Russians Plundered $5M Farm Vehicles from Ukraine - to Find They've Been Remotel...
source link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/22/05/01/1750205/russians-plundered-5m-farm-vehicles-from-ukraine---to-find-theyve-been-remotely-disabled
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Russians Plundered $5M Farm Vehicles from Ukraine
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CNN adds that "The equipment now appears to be languishing at a farm near Grozny." Over the past few weeks there's been a growing number of reports of Russian troops stealing farm equipment, grain and even building materials — beyond widespread looting of residences. But the removal of valuable agricultural equipment from a John Deere dealership in Melitopol speaks to an increasingly organized operation, one that even uses Russian military transport as part of the heist. CNN has learned that the equipment was removed from an Agrotek dealership in Melitopol, which has been occupied by Russian forces since early March. Altogether it's valued at nearly $5 million. The combine harvesters alone are worth $300,000 each....
The contact said the process began with the seizure of two combine harvesters, a tractor and a seeder. Over the next few weeks, everything else was removed: in all 27 pieces of farm machinery. One of the flat-bed trucks used, and caught on camera, had a white "Z" painted on it and appeared to be a military truck. The contact said there were rival groups of Russian troops: some would come in the morning and some in the evening.
Some of the machinery was taken to a nearby village, but some of it embarked on a long overland journey to Chechnya more than 700 miles away. The sophistication of the machinery, which are equipped with GPS, meant that its travel could be tracked....
The end result? "After a journey of more than 700 miles, the thieves were unable to use any of the equipment — because it had been locked remotely."
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Probally because their convoy vehicles are rotting pieces of sheeyt, and even a modern farm tractor is much more desireable option. They were likely going to use them for just that.
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comrade.
i traded a tank for a harvester.
now it does not.
come get your harvester.
i want my tank back-
Why is Russia trying to rebuild Ukraine with the same business plan they used in Afghanistan?
Just asking for a friend. A Ukrainian freedom-fighter friend.
Signed, yet another #ReaganRINO.
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The advantage of a combine harvester over a Russian tank, is that the farm equipment doesn't have an auto-loader that sets off the entire ammunition magazine and blows the tank up like a jack-in-the-box [washingtonpost.com].
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Tractors are Ukraine's strongest weapon. [youtube.com] It makes sense Russians would want to take them.
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This story is fake.
It's a propaganda piece paid for by John Deere, nothing more.
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Even if true, I'm sure with enough motivation, they could get the equipment working. Or strip it out for parts in the worse case scenario.
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Nice opening joke, but I think the Subject could have been "Russia is a peaceful tractor-loving country" or something... Leading to some kind of joke about factor trucking? Or tucked fanks? Putin wouldn't kick a nice tank out of bed, would he?
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With state support (even Russia), they should be able to replace or workaround whatever built in chip is preventing this gear from starting up.
I would guess the main value is in the actual vehicle itself, and in a worst case scenario they can replace and even retrofit an entirely different engine.
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Maybe so but it's still funny, and a side of DRM most wouldn't have thought of.
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Sounds more like LoJack with a disabling feature.
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John Deere has had the ability to disable tractors for years, and/. has even posted about it [slashdot.org]. The link I just gave is fascinating though as American farmers were buying Ukrainian-hacked firmware for, e.g., John Deere equipment five years ago to get around this.
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I'm going to hazard a guess that they'll have a difficult time defeating the disabling because of Western sanctions making equipment and parts difficult to obtain. They may have the know-how, but not the necessary materiel.
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With the chip shortage and lack of affordable fossil fuels, let alone chemical fertilizers to grow anything, we'd have the same problem of making any use of those expensive machines. Welcome to the Great Reset / Build Back Broken.
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Sanctions prevent chips from entering the country. They'll have to rely on the black market.
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What might be interesting is if the tractors used interference engines. Flash some firmware to change timing, valves stay open as the piston hits TDC... and there won't be much of an engine left.
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The state should probably prioritize getting working toilets before worrying about high tech equipment.
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It's a lot more than a chip, the whole thing is computer controlled, probably several computers, and satellite links all of the way to servers in Moline, Illinois. Fuel management, Emissions, Transmissions, product flow, it's all computer controlled.
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wasn't there a story recently about US farmers paying hackers to unlock the firmware on john deere equipment? these russians could ask them for some help. where were those hackers based... ukraine, wasn't it? oh. err...
https://yro.slashdot.org/story... [slashdot.org]-
Given the value of the stolen gear it would probably be worth engineering either a hack to re-enable them, or a replacement for the entire control unit.
