

Polish teen derails tram after hacking train network (2008) - TriinT
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/11/tram_hack

======
andreyf
_He clearly did not think about the consequences of his actions._

He's 14 years old. His brains might have developed enough to outsmart really
horrible engineering, but no psychologist would argue most 14 year olds have
fully developed understanding of consequences (much less, _empathy_ ) at that
age. The problem is not with the boy.

 _Transport command and control systems are commonly designed by engineers
with little exposure or knowledge about security using commodity electronics
and a little native wit_

This is the real problem. Whoever approves this kind of engineering into
practice is directly responsible for whatever damage was done.

 _The youth, described by his teachers as an electronics buff and exemplary
student, faces charges at a special juvenile court of endangering public
safety_

I don't think he realized he was endangering public safety, and certainly
can't comprehend what that means in a way adults do.

~~~
patio11
_[N]o psychologist would argue most 14 year olds have fully developed
understanding of consequences (much less, empathy) at that age._

 _The problem is not with the boy._

What. The. Heck.

How old do you have to be to understand "If a train derails, people die.
People dying is a bad thing. Trains are big and complicated and are operated
by professionals or at least people trained to use them, like, you know,
cars." ?!?!

For several thousand years of human history we expected 14 year olds to go off
to war, die gallantly, and come back and raise children if they survived. They
proved up to the challenge. Now they're _infantilized_ to the point where they
cannot be reliably expected to show empathy for people who die as a result of
their actions.

What. The. Heck. Words fail me.

[Edit: Gah, the more I think about this the more livid I get. GAAAAAAAAAH. I
used to be a teacher and my child developmental psychology is a little rusty,
but I also used to be a Boy Scout and can remember what we were doing when we
were _eight_. It included practicing for emergencies such as What To Do If
Someone Falls In The River. Answer: don't enter the river, because they are
panicking and will drown you, instead, throw them a rope or flotation device.
We did not have to explain to _eight year olds_ that _people drowning in the
river is a bad thing_ or that _the predictable consequence of pushing someone
off a bridge into a river is that they will die, this is a bad thing,
accordingly don't push someone off a bridge into the river even if you think
he will look really funny falling into it_.]

~~~
Confusion
_How old do you have to be to understand "If a train derails, people die._

The fact is that even many adults tend to make bad judgment calls. The same
goes for 14 year olds and they sometimes consistently make calls that seem
ridiculous to older people. That it seems ridiculous to _you_ doesn't make it
ridiculous to _some 14 year olds_.

Your examples both fail to take into account that say 10% of youngsters may
not act like _you_ would expect them to. Many did not survive wars; many would
still dive into the river in an emergency. You can repeat how stupid something
is until you throat goes soar: that doesn't mean the person under discussion
was capable of understanding that.

I think you should read up on your developmental psychology: the ethical calls
of 8 or 14 year olds tend to be pretty different from those of adults.
Especially the regular outliers are fascinating.

A kid with a knack for electrical engineering... hmmm, might he just be a
little behind in his understanding of social phenomena? Of the value we adhere
to other people's wellbeing?

I still have the capacity to reason about things without any concern for the
people involved. People ask: how can you even consider that, given the
consequences to the people involved. The seem paralized to even consider some
options, as they immediately think it would be bad for humans. My answer: like
any other factor, you can perfectly exclude 'people' for simplicity, to take
that factor into account later. Sometimes that make the previous exercize a
waste; sometimes it brings a valuable perspective, because the cost to humans
turns out to be avoidable in some way. Think 'nuclear energy' in the 80's.
Many people were incapable of any sound reasoning about that, because of
perceived costs to human lives.

