From Recorded Future News and PRX, this is Click Here. You buy something, you own it. At least, that's the deal we think we're making. But out on a farm in eastern Colorado, that deal has started to come apart. I mean, you go out and spend half a million dollars on a used piece of equipment, and then you can't use it. A man standing next to a machine he paid for, waiting not to fix it, but for permission to use it. I'm Dina Temple-Raston, and this is Click Here, a show about how technology is changing everything. And today, what happens when ownership starts to lose its meaning? Because more and more, the things we buy don't fully belong to us. As soon as these devices depend on software for their functionality, there's a real sense in which consumers are at the mercy of the companies. Stay with us. If you're looking for a daily guide to cybersecurity news and policy, sign up for the Cyber Daily from Recorded Future News. It serves up the day's most interesting and important cyber stories from our sister publication, The Record, and then aggregates all of the big cyber stories you might have missed from news outlets around the world. Just go to therecord.media and click on Cyber Daily to get all you need to know about the world of cybersecurity right in your inbox. From Recorded Future News, this is Click Here. Inside a modern combine, you don't just see waves of grain moving past the windshield. You see a whole system interpreting it. Coordinates, yield data, real-time maps. The land itself is translated into something a machine can understand. And this is where Danny Wood spends most of his days. My name's Danny Wood, and I live two miles west of Peets, Colorado, which is in the northeast corner of Colorado. Peets is a small town of a few hundred people near the Nebraska line. Dry land farming there. No irrigation, just rain. And Danny's a fourth-generation farmer. I live in the house that my grandfather and grandmother lived in, and I've lived here all my life. We have a big enough farm. We're busy with the farm all the time. Same house, same land, but the machine he's sitting in, it tells a different story. Because the combine doesn't just run on diesel anymore, it runs on software too. And it turns out that changes what happens when it breaks. Because fixing it doesn't start with a wrench, it begins with code, a language Danny doesn't speak. A few years ago, Danny and his son bought a new combine. First day out, everything looked good. Everything was great. We were going to start combining the next morning. Started combining, the thing went probably, oh, 100 yards. And it derated itself to an idle. A hundred yards in, it stops and an error code flashes. No explanation, no manual, just a message Danny can't make sense of. And that's when he realizes he doesn't just have a mechanical problem, he has an access problem. Because the software is locked and only the dealer can open it. So, Danny gave them a call. Well, they said, we're so busy that it'll be five days before we can get there. Five days, not to fix it, just to arrive and take a look. And for nearly a week, his combine sat at the edge of the field doing nothing. And when the tech finally showed up, he plugged in a laptop, tapped a few keys and announced that a cluster of tubes around the exhaust had cracked and they needed to be replaced. I said, do you have them? No. I said, do you have them at your shop? No. I said, well, how long is it going to take? He said, well, it'll take three days for him to get here. I said, you'll be right back and fix it then. He said, no, after they show up, then we have to schedule another service call, and it'll be another five days. I told him, well, that's completely ridiculous. Danny could already see where this was going. Every hour that machine wasn't moving was money he'd never get back. and at, say, $4 a bushel, that's $2,400 an hour you're losing by that combine sitting there, which any time a hailstorm can come through and wipe the wheat crop out. So this wasn't just a breakdown. It was a bottleneck, a machine he owned but couldn't use when it mattered. I mean, you go out and spend half a million dollars on a piece of equipment and then you can't use it just because they are too busy and they won't have time. And it wasn't the first time. A few years earlier, a tractor he had, same story. It broke down, he had to wait, the tech showed up days later. But this time, the fix wasn't a part. The tech just punched a five-digit code into his computer and the tractor was running again. And it took him a matter of two minutes to do this, and then everything worked right. A few days after that, a bill came in the mail. for the tech two minutes of work Now here the thing about Danny He knows how to fix things He trained as a diesel mechanic Engines hydraulics heavy equipment So he's the kind of person who doesn't wait around if something breaks. But this time, there was nothing to roll his sleeves up for. And the barrier wasn't physical, it was a permission. The software that ran the machine didn't belong to him, so he had no choice but to wait. And that's when Danny started to realize that this wasn't just happening to him. It was something much bigger than that. A cause called Farmer's Right to Repair. A farmer's right to repair their own equipment. The right to repair. If Danny's story is about waiting, Kyle Schwarting's is about what happens when you decide not to. My name is Kyle Schwarting. I'm a farmer in eastern Nebraska mainly. Like Danny, Kyle came up as a mechanic, comfortable with wiring diagrams, diagnostics, and figuring out things on his own. Coming from the car world, we could get access to things like wiring diagrams. And that was the difference. When he was fixing a car, he had access. When he was fixing his tractor, he didn't. To him, that didn't feel like a limitation of the machine. It felt like a decision made somewhere else. So he made one of his own. He went looking online. I just googled it, the pirated service advisor program, and you started reading through them. He searched forums, message boards, until he finally found something that looked like it would do the trick. It was the Czechoslovakia version of it. pirated dealer software from Czechoslovakia, the same tool that companies like Case IH and John Deere had been keeping away from him. He bought it for about $500. A few weeks later, when his tractor broke down again, Kyle didn't call the dealer. He reached for his laptop. He plugged it into the machine and held his breath, not entirely sure what he was going