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The thriving black market of John Deere tractor hacking

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Re: The thriving black market of John Deere tractor hacking

#161

Post by tim333 »

nextweek2 wrote: post #94

I have a friend that services and repairs combine harvesters for a living. He tells me that he rarely has to do any welding or heavy lifting any more because the reliability and mechanics of the machines have become very reliable. He's spends most of his time diagnosing on-board electronics. Which he says is the root of the discord with farmers. They think of their tractor like a hoe, you plonk it in the ground and g…

Buying has a lot of advantages. My computer and phone need updates too and I buy those. I don't see the problem with being able to buy a gadget and install software on it.

Re: The thriving black market of John Deere tractor hacking

#162

Post by gcb0 »

weberc2 wrote: post #21
gcb0 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

since all manufacturers just assemble readily available parts , time to market will probably be less than software. you'd be surprised how many common parts are in a ford and bmw. Mostly exterior and dashboard are trade secrets today.

While John Deere does buy OEM parts, it designs and builds a lot of stuff in house, including engines. It owns and operates foundries and it even designs its own embedded computers (and writes the firmware, operating system, CAN drivers, and application software). It probably takes longer to prepare the factory for a new model-year build of an existing tractor than it takes some software vendors to get an MVP to mark…

so? they probably sell parts to competitors and vice versa.

for example, a Chrysler pt Cruiser have a engine designed by bmw, made in Brazil and Mexico on foundries owned by Volkswagen.

that's an extreme example, but hope this gives the idea to the downvote army.

Re: The thriving black market of John Deere tractor hacking

#163

Post by nkurz »

hwillis wrote: post #127
throw_away wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we sure that the anaerobic digester is a net carbon producer? What would have happened to the hog waste otherwise? This article would imply that there are other environmental factors to consider: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/10/141028-hog-f... Steve Wing, the UNC-Chapel Hill epidemiologist, says hog operations give off ammonia, methane—a potent greenhouse gas—and hydrogen sulfide, which causes hea…

Anaerobic digestion causes the production of (more) methane rather than co2. Methane is a 100x more potent greenhouse gas than co2 over the short term. Over hundreds of years it breaks down but even a century from now it's 30x worse. Anaerobic digestion is great as long as leaks are kept below 1%. Doing so is tricky.

Over hundreds of years it breaks down but even a century from now it's 30x worse.

That doesn't sound right. Most sources I've seen[1] say that atmospheric methane has about a 10 year half life. I think the 30x figure you refer to actually represents the sum of methane's annual impact over 100 years. Despite the greater immediate efficacy as a greenhouse gas, the amount of methane remaining after a century should be so small that the impact in the 101st year would be extremely (likely unmeasurably) low.

[1] For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_methane

Re: The thriving black market of John Deere tractor hacking

#165

Post by tripzilch »

nommm-nommm wrote: post #124
laurent123456 wrote: post #101

The hypocrisy of John Deer is amazing. On one hand, they forbid modifying the software because it "can endanger machine performance" and on the other hand they accept no responsibility 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". So what's the point of not hacking their software if the farmers get no benefit…

I don't think it's not so much hypocrisy as much as they want to protect their reputation. They can't control what third party software does so they don't want people loading third party software that negatively effects their products thus negatively affects their reputation. I don't agree with it but I can see their angle.

> I don't think it's not so much hypocrisy as much as they want to protect their reputation.

Wanting to protect a reputation that they refuse to back up by actually providing the guarantees that this reputation represents is exactly the hypocrisy that is being pointed out here.

Claiming a reputation without actually providing what the reputation is for, is ... well it's basically a lie, isn't it?

As someone said elsewhere in this thread, it would be so much more honest if they'd just lease these things. All these controls on repairs, custom software, they make perfect sense for something that is leased, not sold.

Re: The thriving black market of John Deere tractor hacking

#166

Post by andygates »

hwillis wrote: post #129
fastbeef wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. This process is 100% carbon neutral. It recycles the carbon already in the pig manure as opposed to natural gas which is a fossil fuel and adds to the carbon cycle.

