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McAfee Granted Firewall Patent
BadUspto writes "BetaNews reports that 'The United States Patent and Trademark Office has granted software maker McAfee a patent for tracking network events on a computer using a firewall. The patent filing involves tracing the location of an incoming connection and displaying a map showing where the remote system geographically resides.' Doomsday for VisualRoute and others?"
See James Bond, Goldeneye
Isn't it prior art if something is common knowledge?
What of those of us that can, and have been, doing such IP -> rough geographical area translations in our mind for years?
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
There's a LOT of prior art here isn't there? Or is the patent including something new?
Patents do an industry good! All hail our patent overlords!
Article text: Although McAfee has not yet said whether it will pursue licensing agreements from other software vendors, the patent is likely to put pressure on rivals such as Symantec and Zone Labs. Most firewall applications provide traceroute capabilities, with some including visual maps to aid users. In 2001, the USPTO granted McAfee an unusually broad patent regarding automatic updating and self-installation of software. At the time, McAfee said anyone "willfully flaunting the technology" would face legal action. ME: Well, even though the text says McAfee hasn't decided on going after other companies with lawsuits..err licensing agreements... they do appear to have a track record of doing so.
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups. -- 0 1 My two bits
See, this is what patents do. They give the holder of the patent the exclusive rights to licensing of that technology.
I'm not saying it's right. I'm not going to go as far as to say that the whole system ought to be scrapped, either. There are good things and bad things about the current system, but unless we can come up with a better system that will help promote the advancement of arts and sciences without trampling on the rights of inventors and creators, this is the only system we've got.
The best thing to do would be to take a hard look at the patent system and figure out how it can be rid of the badly-working parts and how to improve the parts that work well. Then perhaps we can have a fair and equitable system of patents.
a division of IP addresses per country and each country gets it's own share of IPs?
I mean, if there is such division, distribution, assignments, etc. of ip addresses why not just poll a stinkin DNS server that knows how the IPs are distributed by country and ISP??
I read that somewhere, too lazy to look without loosing my place in the first replys for this one.
Have a good one.
===== "Every head is a different world so don't invade mine you FREAK!" smartSAGA said
The patent was filed in 2002. Hasn't this sort of thing been done for MUCH longer than that?
Great. I guess who were using Xtraceroute in the 90s to do this are now all SOL.
------- Code to try when you're bored: qsort( 0, UINT_MAX, sizeof( int* ), IntCompare );
The USPTO has jumped the shark, ceased to be useful, lost all insight, and generally become a bloated, monstrous, piece-of-shit government agency that only serves to rubber-stamp anything that comes across its desk that looks like it might make some corporation a dollar. They like the FCC without the leadership. Mothball it all and revoke the employees' government clearance... they're all clearly retarded.
Suckass bitches.
Considering that IANA and its brethren in other parts of the world document which domains they have, this sounds rather trivially easy. What's next? Someone is going to patent turning left when the left hand signal is on?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Ooooo....this reminds me of a Dateline show that I saw, where the father was trying to teach his daughter about patents. Anyways, in the end, the daughter patented the playground "swings." Lol. I think that anecdote sums up the problems with the patents. The US either better establish a larger Patent Office or....uh, yea...they better establish a larger Patent Office.
Am I the only one thinking of Jay and Silent Bob in the final moments of J&SBSB when they are touring america to put the beat down on the people that dissed them on the "internet" And shouldn't that count as prior art?
USPTO shows up again! These people either are very uninformed or blind. How can they patent a thing that was used and invented a long time ago by other people. I remember I was using a visual traceroute program on win95 back in the 90's. I'm (still) proud I live in Europe, even if Romania (my country) is not yet a member of EU. I think I saw a visual traceroute program running on linux some years ago too... xtraceroute. Look on their web page here and scroll down to see when it was last modified. This gives you a clue how old the program is yet they didn't request a patent for that.
This is what I am
I can't make it stop
No matter how much I wanna change
I can't make it go away
Don't get me wrong. Software patents scare the crap out of me. I fear a world where Microsoft has a patent on "Operating System"
IANAL and I didn't RTFP (read the fine patent) but I did RTFA. I was once taught that a patent covers a method for achieving an outcome. In the McAfee case, the method involves using logs collected on a firewall, then analyzing the origin based on the logs. I would guess that a competing product that directly sniffed the packets and analyzed the origin then produced a map wouldn't be infringing, because it would use a different method to achieve the same outcome.
