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John Deere 'Kill Switch' renders stolen tractors useless (2022)
- francoisdevlin 3y agoThat's a nice tractor you've got there. It'd be a shame if something happened to it. Can I interest you in some protection... Err, 3 year service plan?
- olliej 3y agoActivation lock for phones was demonstrably effective at reducing theft of the products it was applied to, so _if_ theft of tractors is an issue this seems like a good thing, _if_ JD is also willing to commit to/legally required to maintain the activation service.
- 8organicbits 3y agoI thought phone theft was still fairly common, although I have a hard time understanding how it's profitable. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/04/bathroom-tunneling-burglars-allegedly-lift-500k-in-iphones-from-apple-store/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/04/bathroom-tunneling-b...
- aikinai 3y agoThose are new in-box unactivated phones, completely unrelated to personal theft and activation lock.
- Xylakant 3y agoIt’s not related to personal theft, but to activation lock. Apple can (and will) lock these phones as well.
- aikinai 3y agoOh yeah, good point. I can’t imagine how that’s worth it then…
- Xylakant 3y agoThey will sell the hardware to unwitting victims as new via eBay, Craigslist, … and disappear before the victim figures it out. It is a new iPhone in the original shrinkwrap - who’d become suspicious?
- olliej 3y agoA cheap sealed boxed iPhone off craigslist or eBay seems like something I'd be suspicious of.
- coldtea 3y agoYou'd be surprised. If you mean "suspicious that it might have been stolen", the buyers are suspicious too, but they don't care, they're fine with it if it means they get it for cheaper.
- olliej 3y agoIs that something that is happening? I would have thought it would have been in the news before if apple had been doing that.
- 14 3y agoIf you look at the cost of a new screen or battery you can see that parts do have some value. For a thief even $50 is a score.
- Xylakant 3y agoApples lockdown even includes hardware such as screens. You can’t just transplant an iPhone screen from one phone to another.
- ris58h 3y ago> You can’t just transplant an iPhone screen from one phone to another. Why so? May be I can't but how difficult it for a repair shop?
- shortcake27 3y agoBecause all the parts are paired. Hugh Jeffreys has an interesting series where he buys two new phones and swaps the parts. Basically nothing can be swapped without breaking core functionality. Swapping a screen, for example, loses true-tone and auto brightness. This can be fixed by replanting a tiny chip from the old screen to the new screen, requiring extremely precise micro-soldering skills that the average repair shop doesn’t possess.
- cryu 3y agoYep, absolutely true -- I worked on the project ("FDR / New Deal"). It was originally supposed to prevent a repeat of the Hon Hai Zhengzhou incident where a team of line workers mixed/matched parts from units that failed QC and sold the Frankensteined units on the grey market. (Massively oversimplified, but that's the general gist) The resulting near-total inability to swap screens/buttons without knowing someone with FDR update access was seen as acceptable collateral damage.
- salawat 3y ago
- expertentipp 3y agoI don't see exactly how it happens. The first guy cuts the security cables, the second guy collects the devices?
- gommm 3y agoMy phone (a samsung s21 ultra) was snatched from my hand while I was using it to check google maps in Barcelona. I tried to remote wipe it 5 minutes later at my hotel but it had already been disconnected. So the thief was very quick at removing the sim card. I checked online since and it seems that even with the advent activation lock, there's still a lot of phone thefts in some countries. They just sell the spare parts and can make 100 to 200 euros between the screen and battery. I'd imagine with John Deere tractors, there's quite a few parts that could be resold so an activation lock wouldn't necessarily reduce the value by that much.
- tommica 3y agoDamn, stolen while using it, that is quite brazen :(
- mnd999 3y agoVery common. Much easier and less dangerous to snatch it when someone has it out quickly than to hold someone up.
- HPsquared 3y agoThat's probably the best time to steal it: the device is unlocked, giving access to the data and settings etc. Also the owner is distracted looking at the screen, and it's held in a position conducive to snatching. In short I'd expect this to be the main mode of phone theft directly from the owner.
- petepete 3y agoIt's a fairly common tactic in the UK. I've seen plenty of CCTV clips where kids cycle past people on their phones and snatch them. The thief is 10m away before the person's even reacted.
- SuzanSarong 3y ago[flagged]
- 3y ago
- makeitdouble 3y agoI'm not sure we have proof it's that effective. Recently 400+ phones were stolen from a store in a well prepared way, so I assume there's plenty of ways to work around or get value from the stolen phones despite whatever Apple is doing: https://www.macrumors.com/2023/04/06/washington-apple-store-theft/ https://www.macrumors.com/2023/04/06/washington-apple-store-...
- olliej 3y agoWhy would activation lock prevent stealing a new phone? Definitionally a phone that has not been sold doesn't have an account tied to it.
- shortcake27 3y agoI wouldn’t be surprised if activation lock causes _more_ theft. If stolen devices are worth less due to activation lock, thieves need to steal more phones to make up the lost profits. Also, the data on a phone is almost always far more valuable than the phone itself. If a thief steals my phone, it’s much better for me if they erase it. But they can’t do that, so my stolen phone with all my data just sits there one exploit away from being exposed. Activation lock only serves to benefit the manufacturer as they get to sell more phones. It doesn’t benefit the consumer at all.