to get back. And then the system opened. And instead of an error code, he got an actual diagnosis. The tractor had a yield sensor problem. Clear enough to understand, specific enough to fix. So tell me, the first time you plugged this pirated version in, your John Deere combine that was having trouble, what did it feel like when it booted up and told you what the problem was? I mean, were you saying, hot damn, this works? I don't have to call them? Yes, I was happy. Don't get me wrong. You know, I mean, it sure makes you feel a lot better when you realize that, yeah, this is going to work and I'm going to get the information that I need to be able to fix this. It's not just relief you hear there. It's recognition. For the first time, Kyle wasn't waiting on someone else to tell him what was wrong. He was seeing it for himself, on his own terms, in real time. There was no dealer, no delay, no middleman, just information he could act on. Unfortunately, that access didn't last. Because before long, his pirated software stopped working. The connection disappeared. And then, just like that, the door closed again. For Kyle, that was a clarifying moment, too. It was the moment he realized that this wasn't about one farmer finding a clever workaround. It was about who gets access in the first place, and who has the power to take it away. Workarounds like pirated software from Czechoslovakia only get you so far. They're only one software update away from being useless. So there needed to be a more permanent fix. And that's what Danny decided to work on. That's after the break. Stay with us. The Wired Newsroom is known for award-winning reporting on how technology shapes our world. On Wired's Uncanny Valley, we take that curiosity even further. Each week, journalists from Wired break down the biggest stories in tech while speaking directly with the people building, challenging, and reshaping the future. Is the AI boom sustainable? How do you protect your privacy in an age of constant surveillance? Uncanny Valley tackles the questions driving today's tech debates and lighting up your group chats. Listen to new episodes every Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts. what that downtime really cost, and to make the case that farmers like him should be allowed to fix the machines they own. And inside that hearing room, it wasn't about one broken combine anymore. It was about what it meant to own something and how that ownership is an illusion if you need someone else's permission to fix it. And for more than an hour, lawmakers debated the question out loud. I'm a staunch conservative, proud Republican, and, trust me, intellectual property, I fight for every single day. When it comes to ownership, when you purchase something, you own it. At what point in time are we being stripped of our right to own something? Ownership, he was saying, should mean something. Farmers take pride in their mechanical savvy to fix their own equipment But as computerization has seeped into this equipment their ability to fix them has diminished This was about easing a burden making it possible for farmers like Danny and Kyle to do what they'd always done. And at first, it seemed like a layup. The room was leaning their way. And then the dealer stepped in and said, this wasn't really about fixing machines at all. They said they'd support repair, just not access. Open up the software, they warned, and you'll be opening the door to something else. Allowing access to embedded code could put the public at risk for accidents. We do not, however, support the right to modify them as it relates to safety, horsepower, and clean air. I would encourage everyone to vote no. Safety, emissions, liability. The argument was familiar. It wasn't so much about control, the companies insisted. It was about protection. Everybody's protection. As Danny was sitting there, he could feel the mood in the room starting to shift, away from him It was a hard sell They were all against it, and they were trying to bully and scare everybody And then, after two hours of that, Danny got his turn He had three minutes to make his case I'm going to tell you a personal story of what we did in August of 2021 I bought a 2020 Case IH Stiger tractor He told them exactly what you just heard. The breakdown, the weight, the technician who shows up days later and fixes the machine in two minutes by punching in a five-digit code. And then he tells them what it had cost him. Not just in dollars, but in time. In control. So I think when you buy this stuff for this kind of money, that you should get access to that. We just want to be able to fix the small things. And then they vote. Names were called. Votes were counted. and the bill squeaked through. The governor signed it into law in 2023, making Colorado the first state in the country to give farmers the right to repair their own equipment. Danny thought it was a victory. And to be sure, under pressure from lawsuits from farmers and from stories like Danny's, the companies are starting to make a shift. John Deere began offering access to diagnostic tools, the same tools dealers use, pirated software no longer required. And the bigger shift? It's still unfolding. Because the question of control doesn't stop at farm equipment. As everything becomes more digitized, it's spreading across industries, across devices, across the things we buy, and long assumed, we control. Aaron Perzanowski studies this. He's a law professor at the University of Michigan, and the author of a book called The Right to Repair. And he says for a long time, ownership came with a kind of expectation. If something broke, you could open it up, figure it out, and fix it. Or at least take it to someone who could. Most of us have a sense that when we buy a product, that we control these devices, right? As soon as a device is phoning home to a manufacturer, you lose that independence. That's the shift. There's a difference between what you thought you owned and what you are actually allowed to do with it. 50 years ago, they could call up their neighbors who might be even more mechanically inclined or have more experience, or they could go to any local repair shop and have them work on that product. Today, we live in a world where you've got to go out and get permission from the manufacturer. And companies have good reason for wanting to keep it that way. Because repairs are big business. If you control the repair, you control the customer. Which raises another question. If a company makes money every time something breaks, what incentive