Replacement control units were made for rental scooters. They sometimes get abandoned, picked up by the city and auctioned off when the owner doesn't want to pay the associated fees. People were buying them for a few bucks, installing new electronics and netting themselves a cheep electric scooter.
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So now they are land pirates, and they got their fee fees hurt when they found that the treasure chest is made of a super unbreakable material with a pick proof lock.
I wish I could've seen the look on those clowns' faces.
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I'm generally pretty uncomfortable with it being easy to remotely disable machinery and the like, with their being a lot of downsides. But this seems like a pretty good argument for it being a thing.
But regardless it should be clear from this and the other looting how much Russia is engaging in a war not just with Ukraine's soldiers but a systematic destruction of Ukraine's civilian infrastructure. Between this, the massacres in Bucha https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucha_massacre [wikipedia.org], and the systematic thefts from Ukrainian museums https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/30/world/europe/ukraine-scythia-gold-museum-russia.html [nytimes.com] , this is a combination of deliberate genocide and borderline medieval theft of resources. The idea that this is a war of anything other than aggression and conquest. So, let's keep in mind given that that you can directly donate to the Ukrainian military effort through their national bank. https://bank.gov.ua/en/ [bank.gov.ua]. Russia must be stopped, and if we do not stop Russia now, and show to Russia and to the world the consequences of these sorts of actions, we'll be next time dealing with similar things elsewhere in Europe.
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I'm sorry, systematic? You think a poorly disciplined military needs any excuse not to steal everything not nailed to the ground? You are entirely too used to post WWII first world military operations. This kinda shit is par for the course.
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>But this seems like a pretty good argument for it being a thing.
Way no. Every single tool of despotism can theoretically be used to prevent some evil or injustice. Every tool of tyranny is introduced with an almost benign excuse. Let's prevent IP theft. It's a way to track those evil child predators. It's a way to stop drug abuse. We can find those deadbeat dads and make them pay. We can find a murderer before he escapes to do it again. Every time it's the most despised people who are the initial targ -
There's some truth to that. However, I think it would do well with a bit more nuance. I mean that Putin had one idea about the invasion, the military upper echelons had another, the goons in the FSB had their own, the grunts have one as well. Then there are the, what, inner structures. These thefts sound like Russian crime syndicates have infiltrated the Russian military.
Regardless, it doesn't bode well for the Russkies with this sort of haphazard unfolding of their invasion. I recall on spark at DoD which
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These thefts sound like Russian crime syndicates have infiltrated the Russian military.
There's nothing new about this. When the Soviets invaded Germany at the end of WWII, they stole everything they could carry away and raped every female from six to sixty.-
In addition: German SA [wikipedia.org] units followed the German Army into Russia and murdered Russian civilians. When the Russians invaded Germany, they returned the favor by murdering German civilians.
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When you say SA, I think that in practice you mean SS since, after the Night of the Long Knives the SA was very much weakened and the SS, originally part of the SA, became independent from it. The SA itself wasn't able to provide anything like the level of men of the SA. However, in any case it's not just the SS (or SA) that did the murdering. There were also a bunch of more conventional police units, mostly from the Ordnungspolizei [wikipedia.org] which were responsible for controlling areas behind German lines and carrie
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Be glad that Putin is anti-gay or it would be not just the females.
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Think you'll find that the Putin definition of "anti-gay" is completely at ease with men raping men [wikipedia.org] and that people go to pretty extreme measures [themoscowtimes.com] if they want to escape that when e.g. conscripted into the army.
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Yep. The Russian state is pretty much corrupt from top to bottom. In Moscow, the police are the street level crime, collecting bribes, doing burglaries, & occasionally armed robberies, the FSB & magistrates are the organised crime that do the political-level mafia type stuff. People who work for the govt, in offices, hospitals, universities, the police, don't get paid enough to live on so they have to find other ways to make ends meet; stealing stuff & selling it, selling services on the side, c
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At least this time the equipment belongs to John Deere. That stuff has GPS accurate to 6 inches so they can auto-steer the planters to plant between last year's rows for no-till operation, I'm waiting for every John Deere built since 2000 in Russia to flash the error "Contact authorized John Deere Service technician for repair" as it shuts down in the middle of the field.
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Just turn off GPS in Russia. [geoawesomeness.com]
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Can they remotely program them to drive themselves back home?
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They are also capturing civilians and transporting them to Russia, placing them in camps and sometimes prison. They have tried trading captured civilians for captured soldiers, absolutely not allowed at any time per the Geneva convention. Having them in prison and camps means this is not some rogue operations by some bad actors in some military units; this is known about and approved of up the ranks of the military. This is the sort of thing you'd see from narco gangs, third world rebel militias, or Nort
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Or kill a mother, tie the live child to the body, and stick a mine between them so you kill the child and rescuer [twitter.com].
