[HN Gopher] We've not been trained for this: life after the Newa...
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We've not been trained for this: life after the Newag DRM
disclosure [video]
Author : doener
Score : 336 points
Date : 2024-12-29 09:48 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (media.ccc.de)
(TXT) w3m dump (media.ccc.de)
| aszantu wrote:
| I think i've seen the first part of this problem a while ago.
| Good stuff
| KORraN wrote:
| Related: original story from one year ago -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38788360
| progbits wrote:
| There must be strong punishment for frivolous lawsuits. This
| company is entirely in the wrong and the execs should be in
| prison, but instead they are wasting time and money with the
| copyright and other bullshit, trying to demotivate and distract
| the researchers.
| visarga wrote:
| > they are wasting time and money with the copyright and other
| bullshit
|
| One more reason copyright deserves to die.
| CuriouslyC wrote:
| Maybe not die, just get reformed and shortened considerably
| 93po wrote:
| I think intellectual property is a really bad concept, but
| I will acquiesce that short-term protection on _some_
| ideas, which can faithfully accounted back to significant
| investment cost, is a fair compromise. However this would
| never work well in our current system, and I 'd rather
| there simply be not IP laws at all.
| miki123211 wrote:
| Polish person here, as far as I understand, our SLAPP
| protections are basically nonexistent, which is why this is
| allowed to happen.
|
| In the US, a lawsuit like this would never fly.
| consp wrote:
| Im not familiar with polish law but does the loser pay all
| like in most other countries in the EU? (And pays more if
| deemed frivolous) does not solve the money up front problem
| but might bite them in the ass afterwards.
| jakozaur wrote:
| The loser pays, but the fees are capped in Poland
| relatively to low amount.
| throw5959 wrote:
| It's not a low amount to Polish people - it can approach
| the territory of entire monthly or yearly wages.
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| It's still a relatively low amount for bigger businesses.
| throw5959 wrote:
| Sure, the point is exactly that a bigger business has
| upper hand.
| jakozaur wrote:
| In the USA there are many lawsuits and they could bankrupt
| you just by making a painful discovery.
|
| Though Poland needs to modernize it's law.
| llm_trw wrote:
| A reminder that Musk was willing to spend $44b rather than
| go through discovery in a civil lawsuit. That should tell
| you something about how fucked the system is.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| Well, but Musk was going to loose anyway. His options
| were:
|
| - Pay $44 billion.
|
| - Pay $44 billion _and_ go through Discovery.
| llm_trw wrote:
| Option C). Pay 1 billion to keep the lawsuit going
| forever.
| gruez wrote:
| Can you really keep a lawsuit going "forever"? You'd
| probably run out of appeal options around 5-10 years in.
| freehorse wrote:
| Doubtful twitter would last more than the lawsuit
| arcticbull wrote:
| It was doing kinda okay actually, lol, it's doing much
| worse now.
| slater wrote:
| Ask Exxon
| gruez wrote:
| Surely there's a specific lawsuit you can refer to rather
| than pointing at a company and hoping that we can guess
| which case you're referring to?
| slater wrote:
| You're welcome:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exxon_Valdez_oil_spill#Liti
| gat...
| gruez wrote:
| Still not a specific case. If you're referring to Exxon
| Shipping Co. v. Baker, that was decided in 2008, so at
| most that's 19 years if the lawsuit was filed immediately
| after the spill. Granted, this is more than the "5-10
| years" I initially estimated, but the lengthy litigation
| is only over the punitive damages, so in the context of
| "Option C). Pay 1 billion to keep the lawsuit going
| forever.", that's not really applicable. At best you can
| keep litigation going for 19 years to avoid paying the
| full amount, but you're going to have to compensatory
| damages far before that.
| miki123211 wrote:
| This is what Alex Jones / Info Wars is trying to do; it's
| sort-of working in that things have taken longer than
| they otherwise would, but it's slowly coming to an end
| anyway.
| neltnerb wrote:
| I guess if you can manage 10 years there's a pretty high
| chance that the other side will give up, for instance
| https://commonwealthbeacon.org/environment/cape-wind-
| calls-q...
