[HN Gopher] I hacked a train toilet
___________________________________________________________________
I hacked a train toilet
Author : hlandau
Score : 218 points
Date : 2024-01-28 09:10 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.devever.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.devever.net)
| jruohonen wrote:
| "Amusingly this is not the first DoS vulnerability I've found on
| a train -- but that will have to wait for another article."
|
| Don't say more.
| alex-moon wrote:
| Always lovely to see a reminder that electromechanical (non-
| software) systems can also be hacked. This is the sort of stuff
| "place hackers" use to get into buildings.
| madsbuch wrote:
| Most systems can be hacked with force. You can also "hack" you
| way into a bank vault if you have 15 million tons of dynamite
| and an atomic bomb (not sure if there would be anything to come
| for in the vault at this point, though)
| hlandau wrote:
| This is a fixable bug though. And no force of any kind was
| used here. As mentioned other trains use the same lever
| design, but with the lever being spring-returned, which
| doesn't exhibit this 'vulnerability'. It could also just be
| fixed in software by making the lock lever input to the
| microcontroller edge-triggered instead of level-triggered, so
| that if someone does actually do this it won't lead to a DoS.
| Y_Y wrote:
| Denial of Shitter attacks are always unethical.
|
| For real though, this is a cool idea and hack, but only a real
| bastard would put the toilet out of action deliberately. Of
| course that sort of person does happen to frequent British trains
| and this is hence valuable research.During the Polish train
| hacking debacle it was suggested that saboteurs be charged with
| harming vital national infrastructure, I hope that toiletblockers
| would be similarly indicted.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Denial of Shitter attacks are always unethical.
|
| Here in Germany, the railway itself is the worst culprit - in
| December, when DB took over the notorious Hof-Munich line, I
| travelled on a 6-car double decker train that had 5 broken
| toilets, all of them because either the water was out or the
| sewage tank full. Not fun.
|
| The second worst culprits are idiots throwing trash into the
| toilet. Diapers, tampons and wet wipes don't belong into
| regular toilets - but especially not into vacuum toilets like
| on trains or planes.
| pflenker wrote:
| My train once stopped in Bremen because only one toilet was
| working and soccer fans were aboard the train. In Bremen we
| could all leave the train, go to the toilet there and resume
| our trip some 20 minutes later. That was a bizarre
| experience.
| davchana wrote:
| In India on long route buses (like 8+ hours) its common for
| bus to stop for a tea food and bathroom break/stop.
| hollerith wrote:
| It's common on buses in the US, too, but we are talking
| about passenger trains.
| mattpallissard wrote:
| Cross country Amtrak has a few stops like that as well.
| blahedo wrote:
| I've ridden almost all of the long-distance Amtrak lines
| and not seen what you describe. There are "long stops"
| where there are crew changes and refill and restock, but
| they are not primarily for passengers to visit the train
| station (and through-passengers that wish to get some
| fresh air are _explicitly_ warned not to leave the
| platform, though this is not generally enforced if
| someone wants to take their chances).
| mschuster91 wrote:
| The long distance ICE trains actually have a restaurant
| on board, although they only serve pre-made food.
|
| Czech trains on the other hand? They run actual
| restaurants with legit chefs on board [1][2].
|
| [1] https://ostkoster.de/speisewagen-und-mitropa-in-
| ostdeutschla...
|
| [2] https://www.tagesspiegel.de/gesellschaft/im-
| knodelexpress-ge...
| stavros wrote:
| What's the Polish train hacking debacle? The thing where the
| company added software so the train disabled itself if repaired
| anywhere other than company headquarters? Who are the saboteurs
| in that case? The manufacturing company itself?
| wayvey wrote:
| Yes, it was found the manufacturer added undocumented
| software kill switches to the train software to get more
| maintenance work for themselves
| miki123211 wrote:
| There were actually two Polish train hacking debacles, and
| I'm not 100% sure which one the GP means.
|
| The one you describe is the more famous one, but there was
| another one a few months earlier, where a group of actually
| malicious hackers used simple radio signals to trigger
| emergency stops on dozens of trains over the course of a
| few days.[1]
|
| [1] https://www.wired.com/story/poland-train-radio-stop-
| attack/
| Kwpolska wrote:
| "Saboteurs" suggests it's the third-party-repair-
| prevention case. Stopping trains by playing the right
| tones on analog unencrypted radio (with the tones and
| frequencies being public knowledge) is hardly hacking
| anyway.
| wayvey wrote:
| This is what I was referring to
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38788360
| wouldbecouldbe wrote:
| My nephew would carry along official out of order stickers. Put
| it on the toilet, go in and lock it. Not all were clean, but
| easy free ride.
| Lio wrote:
| Yeah, that's less a clever "hack" and more just plain old
| fraud. Like putting a loop in an ATM and calling it free
| money.
|
| It's not a free ride, your nephew is just dishonest.
| IIAOPSW wrote:
| I don't envy anyone who's ridding toilet-class all the way.
| gumby wrote:
| At least they have a place to sit!
| dylan604 wrote:
| or a place to s^hit
| circuit10 wrote:
| https://xkcd.com/1494/
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| Oh it's still absolutely a clever hack. It's social
| engineering rather than a software hack, and it's _also_
| fraud, but the official sticker is definitely an example of
| playing within a system and testing its limits.
|
| It's not particularly admirable behavior, but it's not all
| that different in kind from using a whistle from a cereal
| box to make free phone calls.