does it have to make it easy to fix? And that's part of the reason why, in January 2025, the Federal Trade Commission sued Deere & Co. It accused the company of driving up repair costs and blocking farmers from fixing their own equipment. That case is still ongoing. But Aaron says this is a new definition of ownership. You might own the physical tractor or the car or the refrigerator you bought, but the software that keeps it running wasn't included in the purchase price. And I think in this moment, it's really crucial to have a good grasp on the functionality of technology just to be a sort of good citizen, right? to understand what's happening in the world, to understand what legal regulations mean for our daily lives, and to try to close the gap between the power of the consumer and the power of the corporation. The right to repair sounds like a small thing, a farmer, a code, a two-minute fix. But underneath, it's something bigger. Because ownership, real ownership, isn't just about having something. It's about what you're allowed to do with it. And who gets to decide. This is Click Here. Thank you. why it attracts hundreds of thousands of page views every month Just go to therecord Here what you need to know about the tech world this week It Tuesday April 28th In Britain, cyber attacks are no longer an occasional thing. The head of the UK's National Cyber Security Centre says the country is now dealing with multiple serious incidents every week. The majority of the nationally significant incidents that my teams are handling now originate directly or indirectly from nation states. Officials say much of that activity can be traced back to Russia, Iran and China. We know that China's intelligence and military agencies now display an eye-watering level of sophistication in their cyber operations. Russia, meanwhile, is repurposing tactics it developed in Ukraine and turning them outward across Europe. Earlier this month, British authorities warned that Russian intelligence had been hijacking everyday routers, turning them into tools for surveillance and password theft. Iran, for its part, is also carrying out digital operations inside the UK. The British government responded with a £90 million package to boost defenses, and says a broader national plan is coming later this year. Meanwhile, at Meta, a new internal policy is raising alarm. The company told U.S. staff that it plans to install software that tracks activity on work computers. One staff said, this makes me super uncomfortable. How do we opt out? Meta's CTO clarified that actually you cannot really opt out. This is mandatory. Meta says the tool is meant to train AI systems, capturing keystrokes, clicks, and even screenshots. Employees say it feels intrusive and there's no option to opt out. Meta says the data won't be used for performance reviews. But legal experts warn it makes clear how little protection U.S. workers have when it comes to digital surveillance. Currently, the U.S. places few limits on it, while countries like Italy outlaw electronic monitoring of employee productivity entirely. For now, Meta has urged their employees to avoid doing anything personal on their work devices. A new report suggests the next wave of surveillance won't happen on your phone. It will target the system your phone depends on. Security researchers have uncovered two separate spying campaigns that are abusing well-known weaknesses in the global telecom's infrastructure. infrastructure. The finding comes from the Citizen Lab at University of Toronto, which tracks digital surveillance around the world. What they discovered is a shift, not hacking the device, not planting malware, but quietly using the network itself. Two commercial surveillance firms were able to track phones by exploiting a basic assumption baked into global telecoms, that carriers trust each other. So attackers send requests that look routine, like they're coming from another legitimate network, and the system responds, sometimes with location data. In one case, they took advantage of weaknesses in 3G and 4G protocols. In another, they used invisible messages that communicate directly with a SIM card, never lighting up the screen. Then they routed everything through real telecom providers so that the traffic would blend in. No alerts, no pop-ups, no sign anything is wrong. Which means the infrastructure that connects billions of people can also be used to track them. And finally, at Apple, a handoff that comes at a complicated moment. The end of an era for Apple. The CEO stepping down. The transition closes out more than a decade of steady leadership in the post-Steve Jobs era. Under Tim Cook's guidance, Apple expanded beyond its signature devices into wearables, payments, and a growing services business. Now, the questions are different. How fast can Apple move on AI? How exposed is the company to growing tensions with China? The next CEO, John Turnus, comes from the hardware side of the company. And he's known for making Apple's products work and last. He'll be taking the helm in September. Click Here is a production of Recorded Future News and PRX. Today's show was written and produced by Megan Dietry, Sean Powers, Erica Gaida, Zach Hirsch, and Casey Georgie. It was edited by Karen Duffin and Sarah Covedo, and fact-checked by Darren Ancrum. Original music is by Ben Levingston, with additional music from Blue Dot Sessions. Our staff writer is Lucas Riley, our illustrator is Megan Goff, and our sound designers and engineers are Jake Cook and Jesse Neiswanger. Find us on X or Facebook at Click Here Show, or leave us a voice message at 6615CHTALK. Sometimes we'll turn those moments into reporting, sometimes into a conversation, and sometimes into a future story you'll hear on this show. I'm Dina Templereston, and thanks for listening. Support for this program comes from Recorded Future. In cybersecurity, the biggest risk isn't what can be seen, it's what gets missed. Recorded Future analyzes billions of signals to help organizations stay ahead of threats. Recorded Future. Know what matters. Act first. If you're looking for a daily guide to cybersecurity news and policy, sign up for the Cyber Daily from Recorded Future News. It serves up the day's most interesting and important cyber stories from our sister publication, The Record, and then aggregates all of the big cyber stories you might have missed from news outlets around the world. Just go to therecord.media and click on Cyber Daily to get all you need to know about the world of cybersecurity right in your inbox.
