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A DRM exception for farmers? Why them and not the rest of us? Farmers are the classic American go-to for everything politics. Be it guns, corn in Coke, pollu

A DRM exception for farmers? Why them and not the rest of us? Farmers are the classic American go-to for everything politics. Be it guns, corn in Coke, pollution standards, healthcare, immigration ... everyone is ready to pity the poor farmer. I understand the rational. Farmers make the food we eat. They also embody an American fantasy harkening back to the old west. But this is also who I see red flags whenever I hear farmers brought up in reference to a law. Farmers are the purchasers of equipment used in their business. Why give them a pass to bypass DRM but not the fishermen? Fishermen make food. Maritime law affords them special treatment in a similar manner as land use laws treat farmers. Surely fishermen have an equal tradition of self-sufficiency and are also deserving of an exception. And then come the taxi companies who have long maintained their own fleets. Soldiers? Surely we first need an exemption for the armed forces. I cannot think of any profession without a tradition of maintaining its own equipment. That's probably because DRM is new tech. So it's impossible for anyone to have a tradition of accommodating and obeying DRM. As we all suffer it, we should all be free of it. No exemptions. Let us instead pity the poor metal worker whose CNC machine cannot be moved across the shop floor without triggering its GPS-dependant DRM. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140109/03060325817/latest-twist-drm-lockdown-geolocation.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140109/03060325817/lates...

