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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.
As is the case with most tech products, they try to reduce you to a user, not an owner. Maybe the farmers were tired of the tractor stopping in the middle of the field, and starting projecting ads on the windscreen while downloading an upgrade.
Surely, liability is way more important that get things done. I guess that's why electronics has become a golden cage and the times of hacking ataris/commodore/spectrums is long gone. That's what's making society dumber.
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.
Bollocks.
If you buy property is yours you should be able to do whatever you want with it.
Regarding the restrictive "contract" the farmer has to sign, that should be illegal.
One possible way around might be if the farmer's wife buys tractor, then farmer's wife sells tractor to farmer. Farmer is not then bound to the contract someone else signed for property he bought from his wife on the second hand market.
I'm British and very economically left wing (no not liberal in any sense of the word) but private property belongs to you not the shitty corporation that made it. Corporations have too much power thanks to liberal economics.
hacking their John Deere tractors using firmware that's cracked in Easter Europe
Let's hope there are no Easter Eggs in there.
Sig?
Is John Deere legally liable if an UNMODIFIED tractor malfunctions and hurts someone? Nope, that's right there in the summary of the license agreement. Why do you think THAT will change because of modified firmware?
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
Time for competition to form the Open Tractor consortium. Components chosen for easy market access, easy repair and open source firmware. Tractor design for easy component access, with signature checks and protected registering for sabotage prevention. "I didn't change the autonomous driving and insecticide spreading components. Why does it tell me so? Aha, hackers employed by the envious cousin, next farm!"
Bearing in mind that the summary talks about not being able to take a machine to an independent mechanic to have a transmission replaced I'd guess few to none, unless independent mechanics somehow charge for neither time nor parts.
If this were rented equipment, I would understand the company's stance. But if someone outright buys an item, it's theirs. Stop legally binding people to stupid shit when they decide to fork out their hard-earned money for your products. Just because Microsoft does it, doesn't mean it has to be the norm. Christ.
I tend to rant.
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
No, libertarians are the ones that believe that oppression is too important to be left to the government and should be handled more efficiently by the private sector.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
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.
Actually a sane legal system (still not the USA) does not permit you to sign your legal rights. You can sign a contract claiming that you are waving your legal rights but those clauses are null and void as far as the courts are concerned.
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.
"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi
The US definition of "liberal" and "conservative" are going the way their definition of "socialist" went a long time ago: The gutter.
They define it by the loonie fringe groups. Being a liberal means that you're somehow in SJW territory, and being conservative means you have to agree with the Westboro Baptist Church bullshit. The idea that most people belong to NEITHER camp but are actually moderates, close to the center and generally ok with accepting some things the "other side" has to say and give it at least a whirl as a thought experiment, i.e. the notion that it could actually be that the "opponent" is RIGHT with some of the things he's saying, that's become a completely alien concept.
Because if you don't toe the party line and drink the cool-aid, you're one of THEM!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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
Speaking from experience; they do this because a large portion of their profits are made in repairs. If you are a farmer and you only have a few weeks to get your crops planted and your equipment breaks down you will pay way more than what the repair is actually worth if you are losing money each day it's not in operation, in fact you may even be looking at bankruptcy and ruin all because the local dealerships wants $$$$ for a repair that should cost $$$ You will pay the extra money because the alternative is worse
Is John Deere legally liable if an UNMODIFIED tractor malfunctions and hurts someone? Nope, that's right there in the summary of the license agreement. Why do you think THAT will change because of modified firmware?
Like most here, you don't understand how US law really works. My best friend is a lawyer, we've known each other since college, and he's taught me a lot over the years. One of the things he's taught me is that when you sign an agreement that says you sign away your rights, that doesn't necessarily mean you actually have signed away your rights. There are various ways around this kind of thing, including arguing something that amounts to saying that John Deere coerced you into signing that and you had no choice but to agree. Also, you seem to not realize that once you get to court, anything is possible. Depending on how good the lawyers are, the judge's personal involvement in the case (whether he/she steers the jury with comments or leaves them alone to do whatever they will), and the jury itself, any kind of verdict is possible.
Naw. Libertarians believe that companies that oppress users will fail in the marketplace. (Let me know when John Deere, Microsoft, and Apple oppress their way out of the marketplace). I kinda like libertarians. They are often nice people who mean well. And they are frequently quite good on civil liberty issues. But they are remarkably slow learners.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
Yes, but to do this, you have to actually go to court which is an insurmountable obstacle in many cases and fails to provide timely relief in others.
You cannot be moderate.
You're instantly lumped into one side. Say you don't agree with something Trump said and you have to be a SJW. Say that no, you don't think their position is true, get asked why you hate minorities and how long you've been a member of the KKK. Explain that you sure as hell don't agree with the alt-right (whatever that may mean now, anyway, since nobody ever really explained to me what alt-right really meant, and whether it's the opposite of ctrl-left, which doesn't do anything either, at least on my keyboard... but I ramble) and we're back at being asked whether you enjoy sucking Laci Green's femdick and how much money you dumped on Sarkeesian.
And don't you DARE to say that you don't care much about either of them. At best, the board moderator will block you for a week for starting a flame war...
Not wanting any part of that mudslinging just isn't possible anymore. Not being part of one bullshit movement automatically means you MUST be in the other, equally insane, one.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds