More and more farmers in America are hacking the firmware of their John Deere tractors to repair them, says Motherboard.
The reason behind this illegal activity is that John Deere has granted a license only to Deere dealers and licensed stores that can perform tasks for tractors.
This may look fine at a glance – John Deere built the tractor, and knows the best way to fix it, right? That's only part of it, though. According to farmers, the company pays a heavy price for its work and most of the time the technicians are not in a hurry to arrive.
“If a farmer bought the tractor, they should be able to do whatever they want with it,” said Kevin Kenney, a farmer and repair advocate in Nebraska. “You want to replace a transmission? You take it to an independent mechanic who can put in this new transmission, but the tractor won’t even make it out of the shop. Deere charges $230 plus $130 an hour for a technician to plug in USB to authorize the part.”
The legal license did not allow farmers to sue the company for any kind of “loss of crops, loss of profits, loss of equipment use… that result from the execution or non‑execution of any aspect of the software».
Due to farmers turning to online hackers, cracked versions of John Deere software that bypass the required license, which allows farmers to work on their own tractors.
