The thriving black market of John Deere tractor hacking
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> "I take the hog waste and run it through an anaerobic digester and I've learned to compress the methane," he said. "I run an 80 percent methane in my Chevy Diesel Pickup and I run 90 percent methane in my tractor. And they both purr. I take a lot of pride in working on my equipment."
There's also a chance that this violates EPA laws around Tier IV emissions. Totally sympathize with not being able to repair existing equipment but I think it's important to separate it from things that can have emission implications(much in the same way you can't go dumping tons of RF everywhere over protected spectrum on your router).
That said I wonder if Case IH/Claas/etc has similar agreements.
They also allow exemptions to use untaxed fuel in them, etc.
Basically, there's a sort of exemption ecosystem that might have farmers thinking they are free to do whatever they want around fuel and emissions. Which is only partially true...
Turns out it specifically governs nonroad engine emissions i.e. that of farm vehicles.
[0] https://www.dieselnet.com/standards/us/nonroad.php#tier4
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 headaches and eye irritation. They also release endotoxin, an allergen, and at least a hundred volatile organic compounds, many of which contribute to the odor of hog farms.
[...]
The result? The covers trap odors, making the operation less smelly. Rain falling on the farm isn't contaminated by lagoon waste. And the farm is transforming waste into electricity-generating enough to power 90 refrigerators.
Anaerobic digestion is great as long as leaks are kept below 1%. Doing so is tricky.
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
With digester: manure -> compressed methane -> combustion engine -> energy + Co2.
It's such an enormous win-win it's strange not everyone is doing this.
Done right, a digester extracts a little bit more chemical energy from biomass that simply leaving it on the ground. Done wrong it weaponizes the carbon.
...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.
[1] https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/overview-greenhouse-gases
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421513...
https://www.usda.gov/oce/reports/energy/2015EnergyBalanceCor...
The energy share of the fertilizer has gone up pretty significantly over the last 30 years as the corn ethanol industry has improved.
A lot of tools can be used for legal and illegal purposes, but in this case there is a lot of eye balls that had all the possibility in the world to claim a case of violated environmental laws and yet clearly that has not happened.
Important to note that this is 100% carbon-neutral since it uses carbon already in cycle, as opposed to fossil natural gas which adds carbon to the cycle.
It's true and it actually has a GWP[0] of ~80 over 20 years (so over 20 years a given mass of methane traps 80 times as much heat as the same mass of CO2), although it degrades back to CO2 and water in 12 years. So yes if you're releasing the carbon into the atmosphere either way, it is much, much better to release it as CO2 than as methane.
Another issue is that most of the carbon in that manure comes from feed corn. And most of the energy in feed corn comes from ammonia fertilizer, which is made from fossil methane. But hey, it's still a win compared to field spreading.
Right.
Yes, though if you use the aneorobic digester to make the methane in the first place, it's moot.
It's basically free energy.
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?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5700514
tptacek 1408 days ago:
Once again regarding this story: to understand what's happening here, it's very important that you understand that the farmer didn't just acquire Monsanto seeds, but also used glyphospate herbicides on the crops. The point of Monsanto's invention is that it survives Roundup; if you spray Roundup on normal crops, they die.
Most people who see this story play out seem to think that it implies a Monsanto seed could blow onto your field and then get you sued. But of course, if you didn't know you were planting Monsanto seeds, you wouldn't think to try to kill them with Roundup.
When you buy a combine you are making a pretty big commitment. They are many hundreds of thousands of dollars. Not only that, but it's mostly in your best interest to buy the same brand to buy-in to the ecosystem of parts, dealers, knowledge, etc... so sometimes there is inertia to overcome if you want to transition from, say Deere to Case IH.
It would be like switching from Apple/Lightning to Android/USB-C except instead of a few thousand bucks on devices and maybe a hundred on cables, you're talking millions of dollars.
...who receive billions in federal subsidies.
> They are used to relying on their own skills and hard work
Almost universally using machines and seeds designed by engineers and scientists in "The City". (excluding Amish farmers, in which case, my sincerest apologies for the skepticism.)
