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Lucky Green vs. Palladium
CodeTrap writes "Wired has an interesting story "Can a Hacker Outfox Microsoft" on a fellow named Lucky Green that is attempting to force the issue surrounding MS's Palladium Gambit using a very creative method involving patents. If his patents are granted, MS will be unable to use Palladium to enforce software licensing. If MS challenges his patent, then we all know thier true intentions. Very clever indeed."
it's been proven time and time again that a hacker can outfox Microsoft. Look at all the copies of windows and office and other MS products out there that have product activation. There were hacks and cracks for that technology out before the software's release date.
Why would Microsoft every want to challenge the patents when they have enough money to buy this guy's soul outright?
If a potential patent challenge does ever get to court, who do you think is going to win? MS's $40bln dollar lawyers who have honed their skills playing delay games vs. the DOJ's anti trust suit or this guy and whatever pro-bono legal defense he can drum up?
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Doesn't the fact that the guy's name is Lucky Green sort of tip you off that he's playing Patent Lottery?
Microsoft will make him An Offer He Can't Refuse, and they will buy his patent (if they even need to.)
Warning: excessively realistic and cynical comments follow
Sorry buddy, but you will not get justice in this country unless you have the money for a team of attack lawyers. Anything that may cost Microsoft money will be dealth with swiftly and efficiently, and unless you can match them benjamin for benjamin on legal fees, it's not going to work. Think I'm wrong? Look at the prosecution and conviction rates for poor people compared to rich people for the exact same crime and similar evidence.
In order of likelyhood.
1.) Microsoft has already filed patent applications for this process (pretty likely, I think), in which case Lucky Green will be too late.
2.) Green gets patent. Microsoft uses Palladium for license enforcement. Green gets rich!! Consumer is stuck with Palladium licensing.
3.) Green gets patent, enforces cease and desist on Microsoft, Microsoft finds another way.
Hmmm... I didn't realize there was one to be damaged.
Even if he successfully prevents MS from enforcing only licensed software on its OSs, it still does not addresses the issue raised by RMS in The Right to Read, namely that copyright enforcement thru technology can turn all the World in a global police state in copyright owners' benefit.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
Bill G. Hey 'Lucky', can I license your patented process?
Lucky Pound sand Gates, I 0wn j00!
Bill G. Here's 100 million dollars.
Lucky I'm your b1tch.
Trolling is a art,
It sounds like a very sound plan, and it does put M$ in a intesting position as far as the Palladium initiative is concerned.
However, my readings from /. have told me that the main issue with Palladium has always been to secure digital entertainment content (ie. movies, music, etc) However, there is nothing saying that M$ could not develop another "technology" separate from Palladium to work on software licences (therefore negating the "patent protection" this has bought us)
I can't really give too informed an opinion without reading the actual patent filed (and I find it interesting that Lucky Green's website hasn't been updated since the symposium), but I can see M$ being able to honor this and still work around it, should they choose to.
If all else failed, they could go back to the ??IA for the political power to pull it off. "We scratched your back with Palladium. Now, you scratch ours."
Of course, this may be all a bunch of paranoid M$ bashing. Maybe they will do the right thing about it all. It's just interesting to think of the possibilities...
Slashdot - Come for the creative thought, stay for the lesbians!
I don't really care if MS uses Palladium to stop people from pirating software, good on them. The REAL problem is them using Digital Rights Management to control what software you can run on your computer regardless of license.
Without the right signature for DRM, you can't run a piece of software that isn't licensed to run on that hardware. IE, not "I don't have my 30 day license," but "I wrote some software, and didn't pay the company that made the OS so I could write it." In other words, bye bye Linux.
The article doesn't seem to cover if his patents cover this, since thats what I THOUGHT they were talking about until the last few lines where they talk about piracy.
IANAPE, but his claim in the states should count as prior art for some period for him in Europe, both in applying himself and stopping MS doing so. And MS does target the global market, so they cant do it in USA but not elsewhere....
Here are some interesting links. Remember kids, it's not whoring if you're doing it anonymously!
s tems.com/msg02554.html: Lucky Green discusses this issue
p to/2002-June/019444.html: Palladium and TCPA.
http://www.mail-archive.com/cryptography@wasabisy
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/pipermail/ukcry
Google should yield even more interesting documents
Enforcing software licensing can't work unless it's impossible to run software that isn't signed. Some of us would like to run software that does not come from Microsoft and their friends.
MS's monopoly is based on software installation. Even if you don't send MS one red cent for their software, you still contribute to upkeeping their monopoly.
