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MailBlocks sues Earthlink over Anti-Spam Tech
goombah99 writes "Mailblocks is suing Earthlink , claiming patents on Challenge-Response as a means of blocking spam. Slashdot recently discussed Earthlink's plans to implement a challenge-response email system. The next day mailblocks filed suit to defend their turf in the $118 million dollar anti-spam solutions market. MSNBC has a complete discussion."
Years ago... 1997 to be exact.
Mailblocks has no right on that patent.
...and this ladies and gentlement is why the spammers win.
"Mailblocks is suing Earthlink , claiming patents on Challenge-Response"
If Earthlink responds to this legal challenge, they'd be in violation of this Mailblocks patent? A nice merry-go-round.
I think I'll patent these as well, just in case:
1. Pleading guilty.
2. Pleading innocent.
and so on...
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Because all the "good guys" are stabbing each other in the back trying to be the one that fixes this problem.
I say we need to send the One (a large man with a nail bat) to the Source (the companies that PAY the spammers) and let him Disseminate the Code (splatter their heads against the wall).
Yeah, I saw Reloaded three times since last Wednesday... so sue me. =P
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
From this number, would I be wrong in assuming that there are many people besides spammers themselves who have no problem at all with spam remaining legislation-free? I had no idea anti-spam was such a lucrative business, and I suspect many others hadn't either.
If I could make this sig kill you, I would.
Don't you just love software patents.
Europeans, contact your MEP now or else we will have this stupidity as well. The vote is next month and it looks most likely to give the go ahead on allowing software patents in Europe.
I have contacted my MEP and am trying to set up a personal meeting with him. Please do the same. There aren't many of us doing this kind of thing.
-- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz
Didn't Jeff Bezos {amazon.com} invent that? I'm pretty sure he holds the patent for it...
From the article: "Mailblocks developed and owns patents for Challenge/Response"
They will sue me as soon as they find out that I dial in to my ISP using the CHAP protocol.
RedShirt
Microsft spel chekar vor sail, worgs grate !!!
Wouldn't it be interesting if the "privately-funded" Mailblocks were to win and then refuse to license their patent to anyone? Or maybe offer to license it, but for exorbitant license fees. Then, 20 years from now, we'd find out that their private funding came from companies with an interest in Direct Marketing? Or that Mailblocks itself exists as a marketing tool, to collect email addresses and sell them?
One of the very real uses of patents is to prevent people from using the technology.
So am I paranoid enough yet?
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
I know that challenge response has been around longer than thatPRIOR ART.
And challenging Earthlink is a bit foolish. All Earthlink needs to do is come up with the hundreds of thousands of examples of Challenge-Response systems in use as early as 1995 in order to verify an actual person was on the other side.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
Majordomo, Mailman, elzlm...almost all mailing list software sends you a confirmation email, requiring your reply(nowadays via a URL with an embedded authentication string, or via email simply by replying.) Kinda seems like prior art, since I'm guessing "Mailblocks" hasn't even been around as long as majordomo, which dates back into the Dark Ages.
However, in all honesty, this is probably one of the few cases where everyone wins- for many of the reasons folks cited in the comments on the last article that mentioned Earthlink's move... challenge-reply is a VERY half-baked idea, and anything that supresses the market for that software(ie, patent) is a darn good thing in my book.
I'm a mailing list manager, and if Earthlink does manage to get out of this one and fire up the challenge-response business, I'm damn tempted to simply block every earthlink user, possibly at the mailer level, because the users simply aren't smart enough to handle whitelisting the mailing list(s). Hell, most of the hotmail/yahoo mail users can't even keep their mailboxes under quota. We're talking rocket science compared to keeping your mail folder clean...
Please help metamoderate.
Why can't it be that the penis enlarger companies are the ones that are suing each other into bankruptcy over patent infringement?
Besides, TMDA works, while Mailblocks doesn't. I grabbed a Mailblocks account while I could get a good username, and found that Mailblocks doesn't send out the challenge: it just discards my test messages as spam after 14 (?) days.
"hello?"
"Hi is this Joe Smith of 104 spammark rd.?"
"May i ask who is calling?"
"No, you may not, we've patented the process where you ask who your talking to then decide wethere you want to continue communication, we can license that technology to you though for the special low price of $1 per use."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Using state-of-the-art technology, an assemblage of talented, passionate and experienced individuals unlike slashdot's crew of moron editors
:)
Am I the only one to notice that...? Somehow I doubt that's in the original. Clever and amusing, however
Place sig here.
challenge-reply is a VERY half-baked idea.
How so?
It seems like a great solution to me (coupled with a whitelist).
I'd put all my friends on the whitelist. When anyone not on that list emails me for the first time, they get an automated message back telling them how to respond. If they do this, the message gets through and they go on my whitelist. If not, they have already been informed that their message will not reach me.
How is this half-baked!?
Life is too short to proofread.