Any lost methane is significantly worse than the equivalent amount of CO2. Even though it's carbon neutral, the intermediate step converts it to a much more potent greenhouse gas that is very easy to lose to atmosphere. Without a digester, the biomass will be converted to co2 instead. Energy that could have been stored as methane is converted to heat. The best case scenario is to skip biology entirely and throw it in…

"Any lost methane is significantly worse than the equivalent amount of CO2."

...except that methane doesn't persist anything like as long as CO2, so while it's mean and pointy upfront, it's out of the environment faster. This is pretty basic climate science that routinely gets misrepresented by the denier industry, which is why I'm bothering to pick this nit.

Re: The thriving black market of John Deere tractor hacking

#167

Post by Arizhel »

Cyph0n wrote: post #29
weberc2 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While John Deere does buy OEM parts, it designs and builds a lot of stuff in house, including engines. It owns and operates foundries and it even designs its own embedded computers (and writes the firmware, operating system, CAN drivers, and application software). It probably takes longer to prepare the factory for a new model-year build of an existing tractor than it takes some software vendors to get an MVP to mark…

I'm assuming you mean a metal foundry and not a semiconductor foundry? Still, the fact that they build their engines in-house is pretty impressive. I believe that many auto makers purchase their engines instead of designing then in-house because they are so complex to get right.

>I believe that many auto makers purchase their engines instead of designing then in-house because they are so complex to get right.

Citation needed. Engines are one thing the automakers tend to hold onto and not outsource often. There are exceptions, and there's cases of them licensing specific engine tech from each other (like with Toyota's Prius drivetrain). For instance, Mazda has a prototype car where they paired their 2.0L "SkyActiv" gas engine with Toyota's hybrid transmission/motor from the Prius. There's also cases of them doing joint ventures, like when Mitsubishi and Chrysler formed "Diamond Star Motors" back in the 80s/90s, or with the more recent Subaru BRZ/Scion FR-S where Subaru makes the engine/drivetrain/suspension and Toyota makes the body (I think).

The only cases I can think of offhand where automakers simply drop in a purchased engine are with diesel pickups, such as Dodge using Cummins engines. Oh, there was also the Ford Taurus SHO with a Yamaha engine, but that was way back in the late 80s and Yamaha isn't exactly known as a serious engine-builder these days.

Re: The thriving black market of John Deere tractor hacking

#168

Post by Arizhel »

weberc2 wrote: post #149
Cyph0n wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like standard electronics manufacturing; nothing state-of-the-art. It's still interesting that they chose to design and manufacture it all in-house.

I didn't mean to imply that it was in some way non-standard or state-of-the-art; only that they do, in fact, manufacture some of their electronics in-house.

I don't see any evidence there that they manufacture semiconductors, only electronics. Manufacturing electronics isn't that hard, depending on what exactly you're doing. Assembling printed circuit boards from components is something you can even do by hand in most cases, and automated assembly equipment isn't really that expensive to set up a small factory, depending on the volume required (small-volume stuff isn't that expensive, high-volume high-speed stuff is more so). Manufacturing semiconductors is something else altogether, and isn't something you can do in a small warehouse with a few hundred $K of equipment; it requires very specialized buildings and equipment.

Re: The thriving black market of John Deere tractor hacking

#169

Post by Arizhel »

sglane wrote: post #111
rjmunro wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that case, just write the license contract to say "If you change the firmware, John Deere accepts no liability". Make people sign that if they want the unlock key. Presumably John Deere aren't liable for other kinds of misuse - e.g. if you crash it.

It's not that simple. A corollary is with cellphone firmware for the radio. They have to answer to the FCC. Updating the firmware will let you broadcast with more wattage, for example. FCC doesn't like that. JD has to answer to the EPA. See Tier IV.

Automakers have to answer to the EPA too. That doesn't stop regular joes from changing their own oil in their garage and buying parts at Autozone. Most cars are not designed to make it impossible for car owners to do regular maintenance or simple repair jobs themselves.

Re: The thriving black market of John Deere tractor hacking

#170

Post by Arizhel »

cmdrfred wrote: post #89
Neliquat wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 d…

Oh please. An OBD-II scan tool these days costs $50, and will tell you what's wrong. You can buy parts cheaply at Autozone or online. Working on cars these days is simpler than ever in many cases. There's even YouTube videos showing you how to do all kinds of stuff.

As for "ripping apart the dashboard" to get to the "useless" sensor, what kind of car was this?

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