About those kill-switched Ukrainian tractors | Cory Doctorow

Great article from Doctorow, and highlights how in our current digital world we don't always really understand what we "own". I also didn’t know how John Deere was collecting all this data while farmers were using their tractors. This seems similar to how TV companies listen to us and sell that data. Or even how trivially simple it would be for Tesla to make it so I could never drive the car sitting in my garage ever again.

Why are John Deere tractors kill-switched in the first place?

Here’s a hint: the technology was not invented to thwart Russian looters.

No, it was invented to thwart American farmers.

This falls in the not-terribly-well-named bucket of things like Right to Repair. But in general, understanding what we are really buying when we buy something is important.