We’ve known it for a while now, when it comes to playing Doom, there are no limits to the players’ imagination. It has almost become a joke to know on which machine it would be possible to launch the cult game developed by iD Software and this time it is on a tractor that it is happening.
Featured Image: iStock, Sjo
Need a bit of context
In fact, most of the time when a short story talks about the new exploit of running Doom on an unusual machine or device, there is a reason behind it. It is often a device on which a hacker has worked and to show that he has completely succeeded in breaking through the defenses of the machine, he runs software on it. And quite often the choice turns to Doom, which is a fairly light game and whose source code has been available for several years now.
That’s why during DefCon 2022 in Las Vegas, a major annual convention for hacking and computing, a modder by the name of Sick Codes highlighted his hack of computer hardware present in tractors. This may seem innocuous, but it is also to highlight how little control farmers have over their equipment. The latter being dependent on the manufacturers when it is necessary to repair something or to make modifications to it.
The primary reason is therefore jailbreak the computer system integrated into several models of John Deere brand tractors. The Australian modder was thus able to gain access to the heart of the device.
Free the tractors! We want farmers to be able to fix their stuff when things go wrong, and now that means being able to fix or make decisions about the software in their tractors.
Even if it starts from a very good intention, you have to have fun and that’s why with the help of a hacker named Skelegant, they had fun running the source code of Dehacked Doom which becomes thus playable on a John Deere tractor.