Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The thriving black market of John Deere tractor hacking

motherboard.vice.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 185 posts

Re: The thriving black market of John Deere tractor hacking

#81

Post by mathgeek »

cmdrfred wrote: post #77
michaelbuckbee wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you are (accurately) describing is the high end of the IoT space. The low end is almost equally disconcerting but in the other direction: no updates, no responsibility and wildly vulnerable to attack.

I find it cost effective to simply create a 2nd vlan at home for IOT use. It has no gateway for internet access and I can only access it from local devices or over my VPN. This way I can use inexpensive devices without the worry.

> I find it cost effective to simply create a 2nd vlan at home for IOT use

How do you find that this meshes with devices that require Internet access to function?

Re: The thriving black market of John Deere tractor hacking

#82

Post by mathgeek »

joe_the_user wrote: post #42
weberc2 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. My argument was that their incentive is to avoid being sued, not profiting from a monopoly. 2. What monopoly are you proposing? A monopoly on the software that comes with the tractor?

I don't know if avoiding liability for their products is great way to make money or not. But if they are making a large effort to avoid liability, they are doing that as a way to guarantee profits - ie, make money. Deere effectively has a monopoly on tractors at the scale discussed in the article. That's why farmers are buying the tractors and illegally moding them rather than buying competing brands - see comments e…

> But if they are making a large effort to avoid liability, they are doing that as a way to guarantee profits - ie, make money.

This can also be viewed as the more general "companies act in a way that gives them the best chance of continued indeterminate existence."

Re: The thriving black market of John Deere tractor hacking

#83

Post by mr_overalls »

The installation of black-market Ukrainian firmware is a potential infosec nightmare. Imagine what a tempting target this would be for Russian intelligence services to backdoor! In the event of open conflict with the United States, they could potentially paralyze a large portion of US agricultural capacity.

Re: The thriving black market of John Deere tractor hacking

#84

Post by maskros »

mirimir wrote: post #66
hwillis wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great point. This isn't like biodiesel or ethanol, where the co2 would end up in the air anyway. A methane generator actively creates a carbon form that is significantly worse for the environment.

Ethanol is a bad counterexample. Most ethanol comes from corn, and most energy in corn comes from fossil methane, used to synthesize ammonia fertilizer.

Fertilizer only provides the nutrients (primarily nitrogen). The actual energy in corn comes from photosynthesis trapping the sun's energy in chemical bonds.

Re: The thriving black market of John Deere tractor hacking

#85

Post by cmdrfred »

mathgeek wrote: post #81
cmdrfred wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it cost effective to simply create a 2nd vlan at home for IOT use. It has no gateway for internet access and I can only access it from local devices or over my VPN. This way I can use inexpensive devices without the worry.

> I find it cost effective to simply create a 2nd vlan at home for IOT use How do you find that this meshes with devices that require Internet access to function?

I use it currently for security cameras as well as some lighting fixtures and electrical sockets. For the lighting and electrical I use zwave products and VM on my home server with a USB zwave dongle as the controller. This won't work for a product that has a "cloud" access requirement but it works fine for my purpose. I wouldn't buy a security camera that uploaded images of what I'm up to in my home to anyplace, nor would I use lights that required a AWS instance to be up to turn on. It takes some research before buying to know its going to work but Amazon's returns department has been good to me when the description was unclear. Its much more work than you can expect the average consumer to put in but at this point in my career my money is worth more than my time.

Re: The thriving black market of John Deere tractor hacking

#86

Post by Neliquat »

cmdrfred wrote: post #79
syshum wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are Trying ODBII regulations for Highway Vehicles are what prevents the bulk of it today. ODBII does not apply to non-road vehicles like Tractors. However Automanufacturers are moving anything that is not required by ODBII (which was passed in 1996 so it very out dated) to CANBUS and disallowing 3rd parties access. This makes is harder for Independent shops to service some of the non-mechanical parts of the car…

ODBII has to be the greatest planned obsolescence scheme ever perpetrated. Want to continue driving that older car that is running perfectly fine? Sure go ahead and rip apart the dashboard to get at that sensor that happens to fail perfectly around 100k mile mark at a cost of about half the value of the car at the repair shop because it takes half a day for their tech to complete. If it was about greenhouse gasses th…

How would any other protocol change your nonsensical example? Cars will have sensors with canbus or obdX. We arent running mags and carbs anymore man.