Perhaps only one person should have said to this boy "ehmm, do you realize how
dangerous this is? What if your mother was in that tram? She might get hurt.
You may only want to change the way a tram goes, but they can't just change
the next interchange to fix that, if their system is solid enough to notice
the change at all." With some people, you really need to drive a point home,
before they understand.

~~~
Radix
The OP was attempting to dismiss the 14 year olds responsibility of action
based on his development. We really should expect more of our adolescents.

Your observation that some adults appear to never mature is irrelevant.
Society makes its rules known through common sense and law, and any 14 year
old _that is capable of hacking a tram_ is intelligent enough to have picked
up on society's general distaste for human death and destruction of property.
That is, it hardly matters if a specific person is capable of understanding
why something is illegal, it is still illegal. What's more, if he was aware
enough to study and record the tram system then he was aware of the danger. If
he had taken a city bus for a drive no one would be excusing him.

The only misunderstanding of social phenomena I can imagine is difficulty
interacting with people. Maybe frustration getting attention for his ability
due to age. So lets not overlook him, lets not say "well you're just 14, what
could we expect". The kid messed up, he should be liable. What he did was
pretty cool, stupid, and since no one died, hopefully it won't mess up the
rest of his life.

(Didn't it used to be part of hacker culture that people should be given
credit for their actions regardless of age, sex, or race? Well, this is that,
going the opposite direction.)

~~~
Confusion
Let me first say that I agree that the OP overstated the case: many 14 year
olds are perfectly capable of making the right judgment call in cases such as
this. However...

 _and any 14 year old that is capable of hacking a tram is intelligent enough
to have picked up on society's general distaste_

Intelligence has little to do with the ability to empathize or with social
skills in general. Yes, an intelligent person with an autistic disorder may be
able to mitigate the consequences of his disability by _learning_ the required
responses. However, a fourteen year old will never have mastered that
technique yet and some never do. And no, I'm not claiming this boy has an
autistic disorder; what I am claiming is that many such people, myself
included, have traits that much resemble those of people with autistic
disorders, to the point where I often feel like I'm responding _from
knowledge_ to social situations, rather then _from feeling_. And I remember a
particularly (in hindsight) stupid thing I almost did when I was a 12 years
old, because I had no regard for the people involved. Nor for the consequences
for me BTW. That is one important point people are overlooking: the boy may
also have failed to realize he could go to prison for this. So busy tinkering
and playing that he lost sight of the outside world.

 _What's more, if he was aware enough to study and record the tram system then
he was aware of the danger_

Rationally knowing something could go wrong and linking that to actual people
actually suffering is a huge step for some people. Eichmann is probably the
canonical example. Yes, he was liable and he was rightfully held accountable.
That doesn't necessarily mean he was guilty in a moral sense. Can you be
guilty of failing to consider consequences to other humans, if failing to
consider those consequences is your natural way of being? I'd rather call it a
mental disability than criminal intent.

------
aberman
Sadly, he probably did them a favor in the long run. Gaping hole in transit
security.

~~~
patio11
A couple hundred people very nearly did not get a "long run" due to his
antics.

~~~
aberman
Right, exactly my point. Luckily they DID get a "long run" --which might not
be the case next time.

------
jrockway
Nice. He probably didn't cause enough damage for people to realize that
transit control systems should be encrypted, though.

------
utku_karatas
Reminded me Lawnchair Larry (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Walters>). "A
man can't just sit around."

------
TriinT
A photo: <http://bi.gazeta.pl/im/4/4819/z4819154Z.jpg>

~~~
slackenerny
And of his kit:
[http://www.dziennik.pl/files/archive/00042/2_1415_tramwaj_1_...](http://www.dziennik.pl/files/archive/00042/2_1415_tramwaj_1_42672g.jpg)

~~~
zackattack
How on earth could that have possibly worked?

~~~
imajes
so i'm going to suggest that in cities, alot of traffic and transit systems
are just gsm boxes that send/receive commands. I've seen a traffic box opened
up and asked the engineer how it all worked. He pointed to the (essentially)
cell phone type device that sent stuff back to HQ.

I don't imagine that'd be hard to hack.

Even easier (given his hacking of a remote control) is if these points were
controlled by RF signals sent by the train as they approached. "hey, it's me,
open up so i can pass" type signals. This would be more shocking because it
implies a level of automation that i'm not sure many would be comfortable with
in such a system.

------
devin
Is it too soon for a Polish joke?

~~~
aberman
You should ask the 12 Polish people injured in the collision.

