have cameras to rapidly discount big claims, in this specific case there was an actual earthquake which should (and likely did, the story doesn't drill down very deep) have triggered a manual track inspection for blockages and ballast shifts in of itself.
- silversmith 11mo ago
  If I do a prank call, it's easy to see the intent to disrupt. If I post AI generated images to twitter, and those get amplified by my followers (that might or might not be real people) enough to surface on some rail engineers feed, well, that's just me showcasing my art, no harm intended, right?
  - defrost 11mo ago
    If I if enough hypothetical if's that's just a giant empty if, right? It'd be useful if commenters view this from the pragmatic real world track maintainance PoV. Verifiable calls from the public about blocked lines made to official numbers with traceback etc. carry more weight than social media buzz. In urban rail the bulk of AI generated images can be discounted via camera feeds and sensors (eg: there's no indication of a line break so that image is BS). There are already procedures to sift prank calls from things that need checking, to catch serial offenders and numbnuts that push bricks from overpasses. In the specific instance of you hypothetically "just me showcasing my art, no harm intended" .. in a UK jurisdiction that would fall to the estimation of the opinion held by a man on the Clapham omnibus as channeled by a world weary judge with an arse sore from decades of having such stories paraded before them by indolent smirking cocksures. YMMV.