Class 450 PA System "Hacked"
 

Sitting on the train to Windsor & Eton Riverside on Thursday, coming
up to Ashford I think, and music starts coming over the PA system
fairly loud. Some fairly recent pop music, fairly unusual occurance
on a train! This continues for 2 tracks or so, punctuated by what
sounds like the odd swearword shouted by some kid. Train stops at
Ashford for a while and the guard announces that it's the school
holidays and some kids are tampering with the PA system and apologises
for the noise and the swearwords and says the police will be joining
the train at the next stop.

Strangely though, he doesnt seem to be able to stop the noise/music,
and it continues until Staines where a load of kids leave the train
from a few carriages down.

At first I thought they had just managed to break into one of the
cabinets and activate the PA, but the guard didn't seem to be able to
find the cause otherwise he would have been able to stop the problems.
The train was stopped for quite a while at Ashford while the guard and
the driver tried to hunt down the offenders, but the problems
continued after the train had set off again.

So given they couldn't stop it, could it be that one of these kids had
an iTrip device or similar which allows you to broadcast on FM,
intended for use with car radios, and interfered with the PA system in
this way? This was the theory the girl sitting opposite put forward.
Possible?

They pulled the alarm at Staines before they dashed off, which delayed
the train even further.

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Class 450 PA System "Hacked"
 

Tom Robinson wrote:

an iTrip device or similar which allows you to broadcast on FM,

An iTrip is plausible. It just could be possible it was not a
deliberate hack but the perpetrators discovered it accidentally.

I thought (with my telecoms engineer hat on) iTrips were not yet legal
in the UK and are still subject to Ofcom consultation not complete
until end of 2006.

Having said that, they are on sale in UK, and (not sure) I think I read
somewhere they carry CE marks which sort of makes them European legal
(cue pedantic discussion UK v. EU law).

--
Nick

Class 450 PA System "Hacked"
 

On 28 Oct 2006 20:56:09 -0700, "D7666" wrote:


Tom Robinson wrote:

an iTrip device or similar which allows you to broadcast on FM,

An iTrip is plausible. It just could be possible it was not a
deliberate hack but the perpetrators discovered it accidentally.

Probably, but more likely to be on a previous occasion, as this one
seemed quite "prepared" - they had some way of playing their own voice
as well.

I thought (with my telecoms engineer hat on) iTrips were not yet legal
in the UK and are still subject to Ofcom consultation not complete
until end of 2006.

Having said that, they are on sale in UK, and (not sure) I think I read
somewhere they carry CE marks which sort of makes them European legal
(cue pedantic discussion UK v. EU law).

AFAIK they are still illegal to use in the UK, but I expect there's a
fair few places you can buy them. If not it would probably be easy to
get one shipped from the US.

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Class 450 PA System "Hacked"
 

"Tom Robinson" wrote in message
...
On 28 Oct 2006 20:56:09 -0700, "D7666" wrote:


Tom Robinson wrote:

an iTrip device or similar which allows you to broadcast on FM,

An iTrip is plausible. It just could be possible it was not a
deliberate hack but the perpetrators discovered it accidentally.

Probably, but more likely to be on a previous occasion, as this one
seemed quite "prepared" - they had some way of playing their own voice
as well.

I thought (with my telecoms engineer hat on) iTrips were not yet legal
in the UK and are still subject to Ofcom consultation not complete
until end of 2006.

Having said that, they are on sale in UK, and (not sure) I think I read
somewhere they carry CE marks which sort of makes them European legal
(cue pedantic discussion UK v. EU law).

AFAIK they are still illegal to use in the UK, but I expect there's a
fair few places you can buy them. If not it would probably be easy to
get one shipped from the US.

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Perhaps these were the items in an advert for one of the electronics
retailers in the papers last week, which carried a disclaimer along the
lines of 'it is not yet legal to use these items in the UK'?
Brian

Class 450 PA System "Hacked"
 

D7666 wrote:

Having said that, they are on sale in UK, and (not sure) I think I read
somewhere they carry CE marks which sort of makes them European legal
(cue pedantic discussion UK v. EU law).

