Def Con hacker shows John Deere’s tractors can run Doom | Hacker News Reader

Def Con hacker shows John Deere’s tractors can run Doom

theverge.com

58 pointsthunderbong19 comments

I don't know if this was a keynote or something but the article feels like it spoiled the punchline (somewhat expecting the keynote to have an unassuming title like "hacking farmware for the greater good", describing the hack, and then booting that gloriously modded doom as the absolute punchline)

But I wonder if the (sad sad) punchline is buried in the tweets:

> Sick Codes has jailbroken a John Deere, and this is just the beginning. Turns out our entire food system is built on outdated, unpatched Linux and Windows CE hardware with LTE modems.

Decades of such nonsense on commodity routers yet still preventing users access "for security" and regulatory approval, same circus all over again, except with a bunch of metric tons of metal on wheels instead of a RF emitting plastic box.

I'm half jokingly waiting for mysterious crop circles to remotely deface fields anytime soon.

Previous work by sickcodes can be found here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXbgaRk4_Hg

  1. dev keys in prod code, but apparently non functional
  2. username/pass for deere's Yum repo hardcoded in prod release (spring2013)
  3. They didn't prune the lost+found dir (trash) before compiling the prod release code

From the tweet the OS is Wind River Linux 8

I only knew WindRiver for VxWorks didn't know they rolled out their own Linux distro. TIL

[dupe]

A few other ongoing discussions:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32457590

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32461238

Pretty nice and all. If they can make tractors with hardware that capable, they could probably give farmers the right to repair?

You can say the same thing about Tesla. Ever watch any of the videos from Rich Benoit of Electrified Garage? He had to get a ballot initiative passed in Massachusetts forcing Tesla to sell him parts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3vhtI7tTPk

^ the definition of whataboutism

'Whataboutism' would be 'why should they have to do that, it's no different to cars, Tesla also won't sell you parts' or similar.

I.e. arguing that it's fine because of some similar example, not simply providing another example.

This isn't whataboutism. Both comments seem to be in agreement on the idea that users should be able to service their vehicle whether that's a tractor or a car.

I guess were all waiting for fields in the semi-shade of solar panels with a slew of robots powered by said panels, automating sowing to reaping.

reaping and tearing, too!

Great Doom. That’ll help the farmers

Doom is the hello world of arbitrary code execution. It's not that it can run Doom, it's that it can run almost anything.

Doom is also turing complete. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6hnQ1RKhbo

https://calabi-yau.space/blog/doom.html

Obligatory SMBC:

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2011-02-17

That was just the cherry on top of an otherwise depressingly enlightening presentation on the sad state of farmer equipment running outdated and insecure softwares while they're attempting to lock everyone out but themselves (John Deere).

When can we watch the talk?

Obligatory: But can it run Crysis?

A Beowulf cluster of them might.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com