Farmers are now forced to hack into their own tractors to bypass draconian manufacturer controls

‘American farmers reluctantly find themselves resorting to the black market because of a legally binding licensing agreement imposed by John Deere and other similarly situated manufacturers.
Given this restriction, which John Deere apparently crafted to circumvent an agricultural vehicle exemption in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, many heartland farmers believe that they have no alternative but to download jailbreaked or bootlegged software or firmware for their John Deere tractors. The farmers purchase the software from Eastern European hackers operating in clandestine online forums.
Self-hacking comes into play because the contract requires farmers to use often distant John Deere tractor dealerships or authorized repair shops for any and all repairs, rather than an independent mechanic that may be just down the street and whose services are less expensive.’
Read more: Farmers are now forced to hack into their own tractors to bypass draconian manufacturer controls