Tag: transportation

Power Outage Strands Thousands at US Airport. 600 Flights Cancelled

An anonymous reader quotes CNN: A power outage at the world’s busiest airport left thousands of passengers stranded in dark terminals and in planes sitting on the tarmac, amid a nationwide ground stop. Incoming and outgoing flights at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport were halted indefinitely as crews worked to restore power, leading to hundreds of flight delays and cancellations. Atlanta is the heart of the US air transport system, and what happens there has the potential to ripple through the country. More than 600 flights to and from Atlanta have been canceled, including 350 departures, according to Flightradar24… Flights headed to Atlanta are being held on the ground at their departure airport. Inbound flights to Atlanta are being diverted, US Customs and Border Protection said. Departures from the airport are delayed because electronic equipment is not working in the terminals, the FAA said. The cause of the incident is under investigation. Some people stranded in the dark terminals used their cellphones as flashlights, one passenger told CNN. “There were a few emergency lights on, but it was really dark — felt totally apocalyptic.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Power Outage Strands Thousands at US Airport. 600 Flights Cancelled

Critical Flaws In Maritime Communications System Could Endanger Entire Ships

Orome1 shares a report from Help Net Security: IOActive security consultant Mario Ballano has discovered two critical cybersecurity vulnerabilities affecting Stratos Global’s AmosConnect communication shipboard platform. The platform works in conjunction with the ships’ satellite equipment, and integrates vessel and shore-based office applications, as well as provides services like Internet access for the crew, email, IM, position reporting, etc. The first vulnerability is a blind SQL injection in a login form. Attackers that successfully exploit it can retrieve credentials to log into the service and access sensitive information stored in it. The second one is a built-in backdoor account with full system privileges. “Among other things, this vulnerability allows attackers to execute commands with SYSTEM privileges on the remote system by abusing AmosConnect Task Manager, ” Bellano shared. The found flaws can be exploited only by an attacker that has access to the ship’s IT systems network, he noted, but on some ships the various networks might not be segmented, or AmosConnect might be exposed to one or more of them. The vulnerabilities were found in AmosConnect 8.4.0, and Stratos Global was notified a year ago. But Inmarsat won’t fix them, and has discontinued the 8.0 version of the platform in June 2017. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Critical Flaws In Maritime Communications System Could Endanger Entire Ships

Japanese Metal Manufacturer Faked Specifications To Hundreds of Companies

schwit1 writes: Kobe Steel, a major Japanese supplier of steel and other metals worldwide, has admitted that it faked the specifications to metals shipped to hundreds of companies over the past decade.Last week, Kobe Steel admitted that staff fudged reports on the strength and durability of products requested by its clients — including those from the airline industry, cars, space rockets, and Japan’s bullet trains. The company estimated that four percent of aluminum and copper products shipped from September 2016 to August 2017 were falsely labelled, Automotive News reported. But on Friday, the company’s CEO, Hiroya Kawasaki, revealed the scandal has impacted about 500 companies — doubling the initial count — and now includes steel products, too. The practice of falsely labeling data to meet customer’s specifications could date back more than 10 years, according to the Financial Times.For rockets the concern is less serious as they generally are not built for a long lifespan, but for airplanes and cars this news could be devastating, requiring major rebuilds on many operating vehicles. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Japanese Metal Manufacturer Faked Specifications To Hundreds of Companies

First Mass-Produced Electric Truck Unveiled

AmiMoJo shares a report from NHK WORLD: Japan’s Mitsubishi Fuso Truck and Bus has unveiled what it says is the world’s first mass-produced electric truck, as automakers around the world go all out to develop cars that run on battery power. The vehicle can carry about 3 tons of cargo and travel about 100 kilometers on a single charge. The truck, unveiled on Thursday, will be used by Japan’s largest convenience store chain, Seven-Eleven. Seven-Eleven President Kazuki Furuya says some people complain about the noise delivery vehicles make, and says he is very impressed at how quiet the electric truck is. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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First Mass-Produced Electric Truck Unveiled

Toshiba’s Fast-Charging Battery Could Triple the Range of Electric Vehicles

Big Hairy Ian quotes New Atlas: A key focus of electric vehicle (EV) makers is maximizing the range users can get from each charge, and for that reason new battery technologies are poised to play a huge part in driving their adoption. Toshiba has developed a new fast-charging battery it claims could allow EVs to travel three times as far as they do now, and then be fully recharged again in a matter of minutes. Toshiba’s SCiB (Super Charge ion Battery) has been around in various forms since 2007, with its chief claim to fame an ability to charge to 90 percent of capacity in just five minutes. It also boasts a life-span of 10 years and high levels of safety, and has found its way into a number of notable EVs, including Mitsubishi’s i MiEV and Honda’s Fit EV. The current SCiB uses lithium titanium oxide as its anode, but Toshiba says it has now come up with a better way of doing things. The next-generation SCiB uses a new material for the anode called titanium niobium oxide, which Toshiba was able to arrange into a crystal structure that can store lithium ions more efficiently. So much so, that the energy density has been doubled. Toshiba calls the battery “a game changing advance that will make a significant difference to the range and performance of EV, ” and hopes to put it “into practical application” in 2019. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Toshiba’s Fast-Charging Battery Could Triple the Range of Electric Vehicles