| feurio wrote:
| You must be _so_ proud.
| ackbar03 wrote:
| So is this good or not good research? Can you make up your
| mind?
| rishav_sharan wrote:
| It's just shitty research
| _the_inflator wrote:
| Maybe some even more sinister monster could think of also
| poisoning the passengers with a laxative while locking the
| toilet doors. This sounds like a good script for a comic. ;)
| cat_plus_plus wrote:
| If playing with a bunch of buttons to see what happens is
| frowned upon, we have the worst possible denial of service
| attack on entire humanity by dumbing everyone down. It was not
| a given that toilet would get disabled and now the problem can
| be reported to manufacturer and fixed. If someone made it a
| habit to keep disabling toilets in every train deliberately,
| different story. Although fixing the flaw is still the most
| practical solution.
| madsbuch wrote:
| I would probably not use the word hacked here, more ruined - Yes,
| if we use things out of their intended use, block doors, forces
| switches even though locked, hold switches in intermediate
| states, it will ruin things.
|
| Maybe this is why toilets never work on trains when I need them.
| What a shame...
| rvnx wrote:
| It's a form of vandalism, breaking toilets for fun and bragging
| about it. Not cool.
|
| Of course you can damage or break any physical system if you
| apply too much force or use it the wrong way intentionally.
| stavros wrote:
| The author didn't break the toilet. I don't know why
| commenters here think he did.
| nsteel wrote:
| He is intentionally putting the toilet door controller into
| a state where a vacant toilet can no longer be accessed.
| That toilet is of no use to people needing the toilet ...
| he broke the toilet.
| hlandau wrote:
| Nothing intentional about it. I certainly wasn't
| expecting it to get wedged in the way it did.
|
| It was back to functioning normally only a short time
| later in any case.
| nsteel wrote:
| It reads as if the first time (of two) it was stuck this
| way. So, for some reason you tried playing around _again_
| with the lock?! Come on.
|
| In any case, on behalf of British train users, please
| stop occupying the toilet needlessly and playing with the
| door locks. What happens if you or the next person gets
| locked in there? What happens if someone thinks you're
| being suspicious and calls the transport police? The
| services are delayed enough as it is.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| If this were a system controlling a complicated device,
| perhaps.
|
| In this case, we're talking about a door and a sliding lock. A
| mechanical design would not have had any of these failure
| states. All the system needed, was to connect the locking
| switch to the physical door lock, and none of this would've
| caused a problem.
|
| If you're automating something as simple as a door lock, you
| need to be able to deal with this stuff. If you can't, stick to
| what works instead.
| madsbuch wrote:
| I mechanical system probably would not satisfy the
| requirements of a train toilet in a public train - in
| particular that it needs to be used by disabled people.
|
| Unless you have been a part of the design process of train
| toilets (and please enlighten me if you are) then your
| beliefs really does not justify vandalism of public
| amenities.
| stavros wrote:
| You're conflating "I found a way this toilet can be
| disabled and I'm writing about it" with "I disabled this
| toilet".
|
| If someone says "huh, I can just take this gum and walk out
| of the supermarket with it", calling them a thief is
| unwarranted.
| madsbuch wrote:
| what i intended to say was that the current design of the
| door probably has its reason in order to support disabled
| people.
|
| people who remove things from supermarkets without paying
| are thiefs regardless of they knew they did something
| illegal. In law it is never an argument that you didn't
| know the law this is principally your own responsibility.
| stavros wrote:
| The author didn't disable the door, or tamper with it. He
| pointed out that it _can_ be disabled.
|
| I'm not sure what your argument is, but if it's "bad
| people should stop doing bad things", I agree with you
| but I don't think it'll be very effective.
|
| If it's "people shouldn't point out flaws on things", I
| have to disagree.
| mmarx wrote:
| from the linked YouTube video:
|
| > This is the second time I've successfully tested this
| on a Class 800. For some reason this time I seem to have
| actually confused the toilet door controller enough that
| it decided "screw this" and went into out of order mode,
| which didn't happen the previous time.
|
| So, yes, the author _did_, in fact, disable the door.
| andrewaylett wrote:
| They didn't _intend_ to, though, and I can see why they
| wouldn 't expect it to actually break. I mean: why should
| it?
|
| _Actually doing_ the jumping out and leaving the cubicle
| locked and empty thing would be unethical. Seeing if it
| would be possible is less of an issue. Accidentally
| breaking something in the process is a hint not to try it
| a third time.
| lukan wrote:
| Was there anything wrong, with the good old mechanical locks in
| train toilets?
|
| I have seen so many (elderly) people struggle to properly use the
| fancy electric ones (and lots of embarrassment, with doors that
| were indeed not locked) and apparently some people have fun,
| intentionally disabling them. You know, some people sometimes
| just have a urgent buisness and are in need of a working toilet
| on a train.
| madsbuch wrote:
| My guess is that this type of round sliding door takes up much
| less space compared to solutions where you manually close the
| door. Unfortunately, manually round sliding doors can be very
| heavy to close. Especially for wheel chair users.
|
| My guess is that this is probably the only way, if you also
| want to support disabled users while ensuring them most agency
| in the intimate process of using a toilet.
| hlandau wrote:
| (Author here.) I have seen videos (not on trains) of one
| hybrid - a power-operated round sliding door, but with a
| physical lock on it, that hooks onto the door frame. So that
| would be one option.