> 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.
Agreed. And in return for that legal protection, farmers should concede their subsidies.
> I think they picked a fight with the wrong people.
Definitely. Not because farmers are rugged individualists, but because they have extremely effective lobbying organizations and are very well-connected in DC.
Would large farm lobbying groups fight against Deere's practices, when harming small family farms drives business to larger agri-businesses?
Disagree. Small family farms provide the votes, farming companies provide the lobbying $. They're symbiotic, and both benefit from subsidies (to the extent that small family farms own the land they farm, which many do).
In any case, the "rugged individualist farmer" myth is a myth. And as long as my tax dollars subsidize their profits, I'll continue to point out the hypocrisy.
99.9% of farming really is just one more inter-connected industry these days. There's nothing wrong with inter-connectedness and inter-dependency, BTW. But it is extraordinary hypocritical to appeal to one's self-sustenance as a justification for preferential legal/policy treatment when you're working in an industry that relies not only a myriad of other industries, but also huge federal subsidies.
> Would large farm lobbying groups fight against Deere's practices, when harming small family farms drives business to larger agri-businesses?
Sure. Decreasing maintenance costs helps their bottom line too. And decreasing their operational costs is probably a more sustainable and probable way to drive out family farms anyways.
> It seems like John Deere's restrictions are more harmful to small family farms than to large agricultural corporations, right?
Really only in the sense of diminishing marginal utility of money.
(As I said above, I'm not siding with John Deere. So we agree. But I'm also not siding against John Deere because of any level of sympathy for farmers' romantic self image of "independence".)
Really? Because I'm perfectly happy getting my produce from Mexico and my rice from Thailand instead of American farmers. Farmers as a group feed the planet, but American farmers we don't need at all.
Until something happens to knock out the supply chain for a while, then we're fucked.
In the increasingly-distant-from-reality world of yeoman farmers rather than corporate agribusiness.
People don't know or care about privacy, that's been amply proven, they just want rhetoric.
This is basically lending equipment while paying full price. We've gotten used to it with software, phones etc. Its absolutely ridiculous they have to sign agreements that exempt the company from any wrongdoing, and aren't allowed to perform basic repairs.
How do you find that this meshes with devices that require Internet access to function?
That's only a temporary workaround. SoCs with an integrated LTE modem have been available for a while (e.g. Samsung Exynos). In the near future, manufacturers will try to remove even the ability to corral IoT spyw^H^H^H^H"smart" to the local network.
If they want to license their technology then they should not be pretending that one "owns" the tractor/car when one "buys" it.
If they were honest then they would be leasing instead of selling.
That might work for Tesla. It would be harder for John Deere though.
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 get going. Where as the modern farm tractor or combine is actually a complex set of computer systems with literally thousands of sensors.
Farmers see the manufacturer as trying to extort on-going revenue, whereas manufacturers are trying to provide a new generation of smart farming. Getting 1 cm precision of sowing and fertiliser spreading is the innovation that the technology is delivering. The problem is that nobody wants to pay for that ongoing data processing.
This is going to happen with cars as well. It seems to me that people should rent/lease rather than buy because of this constant need for updates and servicing.
Their strategy will alienate their consumer base which hopefully would make room for other businesses to thrive where there's an actual market (the hoe they plonk in the ground).
Caterpillar also has a fair share of tractor hacking going on -- with dealers in China actively encouraging hacking and modifications of their equipment.
The reality is that if you've ever grew up on a farm, this type of thing is the norm -- smaller farmers don't always have the cash to do costly repairs and if there's a way to make it work in a non-standard way, a lot of times the temporary solution becomes the permanent one. Buy a tractor with a smaller PTO, but, have a larger one available? Cut it out, put the new one on. Diesel tractor but your family also owns a restaurant? Modify it to run on old oil.
"We invite all hackers, designers and forest machine enthusiasts to hack the harvester. We will take you to a visit to the Ponsse’s manufacturing factory, show harvesters in action and provide you with different APIs and data sets from the forest machines and the maintenance process. Now, Ponsse wants to build a community of tech startups and talented developers with whom co-operation can be continued."