swatow 12y ago
I totally agree on your assessment of the weird politics around farmers. But I also thought that the article was a good illustration of the general issues around DRM. Sometimes it takes a compelling example to illustrate a general principle. Until now I wasn't particularly opposed to DRM (at least when it used technical, rather than legal, mechanisms). But this article shows how locking people out of equipment they own has a tendency to be used in an economically inefficient way. In this case, milking people for repair costs that they don't fully consider when judging the purchase price. I guess the counterargument is that DRM protects people from themselves (in this case, making repairs that would be better done by a professional). But the article made a good case for a lot farmers really wanting to be able to repair their own equipment.
- sounds 12y ago
  Hopefully it is obvious that without DRM "protecting people from themselves" is still better served; with DRM the only winner is the company who locks out everyone else. Example of how it might work without DRM: Farmer A hesitates to bypass the flaky hydraulic sensor. His $100,000 tractor is offline for about 2 days each season, and he pays $2,000 each time to have a specialist come check the hydraulic system with specialist tools. Farmer B is foolish and just shorts the wires on his sensor. The hydraulic system has a massive failure and he faces a $50,000 repair bill. Of course, with DRM, both farmers are forced to pay John Deere certified techs who are in short supply during harvest season (all the tractors are breaking down) and who therefore feel justified charging $10,000 for the rush service. Also the parts can only be replaced with Genuine John Deer replacement parts. Basically only John Deere comes out the winner here.
  - swatow 12y ago
    Well that wasn't obvious to me, but you explained it well. As you say, it's as much about controlling the market for professional repairs as it is preventing DIYers. It reminds me of how much more expensive it was to get my car serviced at a name brand gas station than a local car shop.
  - saiya-jin 12y ago
    This behavior can be found in all markets out there, regardless of the scope. And then comes beauty of free market - over longer term, taking acount bigger mass of farmers for example, more desired product should win. There are many tractor manufacturers, and if John Deere is deemed cp manufacturer in long term, some other makers will eat its market share, either by providing simpler machinery (ie trend mentioned in article when farmers buy older models), or open one. If farmers as a whole are "not-so-clever" though, and they keep buying new ones (ie voting with their money for fragile new tech), then they deserve the new tech "punishment". Lesson to be learned here - be conservative about new technology and buy only long-proven solutions, regardless how much average HN Joe might not like this non-cool approach. Also, fully agree that they shouldn't be made any more special than other jobs. Maybe ideal would to completely lose warranty (ie like iphone jailbreak), but making it criminal act is way too much.
jacquesm 12y ago
> Let us instead pity the poor metal worker whose CNC machine cannot be moved across the shop floor without triggering its GPS-dependant DRM. There's more to it than that. Machines in the sub .0001 precision class are so sensitive to being moved around that it can take weeks of careful calibration to get them to operate within spec. That 'gps-lockdown' is to make sure the machine doesn't get moved around just for the heck of it taking it out of spec and then having the manufacturer turn up after a bunch of complaining. I'm not saying that that isn't being abused in this particular case but there actually can be good reasons for this. Ostensibly another reason is that some guy in Iran could set up a shop in the US as a front, buy a bunch of these machines and then ship them to evade an embargo so that's why they are locked to location. In the case of high precision milling machines sometimes they have the machine make it's own calibrated clamp down area to compensate for any deformation suffered during a move. With lathes the situation is even more complex. The calibration gear costs a multiple of what the machine itself costs, usually works on the laser-interferometry principle and is removed off-site after the initial calibration (it takes a totally different set of knowledge to operate than the knowledge required to operate the machine). So you can't just pick that machine up, move it 10', move it back and expect it to still produce acceptable work.
- crististm 12y ago
  They have been doing precision equipment long before the DRM era. This is a particular case of abuse from the manufacturer. I can think of several ways to let the shop owner have his way without playing the "mis-calibration" song. Besides, any set-up procedure can be used again to calibrate the device. Edit: After reading their brochure, I am now convinced this is a case of DRM overreaching; the machine is in no way that sensitive to relocation to warrant a lock-down. Hey, they pride themselves with the machine's strength on page three: "... designed according to principles of finite element method", with a picture showing the machine stresses.
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    Yes, I know. And since long before then there have been endless back-and-forths between manufacturers of such equipment and their customers about achievable precision. Especially after initial delivery and after initial calibration. And of course nobody would ever move such a machine and forget to tell the manufacturer that that's what they did. The strength of the web is a huge factor in machine precision (and repeatability, just as important) but what you don't get out of that brochure is that just lifting and putting that machine back down again will put it seriously out of spec, the deformation incurred will require a complete recalibration. Dealing with dynamic loading is a different problem entirely. We're talking about machines where thermal compensation is considered a normal thing and where you compensate for toolwear. Not all of these machines are owned outright (they can be very expensive), plenty of them are leased and lease companies just love it when a customer goes out of business and their expensive goods have grown legs and have walked off. Anyway, DRM without valid reasons is a bad thing, but there are some reasons why not wanting to move machinery like this around without knowing about it is a good thing and you've provided no reason why it isn't, obviously, you can petition the manufacturer to help assist in a move and re-calibration if required (nothing stops you from doing that in the present day), and your conclusion that the machines strength means it does not have to be calibrated is out of touch with reality as far as I'm aware of it. Those unlock-codes are provided for free to the buyer of the machinery, and it isn't even a given that they will always trigger for every kind of move. (But at a guess, if you simulated shipping one in a container I'm pretty sure that it will come out dead.) FWIW I worked on the software of an older generation of machinery like this and have spent enough time watching teams calibrate them to have serious respect for how easy it is to knock a machine to 'useless' territory. As for the bad version of DRM: Mitutoyo had some equipment ending up in Iran contravening the US export ban (pretty weird that a Japanese company could be found in violation of a US export ban, but there are probably relevant details that I'm not aware of), so that's where the DRM component comes in. So if you really want to complain about that aspect then you should petition the government, not the CNC manufacturers. But "lock-down, unlock through mfg" has other uses too. (You could easily imagine that the Gyro software could be set up in such a way that if the change in location was minor that it would not cause a lock-down if the export restriction were the real concern here) Which makes me wonder how these would fare during earthquakes.
abandonliberty 12y ago
The original food pyramid differentiated red meat, evidence was already raising flags. Farmers protested, had it changed, and the senator working on it didn't get re-elected. Even today, our "food plate" doesn't call out red meat. It's entertaining to see USDA skirt the issue: none of their protein pictures are steak [1]. Compare and contrast against an evidence based model from Harvard [2]. The poor dietary recommendations provided by the USDA historically may have a lot to do with our obesity epidemic. Don't mess with farmers. [1] http://www.choosemyplate.gov/food-groups/protein-foods-tips.html http://www.choosemyplate.gov/food-groups/protein-foods-tips.... [2] http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy-eating-plate/ http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy-eating-p...
LLWM 12y ago
It's not a matter of pity or romanticism. Becoming dependent on imports for food is a national security concern. That's why farmers get subsidies and special treatment.