|
| I think the current iteration is fine though - the
| replacement of the confusing "lock button" with the physical
| handle, even if emulated, is comprehensible to most, I would
| think. The "the door is now locked" voiceover also helps
| reassure people. (Most people are just trying to lock the
| door and not "fuzz test" the lock handle...)
| lukan wrote:
| Ah, you were the author as well. Have you noticed anyone
| from the train company about this flaw? (not saying that
| much would come out of it, but I think one should try)
| zilti wrote:
| I've just way too often seen these fake-physical locks be
| broken, or working in an unexpected way (with a fucking
| explanatory sticker with three lines of text explaining
| it). Who signs off on such crap?
| lukan wrote:
| "Who signs off on such crap?"
|
| Cynical me: people who benefit from the deal and don't
| have to use it themself.
| lukan wrote:
| This makes some sense, but I think you still could have used
| an actual mechanical lock on the door. So open and close
| still be buttons, but once the electric door closed, you
| engaged the lock (some electronics required there obviously,
| to tell the state to the system, so it does not try to open
| with the lock engaged).
| jeroenhd wrote:
| I'm not elderly yet, but I have struggled with a similar train
| toilet door. _Why_ does this stupid thing need a lock button?
| In what scenario do I want to go into a toilet, hit the "close
| door" button, and _not_ want the door to be locked? It didn't
| help that the design of the buttons wasn't particularly clear,
| either.
|
| I can see the benefit of the electric opening/closing
| mechanism, because sliding doors are heavy, but the lock
| should've been a physical mechanism, or at least acted like
| one.
| bemmu wrote:
| Without the lock button you could hit the "close door" button
| and leave the toilet while it is closing, and then no-one
| would be able to enter to unlock it. But I agree something
| familiarly mechanical with the mechanism clearly visible
| would be better than any fancy solution.
| madsbuch wrote:
| A physical lock can get stuck. Especially on a moving trains
| with vibrations that could tense up the door.
|
| Weakened people, anxious people and other people with
| disabilities need to be able to lock and unlock the doors
| without getting stuck.
|
| My guess is that the metaphor used for this train is too
| allow people full control over door lock.
|
| I don't think many people realise what it takes to build
| toilet in trains in a place like the UK where the disabled
| associations and protections are really strong.
| lukan wrote:
| "Weakened people, anxious people and other people with
| disabilities need to be able to lock and unlock the doors
| without getting stuck."
|
| I have never experienced a simple lock to get stuck, but
| there are panic buttons inside the toilets as well.
|
| "I don't think many people realise what it takes to build
| toilet in trains in a place like the UK where the disabled
| associations and protections are really strong."
|
| And I don't think this is a bad thing.
| madsbuch wrote:
| I never said it was a bad thing. I merely point out that
| is is ignorant to straight up believe that a "simple
| lock" is the solution without properly understanding the
| issue - just like you do.
| lukan wrote:
| Ah, I did not try to imply that you did. I was actually
| unsure how you meant it, but just wanted to emphasize
| anyway, that those regulations are very useful for
| disabled people. Because in most places, you would just
| get stuck using a wheelchair on your own. (German trains
| for example, in most trains you would just not get into -
| and if you managed to arrive at your destination, you
| might find out, that there are only stairs and no
| elevator, despite there should be one. But on this day
| they maybe changed the lane or whatever, they don't care.
| I noticed while travelling with a 2 person stroller)
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| The trains in the past two centuries: OH NOES.
|
| Seriously, why it was not a problem for _two_ centuries yet
| nowadays it 's suddenly a new problem which requires a
| complex, electromechanical computer operated solution?
| doix wrote:
| Because in the past people did not care about people with
| disabilities. It's like saying why we need wheel chair
| ramps when we didn't in the past.
|
| Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending the current
| implementation, but it makes sense to me to try and
| improve the world to make it more disability friendly.
| zilti wrote:
| But it isn't improving anything. Just like with the
| idiotic new door beeping the EU made mandatory, nobody
| can tell who it's actually for.
| hlandau wrote:
| Do you mean the exterior door beeping (officially known
| as a "hustle alarm" in the rail industry - now you know)?
| There has been a wave of adapting or replacing train door
| controllers to comply with the latest disability
| regulations recently. But all motorised train doors that
| I know of in the UK have had a hustle alarm.
|
| I don't much care for the new "compliant" controllers
| though, not least because the sounds they emanate are
| quite unpleasant and often much less nice than the ones
| emitted by the door systems they replaced. Older hustle
| alarms, etc. sounded like they were produced by something
| at least slightly polyphonic, whereas all of these new
| systems seem to produce all of their sounds via an ear-
| piercing piezo buzzer only.
|
| Besides the hustle alarm there's the sound to notify you
| the doors can now be opened (often not present on older,
| non-compliant systems, but now seemingly deemed
| required). I was always fond of the sound the Class
| 365/465 Networker used for this - an actual mechanical
| bell, which produced a pleasant sound. Of course it's now
| been torn out and retrofitted with an awful piezoelectric
| tone of the most ear-violating variety. It feels like
| nobody even tried to make these sounds pleasant, and
| probably went with a piezo buzzer rather than a
| mechanical bell because it costs less, and what hardware
| designer even knows how to integrate a mechanical bell
| these days?
|
| The closest to not having a hustle alarm I'm aware of in
| the UK is for London Underground and DLR stock, which
| basically starts to play the hustle alarm at the same
| time as the doors close, making it a bit of a token
| affair.