This is why I keep _every_ that application that I have ever used. For example, Calamaris, a really nice squid stats generator, has fallen victim to software patent bullshit, but I still get to use it.
Obviously, the affected applications are never going to be patched or updated, but it's still better than nothing. I will continue to do so, regardless of legality.
Scream Prior Art! From the top of my lungs.. But then i remember, that thankfully the EU has not legalised software patents yet. And i sincerely hope Poland will knock some sense into our MEPs. I wrote a letter to my MEP yesterday and was surprised to get a responce (!). They say they too are worried about software patents, thats why they are voting for it (!?) - Something with settling on the middle, bleh.
Software patents scare the living crap out of me. I fear a world where Microsoft has a patent on "Operating System" I think it's total bullshit that people can even do this. First off, I bet McAfee has some C++ programming in it... which derives from C, which was created by Dennis Ritchie... so where is his cut? Everything we do, builds on something someone else did. In most cases, those things aren't necessarily things that someone did for money. It's a sad deal that this patent crap came into effect and is possible... Maybe I'm in over my head a little bit. Can someone still release an open source GPL product that does the same thing as McAfee's deal and be untouchable?
Norton Firewall has had this capability already. Talk about prior art!
Seriously, hasn't the government got something else better to do with the patent office, other than legalize get-rich-quick schemes?
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
For the love of whatever! Is nothing sacred? I finaly found something, a nice combo of BSD/Linux/OS X over various devices that returned a bit of control to my computing experience. Mind you, I've been into this since the very begining of PC use. And now, some greedy fuck (whom is OS specific none the less) needs to step in and take advantage of one of the most chiken-shit money grabs in the known world, the USPTO. Sigh... Yeh, yeh, prior art, blah blah. There's plenty of flesh-eating lawyers out there for MacFuckify to employ and possibly make this a pain in the ass for some time to come. Goddamn you windoze and all the leaches on your digi-herpies infested ass. If this flys, I'm going ludite right down to the use of an abacus. Fuck it, I'm tired...
...the existence of prior art matters to the USPTO ?
... minister meeting
hopefully, poland will keep stopping each attempt to put the software patents issue on the menu of the various european agriculture, fishing, wanking,
I'm shocked it took so long. ... shit, it's been years. I recall running it on a Windows 95 or 98 system, I'm pretty sure it was the first one out there.
McAfee bought Neoworx in 2002, and the NeoWatch firewall was the first one that I had seen that would automatically do a little graphical trace for you. Basically a firewall with a cheapo neotrace embedded in it (you could also use the full version if you had it)
I used neowatch
The patent is pretty narrow though, If they were first, I don't see much to bitch about (excluding the standard patent stupidity)
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
Time to dissolve the patent office and make a new one with an average IQ higher than 80.
Can we just have a 10 year haiatus on software patents of any kind, please? So far most of them have been single descriptor patents...
[blatently unpatentable thing] + "on the internets"
[blatently unpatentable thing] + "automagically"
[blatently unpatentable thing] + "in a browser"
And now we have
[blatently unpatentable thing] + "with a Firewall"
None of this should be patentable. New and truly novel approaches to computing issues should be, but those are exactly the types of things which are too important to patent. Where would computing be today if patents covered the concepts of Neural Networks, Fuzzy Logic, evolutionary algorithims, or for that matter object-oriented programming and distributed networks?
Patents were supposed to be unlikely to be duplicated. Theoretically, if I wanted to do something and I didn't know how, I would have to turn to somebody with a patent. However, these days it's impossible to blow your nose without first calling a lawyer to figure out if someone patented nose-blowing in such a way. And chances are someone has.
We should just shut software patents down for 10 years, let the technology mature, then re-examine whether they're helping or slowing us down. In 10 years time we may have exhausted enough of the obvious things that only patentable things will remain.
The ______ Agenda
You could probably program the "remotes" on the Aaphid NIDS system to do the job. There are commercial systems that certainly work like this. Judging by the descriptions given in the Internet Audit Project, some time back, the military and intelligence networks also have such systems.
Perhaps the "perfect fit" would be an active firewall/NIDS system (for you counter-intrusion) and some sort of packet analyzer and/or active scanning software to establish the identity of the real attacker.
