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

A farmer from Zug is hacked. One of his cows dies as a result

nzz.ch

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–28 of 28 posts

Re: A farmer from Zug is hacked. One of his cows dies as a result

#21

Post by gklitz »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #16
skyyler wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://unbottled.com/questions/what-happens-when-a-cow-need... The person you’re responding to actually knows what they’re talking about. It seems like you’re off an incorrect assumption that there are dairy cows in the wild. (“normal world”) Dairy cows are domesticated animals. They do not exist outside of the context of farms.

Well, they’re correct. It’s a predicament the farmer has put the cow in. The top comment’s framing makes it sound like cows just exist in nature and need us to milk them.

The top comment does no such thing. It specifically mentions dairy cows.

Re: A farmer from Zug is hacked. One of his cows dies as a result

#22

Post by rightbyte »

robertlagrant wrote: post #12
3np wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The SaaSification of something that should have been a product.

But that's nothing to do with rent seeking. Rent seeking is getting the government/a regulator to mandate the use of your service.

Maybe the phrase I rather should have used would be "profiteering"?

But according to Wikipedia, I think the "classic example" fits many SaaS vendors:

    The classic example of rent-seeking, according to Robert Shiller, is that of a property owner who installs a chain across a river that flows through their land and then hires a collector to charge passing boats a fee to lower the chain. There is nothing productive about the chain or the collector, nor do passing boats get anything in return. The owner has made no improvements to the river and is not adding value in any way, directly or indirectly, except for themselves. *All they are doing is finding a way to obtain money from something that used to be free*.

Re: A farmer from Zug is hacked. One of his cows dies as a result

#23

Post by 3np »

robertlagrant wrote: post #12
3np wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The SaaSification of something that should have been a product.

But that's nothing to do with rent seeking. Rent seeking is getting the government/a regulator to mandate the use of your service.

> Rent seeking is getting the government/a regulator to mandate the use of your service.

That sounds like your personal narrower definition. Where did you get that from?

The wider use is both historically and semantically accurate and I believe people familiar with the term will still recognize its intended meaning today.

Needlessly making a physical product unusable without the continued subscription to an associated service, and designing the product in such a way that only the manufacturer can/may provide that service (aka vendor-lock-in) is pretty much rent-seeking, yeah.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking

Re: A farmer from Zug is hacked. One of his cows dies as a result

#24

Post by funac »

CapstanRoller wrote: post #18
n_plus_1_acc wrote: post #4

Many people don't know that you have to milk a dairy cow twice a day because they produce so much milk. They will experience severe pain of not milked, so in case of an emergency, usually all cows are euthanized. In today's world, farmers need to have more cows than they could ever milk by hand.

>Many people don't know that you have to milk a dairy cow twice a day because they produce so much milk. Why? This doesn't seem natural (or ethical) >In today's world, farmers need to have more cows than they could ever milk by hand. Why? This doesn't seem sustainable (or ethical)

it's animal agriculture - it's as far from natural, sustainable, or ethical as you can get.

Re: A farmer from Zug is hacked. One of his cows dies as a result

#25

Post by robertlagrant »

rightbyte wrote: post #22
robertlagrant wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's nothing to do with rent seeking. Rent seeking is getting the government/a regulator to mandate the use of your service.

Maybe the phrase I rather should have used would be "profiteering"? But according to Wikipedia, I think the "classic example" fits many SaaS vendors: The classic example of rent-seeking, according to Robert Shiller, is that of a property owner who installs a chain across a river that flows through their land and then hires a collector to charge passing boats a fee to lower the chain. There is nothing productive about…

But how does that fit SAAS vendors? If someone cut my fibre wire and added a box that stopped it working if I didn't pay them, I would say that that is rent seeking. A SAAS vendor doesn't seem to fit that pattern.

Re: A farmer from Zug is hacked. One of his cows dies as a result

#26

Post by n_plus_1_acc »

CapstanRoller wrote: post #18
n_plus_1_acc wrote: post #4

Many people don't know that you have to milk a dairy cow twice a day because they produce so much milk. They will experience severe pain of not milked, so in case of an emergency, usually all cows are euthanized. In today's world, farmers need to have more cows than they could ever milk by hand.

>Many people don't know that you have to milk a dairy cow twice a day because they produce so much milk. Why? This doesn't seem natural (or ethical) >In today's world, farmers need to have more cows than they could ever milk by hand. Why? This doesn't seem sustainable (or ethical)

> >Many people don't know that you have to milk a dairy cow twice a day because they produce so much milk. > > Why? This doesn't seem natural (or ethical) > > >In today's world, farmers need to have more cows than they could ever milk by hand. > > Why? This doesn't seem sustainable (or ethical)

Short answer: capitalism

Longer answer: cows have been bred for more milk throughput, not more milk storage. A good dairy cow can yield up to six and a half gallons every day. The udder is simply not large enough to hold that much milk. Whether this kind of selective breeding can be called natural is up to you.

And milking machines, even the simplest kind that provide just a suction mechanism, are ubiquitous in the developed world and can easily allow the farmer to milk multiple cows in parallel, pipelined. And you need to have some machines to survive on the market. So you get more cows to increase the yield. These machines are usually very reliable, so people begin to rely on them. If you can get them fixed weithin a couple hours you're good.

Re: A farmer from Zug is hacked. One of his cows dies as a result

#27

Post by rightbyte »

robertlagrant wrote: post #25
rightbyte wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the phrase I rather should have used would be "profiteering"? But according to Wikipedia, I think the "classic example" fits many SaaS vendors: The classic example of rent-seeking, according to Robert Shiller, is that of a property owner who installs a chain across a river that flows through their land and then hires a collector to charge passing boats a fee to lower the chain. There is nothing productive about…

But how does that fit SAAS vendors? If someone cut my fibre wire and added a box that stopped it working if I didn't pay them, I would say that that is rent seeking. A SAAS vendor doesn't seem to fit that pattern.

Perpetual use of software used to be free after purchase. Nowadays SaaS is more or less the norm.

Re: A farmer from Zug is hacked. One of his cows dies as a result

#28

Post by pjmlp »

robertlagrant wrote: post #6
komape wrote: post #2

English translation A farmer from Zug is hacked. One of his cows dies as a result - can a cyber attack now affect all farmers? Farmer Bircher refused to pay 10,000 francs to a gang. A cyber security expert says: "Agriculture is where the banks and insurance companies were fifteen years ago." Farmer Vital Bircher from Hagendorn in the canton of Zug receives a text message from his milking robot. It was no longer recei…

> Bircher says that the hacked computer was technically up to date: The farmer had only bought the device a year ago, it had Windows 11 installed and also an antivirus program People think this is sufficient. Microsoft has a giant marketing budget to ensure they never think differently.

Plenty of POSIX running IoT devices get routinely hacked every year.

Keep writing their software in a mix of Assembly, C and C++, with bad business practices and this will never change, regardless of Windows existence.

Post reply on HN