|
| Those interested in this sort of thing might be
| interested in this TfL report which actually studied in
| minute detail whether they should change the delay on the
| doors closing after the warning sounds. I encountered
| this once and was fascinated by the details. https://asse
| ts.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
|
| BTW, the applicable safety requirements standard for
| power-operated passenger train doors is GM/RT2473 (or its
| predecessor on older rolling stock, GO/OTS300). Don't ask
| me how I know this...
| SoftTalker wrote:
| An electronic lock can get stuck also. At least with the
| physical lock/sliding lever you have a chance to be able to
| force it open.
| lofaszvanitt wrote:
| Bullshite.
| userbinator wrote:
| _Weakened people, anxious people and other people with
| disabilities need to be able to lock and unlock the doors
| without getting stuck._
|
| Simple levers don't need much force to operate.
|
| The idea of a motorised door and the rest of that automated
| mechanism just scares me. There's so much more complexity
| and points of failure that I could imagine someone getting
| crushed if other interlocks fail, or otherwise having the
| door open / close unexpectedly.
| Eisenstein wrote:
| They mention it in the article but it is to keep people from
| pressing 'close' and then jumping out while it closes and
| becomes unable to be opened from the outside.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Your question is answered at the start of the article, which
| also shows a photograph of your suggested solution on the
| newest trains in use in Britain.
| PeterisP wrote:
| The context here is toilets specifically designed for disabled
| people. Some disabilities make it very hard to operate latches
| or levers, and in that context pushing a button is considered
| the more accessible control option.
| Kwpolska wrote:
| How common are those disabilities, compared to people
| confused by the buttons? Is turning the lock really that
| different to pushing a button?
| PeterisP wrote:
| They are rare, but if you build a specific toilet targeted
| for people with disabilities (next to ordinary, simpler,
| smaller toilets) then you generally try to make it as
| accessible as you reasonably can and target a wide variety
| of different disabilities. Such toilets tend to have _many_
| adaptations e.g. different controls for faucets on the
| sink, different handling of toilet paper, different
| dimensions and spacing, etc.; and yes, for some people a
| button instead of a knob that needs to be turned is all the
| difference in the world, as they simply can 't turn a knob.
| For a trivial (but not nearly the only) scenario imagine a
| person with prosthetic hands, or extremely limited grip
| strength caused by e.g. some cases of cerebral palsy.
| userbinator wrote:
| _Was there anything wrong, with the good old mechanical locks
| in train toilets?_
|
| The only thing wrong was the fact that they weren't "modern"
| enough, i.e. too simple and predictable.
|
| That said, you can easily "DoS" a mechanical lock too, if it
| doesn't have any form of interlock. Everyone who has locked
| themselves out of cars and buildings (e.g. leaving the key
| inside) will clearly remember this.
| ozim wrote:
| Just as thought excercise:
|
| - mechanical cannot be easily unlocked by conductors in case of
| emergency - mechanical would break more often because people
| don't care and would push on door even if it is occupied. - in
| a hurry might be more convenient to simply push button assuming
| one is already familiar with the system. - having only buttons
| it is easier to keep it clean and having people less contact
| with door handles/latches. - can be automatically locked on
| stations so people use them between stations so you don't get
| foul smells while boarding and waiting
| Popeyes wrote:
| UK train toilets are a classic in the bad design book. You have
| people who haven't locked the door being exposed to the carriage,
| you have people unable to close the door and people unable to
| open the door. And that's if you manage to get to the toilet and
| it hasn't been ruined by a previous occupant.
| midasuni wrote:
| Older toilets were far smaller with a normal kayak handle which
| opened and closed quickly and had a big simple lock.
|
| However those don't work with some passengers - wheelchair
| users for example, people with difficultiy holding handles etc.
|
| Making toilets more accessible for some groups makes them less
| accessible for others (. As a society we choose what level to
| have it at.
|
| Some trains in the U.K. have a good balance - a large
| wheelchair accessible toilet, and a small traditional one,
| although they sometimes struggle with communicating it.
| zilti wrote:
| That's a nice excuse at first sight, but there is no reason
| not to just use a normal, physical lock, instead of making
| the lock worse for absolutely _everyone_ and excusing it with
| "but accessibility!", all because a few people with lots of
| good intentions but absolutely no clue at all want to pat
| each other's backs for being oh so considerate.
| arp242 wrote:
| The increased size is indeed very nice from an accessibility
| perspective, but it seems to me that practically everyone
| capable of going to the lavatory on their own is also capable
| of operating a (well-designed) mechanical lock on their own.
| And for everyone who needs help to do this it's a non-issue
| because the person helping them can close and lock the door.
|
| The caveat here is that I'm not an expert on this, and that
| I'm possibly argueing from a position of ignorance. But none
| of the people claiming accessibility benefits (there are
| several) have made a very convincing case, beyond a mere
| assertion that it's more accessible. The door design as such
| _is_ more accessible, but I don 't think it actually matters
| in this context.
| midasuni wrote:
| You're right that a normal toilet can have an appropiate
| physical handle. Howver normal toilets are easy to push
| open as they aren't moving. Opening a large (and thus
| heavy) swing door, wide enough to allow a chair to get in,
| manoeuvre, and close, without it smashing back when the
| train lurches, doesn't work, meaning a sliding doors which
| isn't appropriate.
