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Bugs allowed hackers to dox John Deere tractor owners

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Re: Bugs allowed hackers to dox John Deere tractor owners

#41

Post by vsareto »

cosmodisk wrote: post #18

The problem with a lot of these old school companies is that any development work would always be treated as 2nd tier. Very very few,if any, CEOs will go to their boards and admit that they've been behind with their tech for years and it'd take a lot of stones to move to change the way things are done. We all know them: crappy pay, work conditions similar to the comedy shows about office work,etc.

Idk about you, but self-driving tractors seem a bit better than 2nd tier developers. Some teams might be lower-end, which almost always happens at large companies. Many of them also integrate with the tools they're attached to. It's definitely not just line of business apps.

Re: Bugs allowed hackers to dox John Deere tractor owners

#42

Post by vsareto »

DetroitThrow wrote: post #25
universa1 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm... from personal experience I know that John Deere has multiple development centers around the world that definately do development on the edge of what is possible, and pushing that frontier... Disclaimer: Not in any associated/involved with John Deere.

>edge of what is possible, and pushing that frontier... While I understand JD has been ahead of other tractor manufacturers (electric, autonomous), the industry hasn't been anywhere close to on pace with the research investments made in these areas where the consumer auto industry has actually been pushing the frontier in research investment in these spaces for some time now - seems more like riding the wave than con…

Consumer auto has different problems it needs to solve. A vision based system would be a waste of an investment when you have a field with basically no obstacles, and certainly no people and cars and traffic signs. It's closer to an aircraft autopilot in that respect.

Re: Bugs allowed hackers to dox John Deere tractor owners

#43

Post by shsvsjx »

skinkestek wrote: post #31
kebman wrote: post #27

Is owning John Deere tractors somehow controversial, since they're talking about how owners were "doxed"? Is there a special place on the web where we can laugh at the hall of shame of John Deere tractor owners? Jokes aside, John Deere are pretty good tractors tho. Very common among farmers here in Norway. ^^

> Very common among farmers here in Norway. ^^ Another question: are Norwegians overrepresented here on HN? I've been wondering this for a while but I'm unsure if it is that or of I just happen to notice everyone who in any way signal that they are Norwegians. (Yes, I live in Norway to.)

Well Norwegians are probably over represented than their share of the world population would suggest:

1. Northern Europeans tend to speak excellent English. Flawless English is the norm, anyway much better than people from my native countries.

2. Northern Europeans tend to have excellent technical skills compared to the world average.

While both points help y’alls participation in HN, I think point 1 is the most important of the two. I rarely encounter comments from native Japanese or Koreans, even though their populations are much larger than Norway’s. Typically the commenters have since moved to the US. I do, however, encounter non-IT ppl on HN that are very curious (and typically have interesting backstories). I especially enjoy the occasional comments from diesel mechanics.

But you also have a strong observational bias. While the probability of seeing a Ferrari isnt too low the P of seeing two Ferrari’s next to each other is very low... unless you happen to be driving one of the two Ferraris. Add to that that a car lover (ie Norwegian) is much more likely to notice the Ferrari (other Norwegians).

Re: Bugs allowed hackers to dox John Deere tractor owners

#44

Post by xaedes »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #37
GuB-42 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also it is a somewhat bogus comparison: Mostly nobody complains that their car / laptop / smartphone comes from a factory, but for farming there is this strange preference for something of 50-100years past. It is not specific to farming. Handmade, artisan stuff sells well, even when it is objectively worse. And in general, people are more sympathetic to small businesses than big, faceless corporations. We value the…

Who's we? I know a guy who can't go through a drive through without lecturing everyone in the car about how being able to get 400kcal for a buck and a half is an amazing feat of societal progress. But he's old and emigrated from Poland so... My example may be an outlier but there's plenty of people who are happy to get Chilean produce in January and don't care how much methane their 75/25 beef emitted. HN has the spa…

For comparison: A regular buck (the animal) may have something around the 160000 kcal.

Re: Bugs allowed hackers to dox John Deere tractor owners

#45

Post by galangalalgol »

GuB-42 wrote: post #24
universa1 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hmm... having grown up on a farm in Germany and even though my father was only employed as the manager, it still felt more like "our" farm. It was definately a big farm compared to the german average, but then that average also includes a lot of part-time/side-business farms, where. Despite the size, the general methods between a smaller and a larger farm are not that different imho. But the amount of tech in a moder…

> Also it is a somewhat bogus comparison: Mostly nobody complains that their car / laptop / smartphone comes from a factory, but for farming there is this strange preference for something of 50-100years past. It is not specific to farming. Handmade, artisan stuff sells well, even when it is objectively worse. And in general, people are more sympathetic to small businesses than big, faceless corporations. We value the…

As to distrusting large companies, I think that is an intuitive understanding we have that in any organization larger than 100 people, it is likely led by a sociopath. They gravitate towards positions of power, they have superficial charm that hold in large groups where you don't get to know people well, and they occur at about 1 in 100.