The CE mark does not make them legal, it is just a guarantee from the
manufacturer that they are legal in the EU. The real difference is that
if they in fact are illegal the manufacturer is held responsible and not
the consumer/user.

--
Olof Lagerkvist
ICQ: 724451
Web: http://here.is/olof

Class 450 PA System "Hacked"
 

"Olof Lagerkvist" wrote in message
...
D7666 wrote:

Having said that, they are on sale in UK, and (not sure) I think I read
somewhere they carry CE marks which sort of makes them European legal
(cue pedantic discussion UK v. EU law).

The CE mark does not make them legal, it is just a guarantee from the
manufacturer that they are legal in the EU. The real difference is that if
they in fact are illegal the manufacturer is held responsible and not the
consumer/user.

--
Olof Lagerkvist
ICQ: 724451
Web: http://here.is/olof

Surely the CE mark simply indicates that they conform to the norms/standards
applicable to their construction, and has no bearing on their legality or
illegality in use?
Brian

Class 450 PA System "Hacked"
 

BH Williams wrote:
Perhaps these were the items in an advert for one of the electronics
retailers in the papers last week, which carried a disclaimer along the
lines of 'it is not yet legal to use these items in the UK'?

Yes. Ofcom have pretty much said they wouldn't take any action even
before the official change in rules, so that was the green light for
retailers to 'officially' sell what was easily available before anyway.

I am intrigued by this story, as I don't know how the PA system works.
The fact you could hear people laughing/swearing does suggest it wasn't
an iPod with an FM transmitter attached. For a start, they're very low
power - so looking for people near the appropriate receiver would have
been a good place to start looking for the 'offenders'.

Why did they announce the police would be at the next station, allowing
them to scarper beforehand. The clever solution would have been to
proceed, slowly, as if nothing had happened. Mind you, hindsight is a
wonderful thing!

Jonathan

Class 450 PA System "Hacked"
 

On 29 Oct 2006 04:10:25 -0800, "jonmorris"
wrote:

Why did they announce the police would be at the next station, allowing
them to scarper beforehand. The clever solution would have been to
proceed, slowly, as if nothing had happened. Mind you, hindsight is a
wonderful thing!

I assume they had been onto the Police while the train was moving, and
the Police promised they would attend at the next stop, but failed to
materialise in time. Apparently this is typical of British Transport
Police (assuming that was who was supposed to be showing up).

It just seemed odd to me that even after the guard had announced the
Police were on their way, the disruption to the PA system still
carried on....

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Class 450 PA System "Hacked"
 

BH Williams wrote:

"Olof Lagerkvist" wrote in message
...

D7666 wrote:


Having said that, they are on sale in UK, and (not sure) I think I read
somewhere they carry CE marks which sort of makes them European legal
(cue pedantic discussion UK v. EU law).

The CE mark does not make them legal, it is just a guarantee from the
manufacturer that they are legal in the EU. The real difference is that if
they in fact are illegal the manufacturer is held responsible and not the
consumer/user.


Surely the CE mark simply indicates that they conform to the norms/standards
applicable to their construction, and has no bearing on their legality or
illegality in use?

AFAIK it is legal when it conforms to the CE standards. It would not
have become a CE standard unless the entire EU has accepted it as a
legal-to-use construction. But I may have got this part wrong, anyone
knows more about CE marks?

--
Olof Lagerkvist
ICQ: 724451
Web: http://here.is/olof

Class 450 PA System "Hacked"
 

"Olof Lagerkvist" wrote in message
...
BH Williams wrote:

"Olof Lagerkvist" wrote in message
...

D7666 wrote:


Having said that, they are on sale in UK, and (not sure) I think I
read
somewhere they carry CE marks which sort of makes them European
legal
(cue pedantic discussion UK v. EU law).

The CE mark does not make them legal, it is just a guarantee from
the manufacturer that they are legal in the EU. The real difference
is that if they in fact are illegal the manufacturer is held
responsible and not the consumer/user.


Surely the CE mark simply indicates that they conform to the
norms/standards applicable to their construction, and has no
bearing on their legality or illegality in use?

AFAIK it is legal when it conforms to the CE standards. It would not
have become a CE standard unless the entire EU has accepted it as a
legal-to-use construction. But I may have got this part wrong,
anyone knows more about CE marks?


