Farmers look for ways to circumvent tractor software locks

edit: I have hopefully fixed all of the places where I incorrectly parsed "worked on software for" as indicating employment.

> They have a real potential to end peoples lives in the event of failure

I hope the lessons[1] learned from the Therac-25 are part of the design. Anything that dangerous needs to have defense in depth. If there are hardware limiters, interlocks, etc adding redundancy to the software check, the risk should be no worse than repairing any other dangerous machinery. Alternatively, if John Deere is relying on the software alone for safety checks - which requires that they (and the OEMs!) write bug-free software - then I don't want to be anywhere near the affected products.

> these tractors do (in testing) fail in spectacular ways.

So it's software only. I'm amazed at the hubris of thinking it's even possible can guarantee a software project large enough to requires a couple hundred engineers that maintain "the largest, most complex codebase [you] have ever interacted with". The very existence of tests failing in "spectacular ways" is evidence that bugs do exist in the software.

> These are not riding lawnmowers.

I'm not aware of anybody that suggested they were.

> They are 30-ton combines, and 20 ton tractors tilling fields

Yes, just like the older combines and tractors that didn't require complicated software.

> Joe Farmer isn't going to have a fucking clue how to repair their software correctly.

This, really, is the key point: the farmers in question *are not trying to repair the software. The only reason it is involved at all is because John Deere the company) chose to add the dependency.

[1] http://sunnyday.mit.edu/papers/therac.pdf

I would say the JD's tractor software (if taken in it's entirety) is on par with the modern Linux kernel in size, if not larger. Worse yet, the codebase is spread along many different repositories, teams, and build systems.

I've seen integration builds take days to finish (not including running of unit tests).

Look I get it, John Deere is evil. But this codebase is beyond any one person or team's comprehension. It's very massive, and it's very complicated.

Well, modification of certain software systems could be easily regulated. Even now you can't just modify all the mechanical parts of your car. For example, if you remove or bypass your catalytic converter, you can be fined $2,500-200,000 and charged with a felony. There's also a provision for any citizen to sue you into compliance if they know you've done it.

Doubt that happens much, but if you ever became someone the gov't doesn't like, they can probably just go see if your muffler is up to code. Or any of the million other felonies you might be unknowingly committing due to the expansion of federal regulations.

They lock down the software in their well understood interests:

- vendor lock in (this is not good for customers)

- safety (testing this stuff is expesive and lengthy. Every change forces a re-test. They are liable for this stuff)

- defending the brand value (if there is an accident because of modified software non-hackers will blame the manufacturer for making it possible)

This all weill get worse with neural networks:

Imagine people poking around bits in the matrix representing the neural network of the sel-driving AI.

They will not have the slightest clue what they are doing, but they don't want their System to be locked down. They download "steering optimizers" and similar stuff from sites and overwrite the neural network.

Who will be to blame for the accident because of this?

With neural networks even the manufacturer cannot completely understand every nauron's effect on the complete system, as opposed to traditional software. Manufacturers have huge responsibility, and curently only locking software down is their only way to defend themselves.

There is definitely defense in depth but, I never said the software was bug-free. :)

Also you're doing the unfortunate thing of associating me as part of John Deere. I'm not. I had a small hand is writing a small part of this software, a long long time ago. I don't give a shit if they sell tractors or not. I don't care if farmers modify the software or not. I don't really have a dog in this fight. I'm just a guy with an opinion who's seen how the sausage is made.