> You can activate the emergency stop in any train. Just like that, go figure! No security around those things at all

That’s false, at least on modern trains, in France, for what I know.

Any modern train will not stop when you pull the alarm lever.

The first thing that will happen is that you will be in communication with the conductor, then the train will be stopped in only two scenarios : either you are communicating a real emergency or you don’t respond at all to the conductor asking you what happens after a given delay (which IIRC is 10 seconds).

And fwiw, a friend of mine who is conductor explained to me that if you activate the alarm lever by inadvertence, the worst thing you can do is to not answer by fear of having problems. If you say it’s an error, the conductor will just ignore it and continue its day while if you say nothing, the conductor is forced to emergency brake the train and all the trains on the line.

So: just that: you don't need to do anything beyond pulling the lever to get the train to stop. The override is that you say everything is ok, but if you do not the train will absolutely stop.

This is to ensure that if the driver / conductor is incapacitated the train will still come to a halt. And that in turn is because runaway trains have happened.

I don't know the French way, but coming form Germany:

For logner tunnels etc there is an override, where emergency break doesn't break immediately as stopping a train mid-tunnel is most of the time the worst choice. Smoke in tunnel is dangerous. Emergency help can't reach it. Evacuation has confined space. etc. There emergency break rings an alarm with the engineer. If they ignore it, it will stop after a while, but usually they will use intercomm to understand the reason.

A way however you can stop trains on a German train line is by putting a 2kHz electromagnet on the tracks. That will tell the train that it just crossed a red signal and will stop.

Please edit your comment and take that info out. I understand you mean well but spreading this is stupendously risky.

You realise you can just look this stuff up? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punktf%C3%B6rmige_Zugbeeinflus...

Crusade against Wikipedia that the information is stupendously risky if you think that's a good use of your time.

Yes, I do realize that. The fact that other parties are irresponsible is no reason to join in.

How irresponsible of (gasp) European Commision to publish the exact specification (frequencies and timings of the tones) of the command used in this attack (in Poland):

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=OJ:L...

(p. L 342/109-110, or ^F RADIOSTOP)

This is Official Journal, available in all EU languages (at the time).

This is well documented in each railway publication.

Also the risk is .... not existent. To damage railway infrastructure there are way more efficient and simple ways (getting a rail to derail, destroy some signaling cables, ...)

The "attack" here would require quite some investment in equipment (power etc.) and only bring a single train to a realtively quick stop, well in safe margins, where the driver after a quick check with the dispatcher can override and continue the ride, while investigators would collect the equipment.

It's impractical for a stunt (way simpler and more effective: just walk close to the tracks and they will do emergency stops for all trains close by) and ineffective for an attack.

Yes, there are other ways to bring trains to a halt or to derail them. Even so I think it is irresponsible to spread such information further than it has to go, especially on a site called 'hacker news', and even more so in a thread where people are openly arguing that insecure systems should be replaced by more secure ones. Rail infra is not as easy to update as your average web based project and keeping such information out of the hands of would-be experimenters can only be good. No downside, possible upside: easy decision.

> If it's that simple you almost have an obligation to show how insecure this is.

Please don't spread this "white hat hacker" extortion mindset to my neighbourhoods.

I don't even look my door.

Thank you.

Sorry, that should have had an /s appended (I thought it was obvious given the last sentence). Fixed.

Personally I've had it with the so called 'hackers'. They're just criminals. Oh and I think you meant to write 'lock' not 'look'.

Heh ok ye well you never know.

It's always funny when those "grey hats" or similar "it's just a prank bros" find out they're "vulnerable" to a pair of handcuffs, or to judicial findings, or even worse things

I've had a several months long run in with a so-called 'hacker' on HN who is now - fortunately - in jail for something else. This got really tedious and the lack of support was quite frustrating (to put it mildly). I'm sure he thought it was all fun and games. He's threatened swatting people on here, destroying their businesses, families and so on. And all from the relative safety of what he believed to be anonymity.

Such people have no place in society and setting them loose on neighboring countries is inviting a tit-for-tat that we can all do without. Personally I think these attacks are very close to - or already over the threshold for - acts of war.