|
| As such the solution is an electronic sliding door (as many
| couldn't provide enough strength over distance to open a
| sliding door manually), meaning an open/close button
|
| Once you have that feature adding an electric lock makes
| sense. A physical lock would be trickier to incorporate.
| LASR wrote:
| These mechanical hacks are always fun to discover. Although, that
| poor soul waiting for the toilet, just to find that it was locked
| with nobody inside - that could be you.
|
| These things are harder to test. It's not just software and state
| machines.
|
| And then there are the truly dangerous mechanical "hacks". Eg the
| radiology machine that incorrectly dosed radiation. Therac-25.
| rvnx wrote:
| It's more as if you say "ok if I put glue inside the keylock of
| someones car, then it will be very difficult to open it, see
| this is unsafe"
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| It's more like they created a defective system whose safety
| features can be overcome. Just like this disaster here:
|
| https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/a-legal-and-moral-
| questi...
|
| > require McDonnell Douglas to redesign the door locking
| system so that it would be "physically impossible to position
| the external locking handle and vent door to their normal
| locking positions unless the locking pins are fully engaged."
| mst wrote:
| Seems like given all he did was wiggle a handle it could also
| potentially happen accidentally.
|
| The glue comparison would be more akin to him breaking out
| logic probes.
| zabzonk wrote:
| ha! this reminded me of 1969 when i rode from my english boarding
| school to my parent's flat in paris, france. my dad was working
| from the UK embassy, helping to organise the RAF stuff at the
| paris airshow. i was about 15.
|
| i got down to dover and across the channel ok, but at calais the
| trains were all screwed up. i had a seat reserved but it was
| filled with an elderly frenchwoman in full black regalia who
| womanfully resisted all efforts of me and the train conductor to
| pry her out of it.
|
| i retreated to the loo (train was packed) and spent the next hour
| or so pretending dire gastric problems.
| LtWorf wrote:
| This is completely unbelievable.
| zabzonk wrote:
| it is entirely true - why would you doubt it?
| fifilura wrote:
| I have actually been in a situation where the motorized door
| started opening when I was doing my thing. On a train in Sweden.
|
| I had the handle in reach so I tried to push it back, but
| eventually I had to prioritize getting my trousers on.
|
| Also in this kind of car the toilet is wider than a usual double
| seat so there were actually seats outside facing the toilet.
|
| Rather embarrasing situation but we are all born naked so it was
| mostly a fun story.
|
| I have no idea what happened, i was not curious enough to go back
| and investigate, I just got back into my seat and tried to look
| invisible.
| NikkiA wrote:
| Here in the UK the pendolino class trains, at least while
| operated by Virgin, were notorious for entering into an
| oscillating open/close loop. So much so that several times the
| staff would announce which cars had working toilets after each
| pickup station. Often times, apologising for the smell in the
| other cars.
| wkjagt wrote:
| I don't understand why we have to put microcontrollers in
| everything. I think a toilet on a train is basically the same use
| case as a toilet on a plane and all the planes I've been on, all
| had an old fashioned sliding lock mechanism that works totally
| ok. I wonder if the train bathroom the poster describes has a
| timer to avoid people from occupying the bathroom for the
| complete duration of the journey, and that's why a mechanical
| lock won't work?
| hlandau wrote:
| The microcontroller obsession is real. As is the desire to do
| everything via software and not mechanically - see touchscreens
| in cars. I'm pretty sure it's because as developers, we're
| addicted to the notion of making everything software-defined so
| you can change everything later if needed. As a developer it's
| a thought process I understand well, but seems to increasingly
| lead to detrimental outcomes, like the extreme
| touchscreenisation of cars - awful from a safety perspective.
|
| I am told that "superloos" (those automated self-cleaning
| toilets installed on the pavement) do have some kind of time
| limit and will play some kind of audial warning a few minutes
| before opening.
|
| More concerning about those toilets are stories where people
| somehow managed to be inside the toilet when the self-cleaning
| process started (which involved the entire chamber being filled
| with liquid). Supposedly this would happen when someone used
| the toilet, but held the door open as they left so someone else
| could use it without paying. The toilet, then thinking it was
| empty, proceeds to unwittingly try and drown the "undeclared"
| occupant.
| wkjagt wrote:
| I can't imagine there not being some kind of "hey I'm still
| in here" button or slider or whatever. Preferably not
| electronic.
| hoc wrote:
| Are there really toilets that are filled with liquid?
| astura wrote:
| No, that would be extremely wasteful, impractical, and
| ineffective.
| morsch wrote:
| You're saying the entire indoor volume of the "superloo" gets
| flooded with water, like a sinking submarine? Don't be
| absurd. That'd be a monumental waste of water and it wouldn't
| even clean that well.
| hlandau wrote:
| It sounds odd to me. I'm merely recollecting a news report
| from probably about 20 years ago, which is probably going
| to be hard to dig up. If it's another case of the press
| getting something totally wrong, that wouldn't be
| surprising.
| mst wrote:
| I would imagine getting suddenly sprayed with cleaning
| solution from multiple directions is probably
| sufficiently unpleasant that it will get exaggerated as
| it's re-told.
|
| And "the entire chamber being -sprayed- with liquid" plus
| "I felt like I was drowning" could easily get misquoted
| as well (or misremembered, 20 years ago is certainly more
| than long enough for me to screw up details).