Do the narco gangs even pull crap like that? Right now I think there's Nazi's looking up at the Russian soldiers saying "that's too fscked up".
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But this seems like a pretty good argument for it being a thing.
The Russians will just hack it to get it working, so there goes that argument.
Remote restrictions like these always only thwart the intentions of good people, criminals can always work around them.
The fact that it is the strongest argument, and yet is still really bad, says a lot.
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A country being run by thugs and oligarchs, who've made billions upon billions stealing from their own state, is using the power of the state to steal stuff wholesale from another country... yeah knock me over with a feather.
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They're bringing back fascism as well [imgur.com]. Yes, these are real pictures from the square in Moscow where they will hold their parade on May 9th.
Must be why so many Republicans are cheering for Russia.
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I suspect the pictures are legit as Russian's used red arm bands in WWII [epicmilitaria.com].
I don't think the Russian's a deliberately replicating Nazi imagery, it's more the case that fascism is intensely authoritarian, militaristic, and nationalistic. Symbolism that appeals to one set of fascists often appeals to another.
I didn't like that move, but it was likely a concession to Germany, rather than Russia.
Either way, I find it interesting that there's such an overlap between people who make weird excuses for Russia and peo
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Ah, that's where it came from, that makes some sense. Whenever I see soldiers marching I think, "That's impressive, but those are soldiers who have been practicing marching, not fighting." Not very practical.
It's not too weird because Trump has been so vocal about supporting Putin. He's basically the only one in the US who still does (and of course the people who follow him, like Tucker). If you can figure out what's wrong with Trump's head that he still supports Putin, that would be interesting.
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The Russians started the war as the Nazis primary allies and in fact cooperated in the invasion of Poland together with them. The have now adopted the Z symbol all over in what seems like a pretty good echo of the Swastica, to the extent it's been called the "Zwastica". Sure, in the end they fought Hitler when he attacked them. Before they did that they had already invaded a number other places like Finland with absolutely no provocation and with the agreement of the Nazis. Given that history I don't see wh
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Are you talking about the US or Russia?
(Note to Mods: I am going for +1 funny, not -1 troll)
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by sinij ( 911942 ) on Sunday May 01, 2022 @02:16PM (#62494428)
On one hand I am glad to hear Russian marauders had stolen loot disabled. On other hand, how is ability to disable farm equipment remotely from a foreign country is a good idea? I assume these are John Deere, and this demonstrates that you better not buy any if you don't want US to have an ability to disable it.-
I guess the same goes for a lot of cars these days.
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This is mostly fluff made to make people go "oh, I guess right to repair isn't such a good idea" I think.
I mean, screw Putin but this sort of thing is going to get used for aims that are far more questionable. Also, all things considered, we should probably be growing more food right now or people who have nothing to do with this are going to starve, whereas I doubt Russia can be starved into submission.
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It shouldn't need remote disabling. It should be locked down while sitting on the lot. It should be the equivalent of using a physical key.
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This is how we seed the masses with the idea that right to repair and control of the things you buy is bad.
You'll own nothing... and be happy. Except for the Russians. They'll own nothing AND be unhappy, so we'll all cheer.
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A guy was able to track his stolen airpods in Russia. Some dead Russian soldiers were found with banknotes and jewelry they had stolen. Even many toilet bowls were stolen. Looting is widespread and sometimes caught on camera. Like in that Belarussian post office with a camera where you could see Russian soldiers packing loot to be sent home.
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I'm a romanian. My gradma used to tell me that, in the WW2, even though the Rusia was an ally, when they saw their soldier, they would leave their homes and hide (especially the women). When they came back they would discover that the poultry was gone, but at least they were alive and unharmed... They're not a modern army but a bunch of ransacking idiots, rapists and murderers.
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Basically the Russian army has had a very bad reputation as well as the Russian leaders and we can start by naming a prominent ally of Adolf Hitler, which was surprise surprise Joseph Stalin and the red army had no problems murdering captured soldiers in Katyn.
But to put things into perspective the German army murdered, raped and stole from civilians, and topping that with their way of "dealing" with many of the Russian captured soldiers:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]The Russian army however upheld that
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Did they check the local impound yard?
Maybe they were parked in a handicap zone and it was towed.;-)
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I suppose there is at least one good thing about some of the DRM garbage companies like Deere have been adding to their equipment.
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Russia bought the equipment [rollcall.com] much in the same way that they bought Mariupol.
I'm just not sure how they plan to repay all the people they murdered.
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