Again, such software is certainly around and is nothing particularly new or exciting. Many of the fancier NIDS packages use Bayesian filters to look for abnormal behavior, as opposed to looking for specific attack patterns. If you want to be really fancy, you stick a honeypot in parallel with the real firewall, disguising the honeypot as a firewall in its own right. Everything that goes to it is obviously bogus traffic.
The problem with the US patent office is that they don't search for prior art. Well, they get too many patents to do that efficiently, so they trust the person filing, until someone complains. If the patent is overturned, the filer can sometimes get their money back.
Supposedly, during "patent pending", problems can be ironed out. They often aren't, because companies are loath to expose "trade secrets" or other unpublished information, and Joe Bloggs doesn't have the money or (in many cases) any standing to object. (Courts are very fussy about people having standing in a case.)
The "minimum change" solution would be for all court costs and lawyer costs to be loaned by the Government, with the loser in the case having to pay back the loan for both sides, plus interest. That way, frivolous objections would become too expensive, but so would frivolous patent claims.
As for this system - I say ignore the patent and use pre-existing solutions that do the same thing. This is a situation where "civil disobedience" is not only possible, but also low-risk. McAfee is unlikely to be vigorous in the pursuit of their IP, if it was pretty certain they'd lose any case and be humiliated.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Before we kind of knew they were clueless, now we have solid, rock hard proof of their incompetence.
Don't forget that software patents are very new- they've only been allowed since about 1996 or so. They don't promote innovation at all - they stifle it. They allow the one thing that's bad for consumers- limited choice and a greater potential for vendor lock-in. They make it difficult for competition, since "licensing fees" could easily result in a net loss for anyone attempting to offer products or services in the same market. Since this provides patent holders with a larger captive market (not by consumer choice, mind you), there is less incentive to invest in things that matter- like providing good customer service and a good quality product.
Lawyers can in good faith (so called) patent things that are quite familiar to anyone who has had to live by knowing how to make things work, understanding how they function.
The whole patent system is run by people for whom money is the only tool they've had experience enough to rely on -- rich kids of rich parents who went to expensive schools and make money because they can.
Wait -- has anyone patented MONEY yet?
Yup. It's a patent on patents and copyrights. I win.
It's people like you that give the F/OSS community a bad name
-Mark Denham
...between a computer and a firewall?
All hardware these days are just computers with some different peripherals and stuck in a different box.
I curious how patent law, refers to 'prior art' work when the fundamental concepts for a product were released to public way before they even filed for a patent? So all these years, I can sell/show a product, and then go back and say now i'm going to patent a new spin on my technology, yet the previous fundamental concept had been out there for all those years?. ms-windows.announce/browse_thread/thread/236721196 5fd5297/6853e6cc94c408fd?q=ip+world+map&_done=%2Fg roups%3Fhl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26safe%3Doff% 26num%3D10%26q%3Dip+world+map%26qt_s%3DSearch+Grou ps%26as_drrb%3Db%26as_mind%3D1%26as_minm%3D1%26as_ miny%3D1981%26as_maxd%3D25%26as_maxm%3D1%26as_maxy %3D2001%26&_doneTitle=Back+to+Search&&d#6853e6cc94 c408fd/
:-)
e ms.www.servers.unix/browse_thread/thread/412853115 09679c0/546595d3a6b0b0e5?q=world+ip+mapping&_done= %2Fgroups%3Fas_q%3Dworld+ip+mapping%26num%3D10%26s coring%3Dr%26hl%3Den%26ie%3DUTF-8%26as_epq%3D%26as _oq%3D%26as_eq%3D%26as_ugroup%3D%26as_usubject%3D% 26as_uauthors%3D%26lr%3D%26as_qdr%3D%26as_drrb%3Db %26as_mind%3D1%26as_minm%3D1%26as_miny%3D1981%26as _maxd%3D25%26as_maxm%3D1%26as_maxy%3D2000%26safe%3 Doff%26&_doneTitle=Back+to+Search&&d#546595d3a6b0b 0e5/
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.archives
I'm sure this guy back in '96 in the url below when mentioning 'access logs' was referring to his firewall logs
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.infosyst
I used a program like this AGES ago. I remember working on SunOS back in 1992-93 using a program just like this... it was called something like visual trace route or something like that.
Maybe someone else remembers this tool and can provide the prior art
Identifying location by ip address doesn't work reliably. That's like bringing in an old can of rusty nuts and bolts to the patent office and saying "This is an interstellar probe, patent it biatch."
Doesn't an invention have to work to be patented?