swatow 12y ago

I totally agree on your assessment of the weird politics around farmers. But I also thought that the article was a good illustration of the general issues around DRM. Sometimes it takes a compelling example to illustrate a general principle. Until now I wasn't particularly opposed to DRM (at least when it used technical, rather than legal, mechanisms). But this article shows how locking people out of equipment they own has a tendency to be used in an economically inefficient way. In this case, milking people for repair costs that they don't fully consider when judging the purchase price. I guess the counterargument is that DRM protects people from themselves (in this case, making repairs that would be better done by a professional). But the article made a good case for a lot farmers really wanting to be able to repair their own equipment.

sounds 12y ago
Hopefully it is obvious that without DRM "protecting people from themselves" is still better served; with DRM the only winner is the company who locks out everyone else. Example of how it might work without DRM: Farmer A hesitates to bypass the flaky hydraulic sensor. His $100,000 tractor is offline for about 2 days each season, and he pays $2,000 each time to have a specialist come check the hydraulic system with specialist tools. Farmer B is foolish and just shorts the wires on his sensor. The hydraulic system has a massive failure and he faces a $50,000 repair bill. Of course, with DRM, both farmers are forced to pay John Deere certified techs who are in short supply during harvest season (all the tractors are breaking down) and who therefore feel justified charging $10,000 for the rush service. Also the parts can only be replaced with Genuine John Deer replacement parts. Basically only John Deere comes out the winner here.
- swatow 12y ago
  Well that wasn't obvious to me, but you explained it well. As you say, it's as much about controlling the market for professional repairs as it is preventing DIYers. It reminds me of how much more expensive it was to get my car serviced at a name brand gas station than a local car shop.
- saiya-jin 12y ago
  This behavior can be found in all markets out there, regardless of the scope. And then comes beauty of free market - over longer term, taking acount bigger mass of farmers for example, more desired product should win. There are many tractor manufacturers, and if John Deere is deemed cp manufacturer in long term, some other makers will eat its market share, either by providing simpler machinery (ie trend mentioned in article when farmers buy older models), or open one. If farmers as a whole are "not-so-clever" though, and they keep buying new ones (ie voting with their money for fragile new tech), then they deserve the new tech "punishment". Lesson to be learned here - be conservative about new technology and buy only long-proven solutions, regardless how much average HN Joe might not like this non-cool approach. Also, fully agree that they shouldn't be made any more special than other jobs. Maybe ideal would to completely lose warranty (ie like iphone jailbreak), but making it criminal act is way too much.

jacquesm 12y ago

> Let us instead pity the poor metal worker whose CNC machine cannot be moved across the shop floor without triggering its GPS-dependant DRM. There's more to it than that. Machines in the sub .0001 precision class are so sensitive to being moved around that it can take weeks of careful calibration to get them to operate within spec. That 'gps-lockdown' is to make sure the machine doesn't get moved around just for the heck of it taking it out of spec and then having the manufacturer turn up after a bunch of complaining. I'm not saying that that isn't being abused in this particular case but there actually can be good reasons for this. Ostensibly another reason is that some guy in Iran could set up a shop in the US as a front, buy a bunch of these machines and then ship them to evade an embargo so that's why they are locked to location. In the case of high precision milling machines sometimes they have the machine make it's own calibrated clamp down area to compensate for any deformation suffered during a move. With lathes the situation is even more complex. The calibration gear costs a multiple of what the machine itself costs, usually works on the laser-interferometry principle and is removed off-site after the initial calibration (it takes a totally different set of knowledge to operate than the knowledge required to operate the machine). So you can't just pick that machine up, move it 10', move it back and expect it to still produce acceptable work.