As long as this doesn't affect their bottom line, and they're taking "reasonable actions" to combat it, they don't need to care.
believe it or not, there are actually groups out there who still call themselves cypherpunks. like it or not, they're real people. your post is like reading the LA times saying "the bloods and the crips are sooo cliche...." and demanding that they be called something else in print.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
As far as I know, patent pending is a legal tactic to stretch-out a patent's time of exclusivity. When a company has a 'patent pending' it pretty much means everyone who is using the not-patented-yet technique is screwed. IIRC, Colgate used this technique with its Total toothpaste that leaves some kind of layer of chemical protection on your enamel(sp?). It allows that 'patent' (which isn't really a patent yet) to be stretched out to about twenty years. Someone please correct me or elaborate further...
put the what in the where?
As seen on The Simpsons , all Bill Gates has to do is "buy him out".
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
I don't know how things are in the US, but here in Blegium if you patent something but don't "use" it (e.g. implement the stuff you describe in your patent and market it) for a number of yearts (I thought it was two, but I'm not sure), the patent office can force you to license it to third parties who are interested in actually bringing to market what you patented.
This regulation is there to make sure companies don't invent something that's better than anything that's out there, but wait with actually using their invention because e.g. they already have most of the market and as such aren't inclined to improve their product, but at the same time they don't want this technology to be used by their competition. So it's some kind of consumer protection (within X years, the consumer will have access to the invented stuff if it's usefull and marketable).
So if this rule also exists in the US, this guy could actually be forced to license his patents to Microsoft (or anyone else) if they want it. They even don't have to challenge it. It'll still show the licensee's "true intentions" of course, but still...
Donate free food here
Something you can think of off the top of your head just after a conference really ought not to be patentable. It's a weakness of the system if it is.
Abusing the patent system by obtaining ridiculous patents is one way of demonstrating how broken the system really is. My all-time favorite is Method of Swinging on a Swing I laughed so hard when I read it that I cried!
First off, I really don't think that Microsoft wants to stop software piracy, it's not in there best interest to do so. So this whole thing is just a waste of time.
Hell, many people in Afghanistan use Windows XP. If MS was to put anti-piracy measures, those people would be forced to switch unless they like paying a whole years salary just to buy Windows.
From the article:
"Biddle insisted that the impetus behind Palladium was solely to secure digital entertainment content and that he knew of no way that it could be used for the enforcement of software licensing."
Now, according to El Reg, Microsoft recently published a job ad for a position within the Palladium group which contained the following sentence:
"Our technology allows content providers, enterprises and consumers to control what others can do with their digital information, such as documents, music, video, ebooks, and software. Become a key leader, providing vision and industry leadership in developing DRM, Palladium and Software Licensing products and Trust Infrastructure Services."
Contradiction city, I say.
"There are already a million monkeys on a million typewriters, and Usenet is NOTHING like Shakespeare." - Blair Houghton
Lucky's description of why he did it
--
"Bill Gates: Oh, I didn't get rich by writing a lot of checks!"
Microsoft can simply implement the patent secretly, ie phone-home software licensing data, without announcing it. Deny they do this if necessary - after all, the data is not for public consumption, just for 'partners'.
Doesn't matter if the patent is granted - the patentee will get nowhere suing MS, and this way round the burden of proof is on the patentee proving MS used the patented technique.
Might even find DCMA covers the encrypted data been phoned-home, so it could be illegal to attempt to prove such patent (if granted) was violated. Wow!
Whether or Lucky Green intends to "sell out" to Microsoft or hold his patents to frustrate them, this is an object lesson in how broken patent law is. At least they're apparently catching on down at the patent office. Declan McCullagh reports that "The head of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office acknowledged on Tuesday that many business method patents had been wrongfully awarded in the past, but predicted a more careful approach in the future." Time will tell, I suppose. In the meantime, no need for an actual product, or even a plan for a product, or even a clearly defined idea for a product. Patent first, ask questions later.
If his patents are granted, MS will be unable to use Palladium to enforce software licensing. If MS challenges his patent, then we all know thier true intentions.
What about Microsoft sues him just because they can and they are pissed at him for trying to show off as a geekero? Would that mean Microft's intentions are to use Paladium to enforce their licenses? It just does not make sense.
As much as I don't like Microsoft, I still believe that they can and are going to enforce their copyright however they can. It is their right to do so.
On a second thought I don't believe Lucky Green really has enough technical details about Palladium to be able to create a foundation for his patent. You have to describe how you do it not only that you do it. For example you can't patent a levetating car if you don't know exactly how you are going to do it.