Re: Bugs allowed hackers to dox John Deere tractor owners

#46

Post by LeifCarrotson »

kebman wrote: post #27

Is owning John Deere tractors somehow controversial, since they're talking about how owners were "doxed"? Is there a special place on the web where we can laugh at the hall of shame of John Deere tractor owners? Jokes aside, John Deere are pretty good tractors tho. Very common among farmers here in Norway. ^^

I think the author was using "doxxed" to mean "discovered the ability to expose personal identifying information of", rather than "exposed personal identifying information with the intent to shame by publicizing said PIN". I agree that's not a very accurate usage.

They're only slightly controversial here in the Midwestern US. Somewhat like Harley Davidson motorcycles, their users are highly brand loyal due more to historical factors than a modern quality or value comparison. Their owners can be derided for overpaying for underperforming tractors that can only be repaired by a dealer for exorbitant fees, the smart money is buying Kubota or Agco now. Though like a Honda rider in a biker bar, you want to be careful where you say that.

Re: Bugs allowed hackers to dox John Deere tractor owners

#47

Post by kebman »

shsvsjx wrote: post #43
skinkestek wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Very common among farmers here in Norway. ^^ Another question: are Norwegians overrepresented here on HN? I've been wondering this for a while but I'm unsure if it is that or of I just happen to notice everyone who in any way signal that they are Norwegians. (Yes, I live in Norway to.)

Well Norwegians are probably over represented than their share of the world population would suggest: 1. Northern Europeans tend to speak excellent English. Flawless English is the norm, anyway much better than people from my native countries. 2. Northern Europeans tend to have excellent technical skills compared to the world average. While both points help y’alls participation in HN, I think point 1 is the most impo…

Well Skinkestek is pretty hard to miss for other Norwegians. It means “Ham steak” in my language. :D Which reminds me... I have some in the fridge. Gonna roast it this weekend. Yum!

Re: Bugs allowed hackers to dox John Deere tractor owners

#48

Post by torh »

> Sick Codes said he could iterate and brute force all VIN numbers in the database, as they were "sequential," according to him

Seems like they didn't think that people would enter someone else's VIN. A few years back I discovered that I could get activation code for a map update in my car simply by entering my VIN and the product number of the DVDs with the map update.

They gave me a list to choose from when I enterd my VIN, but that didn't stop me from asking for a different product -- and they gladly sent me an email with the matching code.

PS: I'm also from Norway. I see that's a thing now.

Re: Bugs allowed hackers to dox John Deere tractor owners

#49

Post by alricb »

nightowl_games wrote: post #6
HEHENE wrote: post #2

Having worked on a John Deere integration for an agtech company I can't say I'm surprised. The MyJohnDeere API had a lot of idiosyncrasies that smelled like inexperienced or mismanaged development, especially around authentication/authorization. At the time I was working on it they had some extremely arcane authentication process that required round-trip emails, various link clicking and code entering, and all kinds…

We need a new word for these high tech massive farming operations. I come from the Canadian farming sector. Most of the farmers here are individuals, or medium sized family operations. Even the big farms aren't "high tech". There just a lot of guys and a bunch of leased machines. We have essentially 0 "high tech" farms. I wouldn't say "modern farms are very high tech operations", I'd say "high tech industrial players…

Sovkhoz? That's what they called them in the soviet union.

Re: Bugs allowed hackers to dox John Deere tractor owners

#50

Post by cronix »

nightowl_games wrote: post #6
HEHENE wrote: post #2

Having worked on a John Deere integration for an agtech company I can't say I'm surprised. The MyJohnDeere API had a lot of idiosyncrasies that smelled like inexperienced or mismanaged development, especially around authentication/authorization. At the time I was working on it they had some extremely arcane authentication process that required round-trip emails, various link clicking and code entering, and all kinds…

We need a new word for these high tech massive farming operations. I come from the Canadian farming sector. Most of the farmers here are individuals, or medium sized family operations. Even the big farms aren't "high tech". There just a lot of guys and a bunch of leased machines. We have essentially 0 "high tech" farms. I wouldn't say "modern farms are very high tech operations", I'd say "high tech industrial players…

> What your talking about is something completely different.

I wonder if farmers felt the same way when tractors first started coming onto the scene replacing ox/horses and a plow, or combines, or grain carts, or seed drills, or...

Did you grow up using any of that at-the-time "high tech" equipment? It was high tech at some point, now just common tech. At what point is something considered "high tech?" If you were born in the age of cell phones, are they considered high tech, or just common tech you can find on any street corner like gumball machines? If you were born in the 1950's, does your opinion differ on cell phones from someone currently in their 20's who grew up with it and knew no other way?

Technology fueled the Agricultural Revolution. https://www.thoughtco.com/agricultural-revolution-1991931

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