You wouldn’t download a train—but you might conceivably want to repair one. Those worries have led to a massive controversy in Poland, as train manufacturer Newag has come under fire for likely adding DRM-style protection to stop its vehicles from being repaired at competitor facilities.
As laid out by Notes from Poland, the manufacturer’s trains had inexplicably come to “a standstill in several places in Poland”. Not only did they stop working after competitors attempted to repair them, one inexplicably bricked itself on November 21, 2023. More on that later.
A company named SPS Mieczkowski received fines from a rail operator when it failed to repair one of Newag’s trains. It decided to then make privateers out of pirates, hiring a collective of hackers called Dragon …