Schoolboy hacks into city's tram system

Schoolboy hacks into city's tram system
By Graeme Baker
Last Updated: 2:48am GMT 11/01/2008


A teenage boy who hacked into a Polish tram system used it like "a
giant train set", causing chaos and derailing four vehicles.

The 14-year-old, described by his teachers as a model pupil and an
electronics "genius", adapted a television remote control so it could
change track points in the city of Lodz.

Twelve people were injured in one derailment, and the boy is
suspected of having been involved in several similar incidents.

The teenager, who was not named by police, told them he had changed
the points for a prank.

A police statement said he had trespassed at tram depots in the city
to gather information and the equipment needed to build the infra-red
device.

"Questioned by police in the presence of a psychologist, the teenager
testified he switched tram tracks three times, once causing a tram to
jump the tracks," said the statement. A search at the boy's home
turned up the device he had used to switch tram tracks.
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Miroslaw Micor, a spokesman for Lodz police, said: "He studied the
trams and the tracks for a long time and then built a device that
looked like a TV remote control and used it to manoeuvre the trams
and the tracks.

"He had converted the television control into a device capable of
controlling all the junctions on the line and wrote in the pages of a
school exercise book where the best junctions were to move trams
around and what signals to change.

"He treated it like any other schoolboy might a giant train set, but
it was lucky nobody was killed. Four trams were derailed, and others
had to make emergency stops that left passengers hurt. He clearly did
not think about the consequences of his actions."

The first sign of the chaos came on Tuesday afternoon, when a city
tram driver tried to steer his vehicle to the right, but found
himself helpless to stop it swerving to the left instead.

The rear wagon then swung off the rails and crashed into another
passing tram, hurling screaming passengers to the floor.

Transport employees were reported as saying that they knew
immediately that someone outside their staff had caused the accident.

The boy will face a special juvenile court on charges of endangering
public safety, police said.

The incident is the latest in which "hackers" - many of them young
computer experts - have broken into computer systems.

A 20-year-old was questioned in New Zealand last year suspected of
writing programs for an internet "spyware" scam targeting several
hundred thousand bank accounts.

In 1999, a group of hackers used home computers to break into the
systems controlling Skynet, a British military satellite, and changed
secure settings.

A report by the US Federal Aviation Administration this week raised
concerns that a passenger aboard the new Boeing 787 "Dreamliner"
aircraft might be able to hack into the aircraft's systems via its
internet connection.

The boy, described as a 'genius'and some of the equipment he used:

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