Found this link http://www.ce-marking.org/what-is-ce-marking.html
which says the CE mark indicates a product confirms to EU
regulations/legislation on Health, Safety and environmental
protection.

Class 450 PA System "Hacked"
 

Tom Robinson wrote:
Sitting on the train to Windsor & Eton Riverside on Thursday, coming
up to Ashford I think, and music starts coming over the PA system
fairly loud. Some fairly recent pop music, fairly unusual occurance
on a train!

Two summers ago I was travelling from Bucuresti to Tulcea and was
taking one of the new Sageata Albastra trains ("The blue arrow"). They
played a mix of 80s pop music and a souped up version of classical
music for the duration of the almost 5 hour journey.

My friend had her ipod and could block out the offending noise. I
slowly went mad.

Class 450 PA System "Hacked"
 

Bill wrote:
Tom Robinson wrote:
Sitting on the train to Windsor & Eton Riverside on Thursday, coming
up to Ashford I think, and music starts coming over the PA system
fairly loud. Some fairly recent pop music, fairly unusual occurance
on a train!

Two summers ago I was travelling from Bucuresti to Tulcea and was
taking one of the new Sageata Albastra trains ("The blue arrow"). They
played a mix of 80s pop music and a souped up version of classical
music for the duration of the almost 5 hour journey.

My friend had her ipod and could block out the offending noise. I
slowly went mad.

We have several lecture theatres at the university that use radio mics
of different frequencies. Several years ago one of them started
picking up transmissions that sounded as if they were coming from a
mosque at prayer time. The AV guys extensively checked everything, even
asking the president of the uni Islamic society if the local mosque, a
good mile away could be responsible. He went and checked with them but
none of the rogue transmission matched their prayer times. Eventually
the transmissions stopped as quickly as they started.

I-trips are really easy to get by the way, have a look on here.

http://shop.ipodworld.co.uk/iPodWorl..._iPods_Device/

Neill

Class 450 PA System "Hacked"
 

"Tom Robinson" wrote in message
...
| Sitting on the train to Windsor & Eton Riverside on Thursday, coming
| up to Ashford I think, and music starts coming over the PA system
| fairly loud. Some fairly recent pop music, fairly unusual occurance
| on a train! This continues for 2 tracks or so, punctuated by what
| sounds like the odd swearword shouted by some kid. Train stops at
| Ashford for a while and the guard announces that it's the school
| holidays and some kids are tampering with the PA system and apologises
| for the noise and the swearwords and says the police will be joining
| the train at the next stop.
|
| Strangely though, he doesnt seem to be able to stop the noise/music,
| and it continues until Staines where a load of kids leave the train
| from a few carriages down.
|
| At first I thought they had just managed to break into one of the
| cabinets and activate the PA, but the guard didn't seem to be able to
| find the cause otherwise he would have been able to stop the problems.
| The train was stopped for quite a while at Ashford while the guard and
| the driver tried to hunt down the offenders, but the problems
| continued after the train had set off again.
|
| So given they couldn't stop it, could it be that one of these kids had
| an iTrip device or similar which allows you to broadcast on FM,
| intended for use with car radios, and interfered with the PA system in
| this way? This was the theory the girl sitting opposite put forward.
| Possible?
|

The information system in a Desiro is controlled by flash memory chips. On
SWT these are programmed at a central location and the train's "library" of
announcements is updated when the train visits Northam Depot for routine
maintenance.

Manual announcements are made using a handset. These exist at a number of
locations throughout the train - not just in the Guard's compartment - and
are only protected by standard "BR" carriage key locks. Any yobbo worth his
salt in the London area has acquired one of these carriage keys (the Guard
cannot leave his personal stuff in his "office" and still expect to find it
there on his return), and using "Occam's Razor", this is a more likely
explanation than the others which require the use of the latest electronic
technology. To put a stop to the nuisance, the traincrew would have to find
which location the kids concerned were abusing and, because all the
locations are opened by the same key, there is nothing to stop the kids
moving from one to another as the search continued.

You may ask why modern stock does not use a more secure system. I have
often wondered this myself. Does anyone else out there know?
--
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