|
| So my guess is that what actually happened is something
| of that ilk.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| In some you'd get doused. In others you'd get crushed _[0]_
|
| _0:https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-64430454_
| phero_cnstrcts wrote:
| It's not because developers want to work with toilets or
| other mundane things. Is because the system we all live in
| has become obsessed with taking everything we do.
| dennis_jeeves2 wrote:
| >>we're addicted to the notion of making everything software-
| defined so you can change everything later if needed.
|
| Man, hammer, nail, etc
| dylan604 wrote:
| whale?
| lxgr wrote:
| > which involved the entire chamber being filled with liquid
|
| It doesn't. That would use way too much water and not even be
| a good way to clean surfaces.
|
| There's jets of pressurized water spraying and sometimes (I
| believe) air to dry everything afterwards, so the worst that
| would happen is that the person inside would get an
| unexpected shower:
|
| https://youtube.com/shorts/4o6pzvn_tkc?si=xvw1X0HwwTY8jifw
| dylan604 wrote:
| oh gawd, is this the trend of videos now? i knew we had
| gotten bad, but this is just wow. is this one of those
| situations where if you give speed to an adhd person,
| things become calmer for them? so if you have adhd, this
| seems normal?
| aidanhasaknife wrote:
| digitally-mediated autism is a form of environmental
| autism !
| Symbiote wrote:
| Another difference is a train toilet has to allow unassisted
| use by a wheelchair user.
| wkjagt wrote:
| Yes this is true. But I don't think you need electronics for
| that. Or maybe for opening and closing the door, but not for
| locking?
| hlandau wrote:
| Somewhat related, I just discovered that the Boeing 737MAX
| replaces the CDU keyboard in the cockpit with a touchscreen
| emulating the same keyboard.
|
| https://www.gableseng.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/G7330-....
|
| I am lost for words...
| Gare wrote:
| This actually makes sense from maintenance/reliability
| perspective.
| etskinner wrote:
| And it makes no sense from a usability/safety perspective.
|
| Touchscreens are harder to hit buttons right when you're
| being jostled about by turbulence. Not to mention how easy
| it is to hit the wrong button even when there's no
| turbulence. Have you noticed how liberal all smartphones
| are with autocorrect lately?
| userbinator wrote:
| Also the fact that with a set of switches, if one doesn't
| work, it doesn't affect the others. Touchscreens seem to
| fail all-or-nothing, or at least have large areas
| suddenly become unusable.
| hlandau wrote:
| This doesn't pass the smell test at all. There are multiple
| redundant CDUs and I'm not aware of any reliability issues
| with their keyboards in the countless other aircraft models
| which use them. And I second everything @etskinner just
| said above.
|
| It's 100% about programmers wanting to make everything
| software defined.
| BHSPitMonkey wrote:
| I really doubt this was made because a programmer asked
| for it. It's likely way cheaper to manufacturer than the
| part it replaces.
| Kwpolska wrote:
| Not really. It's a cost-cutting measure. Keeping the old UI
| lets them pretend it's the same plane as the original model
| from the 60s and pilots don't need training.
| coryrc wrote:
| Are they needed in emergency situations?
| avianlyric wrote:
| I suspect it just boils down to minimising the number tasks
| staff are responsible for, so you can reduce the number of
| staff needed. Aircraft need to have attendants for safety
| reasons, and the minimum number of attendants is dictated by
| the number of passengers. Most of the time airplanes aren't in
| emergency situations, so you're got lots of spare staff aboard,
| and you can use them to look after toilets and feed passengers.
|
| Trains on the other don't have such minimum staffing
| requirements and usually operate with only one or two staff
| total (driver plus maybe a ticket inspector). Train operators
| want to keep staff on train to an absolute minimum (people cost
| money after all), but those staff still have some safety
| responsibilities which can't be removed. Instead you try to
| remove every other responsibility they might have, such as
| dealing with toilets.
|
| Automated toilets means the toilets themselves can be
| responsible for the vast majority of their operations, and can
| be trusted to fail safe if something unexpected happens.
| Meaning there's no need for staff to perform regular
| inspections while the train is in service, and no need to worry
| about something going silently wrong and hurting someone.
| Instead the toilets can ensure that unsafe situations don't
| happen, and proactively alert staff if something unsafe does
| happen.
| midasuni wrote:
| An old fashioned handle and lock is about as low maintenance
| as you can get - far less than a complex locking mechanism
| requiring a computer reboot from the cab to handle when a
| passenger gets stuck in because they can't figure out the
| "open" butto
| sjducb wrote:
| It's there for disabled accessibility. The manual lock can be
| difficult from a wheelchair.
| wiedelphine wrote:
| I had a similar thought untill I read that actually for or
| people with motor/muscle issues issues, a push button or
| something like the lever in the above which doesnt require
| physical strength is much easier.
|
| I think the original introduction of the button was due to
| accessiblity. my understanding is that on newer planes they are
| trying to move towards a similar system for the same reasons.
| gumby wrote:
| A lot of it is reduced BOM. You can get a more robust solenoid
| lock and control it with a microprocessor for less than the
| cost of a robust, fully mechanical system, which is a system
| that needs mechanical maintenance and is subject to all sorts
| of false inputs like people putting all their weight on a
| lever.
|
| Buttons flush with the surface or low profile levers such as
| the ones shown in the picture can be more robust against
| certain mechanical attacks simply by having lower weight, lower
| travel, and being smaller (don't need to exhibit mechanical
| advantage).
|
| I'm a fan of simple mechanisms with no software in them
| whenever possible, but I don't have to deal with the cost and
| reliability problems.