Wouldn't it be easy to challenge this in court by simply doing a live demonstration of it incorrectly identifying the location of an ip address?
but unless we can come up with a better system that will help promote the advancement of arts and sciences without trampling on the rights of inventors and creators, this is the only system we've got.
There is no evidence that the current system promotes the advancement of arts and sciences, or engineering for that matter.
In fact, quite to the contrary, in software, we have pretty clear indiciations that patents are not required for advancement in software, and that they may actually be harmful.
The best thing to do would be to take a hard look at the patent system and figure out how it can be rid of the badly-working parts and how to improve the parts that work well. Then perhaps we can have a fair and equitable system of patents.
We don't have unlimited time. Software patents have been around for only about a decade now and they are already causing lots of damage. The burden is on people like you to come up with a system that demonstrably works, or we really should scrap the entire system.
Granting people and companies 20 year monopolies is something extraordinary. The burden of proof that this is something we should do is on people like you who want to keep some form of the system. If you can't come up with clear and convincing evidence, we should scrap it.
Sorry, the way it works is this: We've got a system that, for better or worse, is what we've got. Unless you can show that it is responsible for more damage than would be suffered if the system were completely dismantled, the system will stay in place. Just because something isn't working 100% doesn't mean that it must be destroyed. That's engineer-thinking, and it's a wrongheaded way of approaching problems.
The fact, after all this hootin' and hollerin', is that there are only a handful of patent-related lawsuits that are occuring at any given time, despite the vast number of patents. In other words, these little blips on the radar are insignificant and pretty much relegated to very special cases. That there are lawsuits arguing the validity of some patents shows that the patent and judicial systems are working.
Scrapping the patent system is an ideology, it isn't a solution.
Calamaris is still available.
Read the patent claim. It specifies "Using a Firewall". VisualRoute does not use a firewall, so they have nothing to fear.
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
Just because it's patented doesn't mean open source bs crap has to actually follow any legal rules, I mean cmon its developed by a crapload of anonymous aliases on the internet with the sole intention of defying any legal nonsense bullshit.
So effectively open source crap doesn't have to give a shit if anyone legally owns anything, they just do whatever the fuck they want.
Since Poland managed to delay the EU decision on software patents for about a month, this patent may backfire big time. It will serve as another great example of why software patents suck and it may be the straw that breaks the back of software patents in Europe.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
Can someone still release an open source GPL product that does the same thing as McAfee's deal and be untouchable?
no, and existing programs aren't really safe either -- the "prior art" defense is mostly a fantasy. in a legal battle between the typical large corporation and the typical freeware developer, the latter will be living in the street LONG before they can use the "prior art" defense -- assuming they have a good enough lawyer to successfully use it, and a judge that will accept it. some of us have been screaming about the danger of software patents to the right to program since the mid-90s. pity nobody paid attention then. too late now. hang on to your tar bundles, because sooner than you think you won't be able to get them anymore. at least in countries with software patents -- the us, the eu, etc.
US lawyers, do us all a favor and legalize yourselves out of existence. Please?
I can well imagine some OSS projects being based in certain patent-free countries, and developers outside making anonymous contributions.
Software patents suck. Now it's proven again. It only gives power to the rich. If I had created a small piece of software just to do something like a visual createroute about some years ago - not unimaginable as a usenet google-search on 'visual traceroute' showed messages dating back to 1991! - I might just run into trouble. When McAfee orders me to stop spreading my software, then I just have to obey. I don't have the funding to battle this patent, although I'd probably win the case. What's the invention anyhow regarding a visual traceroute. It's the result of very trivial thinking - just read back the messages on usenet. It just shows how insane software patents really are - again.
Wait now - this will trace the IP Address to physical location? But what if I work in a company with my HQ in the US. I get a B Class of IP addresses and break it up internally across the world. Thus even though the IP address is registered as US the user could be in Germany and could be accessing the Internet through Cork? Thus the trace gives the location of the 'Owner' of the IP range, but this may not be the physcial location of the user! Think about it!
Actually, in the US and other places where patents already exist, the burden of proof would be on the people who want to change the law and not the people who want to keep the current system.
From a practical point of view, you are right: it will require extraordinary effort to get rid of the current system. That's not because it there is any rational justification for that, it's because there are lots of special interests that want to keep the current system--it's a multi-billion dollar handout from taxpayers to special interests.