We don't need right to mod legislation we need all companies to know that if you do this we will not buy your products.
Also, at least in the field of telematic connectivity (having your tractor 'online' to sync field operations, harvest data, etc...) Deere is leading the pack.
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/apple-tells-lawma...
Seems like we're getting what we deserve.
So what's the point of not hacking their software if the farmers get no benefit from it, not even the guarantee that John Deer will take responsibility in case of malfunction.
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.
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.
you'd be surprised how many common parts are in a ford and bmw. Mostly exterior and dashboard are trade secrets today.
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.
http://kokomogmch.com/kokomo-semiconductors/about-kokomo-sem...
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.
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.
Why are you confused? You said "all manufacturers just assemble readily available parts". I demonstrated that this is not the case for John Deere (or probably any other automotive manufacturer), which builds many of its own components and writes much of its own software in-house.
I'd be more curious if some of the other players(NH, Case IH, Claas, etc) could use this to their advantage. You see similar things in the CUT(Compact Utility Tractor) segment where LS/Kioti/Mahindra generally offer much more capabilities/features over Kubota and JD.
I had no idea Mahindraactually had a presence in the US. Can you tell me how they are generally regarded?
Below JD/Kubota/NH, above LS/Kioti.
Meanwhile... the BBC will make you seriously consider the merits of piracy. It's 2017, and some people really haven't figured out that when you back people into a corner online, they can just pirate their way out of it.
Someone brought it round and I remembered that my PS4 could play them. To do so it had to connect to the internet. (Tracking/Logging maybe?)
Like the scene in the Sooranos where the wives come round to watch a DVD, it forced me to sit through those "FBI yada yada even though you don't live in America" and "personal opinions of the cast blah blah" disclaimers before for the film would start.
Haven't had to see those since streaming services became available.
Also reminded me that if I'd pirated the film I would have had a better experience than purchasing the legitimate product.
Streaming services are saving the movie industry from itself.
First they came for the farmers, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a farmer.... -- Niemöller
He reminisced about the good old days when all you needed was a wrench and a hammer and you could fix anything on a car.
This was 10 years ago. I imagine it's only gotten worse since.
Coincidentally he grew up on a farm where they would hack and build from scratch all sorts of farm equipment.
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 fixed in the old-fashioned way. I've done countless brake jobs, oil changes, suspension changes, fluid changes, cooling system swaps, and never once been stymied by a computer.
Want to replace your relatively simple Volvo throttle body with a junkyard pull? Nope, it's programmed to your VIN.
Similar for many radios. And the notoriously glitchy matrix display on the dash cluster of 90s BMW's.
Also, PCM and body control modules, and more I've forgotten.
Similar for things like 3rd row removable seats and tailgates on trucks. Craigslist and eBay have more of these for sale than would make sense if they weren't being stolen.
Here John Deere is not simply accused of making it more complex, but prohibiting any and all repairs not authorized by their own propriety computer software.
I have a snap-on mt2500, and two other generic scan tools. I can get hard codes on most vechicles. I can't get certain codes or repair information on many newer vechicles.
The problem arises when you have an intermittent problem, and need access into those propriatiatry systems. The dealerships get software updates, but automotive companies are not required to inform anyone that there's been an change to the existing software.
In states like CA, which are very strict with emissions; failing a smog check because you have on old version of firmware is beyond frustrating. Most people have no idea that the reason they failed is due to an older software. Most smog shops don't even have information the dealerships have. It's a lot of trial and error to get that vechicle to pass those smog checks. It's not right. It should violate The Sherman Anti-Trust Act?
There are many indepent Auto Shops that are hobbled.
They need access to at least the dealership scan tool. I believe Massachusetts is the only state that enacted a "Right to Repair" law. If you live in that state, you can buy expensive dealership repair manuals, and get the opportunity to spend thousands on their scan tools. Just to find out what system/lazy sensor/etc. is broken in a vechicle you bought?