|
| Same as trying to do a construction project in San
| Francisco, people will come out of the woodwork [edit:
| meaning separate cases, but with the same basic goal]
| with tons of money and delay, delay, delay.
| https://www.wbur.org/news/2024/12/20/nefsa-new-england-
| fishe...
|
| Maybe they're right, maybe they're wrong, but clearly the
| tactic is to come up with any challenge that takes time
| to resolve whether reasonable or not just because of the
| time and expense.
| ajuc wrote:
| The basic difference that makes it slightly less of a deal
| than it looks like is - unlike in the US - the whole lawsuit
| costs in Poland are paid by the person that lost the case.
|
| The issue is still having the money when you need them before
| you win, and the lost time and nerves. Even choosing 2
| different courts in opposite sides of Poland is pointing at
| this tactic by Newag.
| jfengel wrote:
| The bar to proving SLAPP is quite high in the US. The
| protections do exist but they're so obscure and difficult
| that nobody feels safe, and invalid suits occur all the time.
| wombatpm wrote:
| The bar varies state by state. In CA it's reasonable, in TX
| not so much.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| SLAPP protections in the US vary by state because there is no
| federal anti-SLAPP statute [yet].
| arcticbull wrote:
| SLAPP laws in the US vary from place to place, from fairly
| strong to non-existent. California has strong anti-SLAPP
| protection, whereas Michigan and Alabama have none at all.
| There is no federal anti-SLAPP law. So at least federally and
| in certain US states such litigation would absolutely fly in
| the US.
| jdiez17 wrote:
| Delay, deflect, derail.
| phantom_wizard wrote:
| This "company" is strongly connected with previous government
| and their prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki (company owner is
| his close colleague), they work more like organized crime than
| legal entity copying the Russians. Sometimes, but not often,
| they even make some assassinations and I'm afraid it may be so
| in this case.
|
| There was a female deputy Magdalena Biejat, now a president
| candidate, who was trying to make some public inquiry but the
| deputies from other party prevented that.
|
| It all works because the former ruling party organized around
| themselves some kind of semi-religious cult consisting of
| around 1/3 of nation, usually older people that oppose
| everything they don't understand.
| praptak wrote:
| It was MPs from _both_ parties: Adamczyk (PiS) and Sowa (PO)
| who opposed the investigation[0].
|
| When it comes to "helping the business" both parties act the
| same way.
|
| [0] https://www.wnp.pl/logistyka/chca-by-sprawa-newagu-
| zajely-si...
| klausa wrote:
| I'm polish and I legitimately do not know what are you
| talking about.
|
| Mind expanding a bit about your perceived dramatis personae
| here?
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| Haven't you mistaken Magdalena Biejat (senator and
| presidential candidate) with Paulina Matysiak (deputy making
| inquiries, now sued by Newag as well)? They're coming from
| the same political background, but are in fact two distinct
| women :)
| whamlastxmas wrote:
| I think there should be professional association punishment for
| arguments presented in court that done so knowingly in bad
| faith. The examples given in the mental gymnastics used to
| claim copyright infringement is a great example. It's blatantly
| false and not true, and it's presented despite knowing it will
| be easily countered, because the FUD it provides to the jury
| makes it appear like a stronger case. It's arguing to prey on
| the vulnerabilities of human psychology rather than doing so in
| good faith and trying to represent someone's rights under the
| law.
| Kwpolska wrote:
| Previous discussion:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42524568
|
| If you want to donate to the legal effort, the CCC has started a
| legal fund: https://www.ccc.de/en/updates/2024/das-ist-vollig-
| entgleist
| grzaks wrote:
| Dragon Sector FTW. Trzymam kciuki!
| MrMcCall wrote:
| Not all heros wear capes. I love those guys.
|
| "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!" --RATM
|
| That is, IMO, the most important album of the 20th Century.
| praptak wrote:
| Newag, the company from the presentation is still getting fat
| government contracts: https://en.railmarket.com/news/rolling-
| stock/25459-newag-s-g...
| nicce wrote:
| :( Feels like the money is flowing into multiple directions.
