Chris Berube

But it is becoming more and more common.

And our farmer, Jared, he told me he's actually seen this kind of thing pretty often in his day-to-day life, like being used by repair people.

Yeah, it does sound sketchy.

And Jared, on our call, he made clear to me he has never used this kind of technology because, you know, he wants to follow the rules.

And also, you don't actually know what you're putting on your computer anymore.

When you are working with this kind of thing.

So if something goes wrong, you know, you can't call John Deere because at this point you are doing something you're not supposed to be doing.

So on top of that, Cory Doctorow says that in a lot of cases, this kind of solution, this hackery solution is probably illegal.

Well, that just drives me crazy.

So why is it illegal?

Well, there's something called a digital lock that is on a lot of these things, and it's a very particular kind of software.

Back in the late 90s, early 2000s, there was concern about ripping DVDs and music piracy, stuff like that.

So back then, record companies and movie studios, they added digital locks to their files.

And in 1998, the U.S.

passed a law that made it illegal to break a digital lock.

And now, this law that was designed for MP3 sharing, it is now being applied to all of these other devices that we use every day.

Well, Roman, I think you may have to take that one up with both parties in Congress in 1998.

Everyone's at fault for that one.

So as you can tell, the sketchy solution, you know, it has some problems.

Obviously, they're not enforcing this law too often, but it's still a thing that exists that is out there.