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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.
These tractors from the Indian company are pretty good, all old school, old tech. No fancy nancy software controlled stuff. Simple rugged diesel engine and clearly understandable mechanical parts. Apparently it is competing well in South Africa with other global giant farm equipment companies, due to "fix it and run it in the bush several hundred miles from the nearest repair shop" ability. Sub compact models are available in USA too.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I've read it, and it is mimicking that through idiotic and restrictive End User License Agreements. For the software.
There is no explicit clause that forbids tinkering with the hardware, but that seems to be enforced by the software. As in, change a part that has a microcontroller and it won't work without a John Deere technician coming and authorizing it.
Besides, if I read paragraph 13 correctly, the owner of the tractor has to indemnify John Deere and its dealers against all and any lawsuits, even if John Deere or the dealer is at fault for the cause of the lawsuit. That goes beyond everything I've seen in software EULAs so far. Those usually demand only indemnification against lawsuits that arise out of actions by the owner.
C - the footgun of programming languages
As an engineer in a big multi-national I also see similar things going on in our company.
They try to prevent untrained/unauthorized technicians from doing what we call "low-level" maintenance even though our equipment might be of vital importance of that buyer.
In our company this is not necessary bad intent towards the customer, but more a way of protection our own business because selling only gives you 1 paycheck, service gives you hundreds in the course of years.
Our machines are pretty comparable in complexity to modern tractors I believe as years of research and development have made it so they are of higher quality for the customer. This does not immediately relate to longer life times of our products but does improve on requirements because of new industry, government & environmental standards.
But it also makes it harder to do a correct maintenance if you don't know the complete working of the machines.
Anyways, I don't want to justify John Deer's way of working, or any other car manufacturer ( because that seems to be the case here in Europe), but I do understand their position better.
The customer should be informed when they buy a product that their new product can only be maintained by the approved technicians, there for the EULA probably that has been forced onto the farmers.
I also don't know how the market competition is for farming vehicles in USA, Europe or the rest of the world.
And I think that part should be fixed then, if there is no (reasonable) competition/alternative for the farmers then there is a problem there.
John Deere by no means has a monopoly on farm equipment. If I was a farmer, I think this would make Deere completely unattractive. Heavy machinery like this has a pretty tough duty cycle and things break. Cost aside, Farmers often don't have the luxury of time to wait while they have a piece of equipment serviced by a limited number of authorized dealers. Having the option to use an independent mechanic or to (gasp!) fix it themselves would seem like a must have.
I'm not a farmer, but I do have a small Deere diesel tractor that I use for mowing, digging fence post holes, carrying around mulch/dirt/etc. I bought it years ago, but if I were in the market for a new one I now have a reason to avoid Deere.
Farmers should organize an event to burn old non repairable John Deer equipment and advertise their purchase of non John Deer equipment. And further sell t-shirts about how John Deer is no friend to the American farmer. Do this at the Forth of July celebrations. And have town hall meetings with speakers telling their Horror Stories about John Deer. Find another manufacturer and help promote them over John Deer. Some of them might even give you a deal on a trade in if you publicly destroy your John Deer. Do not stop until everyone currently on the board of directors and otherwise that are running the company are completely replaced.
In the meantime get the right to repair laws on the books.
Actually, sane legal systems have a provision against underhanded practices like that.
Our legal system actually knows a few "non-negotiable rights" you have in a contract, no matter whether the contract tries to void them, you have them. You can for example not waive the right to enforce a contract against your contractual partner (i.e. making it a one-sided contract where only one side can hold the other side to fulfillment).
Funny enough, the provision could best be translated as "protection against immoral clauses" ("contra bonos mores" for the legal geeks here).
And our judges tend to enforce such things quite broadly if they feel you try to bullshit your business partner. Or, worse, the judge.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
This would be one solution but it wont work. No one is going to buy a tractor from some "open" manufacturer that they have never heard of or pay extra for the "open" tractor. There are a number of factors at work here. 1) Emissions ratings that the manufacturer must meet, 2) Vendor lock-in (and therefore fleet lock in), and 3) Pride. You see out here in the midwest folks are mighty proud of the color of their tractor. It can start an argument faster than vi vs emacs. To come into a market dominated by big players will be a challenge. Especially when there is both manufacturing AND mindshare hurdles to clear.
The easier solution was already mentioned in the summary: support the Right to Repair bill, in any state, if your state has made one. This doesn't overnight solve the problems and John Deere would probably just pull a TiVo and lock the software and it is business as usual. And expect pushback from the vendors when it comes to these new bills but it is the first step to taking back ownership rather than "licensing" your use of a tractor.
Procrastinating life a way at a rapid rate of speed.
The problem with a company like John Deere is they loose touch with their customers. John Deere obviously forgot that they service the farmer not the other way around. This too me would have a negative affect on new equipment purchases as well. Growing up in a farming community I know that many farmers do a lot of their own maintenance on equipment. Like any of us saving a little money and avoiding driving that big tractor to a dealer seems like a no brainer. Sadly this kind of behavior is happening to cars and trucks too, where the manufacture wants to lock the DIY out of fixing their cars.
I am in the auto industry. Perhaps I can explain John Deere. They are trying to become a services company. They see autonomous vehicles on the horizon and the impact on individual ownership. They are making plans to move to a shared services model for their equipment. This is beginning. But, they're clearly jumping the gun. It's too bad the farmers don't wake up and buy a different brand.
In many jurisdictions EULAs are extremely hard to enforce because the user is forced to agree before they have knowledge of what they are agreeing to, i.e. before they have even tried the software. I would assume the same with this but unfortunately the story is about the US which has an extremely draconian attitude to such things.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
The US (and not just them, that cancer is spreading) has to relearn that politics is not a matter of black and white (and no, I don't mean it in any racial sense, dammit!). Politics is a lot of shades of grey and you can actually think that one idea from politician A is good while you disagree with his position on topic B and think that someone from a different political spectrum is right. That is actually possible!
Also, disagreeing with A doesn't mean that you agree with B. I think Hillary is a despicable bitch who is by no means in touch with anything that matters to the average Joe out there, but that doesn't mean that I think that Trump has all the answers. Or Sanders for that matter. I do think that skin color, heritage, upbringing or gender should not matter when it comes to your chance to accomplish anything, but that does neither mean that I think we should wallow in collective white guilt and bend over backwards to hand out freebies to "underprivileged" people who think they're entitled to handouts because they are $minority, nor does it mean that I think that everything is absolutely peachy and we have total equality already anyway just 'cause our law books say we should.
I also think that I have no right to say that you have to be the gender your dangly (or not so dangly) bits convey, but I refuse to be yelled at for "assuming a gender". I do know a few transgender people, and I know what bullshit they have to go through, but EVERY SINGLE ONE of them is going out of their way to make absolutely CERTAIN you KNOW what gender they identify as. They are essentially the living stereotype of their gender, just to make sure that people, at least those that do care, address them correctly. Funny enough, none of them ever got into a hissy fit over being "mis-gendered", the most you'd get is a "please, I'd prefer he/I'd prefer she". And guess what, it works.
But I digress.
What we see in politics, and people, is what I'd identify as overcompensation. You don't want people to think you could maybe take position A, so you go WAY overboard and take position B to grotesque lengths and, and this is more the problem, accept that people do that. And that's in my opinion the problem.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.