Norway Reviews Cybersecurity After Remote-Access Feature Found in Chinese Buses

Press release (Norwegian): https://www.mynewsdesk.com/no/ruter/pressreleases/ruter-tar-...

And that's what they did. If that was necessary for the conclusions is not said in the article. Only that the remote access could

  - Update software (well, that's pretty common)  
  - Diagnosis (ditto), and 
  - Manage the control system for battery and power supply. 

Even you admit that most of them aren't for remote control, so what are you agreeing with?

They want to retain the power of discretionary action. If the powers that be employed their 1984 stuff all the time over trivial things people wouldn't support them. Part of this means they don't give the beat cops those toys.

Also, there's a difference between "can be" and "are". Like there's god knows how many numbers of compatibility layers and intermediary systems I bet even if the capability exists it's broken more often than it's not. Diverse software systems take a ton of constant work to maintain.

During the "last years of XP" era you probably could have theoretically taken down half the world's industry on paper but if you tried to do so at scale without literal years of prep and testing you'd have been foiled by the 50% of machines where you payload just didn't work for some obscure reason.

Here, an article (from June 2025) about Chinese buses full of cameras and other sensors driven regularly inside secret Norwegian army bases. Those buses are to be used during a war or a crisis.

By tecchies.

That’s like adding “In Mice,” to headlines of biological breakthroughs.

It’s quite clear that a fairly significant majority of customers don’t hate Apple. They aren’t “brand slaves,” like Harley riders (anymore), but people clearly vote with their wallets.

Microsoft always had the “My work requires it” thing going, but only a couple of industries are majority Apple.

Like it or not, people pay personal money for Apple kit, and they are a demographic that marketers drool over.

And those buses stink like inside of a plastic factory. Never been to a plastic factory, but rode these buses. And the smell is strong even a year into use. Makes you wonder if China has same rules for carcinogenic plastic in consumer goods.

For context, for a short while I wrote SW for auto BCM's albeit the security stuff not the drive your batteries stuff.

I need to re-read that book, one of my all time favourites.

God?

The ones at the top, assuming they're not asleep/drunk at the wheel/there at all, don't have to do much. The machine operates itself.

If you have two large, slow, bureaucratic and uncompetitive companies, then merging them together won't make the resulting giant less so, but the contrary, it'll be even more inefficient and uncompetitive, and then expect government bailouts because now they're too big to fail.

The things you see in EU public tenders is just amazing, especially when they's little to no competition.

Your second sentence is quite a jump, however: "It won't be as big, so there's no point in trying to compete at all."

> ...acknowledging mistakes made in the past "

That's falling somewhat short of admitting she alone fucked that situation up. The US and Canada had already given permission for the merge to bypass antitrust laws.

I that regard I guess the anti-monopoly law is working ?

The remark stands as yet another regrettable instance of history echoing itself – a lamentable parallel to that uttered by Sir Claude Maxwell MacDonald, whose acquisition of a 99-year lease over the New Territories of Hong Kong on behalf of the British Crown from the Qing dynasty was justified with the breathtakingly short-sighted assertion that it was «as good as forever».

One observes, with increasing weariness, that politicians – regardless of generation or supposed pedigree – remain obstinately immune to the most elementary of truths: history is neither linear nor predictable. It twists, recoils, and devours the complacent. Political decision-making, therefore, ought never be entrusted to those governed by the ephemeral whims of populism – it demands the discipline, foresight, and cold precision of a strategist trained not merely to react, but to foresee. Alas – such minds are in tragically short supply.

The two train companies that couldn't merge can still make trains, and still sell them to whomever they want. European purchasers can still buy them. And after reading articles like this one, these two companies have a big competitive advantage: they don't include Chinese backdoors. Maybe they're small now, but if the Chinese train/bus/etc. manufacturing companies end up being blacklisted in the EU, these two companies will grow. And, better yet, there will still be some healthy competition in the space.

I'd like to post some questions for thought:

1. What is exactly the bidding process of that particular transaction the OP described?

2. What is exactly in the contract? Does it force the Chinese company to use a lot of local companies for sub-contracting, at the same time keeping a very low profit? In essence, this basically means the EU companies grabbed the biggest share while the Chinese company just got the job. I'm not saying this is the case, but I highly doubt it IS the case as I heard similar stories from other companies.

Poland put out a separate bid for manufacturing and servicing of their locomotives and one company won the manufacturing bid while another won the servicing bid.

The servicing company was unable to get the trains into working order and after hiring hackers accused the manufactoring company of bricking the software on purpose by including geo-fences where the trains would no longer work after arriving at the servicing company's property.

Perhaps the interesting part to me was Dragon Sector's (the hackers) claims that the software needs to be blessed so although they discovered problems they never changed anything because they don't have the authority to bless it and heavily imply that the fact that the manufactoring company is changing the software at will is illegal.

The changes by the manufactoring company had an (undisclosed) activation sequence added to it so you didn't need to modify the software in order to get the train working so the servicing company never actually modified the software.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrlrbfGZo2k

https://www.ifixit.com/News/112008/polish-train-maker-is-sui...

You can write whatever you want into a contract, but if you have no way to validate it, it's meaningless.

Also, the state-owned (and subsidized) Chinese company that doesn't have to play by the West's antitrust rules doesn't need to worry about your "contagion" concerns.

> EU agencies and member states do not have the power to disqualify Newag from future tenders for failing to adhere to prior ones

That seems like a problem that can be fixed, given the political will to do so.