Having to take you vechicle to only the dealership is---un-American?
I thought you should know.
For me, nearly this entire page of comments show up as [dead]: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=icantdrive55&next=12...
I'm sure it was hyperbole to an extent. I don't know enough about the practice of fixing cars to know where the line lies. I just know what he said.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I usually do it by pressing the indicator with my feet and turning the key by hand.
I know people who bought brand new 2016 BMWs and Mercs, and the first thing they did was mod them - and the computer seems to work fine with whatever silly things they did with the engine.
So I don't think it's all that bad.
Honestly I'm really sick of hearing idiotic stories like this. You need to demand that he tell you exactly what car is like this (basically, "citation needed").
My 2015 Mazda is the easiest car to change oil that I've ever seen. There's a service panel on the bottom of the car that comes open with two screws, and inside is the drain bolt and the filter right next to it (hanging down, so it won't pour oil all over when you unscrew the filter). It really couldn't be any easier. Drain the oil, replace the filter, replace the crush-washer on the drain bolt and put it back on at ~35 lb-ft, pour more oil in the fill hole on top of the engine. Then, on the infotainment system, you just navigate to the "maintenance" section where the oil-change reminder is, select "Reset" and you're done. The system even has flexible oil change intervals and will tell you when to change it based on your driving habits; mine lets me go 7500-10000 miles between changes.
This canard about "proprietary interfaces only sold to licensed dealers" is either total bullshit, or is only on certain (likely high-end luxury) cars that are easy to avoid.
(Edit: to be fair there is some of this for certain things and certain cars. But it doesn't exist as far as I've seen for basic maintenance tasks, it just seems to be something created in the minds of old people and passed around as rumor until it became accepted as truth. One example of something that really is like this I've heard of is some high-end cars with electrically-adjustable suspensions, requiring a special dealer-only service tool to calibrate it in case of repairs. But you're not going to see this on a $20K Honda any time soon; regular cars these days still have the same ol' completely mechanical MacPherson strut suspensions they've had for ages.)
>He reminisced about the good old days when all you needed was a wrench and a hammer and you could fix anything on a car.
That's bullshit too. Cars have always needed all kinds of specialized tools. Disc brake spreaders, steering wheel pullers, spark plug gap tools, feeler gauges, torque wrenches (try replacing a con-rod without one and see how long your engine lasts), cylinder hones, I could go on and on.
EDIT: By the way, I favor owner's rights (my family farms with Deere equipment, and I think there's tons of mutual advantage in open sourcing software in this case specifically and in general), but as is often the case, the "greedy corporate oppressor" narrative is too simple.
But I do think there's a lot of room for detecting what changes were made and honoring / invalidating the warranty depending on them. Rather than simply saying "something was changed, therefore we invalidate the whole warranty."
What part of the things you describe aren't done with the purpose of making the company money? I mean, "we're risk-averse so we force the risk onto you" is kind of the same as "we don't want to spend money so we inconvenience you".
Of course, companies are in business to make money and will tend to use whatever avenues are open. When a company starts using a monopoly position to impose legal restrictions on customers (whether to avoid risk of losing money or just to make money), sympathy for their money-making efforts tends to lessen.
Edit: Note that the approach of Deer is not warranty voiding if someone hacks the software but a license agreement which effectively terminates the ability of the farmer to use the vehicle and thus the defense above is pretty disingenuous.
See: https://www.wired.com/2015/04/dmca-ownership-john-deere/
2. What monopoly are you proposing? A monopoly on the software that comes with the tractor?
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 elsewhere on this page.
And, of course, they're leveraging new legal concepts which allow them to sell their tractors while maintaining control over them through software licenses.
This can also be viewed as the more general "companies act in a way that gives them the best chance of continued indeterminate existence."
Of course, most companies exist to make money. A few companies might other do good things in the mean time (go out of their way to hire under-privileged youth or something). But the assumption of liberal capitalism is that following market forces will usually do good and when it won't there are or should be laws saying otherwise.
