Young Adam Dabrowski has been arrested after a schoolboy prank caused 12 passengers injuries when he rearranged the points for the local tram network in Lodz, Poland. Initially it looked as though he was being malicious, but I’m not so sure. It’s just another hacker story that seems to skirt around the real problem, by focusing on a kid that’s obviously bored and needs proper stimulation. The real story here is the pathetic security of the transport department in Lodz.

Adam was described by his teachers as an “electronics genius” or so this article says, although that may just be a smoke screen to hide the inadequacies of the local authorities. If anyone can gain that sort of access to public transport (with a modified TV remote control!) things are very wrong. What if it had been a terrorist? I’m sure it would be “dead” not “injured” in the headlines.

Hopefully the proper authorities will investigate what went wrong and put measures in place to make sure it doesn’t happen again. I remember, about 8 years ago, one local authority in the UK had their inner-city traffic light system running from a gigantic excel spreadsheet - stuffed full of macros. This system is also equally behind the times if an infra-red remote can cause so much havoc. [SHOW ME]