Uh, wait a minute...
But "lucky green" sounds like a cleaning agent and "palladium" sounds like some moldly crap growing on my sink... so "lucky green" vs "palladium" sounds like some commerical where a frustrated house wife is tired of scrubbing, so she sprays on the cleaner and voila, its brand spanking new...
then again, maybe its just me...
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
Case in point: a friend of mine who is a decision maker for some of his company's IT purchases used an illegal copy of Dreamweaver for a few months at home. When the company accelerated their online presence, he recommended Dreamweaver, a great product, and the company bought a ten seat license. So Macromedia lost $200 on him, but gained a few grand on his company. Of course, they didn't really lose the $200 on him, 'cause he's a cheap S.O.B. and wouldn't have ever bought it himself.
If Microsoft and other companies implement this, it will be their downfall - not from a consumer backlash (there will be one, but not huge), but rather because many people will lose focus on their product line and try alternatives. They've forgotten the lessons of their success in the browser battle.
Crowded elevator smell different to midget. -Chinese Proverb
This interesting startegy has prallells among corporations competing with each other. I heard rumors that Motorola has pursued this strategy against certain telecom competitors:
If a competitor has a strong patent, and they want to pursue the same technology, then there is an alternative to violation.
They pursue patents on improvements on the original patent. A couple of years down the line, the originator will be compelled to use some of the (perhaps obvious) patented improvements. Then they are in an excellent bargaining position, either for royalites or for rights to the original patent.
Tor
Well, since we all know MS monitors /.:
/. for screwing over this plan.
MS now knows this guy's intent, and probably is already getting the ball rolling on how to thwart it. Most likely, they are already drafting a letter to the patent office on why this is an invalid patent (using whatever legalise they can come up with).
So, thanks
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
What is so wrong in enforcing software licensing? Well, here's one thing for starters. Microsoft have been wanting to get out of the business of selling software for years. They want to get into the software rental business. Let's say you use Microsoft Office on Windows. Pretty common. You've bought the software, so you've nothing to fear from TCPA checking your copy of office is legal. If microsoft bring out a new version, you don't have to buy it, you can carry on using your existing copy. That is microsoft's biggest problem, they can't make you buy the new version. You'll always be able to access your existing files. Even if Microsoft change the file format, you don't lose access to your old data. Now, lets zoom forward 10 years. Office TCPA has switched to a licencing model. Instead of buying a CD and the rights to install it on only one machine, you download it from microsoft, and can install it on as many palladium machines as you like, as long as it's only in use on one machine at a time. Hardware backed encryption enforces that. So far so fair. But it's a rental, not a purchase. At the end of the year, unless you cough up that annual licence fee, you can't use office any more. And here's the killer. You can't open your old files any more. Your unbeatably encrypted and trusted palladium machine won't let you open them. And the double whammy? The DMCA and it's worldwide cousins will make it illegal for other products, like open office to even look at your old files, as microsoft will have comingled encryption into that closed document spec, thus making your interoperable product a circumvention device. So sure, you can switch to the competition. But only at the expense of losing access to all the files you have stored (yours and other peoples) in that closed format. Hell, if microsoft were really feeling their oats, they could make every document you ever wrote unaccessible to everyone until you cough up that 'nominal' licence fee. Of course, there's nothing to stop microsoft doing this now - except that without hardware backed encryption and a trusted operating system running on it being the only way to run the software, the file formats and software would be cracked before it hit the public download section. With TCPA and palladium, we'll lose more that just fair use rights, we'll lose ever competitor that even TRIES to fight on microsoft turf. And if you think the US DOJ will step in, I respectfully point you towards the events of the last few years as to how successful that will be.
Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.
That makes me wonder. Why hasn't MS gotten around to buying themselves a small country yet? (Or, possibly, just buying an island and delcaring sovereignity, which might make them one of the first to do that and become actually recognized, as far as I know...) You'd think it'd be easier for them. They could just make up their own laws. (Open Source is illegal! Everyone must upgrade every product they own as soon as the next one comes out! )
I'm not sure I understand what legal risks Green takes on by filing for some patents. If the patent office determines that Microsoft has a prior claim on these technologies (or processes or whatever) then Green's applications will be denied, but will anything else happen? I probably just don't know enough about patent law. Ravi
When the axe came to the forest, the trees said, "Look out - the handle was once one of us."
1. The federal cicuit has been more keen lately on invalidating internet or business method patents due to obviousness problems.
