Is it me?-What is this world coming to?

Kinda reminds me of what happened in that Garfield movie, except none of the trains derailed in the movie, and he didn't hack the system. :o

Come to think of it, I know a guy who could probably do the same if he wanted to...

*looks with suspiscion at said guy, who happens to be across the room*
 
If people had been killed, he would have been tried for murder, and all the money in the world would not rescue him.
 
No, definately NOT a "clever kid". He could have killed someone. What he did was very stupid, and you are equally stupid for admiring him. Would you still be calling him a "clever kid" if people had died?. No, I don't think so.
We all did silly things when we were younger. We used to put little bits of ballast on the track. Nothing particularly daring about that, except that the line in question was not a rural backwater branch but the West Coast Main Line! If I had done what this cretin had done on the WCML, I would have caused several deaths.

Best wishes,
Padster
 
That kid is nothing short of a complete idiot, bet he didn't even consider the human [SIZE=-1]consequences!:n:

Lorin
[/SIZE]
 
In fairness to jjgburch, I think & hope he meant,the ability to do it was 'clever',not the actual act itself.
It always amazes me that a brain that can think these things up,is incapable of working out what the consequences of any action might be.Perhaps they are not taught to think like that.

Regards Bruce
 
Steve, I don't read the telegraph either, although I use their website to read the obituaries section! (I have turned into my Dad!). It's quite interesting but mainly full of Group Captain Jethro Whistlestop Goatstrangler types, and surprisingly most of them have died recently, what a coincidence! :confused:

John (rich kid in hand me down and threadbare clothes)
 
This just goes to show how "open" some railway systems are, 50 years ago this was not so. If you wanted to do the same thing here for example the only way you could really do such a thing would be to break into a signal box and try to evade a very disgruntled signal man long enough to pull a lever hopefully causing some form of chaos.

Nowadays it is much easier to do so, with some lines being completely controlled by radio (Mainz-Alzey is a good example of this) it is relatively easy to wreak havoc on a railway line. And with given the weight and speed of a DMU consist, you would easily end up killing several people. This is one reason why I'm rather opposed to this form of modernization, because it is so "easy" to manipulate from the outside with no control over the ensuing consequences.

WileeCoyote:D
 
...perpetrator...

8) I believe the little perp knows the seriousness of his crime...via video, personal testimony, etc.

This kind of cyber crime, can make it hard on all of us!
 
I was thinking about his device that changed the points. I doubt it was one of those one4all tv controllers you buy in the shops nowadays, or one of those watches that can change tv channels. Something a bit more 'clever' than that. He could have been responsible for causing a lot more trouble than he did, so he's a fool for not realising the consequences.

JB
 
jjqburch said:
I was thinking about his device that changed the points. I doubt it was one of those one4all tv controllers you buy in the shops nowadays, or one of those watches that can change tv channels. Something a bit more 'clever' than that. He could have been responsible for causing a lot more trouble than he did, so he's a fool for not realising the consequences.

JB
Click to expand...

It always was a bad idea to control signals and switches via wireless. That's why they erect signs in some rail areas warning against using 2-way radios and even cell phones. Any disruption of the signal could trigger the switch. All that kid had to do was determine the frequency range of the signal's transciever and tap into it.
 
Ahh the good old day's when I used to put a penny on the CN line (now the GEXR) behind the farm I grew up at. :D They should of never went to wireless, try to get past a signal man with a 2x4 and a Monday morning hangover. :hehe:

Lorin
 
This is the price we pay for progress, and for not thinking about security in devices like this. What this kid did is really very simple if you have the basic understanding of electronics or even WIFI technology. Signal and switching electronics should have some kind of parity-check or verification on signal source before the action is performed. Or better yet, a signal scrambling encoder/decoder circuit, as this would have made it more difficult to tap into.

In some ways this is no different then a hacker breaking into a wireless network to steal bandwidth, or worse banking information. This happened at TJ Max (TJX) corporation. A group of hackers simply tapped a wide open wireless network and stole millions of dollars worth of ATM and credit card accounts. It was proven that the wide open WIFI network is what allowed the hackers in. If the IT group had used something more secure like WPA-TCPK or higher, the hackers couldn't get in.

A simple solution would be, as I said, some form of security to block intrusion except from a trusted source.

John
 
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Actually, the report said it was infra-red, which means a line-of-sight signal. I'm not sure how that works. Does the driver tell the receiver that he wants to go right, then the receiver sends an infrared beam to the point motor? If the driver is controlling the points, then they can't be hardwired to the switch tower (which would solve the problem).
We should be understanding of the poor tyke. First we sit him down and explain why it was a bad idea, then let's take him to the town square for a good public spanking (which is why we have to sit him down before rather than after) and then he has to physically go and personally repair all the damage he caused and pay for any expenses anyone incurred.
Then we'll talk about a suitable punishment.

:cool: Claude
 
Tokkyu40 said:
Actually, the report said it was infra-red, which means a line-of-sight signal. I'm not sure how that works. Does the driver tell the receiver that he wants to go right, then the receiver sends an infrared beam to the point motor? If the driver is controlling the points, then they can't be hardwired to the switch tower (which would solve the problem).
We should be understanding of the poor tyke. First we sit him down and explain why it was a bad idea, then let's take him to the town square for a good public spanking (which is why we have to sit him down before rather than after) and then he has to physically go and personally repair all the damage he caused and pay for any expenses anyone incurred.
Then we'll talk about a suitable punishment.

:cool: Claude
Click to expand...

Very good, Claude. I was wondering why they got rid of the old gallows that used to placed in the town square. If there was more public humiliation, that would solve a lot of crimes than just shoving people into a jail cell. :hehe:

If this is infrared, then this kid had to be lineside to do this. Again this signal has to be tuned to the controller, and there still should be some kind of verification before the signal changed or turnout is thrown. Way back when my brother was young, he and his buddy used to go around the neighborhood with the cable remote control and change the channels on the neighbors' TVs. I'm not sure if this possible today with so many different systems compared to how it was when cable first came out.

John
 
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