But that doesn't change the burden of proof: people who want to have laws that grant 20 year monopolies to companies ought to be able to justify that choice, at all times. If they can't do that, the law needs to be abolished.
http://www-smirc.stanford.edu/tom.html. He taught an intro seminar called "Things about Stuff" that basically dealt with the stories behind EE inventions.
Will slashdot ever drag itself into the year 2005 and provide the ability to edit posts?
I have a feeling they argued about this for a while, but decided that letting people correct their spelling mistackes and reword their awkwardly-worded phrases wasn't worth the trouble of rerendering the static pages. Not to mention all the weirdness that would occur if a clever troll posts something that is insightful, has it modded up to +5, then replaces the text with either goatse guy or a GNAA press release.
My other first post is car post.
In other news, Microsoft got a patent for "breathing oxygen".
We are doomed.
"but unless we can come up with a better system that will help promote the advancement of arts and sciences without trampling on the rights of inventors and creators, this is the only system we've got."
Software has only recently been considered patentable; in fact the largest body of computer work by far was done before software was considered patentable.
There's so many it would be foolish to list...real, actual advance...
job scheduling
protected memory
lossless compression
mice
dynamic RAM
static RAM
virtual memory
networking
traceroute
many many many sorting algorithms
I mean, you could list them all day, and all of them came before software patents.
By contrast, Since software patents, we have....
One click shopping
traceroute (?????)
When I hear people say stuff about software and patents, it makes me think they either have no understanding of the history of computers, or they're very young.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
How about another perspective, like market protectionism first ?
...
This is not another conspiracy theory but I seems unlikely that the whole patent office is run by complete morons. Right ?
So why would those educated people grant such patents ?
Well, the US is the software dominant player and wants to stay on the top. With all the rising countries like india and china the best way to protect America's interest is to patent everything possible localy and apply it to the rest of the world. Just look at the lobbying effort to get software patents in europe.
To get back to market protectionnism, patent will allow american compagnies to collect royalties on any foreign software that might run in the US. Maximum return on no R&D inverstment, the jackpot !!
Just follow the money
Another example is the signature based dynamic NIDS patent that Symantec acquired through an acquisition. This is the exact same technology that is used by all of the network IDS systems today, with minor variations. It is reasonably obvious - separation of signatures into a data file instead of embedding them into the code. The generic concept of data-driven processing itself will probably provide prior art.
As more and more companies seek to cash in on the bonanza driven by increasing security paranoia, this trend is unlikely to wane in the near future.
See that long UID - that's what you get for lurking too long
Insightful/informative .. this is precisely what it's about, I've been saying this for a while.
The same problem that is readily apparent to any /.er about the USPTO exists within the
FDA, the SEC, etcetera.
The massive push to (a) de-regulate industry
and (b) fund government oversight organizations
through user fees has totally skewed the
relationship between government and industry.
More "user fees" means more money for government
agencies that they have not been getting from
the Congress. IMHO, this is also a big part of
the reason why the US government appears to
function on behalf of industry instead of its
citizens. The USA's democracy has devolved into
a "government by, of, and for the corporations"
instead of "the people".
so besieds wirting letters, what else can we do to fix this problem? looking for seirous ideas. who would patent reform start with, from where? btw: i now have a pantent on phentic spelling ;-)
This was found with a 10 minute search on the 'net. I remembered having something similar on RedHat 5.2. Interesting thing is that it was added to freshmeat.net about 10 days after McAfee patent application was filed.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
It has a growing use to simply legal commit anti-trust anti-competitive practices to keep out small buisnesses and also startups from getting anywhere. There is no American dream anymore.
This next attempt will be via the External Relations Council next Monday (31 Jan 2005).
Until sw patents politics are dead, dead, dead, in Europe, we'll have to hear about firewall patents, boolean logic patents, modula patents and anything else that fits the formula "... with a computer". This hits not just designers and developers but actually any one even using a computer.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Microsoft go one better and patent network topographies, frames and packets, then follow up by having a scottish-sounding trademark missappropriated to them by 'accident'.
Apple come out and patent multi-coloured cabling and cable ends.
IBM come out and patent the all metals in the periodic table, including TCP - twisted copper pair, and new element.
SCO claim that Adams signed over the rights to Eden, and start suing all carbon based lifeforms.
A small new zealand company finds that it invented fiber optics, and sold them to amazon.
Google threatens all above companies with having this gmail accouts revoked if they dont play nicely.
