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Trains cancelled over fake bridge collapse image

(www.bbc.com)
263 points josephcsible | 3 comments | 07 Dec 25 00:37 UTC | HN request time: 0.687s | source
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mr_windfrog ◴[07 Dec 25 03:12 UTC] No.46178827[source]▶
What this incident really shows is the growing gap between how easy it is to create a convincing warning and how costly it is to verify what's actually happening. Hoaxes aren't new, but generative tools make fabrication almost free and massively increase the volume.

The rail operator didn't do anything wrong. After an earthquake and a realistic-looking image, the only responsible action is to treat it as potentially real and inspect the track.

This wasn't catastrophic, but it's a preview of a world where a single person can cheaply trigger high-cost responses. The systems we build will have to adapt, not by ignoring social media reports, but by developing faster, more resilient ways to distinguish signal from noise.

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1. mytailorisrich ◴[07 Dec 25 08:35 UTC] No.46180154[source]▶
It is cheap to have live monitoring of key infrastructure these days, and in the case of rail infrastructure it would also save time and money in general. Perhaps this hoax will push this higher up the todo list.
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2. usr1106 ◴[07 Dec 25 08:48 UTC] No.46180216[source]▶
It may be cheap to monitor a single spot. It is extremely expensive to monitor everything.
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3. mytailorisrich ◴[07 Dec 25 10:07 UTC] No.46180586[source]▶
There is a balance like always. It seems odd that they have zero cameras on bridges and other main infrastructure, although I believe that level crossings tend to have them (perhaps more to avoid liability in case of accidents, though...)

Main point is that there aren't technical difficulties in verifying the state of main infrastructure in real time (contrary to the claim of the commenter I was initially replying to), and it's more a question of priority and will than doability or cost.

It will happen but the usual way is that "it's not possible", "it's too expensive", etc until something bad enough happens and then suddenly it is doable and done.