There’s been an uproar over new software locks that prevent farmers from performing their own repairs on John Deere tractors. But the farmers have struck back, by using tractor firmware that has been cracked in Eastern Europe.
The story, over at Motherboard , says farmers are paying for access to online forums where the hacked firmware is available.
Without the hacked firmware, farmers are unable to repair their own tractors – a real hassle if you’re working and don’t have time to wait for a repairer to make the trip to help out.
A new license agreement that was pushed onto farmers last year forbids nearly all repair and modification to farming equipment, and prevents farmers from suing 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."
That’s one heck of a EULA.
Originally published in Lifehacker Australia on 23 March 2017: https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2017/03/tractor-hacking-is-now-a-thing/