Penny Arcade run a strip about how annoying it is when your girlfriend is better at a game than you are.
Funny thing was, last night I wondered, at which level do firewalls work? at the level of the system library? the rawest sockets? sockets == software, nothing more special than that...
Perhaps Windows itself screws over this patent... McAffffe33es (however you spell it!) bosses when the phone rings... sir, its that monkey boy, and he doesn't sound happy...
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
In Poland you Firewall isn't patented!
Not quite catchy, but I love Poland, and I am going there on holiday, and I am going to hug some polish people and cry real tears on thier shoulders, and maybe do the dirty with some fit lesbo polish teens.
nice
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
Because of these reasons, patent law is awkward and vague and hard to enforce when applied to software and various other fields. It introduces much uncertainty, since the patent holder himself often do not have much confidence in whether their patent will be upheld in court. We do not need even to consider the balance of rights between inventors and the general public --- such uncertainty is bad for both parties.
So why don't we just scrap patents in such fields and use NDAs instead? After all, patents are supposed to be used against people who copies the inventions after seeing it (so you can in theory make them sign an NDA before letting them see the thing), and independent inventors really should not be punished. In fields such as pharmacy, where it is difficult in practice to make every buyer sign an agreement stating that they will not copy the medicine by analyzing the contents of the pills, patents might be somewhat more enforcable, but in other fields such as software, where NDAs are already a common practice and patents are awkward, it is hard to find a reason to allow for patents there.
Here's what I think covers the patent:
METHOD for determining the geographic location of an intrusion attack
I claim
1. A firewall is a mechanism for detecting and blocking a incoming network package
2. Said firewall detects and records the attempt of an unauthorized network connection to a system(s) connected to the internet (Patented and invented by Al Gore)
3. Using a Traceroute (patented by Holmes, Sherlock, historical patent: how to track intruders when they leave their home address), the true identity of the perpetrated perpetrator
4. Using mapquest (patent pending by National geographic maps and charts) or yahoo maps (not the ones in your car) We track down the approximate location of this originating origin
5. Mapquest or yahoo maps plots the location on a digital screen or physical piece of paper using the patented ink cartridges from Lexmark
---
I hereby declare that I've been using this method as long as I have been a system administrator. I am in obvious violation of this patent, and claim that this is so incredible trivial that even my mother could have thought of it. McAfee: sue me (oh shit I live in Europe... dang)
Sadly, there's no one for me to sue for patent infringement - this invention seems terribly unpopular. :-(
I developed an distributed advanced firewalling intrusion detection appliance, with realtime event alerting, tied to a monitored service that provided a (server side) web based report generation engine.
This commercial product was developed in August 2001, and the specific event related ip info/trace type features that exactly match this patent (minus the 'map' image) were implemented into the report generator no later then the 2nd week of January 2002, immediately put into production for all current customers to access, and specifically demonstrated to a potential customer withing days. This falls before the February 8, 2002 application date of this patent.
Anyone looking to make a formal challenge to this patent contact me. dcinege ****AT*** psychosis dot com
Patents involving making computers more secure seem to be patently not in the public interest.
-- $G
Step 1. you are the little guy/established company/mega-corporation
Step 2. you have a good idea (nothing more) and patent it
or
Step 2. you take an idea in common use that isn't patented - and patent it
or
Step 2. you take an idea in common use and apply for a laughably generic patent in the broadest terms possible that covers this idea - and get it
Step 3. you attempt to claim royalties/licenses on your 'invention'
Step 4 would be profit, universal condemnation, lawsuits - or perhaps a combination of all 3 I guess..
Or even Sneakers from 1992..
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105435/
The problem isn't software patents, per se, but a broken patent office. And all a rival hs to do is either establish prior art and/or "obviousness" of the invention, and the patent will be deemed invalid. So, go ahead and use it, and if McAfee uses it, watch them lose quickly. It doesn't matterh ow powerful their lawyers are, because a few examples of prior art will cause McAfee to lose the money the spent on the patent in the first place. This is the same game with any patent, not just a software patent. As a silly example, if the USPTO were to grant a patent on the tire, and you were to make a vehicle with a tire and get sued, then you could show that tires were already in use long before. Remember the water bed? It's patent was denied because someone showed that it was already described in Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land."
someone post a script that ties
`iptables mark` with `traceroute` and the proper way to achieve http://www.ip2location.com/?s=google
A blog I run for the wealth
Techniaclly there is a slight difference. A patent must be: novel (no prior art), and non obvious (to an engineer)
When all these companies rely on the patent system as a business model it just means patent reform will put a hundred thousand ppl out of work. Not the lawyers, /we're/ the ones who get the axe - but the government won't lift a finger if it means massive job losses.
