Train crash caused by hacking?

The latest updates about the train crash certainly leave room for speculations.

The safety arms at a railroad crossing where a train carrying Republican lawmakers slammed into a garbage truck appeared to be malfunctioning the day before the deadly crash, drivers who regularly cross over the tracks at the crash scene said Thursday.

“I did not report this, as it was the first time this has happened in my observation since I have been using that crossing for several years,”

“Then the next day, the accident happened at that intersection.”

Drivers say safety arms at Virginia train crash site seemed to malfunction


If you read the article it really sounds like somebody was familiarising themselves with the system the day before the train got uhm accidented. Arms going up and down repeatedly without a train plus conveniently:

"bungalow which held the switching and computing components" for the crossing signals were destroyed by the truck.

UPDATE: NTSB wraps up day two of investigation into deadly train crash in Crozet

I think it was caused by hitting a truck.


Just my opinion.

Malfunctioning doesn't necessarily mean hacking. I live basically on an island, the bridge safety gates have to be repaired and tested a lot.

a reply to: Jefferton

And I think both the signal/arms and the truck got hacked.


Apparently hacking a truck is ridiculously easy.

Wired article from 2016

HACKERS HIJACK A BIG RIG TRUCK'S ACCELERATOR AND BRAKES

developing those attacks was actually easier than with consumer cars, thanks to a common communication standard in the internal networks of most industrial vehicles, from cement mixers to tractor trailers to school buses.

"If you wanted to hijack someone’s car you'd have to know the make and model and tailor the attack," says Leif Millar, another one of the Michigan researchers. "With trucks, it's all open, so you can just craft one attack." For that reason, their entire truck-hacking project, which began as a University of Michigan class assignment, took only two months. That's perhaps the most troubling part: how simple these hacks were to figure out and pull off.

a reply to: dreamingawake

One witness in the article I quoted he used the crossing for years and this was the first time he witnessed a malfunction!



Another train crash thought. Would you. Could you. On a Train?  was part of a message sent through the emergency broadcast system by hackers one day before the Hoboken train crash happened on September 29th 2016

Could this have been a case of hackers "advertising" their skills and willingness to cause death and destruction? And if so did they act again yesterday, maybe in a hurry without enough time for preparation on orders by a panicked "customer"?

FEMA Hack / NJ Train Crash

Accidents happen, even to right wing politicians.

Just be happy the damage wasn't worse.

Why wouldn't they have just gone into some secluded place the train goes through and sabotaged the actual track so it derailed properly?

A garbage truck driver got killed and some Members of Congress were briefly inconvenienced.

a reply to: MindBodySpiritComplex

Easy if your in the truck you can't just do a drive by hacking. Need access to the OBDII
port. Read the article.

a reply to: MindBodySpiritComplex

I assume they would have went for more destruction. If anything it would be a warning, maybe for pending future assassination attempt if that target gets too out of line.

A dump truck of sand would have been better a loaded school bus would have made a bunch of new laws.

a reply to: mikell

To protect Congressmen from school buses.

originally posted by: mikell
a reply to: MindBodySpiritComplex

Easy if your in the truck you can't just do a drive by hacking. Need access to the OBDII
port. Read the article.

 Chrysler announced a recall for 1.4 million vehicles after a pair of hackers demonstrated to WIRED that they could remotely hijack a Jeep's digital systems over the Internet.

 remotely hacked into the car and paralyzed it on highway

There will almost certainly continue to be remote vulnerabilities in the future,"

THE JEEP HACKERS ARE BACK TO PROVE CAR HACKING CAN GET MUCH WORSE



CIA planned to hack cars and trucks to carry out undetectable assassinations claims WikiLeaks



There's A Windows PC Helping Control Fleet Trucks -- Any Idiot Can Start Hacking It In 30 Seconds

+

a reply to: MindBodySpiritComplex

oh FFS - nothing ever " just happens " any more does it ??????????????

some people seem compelled to invent needlessly complex plots that claim that a nebulous " they " are " somehow " resaponsible for events .

signal and crossing equiment - like all other systems does malfunction

and truck drivers - dont always pay proper attention - even when the saftey systems are working

as always - the one key thing that this claim lacks - is any evidence that any part of the system was hacked [or that the truck was even hackable [ make and model details - anyone ? ]

a reply to: MindBodySpiritComplex

So have you identified the make and model of the truck involved in the accident and determined it can actually be hacked remotely?

Where's the logic? Even if a truck and the crossing could be hacked, there's no way to time the arrival of the train and the truck to be at the same time and spot. Only if the truck was in on it too. it is too far fetched. Not saying there is no conspiracy, but this particular scenario is not plausible.

a reply to: MindBodySpiritComplex

Apparently hacking a truck is ridiculously easy.