| Sakthimm wrote:
| Won't a solenoid lock with microcontroller circuitry have a
| higher risk of failure due to water damage, power surges, and
| other factors(software bugs, hackers, cosmic rays!), in
| addition to wear and tear of a mechanical lock?
| gumby wrote:
| Probably not for some of the reasons described. The
| maintenance issues are part of the customer TCO.
|
| Nobody (neither mfr nor customer) takes this path for the
| sex appeal. This is a B2B product (train car) so BOM and
| TCO drive everything.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| The problem here is that the customer is not the
| passenger.
| gumby wrote:
| Well, it's not such a big problem as it is in, say,
| health care.
|
| It's in the train co's interest to have working toilets
| (not too many, because they displace seats but some) and
| have them reliable and easy to maintain (else costs go
| up, maybe even they need more per train). This is why
| they care about a denial of service attack (btw an
| electronic one can tell the conductor when the toilet is
| locked for a grossly atypical duration).
|
| So to that degree the interest of the carrier and the
| passenger are aligned. This applies to most of the
| carriage decisions (robust seating, working doors and
| brakes, and so on).
| Beldin wrote:
| > _It's in the train co's interest ..._
|
| But the if the trains pass first inspection, then it no
| longer is a development issue but a maintenance issue.
| [1]
|
| It's not as if train companies can afford to run a
| statistically significant number of carriages from
| different suppliers to see which one gives them the
| actual best bang for buck 5 years down the road.
|
| [1] Rule-proving exception: the Fyra trains.
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyra
|
| The short version: high speed trains failed and were
| eventually returned (2014) to the manufacturer for
| ~2/3rds of new price. (That's the exception part.) There
| have not been high speed trains on this traject since.
| (That's the rule-conforming part.)
| lofaszvanitt wrote:
| Seems a bit overengineered. Especially when you are in a rush,
| the last thing you want is fiddling with locking mechanisms.
| You want to control the door yourself. Swing it open, then slam
| it, and shut it asap.
| sschueller wrote:
| Train toilets have become complex systems since the days of
| there just being basically a hole the floor. This is due to
| many factors such as not having to prevent people from using
| them when at a station or people getting hit by sewage in the
| country side when a train passes. Additionally the toilets need
| to be accessible and environmental friendly nowadays.
|
| Sadly all of this adds complexity and more possibilities for
| failure.
|
| In Switzerland we have bioreactors [1] in newer trains which
| are like a mini sewage treatment plants. These are still very
| new and still have bugs that are being worked out such as how
| much oxygen needs to be provided etc. Until recently it caused
| a bad smell at the main station which is ironic since that is
| what we used to have in the 80s with the old dumb toilets.
|
| [1] https://news.sbb.ch/artikel/114447/unangenehmer-geruch-
| aus-b... (German)
| fransje26 wrote:
| Yes, but nothing in your answer actually justifies why the
| locking mechanism needs to be so complicated. As the previous
| poster rightly pointed out, airplanes are also not slinging
| shit overboard at Mach 0.8, and they manage with a perfectly
| simple sliding mechanism. Or, staying with modern trains, the
| French TGVs also don't have such an over-engineered
| solution.. Although, agreed, they don't have on board nuclear
| reactors to prenuke their toilet waste.. That might warrant a
| 3 button system with voice control..
| midasuni wrote:
| There's no reason you can't flush in a station - modern
| trains don't just drop onto the track (and people have to
| work on the track, so the station is just a PR thing to avoid
| offending passengers)
|
| In the U.K. any train from the last 30 years fills a tank,
| like an RV, including ones with physical locks.
| londons_explore wrote:
| These train door locks also report to a light at the front of
| the train that the toilet is occupied. That way you know where
| on the train the nearest unoccupied toilet is, and can decide
| to stay in your seat a bit longer or venture to a further away
| part of the train if your need is desperate.
|
| They also auto-close the toilet door when not in use to keep
| smells away.
|
| And the main reason: Doors aren't really wheelchair friendly -
| many wheelchair users aren't strong or agile enough to move a
| door.
|
| With those 3 things to deal with, it's pretty hard to design a
| mechanical door system that can meet everyone's requirements.
|
| Having said that, the UI could certainly be better. I would
| personally have had the 'close' button require to be held down
| the whole time the door is closing. If you release the button
| early, the door opens again. Only when it is fully closed will
| it then stay closed and 'locked'. No need for an actual
| mechanical lock, but there should be a big red padlock light
| that comes on.
| zettabomb wrote:
| While that certainly explains _why_ they might use a
| microcontroller, it 's certainly not necessary. The lock can
| be connected to a simple switch used for signalling
| occupancy, same as any security or commercial fire protection
| system. Auto-closing and auto-opening are akin to an
| automatic door, which operates just fine as a regular door,
| but has a fairly dumb motor attached for accessibility.
| Perhaps the microcontroller solution ended up being cheaper -
| but based on this (particularly going to out of order after
| such a trivial "hack"), the mechanical solution is far more
| robust, because at worst you can still operate the door
| manually.
| beau_g wrote:
| It's a treasure trove of data to know the bathroom utilization
| rate normalized for passenger volume and time spent per
| session. Maybe train bathrooms are highly unoptimized. Do
| trains which frequent downtown areas with bars and sports
| stadiums need more bathrooms? Maybe there is some kind of flex
| use option for low passenger count trains to make use of that
| space but also provide a buffer for commute hours? Does the
| speed/acceleration/jerk of the train impact bathroom habits?