- setr 3y ago> thieves need to steal more phones to make up the lost profits. Unless these thieves were rolling in money previously, I would imagine they maximize theft as much as they possibly can — why would they leave money on the table? I don’t think they’re stealing to meet some monthly quota like hired hands on a farm; they should just be acting on a risk/reward function. And as such, I think the more likely scenario as phones decrease in value per theft, other objects are made relatively more valuable (per risk/reward), and theft would transition elsewhere.
- 15155 3y agoUnder normal, non-war circumstances, tractor theft isn't a thing.
- dsfyu404ed 3y agoRandom disputes over the details of lease and service contract terms however...
- antibasilisk 3y ago>I can protect you <huh, from what? >myself (:
- Gigachad 3y agoTbh this seems not that problematic. I get that there is a lot of distasteful stuff going on around John Deere, but I think it's useful to see this on it's own which is a useful feature. Account locks have done a huge amount to reduce phone theft, a tractor is 100x more expensive.
- BiteCode_dev 3y agoYes, but phones have a reason to be online most of the time. A vehicle should be able to be used without ever being online. Otherwise you are at the mercy of udpates, the provider good will (and John Deere as little), network availability and so on.
- anilakar 3y agoSo are CNC machines. Are you aware that if you move a modern one, it's gonna be bricked?
- NinjaKitten 3y agoYes and we don't like it.
- BiteCode_dev 3y agoAnd it's a very bad no good awful thing. Stallman is extreme, but he got that part right. DRM and other bricking mechanism are not our friends.
- notjulianjaynes 3y agoI did not know this. Is it for theft prevention, or more like a deterrent to e.g. would-be clandestine arms manufacturers. I'm aware CNC machines can be quite pricey, but they otherwise seem like an impractical target for theives. At least a tractor has wheels.
- eimrine 3y agoWhat is your definition of useful? In more lawful areas a theft can not use a stolen tractor because of police. Since Eastern Europe is not so lawful, the owner will not receive new tractor or something. So where is a good use coming from in your understanding? Just from the fact that the theft will receive $30k in cash instead of $100k as the tractor cost? And that is the reason to buy a tractor with a killswitch which in some another situation (used not original parts, insulted the JD team, did something against ToS) might be activated AGAINST the owner?
- olliej 3y agoActivation lock is an excellent and super effective mechanism for theft prevention so this seems like a good thing, but it also makes me curious about how common theft of high end tractors is?
- anticensor 3y agoBasically never, because when somebody steals a tractor, they really do it because they need it, nobody would intentionally steal a tractor and there is no such thing as negligent or accidental theft.
- eimrine 3y agoActivation lock may the that excellent if the buyer would have a choice to buy it or not going to risk having an unactivated tractor.
- zdragnar 3y agoA quick google search shows claims of 1000 / month for heavy ag equipment, with under 20% recovery rate. A remote kill switch seems like a useful bit of kit if it's not easily disabled and doesn't interfere with normal operations.
- ggm 3y agoThis relates to John Deere tractors which were expropriated by Russians in the occupation of Ukraine. What remains a problem is the thorny question of field-modifications by farmers who find out leasing rights to software isn't the same as owning an old Fordson or Massey-Furguson and hacking on the PTO. John Deere has a 'right to repair' conversation going on in the USA but they trade internationally.
- unglaublich 3y agoThis is the different sign of the same coin. Not you, but JD controls the kill-switch. They can disable a device to render it useless whenever something happens that they don't like. Whether it's theft or violation of your leasing terms. If the owner was in control of the kill-switch, it would still have all benefits of theft protection, without the problems that arise with a manufacturer controlling devices indefinitely.
- least 3y ago> If the owner was in control of the kill-switch, it would still have all benefits of theft protection, without the problems that arise with a manufacturer controlling devices indefinitely. Apple has a similar feature for its devices that is in control of the user, but ultimately it's still depends on the device connecting to the internet and getting a ping that it's "lost" from Apple's servers. There's not really anything stopping Apple from locking people's devices, either. I just feel like "self hosting" isn't a real company solution to a kill switch, so I'm not sure how you have a kill switch without interacting with the company in any way, even if you're not John Deere.
- artogahr 3y agoAt that scale it should be trivial to self host a server with a static IP that confirms the ownership. Make the server IP on the tractor password protected or smth. Modern tractors are internet connected anyway.
- lancesells 3y ago> trivial to self host a server Trivial for who? Someone on HN or everyone else?
- notjulianjaynes 3y agoI had it in my head that a new John Deere tractor costs about $400 thousand but I just did a very quick search and I'm seeing closer to $1 million for a combine. At this price point I don't see IT logistics being a huge barrier to a customer controlled kill switch. Edit: wording
- asdfman123 3y agoThis astroturf makes me feel so warm and fuzzy
- Haga 3y ago[dead]
- wrp 3y agoHave there been any reports on how easy it is to jailbreak these? I would expect technique in that area to be well-developed.