It could be argued that it would be obvious to extend palladium's capabilities to include software registration enforcment.
2. Microsoft is not above patent law on legitimate patents:
Since 1998, Microsoft has been named a defendant in at least 35 patent-infringement cases, compared with seven suits in the prior 22 years. Twenty-one are currently active. - wsj 10/3/02
It's not such a bad thing. If he sold out the patents, lucky would still likely support the anti-corporate anti-MS community.
Which leaves us with what: A guy with brains, who likes the hacker community, and has a lot of money to donate...
If he gets the patents, even if he sells out we're not really losing anything. If the attempt wasn't made, MS would have pushed the Palladium software licensing button anyways.
Nope. Wouldn't work. Microsoft can demonstrate prior art.
TyZone
LOL! Buy their own island, and force its two inhabitants to upgrade to XP Second Edition because, um, (flips Excuse-Of-The-Day card).. they live on the East side and not the West side - if they had lived on the west side they would have gotten free upgrades for life. :)
an article appeared in Dr. Dobbs about HP printers and their automatic detection of past-expiration date cartridges, etc, and how the system really does not work. HP's whole idea was to make it impossible foir people to by ink refillers, so they would need to throw out $40 on brand new cartridges, and many such tosses while debugging it. eventually, they stopped doing this.
microsoft might try to do the same thing, but remember, if it is transparent, it WILL be hacked, and if it just blocks your system, people will get very annoyed/pissed/angered/dissatisfied, etc. you get the point. it is not naturally possible for m$ to create a technology that is not crackable and yet keeps most people happy.
BSD is for people who love UNIX. Linux is for those who hate Microsoft.
In the RMS biography "Free as in Freedom" by Sam Williams, the point is made that Stallman views the legal system as just another system to be hacked upon. There is a complex set of rules to follow, and with a clever, well-made program (e.g. the GPL) you can achieve things people hadn't even thought were possible.
Using the patent system against itself and against Microsoft seems to me to be at least a similar idea, if not the same thing.
Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy
Consider this:
1) Microsoft wants everyone to use their software.
2) Microsoft wants everyone to pay to use their software.
3) Microsoft wants to ensure through techinal means that everyone pay to use their software because users cannot be trusted and we are all villians.
4) Microsoft will use Palladium/ to ensure that everyone pay to use their software.
Joe Blow Public doesn't care about any of this because Joe Blow Public invests in Microsoft shares and are happy when they get a good rate of return. As long as Microsoft makes them money and they can run their birthday card creator program, they don't care. How many non-slashdot readers are going to say "Wow, Microsoft does some things I don't like - maybe I shouldn't use their software"? Yeah right!
I applaud this guy for at least doing something, but this won't prove anything we don't already know.
For a forum that bitches endlessly about bad patents, most posters here really don't know anything about what they're talking about.
1) LG must first have his patent applicatations successfully examined. This takes time and money (not a lot of money for a single inventor who thinks they have something valuable on there hands, but a fair bit for someone merely trying to make a point. Things become much more expensive if LG wants to apply internationally (requiring foreign patent agents, filing fees, translations, etc). LG must demonstate that his patents are not anticipated and not obvious. Despite all the bad patents that show up on Slashdot (and there are plenty), this is not an easy task, especially if you don't have the services of a patent agent or lawyer. It is also possible that MS has patent applications on these very issues (possibly not published yet), so the whole point is mute.
2) LG having the patents does not prevent MS from doing anything UNLESS LG sues MS for patent infringment. This costs huge amounts of money. Even companies that don't like MS aren't likely to be supporting this cause, since they don't want to antagonize MS or well, waste their money (maybe the EFF?). LG probably has other things to worry about (work, family, mowing the lawn, etc). MS has a division of people paid to worry about little problems like this.
Lucky has a nice idea, but I don't think the timing is really going to work. Here's the problem.
He wants to know if Microsoft is going to use Palladium for copy protection. We'd all like to know that. Well, of course, we're going to find out sooner or later, at least by the time they release Palladium, maybe around 2005. And chances are we'll find out sooner than that, because Microsoft will release specs and APIs to the developer community in order to have applications ready when the technology is released. So maybe we'll find out about 2004.
Lucky wants to speed up this process, so he files a patent hoping that Microsoft will either challenge it, or it will turn out that they have a patent of their own. But it's likely to take a couple of years for his patent to go through. So he's not going to find out until around 2004 anyway.
The timing doesn't really work. Waiting to see if Microsoft contests the patent won't give information for a couple of years. And by that time, chances are Microsoft will have revealed enough information about Palladium that we'll know the answer anyway.