Russia Suspected In GPS-Spoofing Attacks On Ships

How did a 37-ton tanker suddenly vanish from GPS off the coast of Russia? AmiMoJo shares a report from Wired: The ship’s systems located it 25 to 30 miles away — at Gelendzhik airport… The Atria wasn’t the only ship affected by the problem… At the time, Atria’s AIS system showed around 20 to 25 large boats were also marooned at Gelendzhik airport. Worried about the situation, captain Le Meur radioed the ships. The responses all confirmed the same thing: something, or someone, was meddling with the their GPS… After trawling through AIS data from recent years, evidence of spoofing becomes clear. GPS data has placed ships at three different airports and there have been other interesting anomalies. “We would find very large oil tankers who could travel at the maximum speed at 15 knots, ” said a former director for Marine Transportation Systems at the U.S. Coast Guard. “Their AIS, which is powered by GPS, would be saying they had sped up to 60 to 65 knots for an hour and then suddenly stopped. They had done that several times”… “It looks like a sophisticated attack, by somebody who knew what they were doing and were just testing the system…” says Lukasz Bonenberg from the University of Nottingham’s Geospatial Institute. “You basically need to have atomic level clocks.” The U.S. Maritime Administration confirms 20 ships have been affected — all traveling in the Black Sea — though a U.S. Coast Guard representative “refused to comment on the incident, saying any GPS disruption that warranted further investigation would be passed onto the Department of Defence.” But the captain of the 37-ton tanker already has his own suspicions. “It looks like the Russians define an area where they don’t want the GPS to apply.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Russia Suspected In GPS-Spoofing Attacks On Ships

China Plans 600 MPH Train To Rival Elon Musk’s Hyperloop

In addition to relaunching the world’s fastest bullet train, China is working on developing technology similar to Elon Musk’s Hyperloop, which will allow passengers to travel at speeds up to 4, 000 km/h (~2, 500 mph). The first stage of the company’s plan, however, will be to create a network of these “flying trains” operating at 1, 000 km/h (~600 mph). Shanghaiist reports: Earlier today, the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC), one of the nation’s major space contractors, announced that it had begun research and development into a new, futuristic type of transport which would operate via supersonic “near ground flight.” The system would presumably be similar to that of the Hyperloop, proposed earlier this decade by Elon Musk, in which capsules would fly at ultrafast speeds down reduced-pressure tubes, dramatically reducing travel times. Of course, the CASIC isn’t looking to reach speeds of 4, 000 km/h right away. The first stage of the company’s plan will be to create an intercity network of these “flying trains” operating at 1, 000 km/h. In the second phase, this network would be extended and the max speed of the pods increased to 2, 000 km/h. Finally, in the third stage, the speed would be boosted all the way up to 4, 000 km/h — five times the speed of civil aviation aircraft today. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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China Plans 600 MPH Train To Rival Elon Musk’s Hyperloop

Sweden Accidentally Leaks Personal Details of Nearly All Citizens

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Hacker News: Swedish media is reporting of a massive data breach in the Swedish Transport Agency (Transportstyrelsen) after the agency mishandled an outsourcing deal with IBM, which led to the leak of the private data about every vehicle in the country, including those used by both police and military. The data breach exposed the names, photos and home addresses of millions of Swedish citizen, including fighter pilots of Swedish air force, members of the military’s most secretive units, police suspects, people under the witness relocation program, the weight capacity of all roads and bridges, and much more. The incident is believed to be one of the worst government information security disasters ever. In 2015, the Swedish Transport Agency hand over IBM an IT maintenance contract to manage its databases and networks. However, the Swedish Transport Agency uploaded IBM’s entire database onto cloud servers, which covered details on every vehicle in the country, including police and military registrations, and individuals on witness protection programs. The transport agency then emailed the entire database in messages to marketers that subscribe to it. And what’s terrible is that the messages were sent in clear text. When the error was discovered, the transport agency merely thought of sending a new list in another email, asking the subscribers to delete the old list themselves. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Sweden Accidentally Leaks Personal Details of Nearly All Citizens

California Has So Much Solar Power That Other States Are Paid To Take It

“On 14 days during March, Arizona utilities got a gift from California: free solar power, ” reported the Los Angeles Times. Mic reports: California is generating so much solar energy that it is resorting to paying other states to take the excess electricity in order to prevent overloading power lines. According to the Los Angeles Times, Arizona residents have already saved millions in 2017 thanks to California’s contribution. The state, which produced little to no solar energy just 15 years ago, has made strides — it single-handedly has nearly half of the country’s solar electricity generating capacity… When there’s too much solar energy, there is a risk of the electricity grid overloading. This can result in blackouts. In times like this, California offers other states a financial incentive to take their power. But it’s not as environmentally friendly as one would think. Take Arizona, for example. The state opts to put a pin in its own solar energy sources instead of fossil fuel power, which means greenhouse gas emissions aren’t getting any better due to California’s overproduction. The Los Angeles Times suggests over-construction of natural gas plants created part of the problem — Californians now pay roughly 50% more than the rest of the country for power — but they report that power supplies could become more predictable when battery storage technologies improve. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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California Has So Much Solar Power That Other States Are Paid To Take It

Equal Rights Center Sues Uber For Denying Equal Access To People Who Use Wheelchairs

The Equal Rights Center is suing Uber, alleging that the company has chosen not to include wheelchair-accessible cars as an option in its standard UberX fleet of vehicles, and excludes people who use wheelchairs in Washington, D.C. According to the lawsuit, Uber is in violation of Title 3 of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the D.C. Human Rights Act. TechCrunch reports: After conducting its own investigation of Uber’s services for people in wheelchairs, the ERC found that passengers had to wait an average of eight times longer for an accessible car to arrive. They also had to pay twice as much in fares, according to the ERC’s study. Ultimately, the ERC wants Uber to integrate wheelchair accessible cars into its UberX fleet so that people who use wheelchairs don’t have to wait longer and pay more to use the car service. Uber said in a statement provided to TechCrunch: “We take this issue seriously and are committed to continued work with the District, our partners, and stakeholders toward expanding transportation options and freedom of movement for all residents throughout the region.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Equal Rights Center Sues Uber For Denying Equal Access To People Who Use Wheelchairs