Challenge-Response is the fundamental security mechanism for TCP, the reliable communication protocol used for everything from the web to SMTP itself. During the three way handshake between client and server, each sends the other a randomly generated 32 bit number, and each refuses to communicate unless that number is successfully returned intact. If either the client or the server fakes its identity, it will fail to receive the required value -- one of four billion -- and will thus be unable to complete the handshake.
:-)
At least, that's the thinking. Perfect security this ain't, but please -- the spec for TCP came out in 1981. TCP's security technique entirely encapsulates challenge-response systems for SMTP -- the same mitigation of false addresses through an inability to respond, the same caching of credentials once a response is received (you can think of a "trusted address" as a permanently open socket, with all the management headaches that implies!), etc.
In short, this is nothing new. But of course, we already knew that
Yours Truly,
Dan "I Do Way Too Much Stuff With TCP" Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
Spam filtering companies are proliferating at a rate almost akin to the growth of spam itself, and not all of them are going to survive.
Remember when there was a similar growth in companies delivering anti-virus solutions? Remember when several of them were caught propogating viruses?
Given how little it costs to Spam - especially if you're willing to accept a response rate of ZERO - I wonder how long it will be before some of these companies start hiring people to send out spam; spam tailored so that the anti-spam company has patented the most feasible defense!
Help make virtual black mail legal.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
This exactly what's wrong with corporate America (a.k.a. the "legal system") Rather than willingly share technology and ideas, people hoarde whatever they can in the hopes of becoming the next overnight Joe Millionaire. The problem is, the success of the one in no way benefits the many. In fact, the contrary is true- this sort of crap hurts the industry more than anything. Meanwhile consumers are complaining to their providors, threatening to take their business elsewhere, crippling an already painful market. If people weren't so damn selfish, and freely shared concepts and ideas (e.g. Open Source), without the need to excessively profit, imagine where technology would be.
Kill spam with tech patents -- patent on sending email in bulk, patent on the "click here to remove me", patent on email header forgery, and of course patent on screwing with the subject field to get by most spam filters. Obviously, you have to actually *find* the spammers to sue them. Oh well.
SPAM solution made easy: 1 spammer, 5 cords of rope, 5 hourses, and fireworks. Be creative.
Brits can find out who your MEP is by entering your postcode here. Set aside any personal feeling you may have on the EU, ranting against it is more like to do harm than good.
Some ideas point to raise.
Point out you are a IT professional and you are writing in that capacity as well as a voter.
US companies have been allowed to accumulate large number of software patents for 30 years by a poorly managed US patent system.
European Companies will be forced to pay royalties to US corporations, even ideas they invented, but patented in the US.
European Companies can be prevented from competing in some areas by patents, either by cost or denial of access to certain technology.
Patents prevents fair competition and promote monopolies.
An expansion of the patents system in the EU to cover computer software is extremely damaging to the European IT sector.
Point out that software is about maths and numbers, if you cannot patent algebra B or numbers so why software.
If possible point out a simple example of a patent in your particular field, even better if you can rightly claim it was invented in Europe but patented in the US.
How so?
Well, try reading the top rated comments in the last Earthlink-does-challenge-reply business slashdot story. A few of the ideas that occured to me(with varying degrees of seriousness/risk/whatever):
Please help metamoderate.
Just my thought here: Many states, maybe all, have made spam a crime.
But they have not been effective in stopping it.
Now, normally, when I am victimized by a crime, I am justified in defending myself. Mailblocks, however, is saying "You can't defend yourself against this crime, because we own the intellectual property for the methods of defense"?!?!
Okay, so whenever a new technology comes out, the mafia just needs to figure out (1) a way to victimize people (2) the best ways to defend against it. Then patent the defenses, and subsequently hit people from both sides.
Our government is coming to a real decision. Either defend IP at let criminals roam free, victimizing all and destroying the economy, or give up IP, and maintain order.
Meanwhile, Ralsky and his friends are going to be down at the patent office in a flash.
Something is rotten in the state of our legal system.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
Recent articles haven't mentions Digiportal or Mail Frontier, so it is possible that they have come to an agreement with Mailblocks.
Full article (dated 4/05/03) from the San Jose Mercury News.
This looks like it's becoming another "unholy alliance" like the virus / anti-virus market. It's as if the net had no native problems, so people have had to think up some so they could sell solutions for them. I wouldn't care if there wasn't so much collateral damamge to the net's reputation and so much extra effort on my part for "trash removal" in my corner of the net.
I'm a proud capitalist, but this is sickening. It's like embedding nails in the road to increase sales of tires and towing services. Surely if there were ever a "solutions market" that deserved to be trashed by OSS, this is it.
Go SpamAssasin and Mozilla!!
So now somebody can patent a spam-blocking technique, then bombard you with spam which you can't legally stop because they have patented spam blocking. Then a virus creator will patent virus detection and removal, so you can't legally eliminate their viruses. And they can do the same thing with ad blocking, firewalls, and the list goes on.
