John Deere is a large corporation that makes tractors. They’re green, big and powerful and they don’t come cheap. I’ve just noticed a nearly new 6175R model for £77,500 plus VAT, for example. That’s £93,000 in real money, so imagine how proud you’d feel if you were fortunate enough to own one of these magnificent machines.
Well, it depends on what you mean by “own”. If you mean you can do what you like with your new tractor, think again. This is because your splendid machine is now controlled by software that comes embedded in the vehicle – and John Deere controls the software. “If a farmer bought the tractor,” a Nebraskan farmer told the online magazine Motherboard, “he should be able to do whatever he wants with it. You want to replace a transmission and you take it to an independent mechanic – he can put in the new transmission but the tractor can’t drive out of the shop.” Instead, a Deere technician has to drive to the repair shop and plug a connector into the tractor’s USB port in order to “authorise” the new part. And the cost of this rigmarole? Why, a $230 fixed call-out charge, plus $130 an hour on top.
Neat, eh? From John Deere’s point of view, of course, it’s perfectly sensible. I mean to say, you wouldn’t want farmers putting cheap made-in-China components into such a sophisticated machine. Think of the reliability – and perhaps even the safety – implications. This high-minded argument, however, cuts no ice with Nebraskan farmers, some of whom have been pushing for “right to repair” legislation that would invalidate John Deere’s licence agreement. Motherboard reports that seven other states are contemplating similar bills.
But legislation takes time and farmers are busy people. Nobody likes laying out nearly 100 grand for a piece of kit that suddenly becomes an expensive paperweight just because a part has broken – and the nearest John Deere dealership might be a hundred miles away, but there’s a local garage that does tractor repairs. So it turns out that farmers in those parts have taken to hacking John Deere’s software.
Or, more accurately, they have been downloading pirated John Deere software and tools from shady subscription websites. The cracked software comes mostly from eastern European countries such as Poland and Ukraine. For €499, you can buy a software tool that enables you to decrypt the embedded software and modify factory settings for your vehicle – changing the maximum speed, for example. Or you can get a bootleg copy of the John Deere service adviser, a program used by dealership technicians that, in the words of one downloader, “can calibrate injectors, turbo, engine hours and all kinds of fun stuff”. There are even helpful YouTube videos showing you how all this stuff works
But hang on, isn’t all this illegal under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which specifically prohibits circumvention of encryption imposed by manufacturers that wish to protect their intellectual property? Answer: yes it is, which is a pain not just for pirates, but also for citizens who would like to know what sites have been blacklisted by the filtering software used in their public library and for security researchers who want to be able to demonstrate the frailty of many commercial encryption schemes.
But every three years, the US Copyright Office issues exemptions to section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and last October the new list of exemptions included – mirabile dictu – tractors! The exemption allows modification of “computer programs that are contained in and control the functioning of a motorised land vehicle such as a personal automobile, commercial motor vehicle or mechanised agricultural vehicle”, provided that “circumvention is a necessary step undertaken by the authorised owner of the vehicle to allow the diagnosis, repair or lawful modification of a vehicle function”. This means that it is lawful for Nebraskan (and other) farmers to hack the embedded software in their tractors as long as they don’t tamper with the parts of the programs that control emissions.
Faced with this exemption, what does John Deere Inc do? Why, it imposes on each proud “owner” of one of its tractors a licence agreement that says that the moment they turn the key in the ignition they have accepted its terms. These include a clause stating: “You may not reverse engineer, decompile, translate, adapt, or dissemble the licensed materials [ie embedded software], nor shall you attempt to create the source code from the object code for the software.” In other words, thou shalt not hack our software. And if you do, you may be liable for breach of contract.
So, on second thoughts, I’m not going to buy that 6175R. A used Bentley will be more fun. And cheaper.
