Yeah, but it will feel like 16MB on a Mac. PowerPC.
this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2024
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Imagine both the annoyance and job security having to manage MS-DOS and 3.1 systems for a railroad would entail.
Well, DOS is open source now. And that old hardware was quite reliable. Fewer moving parts, I'd expect fewer things to break.
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I would love it so much. I’d feel right at home. I miss sitting in my room and learning everything I could about DOS. That was the best time I ever had with computers.
I once built, setup, and maintained about 20 computers for a Christian school for free just because I loved doing it so much.
I wish I still had that enthusiasm for tech.
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Eternal September
Can I install Linux on the old systems so they work better?
This, I had multiple old machines with these kinds of specs, I put Slackware on them, dropped in an ethernet card (or two), and used them for all sorts of things, iptables firewall/router, email server, network storage, irc server, etc. It breathed new life into seriously outdated hardware.
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Legacy hardware and operating systems are battle tested, having been extensively probed and patched during their heyday. The same can be said for software written for these platforms – they have been refined to the point that they can execute their intended tasks without incident. If it is ain't broke, don't fix it. One could also argue that dated platforms are less likely to be targeted by modern cybercriminals. Learning the ins and outs of a legacy system does not make sense when there are so few targets still using them. A hacker would be far better off to master something newer that millions of systems still use.
Tell me you know nothing about cybersecurity without telling me you know nothing about cybersecurity. Wtf is this drivel?
It really depends if these systems (that appear to control arrival boards) are on a network or not. If they're not, then there is minimal risk to leave them the way they are. Somebody would need physical access to the devices to do harm. If they are on a network then that's a pretty big deal, but some attacks could be mitigated against by tunnelling and/or additional packet filtering to ensure the integrity of messages.
Continuing on a railway theme you should be FAR more worried all the devices that run up and down the side of railway lines - PLCs that talk with each other and operations centres to control things like lights, junctions, crossings etc. If they're more than 5 years old then chances are then all that traffic is in the clear, and because these things live in boxes by the railway line, it wouldn't take much to break into a network and potentially kill people by running two trains into each other.
the job was advertised as being remote.....
The job might be remote, doesn't mean the system is remote. For all you or I know they want somebody to reverse engineer the protocol of this thing, which could be some weird board & driver that hooks into an old PC so they can switch it out for something else.
It's in the job description, remote access is available via a repurposed laparoscope robot and webcam placed in front of the original terminal keyboard and CRT
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Exactly. And these things are on an internal bus network, but they are not connected to the internet.
Cybersecurity != Safety Critical
It is when safety-critical systems are the target of a cyberattack.
Doesn't sound like this system is safety critical. You should be more worried if some hacker can change train signs from stop to go. If you ever ride on a train and see steel boxes by the side of the track, those are control systems and they run up and down the line. They might be locked, or possibly alarmed but that's about the extent of their protection. A simple attack would be to just take an axe to one, or set fire to it. A more sophisticated attack could snoop on the profinet traffic and do something evil.
Simple solution: Don't connect it to the Internet. Hackers hate this one weird trick.
And said trick ends when an attacker manages to socially-engineer their way in. (But maybe they’ll drop floppies instead of flash drives around the block this time)
They could socially engineer their way in regardless of some machine being MSDOS or not. Basically if they can gain physical access to the device, or convince somebody to do something with the device it hardly matters what it was running since it can still be compromised.
You really think that infrastructure IT is dumb unless it can brush off a Stuxnet-like attack by the CIA and Mosad? Most RR traffic signals in the US are run with mechanical logic, physical switches connected to circuits closed by steel wheels on steel tracks. Do you really want a "move fast and break things" tech bro to update all this stuff for us?
All kinds of infrastructure uses ancient software because it's reliable. Updating it just to protect from hackers causing damage is likely to cause that damage unintentionally while doing little to protect from hackers anyhow.
It must be updated sometime or risk being archaic and unmanageable. Chances are high they are paying insane amounts for those legacy mechanical switches you mention.
The actual logic is usually very well portable to a more modern ecosystem.
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