Full tractor control
POSTED: May 21, 2022
I have noted for some time that we no longer buy much of our purchases, but effectively rent them. This has happened with mobile phones, smart tvs and many other consumer goods – including cars and vans. And farmers have the same issues as the rest of us.
According to a recent post on The Register,
Millions of dollars worth of John Deere agricultural machinery stolen from a dealership in Ukraine by Russian Federation forces has been traced to the Chechen Republic and bricked, it is reported.
In this instance, the Moline, Illinois-based Deere & Co.’s penchant for proprietary digital access controls may have worked out well from a public-relations standpoint, if the account is true. The looted tractors and combine harvesters have been remotely disabled, according to an unidentified Ukrainian interviewed by CNN, leaving those responsible looking for ways to bypass the machinery’s digital locks.
You may remember that Tesla magically increased the battery capacity of their cars last year, during a poer shortage, through a software update that they later removed.
George Carlin might have had something to say about this.