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I grew up in the farming country section of Michigan, and I knew John Deere owners and John Deere mechanics. It's not a question of wanting to rip out emissions, it's a question of wanting to be able to read OBD-II diagnostics codes in the field, pull a hydraulic valve or something, replace it and clear the code so that the machine will run. The allegation at present is that for a number of repairs, you have to trailer your $1.5 million tractor up, take it to the dealership, pay them $100/hr to fix it and be out at least a day and a half of running time in the process. This is a marked difference from the old 3020 days when you could buy the book and that was enough to do simple field repairs.

/rant

Direct question: what does it cost to buy the software and tools to read and clear codes on a modern John Deere? What if I want to maintain a range of machines spanning 1985 to present?

It is also ISO11783. So any mechanic who can work on large diesels (semi trucks) will have the tools. Some of the $150 OBD-II readers at an auto parts store can do it (only some though - most do not have the adapters: it is a different connector and different data on the wires).

If you are reading this you can probable figure out how to wire up an arduino as well. The electronics are easy, though you probably have to buy the standard from ISO to write the code.

Note, the above covers current tractors. Some of the older tractors used an older protocol, God help you if that is your tractor.

The specific article I'm thinking of is this one:

https://www.wired.com/2015/04/dmca-ownership-john-deere/

It effectively claims that the guy couldn't repair his machines without a specialist who had to be flown out directly. I guess it's not a question of OBD-II, so my bad for making it about that, but it's still a question of repairability. I can't find a first hand account from him, so I'm willing to believe it was more complicated than a single paragraph in Wired. Why couldn't he just buy the manual and repair it? What codes and interfaces don't show up on OBD-II?

I work for an automaker, and I'm well aware that you can get the base codes from a cheapo harbor freight OBD reader, but that won't let you reset all of the errors you might be getting, and OBD codes don't tell you as much as the engine computer knows, for that you need $4000 worth of hardware and a yearly license for very expensive hardware. John Deere is no different, if the mechanics I've talked to are any guide.

I guess the point I'm making is that the availability of a manual is only so good if it says "hook up your Tricorder and check this hex address." I would need a Tricorder for that, and I'm fresh out.

This is very much analogous to the device security problem for smartphones. If you want to grant superuser access to any piece of software other than what was shipped on the phone, that's a big risk factor in the eyes of the manufacturer. They don't want you bringing down their brand and infecting yourself or others with malware as a result of getting superuser access.

Their solution to this problem is to have a fuse that's opened after you, the owner, makes the decision to accept changes to the bootloader signature verification. You accept the liability and risk involved with this change.

Unfortunately the difference between this example and yours is that the risk of the root-my-smartphone decision impacting the public is quite a bit lower. For that matter, a better comparison might be the FCC's ruling change regarding routers which don't use any bootloader verification method [1]. Their concern is to the impact on the public spectrum. Though it's pretty interesting that they didn't care about it when it was just the ISM band, they only got involved when it started to threaten FAA doppler radar [2].

Linksys and other vendors seem to comply by partitioning the functionality for the radio from the other router features.

[1] https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/7521096518.pdf

[2] https://www.its.bldrdoc.gov/publications/2677.aspx

If the vehicle owner disables the emissions controls, the onus is on them - ethically this is no different than removing a catalytic converter or other physical hardware.

Don't use this as an excuse to wage war on general purpose computing.

There are also other ways to deal with this. If it's reasonable to require that I get my $10,000 car emissions tested every two years to be able to drive it, it should be reasonable to require that vastly more expensive tractors get emissions tested periodically too.

Random testing, I guess?

Because owners could just re-enable emissions control until after the test.

Hey, it worked for Volkswagen...

As a pretty bad home mechanic, I want to agree with you. The DEF in my BMW went bad (urea has a short life span) and BMW charged me out the wazoo to reset the computer auto-shutdown feature (you get 200 miles to fix it or it won't start again) and I had no other choice, since I can't do it myself. I can flush the DEF, but I can't reset the computer without their tools. I don't believe even iCarly can un-flag the error.

On the other hand, my political beliefs tend to say that government exists to protect you from me and me from you, and the emissions of your vehicles falls into that category. So maybe there's an argument to be made that at least certain parts should be locked down?

(for the record, I don't think any of it should be for the sake of competition and home repair, I'm asking for the sake of conversation / devil's advocate)

> When I challenge people on this I eventually get down to what people really want

I don't own a tractor, but if I did, I'd want the option to be able to 'root' the tractor and install different software on it. You shouldn't have to ask permission, violate EULAs, or violate the law to innovate.

So you say. And this crowd is probably more likely than average to do so. However would you really touch the engine - remember a mistake can destroy your engine, and there isn't much interesting there for the most part.

What you would do it connect to the CAN bus and read all the data there - same as what most people do for cars - except there is a lot more interesting data for you to work with. There is not need to root the tractors, or install different software, just install your own computer, connect it to the CAN bus and do what you want. Our 10 year old computers that do this on a 200mhz CPU sell for $5000 - I'm convinced you would want something more modern that is also cheaper for your experiments.

There is one exception to the above: if you want to do computer steering you need an encryption key that we don't generally make available to the public. There is too many safety concerns to let us just give that away.

Why does your security model treat your customers as the adversary?

They can already steer the tractor in any direction they want, for any nefarious purpose. You're just removing their ability to automate away labor (steering). This is essentially an economic, not a safety-oriented, policy.

There's a very clear person at fault if said nefarious driver drives the tractor into a person/object-of-value. If it's an autopilot, the liability issues are much more murky.

You have safety concerns.

I have ethical concerns.

Would you buy a house with a locked room in it, if the home-builder retained possession of the key? Does the de facto ownership of the contents of the locked room transfer with the title to the house, or with possession of the key? Is the owner of the house justified in removing the lock and opening the room? Is the builder justified in rigging explosives inside the room to go off if the lock is bypassed?

Ownership means that you don't need to ask permission to do what you want. No matter how many warning signs you put up to protect idiots from their own idiocy, at some point, you are going to have to finally let someone that wants to drive off a cliff go over the edge. You have to let someone destroy their own engine. You have to let someone own their own device.