McDonald’s does the exact same thing with their ice cream machines.
Oh man, that’s a great story. Have you seen the video on YouTube about it? Really interesting.
Just can’t figure out how McD’s benefits by having the machines offline so much (it’s intentional). The same machines are in other businesses and run fine, because they operate with sensible limits.
It’s because the impact to Rotten Rons corporate bottom line is positive. Franchisees are required to buy the specific machine and can only have authorized service people work on them. That money goes to corporate and they make more of it than having machines that run well and can be serviced by the franchisee.
The machines are connected to the intertubes so when they breakdown (like they’re supposed to), corporate knows and nothing can be done until the authorized service technician arrives from Clown Shoes Corporate Shell Company, Inc.
Basically another “how is this not criminal?” kickback scheme.
I get that, but it doesn’t really explain it. The machines don’t need regular fixing, they’re down because the software has tighter specs for temp control and the required cleaning schedule mean it takes hours to clean and get back to proper temp, like 12 hours IIRC.
I other companies, the same machines don’t have the same tight temp tolerances and they work fine.
There’s a great YouTube on this.
The repair issue is related, but not a root cause of machines being down. Most are down for the cleaning cycle issue.
The repair issue is McD’s requiring a specific vendor to repair them, and there are certain errors that require a service call for no good reason. A developer built a device to read the codes and reset them, not sure where they stand today.
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It is a perverse incentive for McDonald’s. The value of the maintenance contract may be more than the sales of ice cream.
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The company may not make money, but enough executives are bribed to accept it with gifts from the manufacturer’s sales staff.
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In their home country of good ol’ USA at least. Elsewhere I’ve not heard of any similar shenanigans.
I dunno about that. Did you hear about that Polish train company that did something similar?
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Some top notch intrigue here; a maintenance company gets blamed, enlists a famous hacker collective for help, evidence mounts, locomotive manufacturer issues loaded denials…
Thanks OP :-)
Some more articles (in Polish):
- https://wiadomosci.onet.pl/kraj/awarie-pociagow-newagu-hakerzy-ujawniaja-kto-stoi-za-celowymi-usterkami/g4hymmg
- https://www.bankier.pl/wiadomosc/Hakerzy-odkryli-sprawce-tajemniczych-awarii-pociagow-Newag-byl-zly-a-akcje-tez-byly-zle-8658697.html
- https://www.rp.pl/transport/art39525161-hakerzy-odkryli-przyczyne-tajemniczych-awarii-pociagow-szokujace-ustalenia
- https://www.rynek-kolejowy.pl/wiadomosci/newag-odpowiada-hakerom-i-sps-chce-wycofania-pojazdow-z-ruchu-116422.html
- https://www.gazetaprawna.pl/firma-i-prawo/artykuly/9374529,newag-z-powaznymi-problemami.html
And an English translation of another Polish article: https://badcyber.com/dieselgate-but-for-trains-some-heavyweight-hardware-hacking/
The trains are not okay.
