Why American Farmers Are Hacking Their Tractors With Ukrainian Firmware (vice.com)

Tractor owners across the country are reportedly hacking their John Deere tractors using firmware that's cracked in Easter Europe and traded on invite-only, paid online forums. The reason is because John Deere and other manufacturers have "made it impossible to perform 'unauthorized' repair on farm equipment," which has obviously upset many farmers who see it "as an attack on their sovereignty and quite possibly an existential threat to their livelihood if their tractor breaks at an inopportune time," reports Jason Koebler via Motherboard. As is the case with most modern-day engineering vehicles, the mechanical problems experienced with the newer farming tractors are often remedied via software. From the report: The nightmare scenario, and a fear I heard expressed over and over again in talking with farmers, is that John Deere could remotely shut down a tractor and there wouldn't be anything a farmer could do about it. A license agreement John Deere required farmers to sign in October forbids nearly all repair and modification to farming equipment, and prevents farmers from suing for "crop loss, lost profits, loss of goodwill, loss of use of equipment [...] arising from the performance or non-performance of any aspect of the software." The agreement applies to anyone who turns the key or otherwise uses a John Deere tractor with embedded software. It means that only John Deere dealerships and "authorized" repair shops can work on newer tractors. "If a farmer bought the tractor, he should be able to do whatever he wants with it," Kevin Kenney, a farmer and right-to-repair advocate in Nebraska, told me. "You want to replace a transmission and you take it to an independent mechanic -- he can put in the new transmission but the tractor can't drive out of the shop. Deere charges $230, plus $130 an hour for a technician to drive out and plug a connector into their USB port to authorize the part." "What you've got is technicians running around here with cracked Ukrainian John Deere software that they bought off the black market," he added.

Comments

Re:John Deere has too many non farmers

[Mashiki]

Seems to me they have their customers in a fairly tight grip, by the balls, one could even say.

Actual truth. I grew up in a county that was heavy farming with a city industrial base, the friend I had in high school who were in farming families and are still doing it and many of them have long since moved off Deere equipment. Most are using either Fendt or Mahindra simply because of what you're talking about. Dropping $90k(CAD) for a base model Deere is what drove people away from them. The bullshit they're pulling now is just driving them to their competition, especially when you can get the same from a rival company for 1/3 or less with exactly the same warranty coverage.

Re:Tractor Breakers, not Fixers.

[Feyshtey]

That's a different conversation. If you modify the tractor in a way that is unsupported by the manufacturer, you void the warranty and John Deere is released from responsibility. It's not at all unlike your TV, or your cell phone, or millions of other products on the market. But what we're talking about here goes well beyond that. John Deere and other manufacturers are lobbying government to make law out of the notion that while you might have paid upward of a quarter million for that tractor (not an unusual sum with modern agriculture equipment), you don't actually own it, and you're not allowed to do anything with it that John Deere doesn't expressly allow.

Legislation & the right to repair

[AwooOOoo]

Regarding the right for owners to have a choice in how their machines are serviced...

In Europe there is legislation coming into effect in July 2021 which will requires OEMs to provide information to 3rd parts service tool manufacturers and Independent Operators such that they can achieve the same level of diagnostic capability as the OEM with their own tools.
See links like:
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal...
http://www.cema-agri.org/publi...

In the U.S. there is no equivalent legislation in the U.S., but I would not be surprised if we see something similar in a few years. There are groups lobbying to this end, such as;
http://repair.org/association/

Disclaimer: I work for one of the 'other' Ag manufacturers on the topic of making the machines comply with this legislation

Re:Use Mahindra & Mahindra

[Anonymous Coward]

I work in AG, and this is not true at all. Mahindra has all the same ECU's and tech other tractors have, its required for Tier 4 emissions. From what I've seen their tech is vastly more simplistic. The diagnostic abilities of their stuff is extremely limited where it just throws a code rather than giving data streams from the different subsystems.

Re:John Deere Isn't The Only Manufacturer of Tract

[budgenator]

The high end tractors they are really talking about are only available from 2 manufacturers. Modern Farmers are going to pull a chisel point plow, Disk Rippers, Clump busters and a cultipacker 60 feet wide in one pass over 5,000 acres, with a tractor that has 500 drawbar HP; next day pull a planter 120 feet wide.