crististm 12y ago
They have been doing precision equipment long before the DRM era. This is a particular case of abuse from the manufacturer. I can think of several ways to let the shop owner have his way without playing the "mis-calibration" song. Besides, any set-up procedure can be used again to calibrate the device. Edit: After reading their brochure, I am now convinced this is a case of DRM overreaching; the machine is in no way that sensitive to relocation to warrant a lock-down. Hey, they pride themselves with the machine's strength on page three: "... designed according to principles of finite element method", with a picture showing the machine stresses.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  Yes, I know. And since long before then there have been endless back-and-forths between manufacturers of such equipment and their customers about achievable precision. Especially after initial delivery and after initial calibration. And of course nobody would ever move such a machine and forget to tell the manufacturer that that's what they did. The strength of the web is a huge factor in machine precision (and repeatability, just as important) but what you don't get out of that brochure is that just lifting and putting that machine back down again will put it seriously out of spec, the deformation incurred will require a complete recalibration. Dealing with dynamic loading is a different problem entirely. We're talking about machines where thermal compensation is considered a normal thing and where you compensate for toolwear. Not all of these machines are owned outright (they can be very expensive), plenty of them are leased and lease companies just love it when a customer goes out of business and their expensive goods have grown legs and have walked off. Anyway, DRM without valid reasons is a bad thing, but there are some reasons why not wanting to move machinery like this around without knowing about it is a good thing and you've provided no reason why it isn't, obviously, you can petition the manufacturer to help assist in a move and re-calibration if required (nothing stops you from doing that in the present day), and your conclusion that the machines strength means it does not have to be calibrated is out of touch with reality as far as I'm aware of it. Those unlock-codes are provided for free to the buyer of the machinery, and it isn't even a given that they will always trigger for every kind of move. (But at a guess, if you simulated shipping one in a container I'm pretty sure that it will come out dead.) FWIW I worked on the software of an older generation of machinery like this and have spent enough time watching teams calibrate them to have serious respect for how easy it is to knock a machine to 'useless' territory. As for the bad version of DRM: Mitutoyo had some equipment ending up in Iran contravening the US export ban (pretty weird that a Japanese company could be found in violation of a US export ban, but there are probably relevant details that I'm not aware of), so that's where the DRM component comes in. So if you really want to complain about that aspect then you should petition the government, not the CNC manufacturers. But "lock-down, unlock through mfg" has other uses too. (You could easily imagine that the Gyro software could be set up in such a way that if the change in location was minor that it would not cause a lock-down if the export restriction were the real concern here) Which makes me wonder how these would fare during earthquakes.

abandonliberty 12y ago

The original food pyramid differentiated red meat, evidence was already raising flags. Farmers protested, had it changed, and the senator working on it didn't get re-elected. Even today, our "food plate" doesn't call out red meat. It's entertaining to see USDA skirt the issue: none of their protein pictures are steak [1]. Compare and contrast against an evidence based model from Harvard [2]. The poor dietary recommendations provided by the USDA historically may have a lot to do with our obesity epidemic. Don't mess with farmers. [1] http://www.choosemyplate.gov/food-groups/protein-foods-tips.html http://www.choosemyplate.gov/food-groups/protein-foods-tips.... [2] http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy-eating-plate/ http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy-eating-p...

LLWM 12y ago

It's not a matter of pity or romanticism. Becoming dependent on imports for food is a national security concern. That's why farmers get subsidies and special treatment.