So the "bad" companies aren't the "greedy companies" but rather those companies which either break the law or "pervert" the law - find their ways around laws that should be there or use their influence to create laws that shouldn't be there. That is, unethical corporations but not necessarily more greedy that a company hoping to make lots of money fully in the bounds of the law.
But despite this, "Corporate Greed" is shouted on the left as an objection (an objection that really makes no sense for left, right or center damn it).
And with this weak argument on the left, comes the equally disingenuous argument, "not bad because not greedy" which winds-up being a content-less defense. "What you're abusing those people but even aiming to profit by it, tell me again why this makes it OK?"
Anyway, There's nothing nefarious about protecting your profits by avoiding liability. You seem to want Deere to be this evil corporation, which simply doesn't resonate with my experience in any way.
JD has to answer to the EPA. See Tier IV.
It is highly unlikely this will work out very well for JD.
Things like ODBII Regulations, which do only Apply to Highyway Vehicles, and all of the regulations that come out of the USDOT for Highway rated Vehicles.
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 like the GPS, Radio, power seats, etc
If it was about greenhouse gasses they'd let you keep the "dirty" car because the extra pound or two of emissions per gallon compared to a new car doesn't offset the carbon cost of building a new car from scratch.
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.
As for "ripping apart the dashboard" to get to the "useless" sensor, what kind of car was this?
2. The farmers are rightfully indignant about being locked out of their own machines. Farmers are risk averse too.
Never the twain shall meet.
It's the tech and scale that is wrong.
The field of ag isn't suitable because of the nature of work especially during harvest.
Maybe all smart machines should only be leased out. It is logical but that would never sit well with farmers because that is trusting someone who doesn't understand farming.
'Smart farm machinery' isn't useful unless it can be repaired by 'the cloud'(as it were).
Your life will/can go on without your iPhone. Without farm machinery(800-1000 acres is a 'small farm'), you are toast. The farm is toast. Income is toast.
Although, I wonder how farm insurance treats smart machines.
Smart farming machinery isn't really all that smart. Yet.
# times in a year a Deere requires repair?
My point of reference is my car. I can go several cars and not have to get a "repair" as long as I trade in about yr 4 or 5.
Is Deere the Yugo of tractors wrt visits to the shop?
So this brings in the question of "why not have two of everything?". pure cost. Combines easily run 500k USD. That's more then a lot of folks can afford for an idle piece of equipment.
Also, farming is a seasonal thing with (sometimes) small windows to do certain things. If weather is great and your tractor is in the shop you might miss a good planting opportunity -- it could rain by and you might need to wait a few weeks before you can get in and work that field.
This kinda blew my mind when I first thought about it -- a farmer really only has like 50 chances (crop years) in their life to perfect their craft. One bad year can be devastating.
If you mean you buy brand new or almost brand new and sell at year 4 or 5, then you're spending a lot more than you need to, which is buying you the extra "reliability."
But that reliability isn't even entirely real -- a lot of the repairs you'd expect after about 5 years or 50,000 miles are predictable and listed right there in the maintenance schedule in the manual, so as long as you do them proactively rather than roll the dice, a modern car should easily be very reliable for at least 100,000 / 10 yrs.
Trading in for a new car is probably costing you a lot more than just sticking to the maintenance schedule and budgetting for the major repairs would. I think a lot of people mistakenly overestimate the pain of those major scheduled repairs because they just don't do them and wait till they need to be towed in to have it fixed (and by then a few other things need fixing too)
Speaking in generalities of course
Anyway, point is, farms are a business, they're not going to piss money away by trading in a tractor that can much more cheaply be maintained -- you trade it in when it costs more to maintain (and abstain from new features) than to replace
In a nutshell, if the GOP came out and said, in all seriousness, "Vote for us and we'll ban abortion, let religious people discriminate against gays, and eliminate gun laws, but in return we're going to make you all dirt-poor serfs who have to work in company towns and when you get sick, we're just going to let you die", they would still get almost all the votes they get now.