The evils brought on society by software patents far outweigh the good brought by the 1% of useful software patents.
---------
There is inferior bacteria on the interior of your posterior.
DDOS against whoever's name happens to be in the From line of a spam
So, a patent can tell a company to stop doing something even if they develop it themselves?
:)
I'm curious.
If you patent A, then I come up with A on my own time, for use in my own company, you can still tell me to stop using it?
I mean, I guess Earthlink is advertising that they're going to be using a challenge/response system, but they're not selling it, are they? I don't understand how the patent system even applies here.
Someone help, my head hurts.
I think people like to paint all software patents with a broad brush. It's actually a bigger and broader scope. Work with me here:
"All patents related to software are evil"
The fear is that (and rightly so), the patent office doesn't have the tech knowhow to decide a valid patent or not. Mailblock wants to patent "challenge and response" email. To me that is plain silly. The concept of a challenge and response has existed long before email in regards to communications. Applying such a broad concept to email is nothing new and is only a matter of who got there first.
What SHOULD happen is that a company is granted a valid patent on METHOD. At least in regards to software. Let's take Adobe. What if they were tto be granted a patent on ALL graphics designs programs? It would kill competition in it's tracks. Gimp? nope. PSP? nope. MSPAINT? probably but only because MS would pay the license fee.
You see, in terms of software, the traditional patent model does not work. There aren't enough new ideas out there. The concept of a drawing is as old as caves and berry juice. You can patent YOUR style of pen but not the concept of a pen. What happens is that companies patent more than just THIER way of doing something. Software patents in the current form are diametrically opposed to competition and freemarket operation.
The rules need to be rewritten to take into account this new model. Things like lifetime of a patent on software needs to be rethought as well as the whole process of granting the patent. In the software world, things move too fast. Patent lifetimes are NECCESARY to ensure non-stagnation.
Take the drug market. The patent on the drug (chemical makeup not concept) is the motivation for R&D. Patents encourage companies to develop something to make a profit by guaranteeing those companies the ability to have exclusive profit from that R&D. But this only goes so far. You've got only a few years before the patent expires and anyone else can make a generic version. They can't call it the same thing you do, but the can sure as hell color the pill the same as you.
What now for a company? They must reinvest the money earned from the short term exclusive right of patent and develop a better version. Or something new all together. The company that trys to live on one product dies a quick death. Ever wonder why there are so many versions of sudaphedrine? Patents FORCE innovation. The rules are simple. You come up with something new (such as a drug to inhibit HIV) and you get exclusive right to it. But only for a while. After so many years, anyone can produce it. It's now up to you (the company) to make a bigger and better HIV blocker. You know the rules. Everyone has to play by the same ones. Because a patent is public (has to be or else how would anyone know if they might infringe), you get that exclusivity= bonus for making it public. Don't like that rule? Keep it as a trade secret. The rules are different there. Much more difficult to enforce.
Almost done.
People also link patents to copyrights which have become a bastardized version of what they were. The current Micky Mouse is much better (to some) than the Steamboat Willy '46 version. Copyright terms forced Disney to make a better Mickey Mouse. The problem now (as we all know) is that Disney and the other large lobbies have decided that they don't want to play by the same rules that put them where they are. They are most undoubtedly an enemy of the freemarket and capitalism.
Sorry for such a long rant. Copyrights and patents aren't a bad thing unless misused. This is the case with the Sonny Bono Act and most software patents.
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
Public executions, first offence, for spammers.
Broadcast immediate, ALL channels, satellite, cable, OTA, AM/FM. ALL channels.
We interrupt this broadcast for another public execution of a spammer and as a bonus execution, three patent lawyers. Please stand by, after the executions you will be returned to your regularly scheduled programming.
Thank you."
I never finished implementing the system (I wrote my dissertation instead) but still have a midsized collection of emails about it.
Challenge/response has got to be "obvious to one versed in the art" -- I can think of at least three other people at Stanford who had the same idea at about the same time.
- MailBlocks is owned by Phil Goldman, the WebTV millionaire .com millionaire, and former employee of Apple, Generial Magic, and knows what patents are worth, so he did a patent search
6 5843.htm
- Phil Goldman is skilled in the art of computing, and so he _obvious_ly thought of using a Challenge/Response system for stopping Spam.
- He's a
- Found patent 6,199,102 (Granted March 2001), and bought it from Christopher Alan Cobb
- Found patent 6,112,227 (Granted August 2000), and bought the owner, Jeffrey Nelson Heiner, who signed over all rights
- Patents are "one of the largest expenses that we (at Mailblocks) have."
- MailBlocks has also sued Spam Arrest (case pending in WA), DigiPortal, and MailFrontier (resolutions unknown)
- MailBlocks actually started suing before releasing a product of their own.
- Goldman regularly responds to penis enlargement spams with his credit card number and a request to have them delivered in a plain brown paper wrapper
- So far, none of them have worked (somebody should tell him creation != enlargement)
Here is an interesting article: http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/55
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?