The one thing that isn't going to happen, I guarantee, is that Microsoft will say "Oh no! Our secret plan to use Palladium for copy protection is ruined due to Lucky Green! Curses, foiled again!" If Microsoft does plan to use Palladium like this, they'll have the patent protection in place well in advance.
Novelty: As I mentioned in my earlier post, Peter Biddle, Product Unit
Manager for Palladium, very publicly and unambiguously stated during
Wednesday's panel at the USENIX Security conference that the Palladium
team, despite having been asked by Microsoft's anti-piracy groups for
methods by which Palladium could assist in the fight against software
piracy, knows of no way in which Palladium can be utilized to assist
this end
The words knows of no way, if they describe exactly what Biddle said with respect to Palladium and software licensing, creates an easy-out for Microsoft. Let's say that M$ has been working all along on a scheme that incorporates Palladium in a way that can be used to manage software licensing (which, given M$' track record, is more likely than not). Come the day it's thrust on an unsuspecting consumer public, they can point to this very statement and maintain that Biddle was, in good faith, representing the thruth - that he didn't know of any effort like the one mentioned. Whether he actually did, of course, is another matter entirely. Pointy-haired corporate executives use this gem all the time to elude personal responsibility: "I'm sorry judge, I had no idea the board authorized a personal loan for $300 million."
This seems to be another case of this - Microsoft wants to establish a standard method of copy protection and protocols to link all programs into their system given the proper set of keys. That it is a proposed standard by a single corporation tells me that it will fail miserably.
Of course, it's probably just simpler to rant yet again that Copy Protection Doesn't Work(TM).
This sig no verb.
Where does someone get stats on "exact same crimes" differentiated only by poor vs rich?
There is a law school (I think in Michigan) that has analysed this for murder cases. There are also various studies done by Social Science schools. Those don't actually look at every case, but instead sample the population. I tend to yawn when one of these studies comes out, who really thinks that a white kid gets the same punishment for drug use or petty crime as a black kid? Who thinks that a competent defence lawyer has no effect on your chances of a lesser sentence?
But if the solutions were simple then we'd have already implemented them, juries discriminate, what can you do if they don't even know they are prejudiced? Prosecuters treat people differently, what can you do? How can you can ensure everyone gets a good lawyer? If you give everyone a state supported lawyer, you would probably have even less justice since a really good lawyer can change the interpretation of the law so that everyone accused of a crime benefits, and we already know state supported lawyers can't represent their clients very well. (They aren't all or even mostly bad, but they have large caseloads so they can't spend the time needed. I'm not talking about pro-bono work where a for pay lawyer takes a case on a no pay basis, this wouldn't exist in a all state supported system. At least as that system exists today and probably would in the future.)
I'm very pessimistic this system will ever be reformed. Those that get bad results usually lose their right to vote, and those who get good results won't have as much reason to force reform. And, most of are lucky enough to never be accused of a crime.
As for Lucky, he might get some support from non-Microsoft owned companies if he has to fight for his patents.
Where do we put a statue for this guy? ;-)
But seriously... If MS fights these patents they show their true intentions you say? Why is that? Maybe they would rather have had those patents themselves? For what purpose ? True... probably the wrong one (wrong in OUR eyes), but maybe to make sure no one misuses THEIR technologie (palladium) ?
Why is no one doubting the intentions of this guy? And maybe if his intentions are good NOW, what if he is granted these patents and realises, maybe not now, but somewhere along the way, what power and possible wealth he could gain with these patents? Maybe at a point that he desperately needs money or whatever, or just because of plain greed.
We always question MS here, but we still need to take a carefull look at the other parties as well ok?
Can we conclude that you are not a well paid lawyer? Your lack of fundamental grasp would indicate this is so. Let me help you think a little more.
The article and this tread miss the point, which is that Palladium will be used to squash other people's IP and rights. Who cares if M$ enforces their software licenses? Who cares if the RIAA can keep people from making more useless coppies of Britiany Spears? I have software and music that have nothing to do with M$ or the RIAA. The danger is that M$ will use this gimp to take ownership of all computing. If they can keep my general purpose computer from makinging a copy of a file and I can not, they own my computer and can censor it's content. If their goofey system requires hardware to get sofware certs from M$ or not run, free software won't run. If free software does not run on my hardware then my hardware belongs to someone else. Loathsome! other people's work will be broken and M$ will own all publication that is not completely manual.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Gee, I wish this guy had also patented email spam and pop-up ads.
Table-ized A.I.