Not so much. Apparently writing an Internet article is easier.

Semis do have access to all those commands through the OBD port, as do most private vehicles. That much is true. They also rely on an industry standard protocol unlike private vehicles. True as well. What your article doesn't say is how access to these ports is accomplished.

Most OTR commercial vehicles are operated by large trucking companies, typically having hundreds or even thousands of trucks on the move at any one time. Since the drivers are pretty much all on their own when driving, a standard was developed to allow control of trucks remotely. However, it does not use the Internet. The Internet would be useless to a moving vehicle where there was no open-key WiFi available (which is most locations). Instead, they use a special satelite network operated by Qualcomm.

Qualcomm units inside the truck connect directly to the OBD port and serve as communication devices primarily. They can send and receive text communications, and they can report back when something happens... for instance, what the fuel level is for fuel routing, if there was a hard braking event, maximum speed in the last time period, average speed in the last time period, etc. It is technologically possible to access the truck's systems using Qualcomm, but it's more complex than what the article describes.

First: you have to break into the Qualcomm network. That in itself is a problem, because Qualcomm only allows Internet access from predefined entry points (trucking companies that use their consoles).

Second: you have to find your truck. While I am not familiar with the actual protocols that Qualcomm uses, I strongly suspect it is similar to the IP-based protocol used on the Internet... except in this case there is no need for user-friendly domain names. A hacker would need to know what company the truck was owned by and the truck number, then gain access to the DNS-equivalent in the Qualcomm network to get the IP for that truck.

Third: The Qualcomm unit must have been preset to allow remote control signals. Most are not. A typical Qualcomm unit is programmed in a company shop (or by Qualcomm itself in the case of small companies) and requires direct wired access to the console. This access is typically used to limit maximum speeds (the truck shuts off fuel if it tries to move too fast). When I left the industry a few years ago,a few places were experimenting with allowing dispatch to shut down the truck completely, but there was major concern over safety, as such a shutdown in heavy traffic could easily have serious consequences.

The suggested solution was a remote shutdown that would not engage until the truck stopped. So far as I know (and I still talk to active drivers from time to time, as well as receive the OOIDA magazine), no one has fully implemented even a remote shutdown after stop.

Fourth: not all trucks have Qualcomm. Qualcomm is mostly used for OTR (Over The Road, aka long-haul) trucks, typically semis. It is an expensive system to install and maintain.

So, IF someone had access to the Qualcomm network, and IF that someone had the IP-equivalent address ofthe truck in question, and IF someone had knowledge of the proper engine control codes, and IF the truck was connected to the Qualcomm network, and IF someone was accessing a truck which had the controls enabled prior, then it is POSSIBLE to tell the truck to stop. Where the truck stops is another concern, because even the Qualcomm network does not work perfectly 100% of the time. If I had a dime for every time dispatch called me worried that something was wrong because the Qualcomm showed me where I was 5 hours ago, I'd have a whole lot of dimes. The system works well to operate under such horrible conditions as it has to endure, but it is not perfect... far from it.

No, no one hacked into the garbage truck while it was on the tracks. I have yet to see a garbage truck even equipped with a Qualcomm.

TheRedneck

a reply to: TheRedneck

Addendum to my last post:

The hackers were probably using access through a company like OnStar. OnStar was developed from the basic idea of the Qualcomm units, but has much greater remote flexibility. There is no lockout of system access that has to be overridden directly; the system accesses are protected through the OnStar network servers in software. That removes one 'if'... the system would have been 'armed' so to speak. Also, OnStar does not limit access, in order to give private users access to things like position and speed (parental controls). That's another 'if' gone. Finally, the OnStar network is much more closely tied to the Internet, again for ease of customer access, removing another 'if.'

The problem is that precious few if any trucks use OnStar. I certainly have never heard of any.

TheRedneck

I believe that the accident was caused by the ghost of Robert E. Lee, probably getting back at those republicans that stood by and did nothing when his statue was defamed and threatened with removal from Charlotesville, VA.

We can deny history, but it seems history will rise up and bite us on the ass!

I edited because I believe I saw a newscast about the removal of the R. E. Lee statue on his horse in Charlottesville. Maybe Mandela?

a reply to: MindBodySpiritComplex

Hacking!

According to the new found religious left, it is apparently the work of God!

In all seriousness though, IMO, there is far more to this "coincidence" then meets the eye.

Calling it a malfunction is a nice way to hide the hacking!