| H8crilA wrote:
| I think it's a case where money / influence may indeed be
| flowing in both directions, but fundamentally the trains are
| working. Unless they experience the International Compressor
| Failure Day, or randomly clip GPS coordinates of a "dead
| zone" and simply refuse to move forward - but that just means
| some money hadn't flown where some crooked people expected it
| to flow.
|
| One thing that is unclear to me is who is backing whom. The
| Left / Together Party backs our guys - no surprise there, all
| lefties love trains. But they are not such a big party in
| Poland, they can raise some ruckus in the media but I am not
| sure they can offer comprehensive legal/political backing in
| order to score a victory. They certainly would like to, it's
| a great story that would add them some voters.
| ajuc wrote:
| These things are pretty random and don't usually align with
| party boundaries. Train lovers / open source / hacker
| communities are marginal interests groups. If a MP is from
| the region where the factory is - he might support it just
| because of that. Morawiecki famously has close friends in
| Newag board and PIS as a whole is on the Newag side it
| seems.
|
| Razem has Paulina Matysiak who is a big train nerd so she's
| on the right side of this issue, but for a few decades the
| biggest supporter of hacking/open source culture in Poland
| was PSL's Waldemar Pawlak (he even organized Linux
| conferences in Palace of Culture :) ). I only found out
| when I attended one such conference in late 2000s and he
| had a presentation about Linux/Open Source in
| administration. It did not seem to turn the whole PSL into
| open source supporters and their image of backward/naive
| farmers certainly doesn't match with that.
|
| Whenever there's some politicized case parties switch sides
| depending on temporary interests (see protests against ACTA
| back in 2011 vs PIS defending their Pegasus affair and
| spying on opposition members and journalists in 2060-2022).
| Kwpolska wrote:
| They can't be banned from participating in public tenders
| without due process. Tenders tend to have the price as the most
| important factor in choosing the winner.
| solarkraft wrote:
| Tenders also tend to have specific requirements and "don't
| sabotage the trains" seems like it would be a useful one
| lifestyleguru wrote:
| This happens in every industry heavily interconnected with
| politics. An individual revealing fraud or corruption is subject
| to regular bullying and stalking or to SLAPP when the case has
| gained publicity. Only now the German and American standards have
| arrived to Poland, long awaited.
| lousken wrote:
| shouldn't EU also investigate this a little?
| gostsamo wrote:
| The EU is not a federal government. It can investigate only if
| there is misuse of EU budget money or the country government is
| breaching it's union obligations. Otherwise, the country aligns
| its laws to the common european framework and then the country
| government is responsible for investigating when someone breaks
| those laws.
| ajuc wrote:
| It's VERY unlikely EU funds were never involved. Public
| transport and transport infrastructure is often incentivized
| with public money, usually with EU participation. It's hard
| to find big projects that had 0 EU funding.
| throw5959 wrote:
| It's not a magic spell that works across corporate entity
| boundaries. The company itself must have taken a relevant
| contract project. There must be a clear intent to defraud
| the EU fund (defrauding others is not enough).
| csdreamer7 wrote:
| > There must be a clear intent to defraud the EU fund
| (defrauding others is not enough).
|
| Saying defrauding others does not seem right to me. If
| you defraud a distributor of EU funds, that may have
| impacted EU funds; they would have a claim.
|
| Do you have a source for your assertion?
| Uw5ssYPc wrote:
| Skilled polish hackers exposed corpo greed. Well done!
| MrMcCall wrote:
| What has been kept in the shadows will be brought into the
| light.
|
| Vampires fear the light of truth for good and proper reasons.
| ozim wrote:
| As much as I support and vouch for the guys.
|
| Go public earlier is BS - they went public a year ago when it was
| clear there is political change in PL.
|
| If they would go public in before government change it could have
| been tragic ( company and company ownership is tightly coupled
| with prev political power). If previous political power would
| stay in power I do not believe they would go public.
|
| As much as they are showing in presentation work was done when
| previous political power was still strong - well good that they
| went public in the end but I do believe there still was shitload
| of calculations.
|
| So if you want to go public watch out calculate best possible
| time. As much as guys are great don't believe it is pure heroism
| - pure heroism is stupid - so they did right thing at right time.
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