Re: The thriving black market of John Deere tractor hacking

#87

Post by Neliquat »

rconti wrote: post #8
Swizec wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dad is a mechanical engineer who loves cars. I spent my youth listening to him lamenting the fact that modern cara have too many electronics and DIY protections. That you can't even make an oil change without also notifying the computer, the interface for which is proprietary and only sold to licensed dealers, or the car would refuse to run because it would think its oil is bad. He reminisced about the good old da…

[citation needed] There is no vehicle on the market (that I know of) which will refuse to run without an oil change. On my 17 year old BMW and 2 year old VW, the oil service indicator is just a reminder, a courtesy. On the BMW I can reset it with a paper clip. On the VW I can reset it on the screen on the dash. Honestly, most of the major things that go wrong with cars these days are still mechanical, and are still f…

On 2 of my newer cars, they will not put out full power unless the oil change light is off. This is in a toyota with vvti. There is your example.

Re: The thriving black market of John Deere tractor hacking

#88

Post by kelvin0 »

bougiefever wrote: post #78

Farmers are an independent group. They are used to relying on their own skills and hard work to make a living, and they are not going to tolerate this. I think it is an overreach for John Deere and other manufacturers to control what I do with my (my!) devices. I really hope this law gets passed to prevent companies from doing this. Farmers can really help, because everyone knows we depend on them for our food, so an…

I think you are right, however it kinda seems they already put up with a lot more from companies selling them their 'patented' seeds and the constraints that come with those seeds.

I once saw a doc mentioning a farmer that got 'fined' by a seed company because he had some seeds he did not pay for in his crop, these few plants that grew because the neighboring farmer was using them and the wind blew some on the side of his lot. Also, they are no longer allowed to stock up on the seeds, they need to renew their stock... Has anyone seen this also?

Re: The thriving black market of John Deere tractor hacking

#89

Post by cmdrfred »

Neliquat wrote: post #86
cmdrfred wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ODBII has to be the greatest planned obsolescence scheme ever perpetrated. Want to continue driving that older car that is running perfectly fine? Sure go ahead and rip apart the dashboard to get at that sensor that happens to fail perfectly around 100k mile mark at a cost of about half the value of the car at the repair shop because it takes half a day for their tech to complete. If it was about greenhouse gasses th…

How would any other protocol change your nonsensical example? Cars will have sensors with canbus or obdX. We arent running mags and carbs anymore man.

When the OBD system was created auto manufactures (via dealership trade organizations that are extremely powerful in some states due to the large sums of taxes paid on new vehicles) pushed for state regulations that don't allow cars to be used that have the check engine light on. Often the sensor not functioning has no effect on the use or safety of the car (also the sensors themselves are designed to be needlessly difficult to replace). In effect causing the use of older cars to not be cost effective. In my state emissions are measured at the tailpipe, you can be well within standards but fail simply because a sensor reports that it needs to be changed.

This is essentially a highly regressive tax scheme that subsidises auto makers and dealerships at the disproportionate expense of poorer working Americans. It gives auto manufactures a "replace car" light that they can activate and have enforced by law and thus, planned obsolescence.

As someone who grew up poor and has spent time not having access to food in order to replace a useless sensor in a family vehicle (or paying a fine related to not having a valid inspection sticker) and knowing many other families who have been in the same situation. I have seen first hand the issues with this policy.

Re: The thriving black market of John Deere tractor hacking

#90

Post by secfirstmd »

kelvin0 wrote: post #88
bougiefever wrote: post #78

Farmers are an independent group. They are used to relying on their own skills and hard work to make a living, and they are not going to tolerate this. I think it is an overreach for John Deere and other manufacturers to control what I do with my (my!) devices. I really hope this law gets passed to prevent companies from doing this. Farmers can really help, because everyone knows we depend on them for our food, so an…

I think you are right, however it kinda seems they already put up with a lot more from companies selling them their 'patented' seeds and the constraints that come with those seeds. I once saw a doc mentioning a farmer that got 'fined' by a seed company because he had some seeds he did not pay for in his crop, these few plants that grew because the neighboring farmer was using them and the wind blew some on the side o…

Yeah that sounds familiar. I think it was a documentary about Monsanto. Can't remember the exact name, might have been a BBC program?
Post reply on HN