| Could this be used as an early warning system for possible food
| poisoning outbreaks? How can all of this be factored into ads
| we can serve the bathroom user?
| IshKebab wrote:
| People definitely got confused by the old design, but I don't
| understand why they didn't go with the obvious fix: just add an
| unlock button.
|
| Or use a mechanical lock that people can obviously trust.
|
| The worst designed toilet lock I ever saw was some kind of weird
| button you push to lock it. It was so untrustworthy (in the sense
| that you couldn't tell if it had really locked) that the owners
| had put up a sign explaining exactly what to do to lock the door
| and that yes it really was locked.
| mst wrote:
| > Of course, there is a reason for the separation of the closing
| and locking functions, but not the opening and unlocking
| functions: it avoids a Denial of Service attack where someone can
| just press "close" and then jump out before the door closes. If
| the interior "close" button automatically locked the door, this
| would result in the toilet becoming permanently inaccessible.
|
| There was a class of rolling stock used on UK lines (I
| encountered them over near Bradford IIRC) that had precisely that
| misdesign for the inside close button.
|
| I had to be really careful using those because my natural reflex
| is to hit 'close' on my way out for tidiness' sake, and I think I
| actually -did- the first time I used one of those and only
| realised what I'd done to my fellow commuters immediately after I
| heard the click.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| > Of course, there is a reason for the separation of the closing
| and locking functions, but not the opening and unlocking
| functions: it avoids a Denial of Service attack where someone can
| just press "close" and then jump out before the door closes. If
| the interior "close" button automatically locked the door, this
| would result in the toilet becoming permanently inaccessible.
|
| This was done in my elementary school (~7-15yo) "back in my
| times", with analog doors with hand-turned locks. Those door
| locks usually had a 'screw-like' interface on the outside
| (similar to this: https://m.media-
| amazon.com/images/I/51KhCg9ZDFL.jpg ), so one of the kids would
| "have to pee" 5 minutes before the end of the lesson, go to the
| toilets and lock all the doors from outside with a
| screwdriver/swiss army knife so all of the toilet stalls would
| seem occupied.
| Metacelsus wrote:
| In elementary school I would lock the stall from inside, and
| then climb over the top :)
| grishka wrote:
| You guys had stalls with doors and locks in your school
| toilets? Fancy.
| Loughla wrote:
| We had dividers that went to your chest height and no
| doors. Like a prison.
|
| This was to eliminate smoking in the bathrooms.
|
| It did, and nobody used them.
|
| We just smoked outside the back of the building.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| We had full on stalls with brick/cement walls up to the
| ceiling (stall sized still, but private), so even the
| farts were muffled. Communist construction was no joke.
| Later in college, with some "modernized", capitalist
| toilets, we got an "open room", thin wooden "walls" that
| left the botton 20 centimeters open and left a gap on
| top.
|
| In the old part of the buildings, we still had proper
| stalls, some even with a small sink inside the stall.
| brnt wrote:
| I could never do number two in those board separated
| toilets. This was primary school, fortunately my high
| school had proper toilets.
| owl57 wrote:
| > We just smoked outside the back of the building.
|
| I don't care if someone smokes, as long as I don't have
| to inhale the smoke. A lot of campaigns against smoking
| in public places, from school until today, made life
| unpleasant and dangerous for people like me: smoke filled
| the few remaining non-enforced places, from bathrooms to
| elevators to airport exits. Turns out there's correlation
| between "smoking ban not enforced" and "I can't avoid
| going there". Whenever they instead end up with smokers
| gathering in the corner of the street I know to avoid:
| that's great, hope that no one disturbs smoking in that
| corner as long as possible!
| jack_riminton wrote:
| This isn't a hack
| lofaszvanitt wrote:
| Guy moves like some archenemy from a game :D.
| eCa wrote:
| > Of course, there is a reason for the separation of the closing
| and locking functions, but not the opening and unlocking
| functions
|
| There's also a psychological aspect to performing the separate
| action of locking.
|
| There are trains in Denmark that only have the 'close' button.
| Quite jarring the first time.
| ijhuygft776 wrote:
| bad design... almost as bad as most software.
| userbinator wrote:
| A traditional sliding deadbolt[1], which cannot be locked while
| the door is open since the tongue will prevent the door from
| closing completely, takes very little force to operate (for those
| arguing that this overly complex design is "because
| accessibility"), and can be combined with a switch to prevent the
| power operated mechanism from attempting to move the door if the
| lock isn't all the way open (i.e. the switch actuates before the
| tongue protrudes.)
|
| But in this case they clearly attempted to complicate things as
| much as possible, so no surprise that additional edge-case bugs
| and points of failure were also introduced.
|
| [1] https://i.redd.it/3mclitgdus6b1.jpg
| LtWorf wrote:
| And how do you deal when someone felt sick inside a toilet? Or
| when a little child locked himself and can't unlock? Or when
| someone without a ticket went in?
| userbinator wrote:
| _And how do you deal when someone felt sick inside a toilet?
| Or when a little child locked himself and can 't unlock?_
|
| You add a mechanical override cylinder. Conversely, I could
| ask "how do you deal with electronic failures that leave the
| door locked?"
|
| _Or when someone without a ticket went in?_
|
| If you got on the train, you already have a ticket. Or do you
| need a separate ticket just to enter the toilet(!?)
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