I'm not sure exactly why, I don't think it's just the 50% of 100,000 * yearly income they end up with either... No politician wants to become so unpopular or something.
I dunno it's early and I don't care.
Never mind changing posts, what about enlarging the pokey edit box used to write them.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
To quote Buffy: 'where do i start with the bad?' Source code is langauge, language and text should be covered by copywrite, not patents. Patent laws are being abused by large industries lobying law makers for the sake of trying to corner the market and make more money. Now they're trying to get the EU law to comply to the american law and make the patents global - huh, good look trying to enforce those patents in China. If they're enforced, the only thing IT patents will do is stifle technical innovation. If they're enforced: remember the fuss a while back about GIFs? That died out pretty quickly.
Coding Monkey.org - Spanging the heavy spade of truth into t
See sneakers at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105435
The real question is why anyone would buy anything from McAfee in the first place.
Because Norton has such high rates of stillborne installations with the amusing feature of hosing the PC even after Norton is "removed." I work in the banking IT industry and Norton has become the kiss of death for so many due to how it seems to get mangled on a PC and require a complete reinstallation of the OS to get rid of it. After this process, many end up banning Norton from their shop. (In December last year, I heard the first instance of Norton being used as a verb - e.g. "that machine is nortoned" - to describe the state of being totally screwed by maladjusted antivirus and personal firewall software). McAfee was a known alternative.
After confirming this news on McAfee's taking credit for other peoples inventions, I will recommend to all my clients that McAfee be also put on the ban list. There are enough other solid products, such as Avast, that they can use.
Any company that tries to steal from the creative commons should be shunned by competent IT professionals. Pass the word today if you care about this: rip Norton products out, ban their purchase and let them understand that intellectual property theft ala bogus software patents has a real downside. The more businesses like this can be shunned, the more possible it will be that this theft will be curtailed.
Talking philosopically as opposed to legally. If I thought off and implemented this independently, I still can't use it without paying dues to the owners of my independent thought?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
They engaged in what I might politely describe as highly questionable activities (questionable legally and ethically); sadly, I can't go into any details for legal reasons. Suffice to say I'll never knowlingly give them money again, and that goes for the large corporate org whose IT spend I now control. It felt like a weight had lifted from my shoulders when I left - actually one of the only times I've left a job over my personal opinion of the company.
In particular, there was a patent bounty program; everyone was encouraged to come up with new ideas for patents. There was an internal group dedicated to taking technical ideas and expressing them in the appropriate patent legalese. Many of my co-workers got fat bonuses for wondering whether (trivial, obvious idea x) had yet been patented.I guess this system is still in operation.
One thing they did do for me: a classic PHB type argued with me that Slashdot just didn't matter, no-one read or posted to it except pathetic, powerless geeks (ie., not managers - the only people who mattered to this fool.) I was so determined to get him to eat his words that I started keeping a list of posters' assertions about their backgrounds, or projects they were working on; I now have a fascinating list of hundreds of astrophysics PhDs, founders of major projects, people with interesting life experiences and.. yes... actual senior management people. Geeky execs, granted, but execs nevertheless ;)
Even I've written prior art on that, in 2001. The connecting to a firewall for realtime traffic data, intrusion detection, and displaying their locations on a map using reverse dns and whois part. And I was just imitating another product made years before.
Wow, how insightful.
Your post basically says, "the patent system has good and bad points, so let's try and keep the good things, and get rid of the bad things."
Any ideas? Your post really says nothing. It's like reading one of those press releases that give no useful facts about the product.
This is basically Etherman with the nodes placed geographically (which is nothing new either). To the USPO, WTF? Etherman has been around since 1993. It is too bad they never released the source. Those guys in Australia wanted $1000 for the source. As a result an awesome tool fades into obscurity. The free binary version of this program was a life saver for to help manage network problems with some NASA mars rover practice missions in 1996 and 1997.
In the end, the meek shall inherit the earth.
What would you do?!
Ping
Traceroute
There have been dozens of tools. Just scan one of the many software archives around full of freeware/shareware (download.com, versiontracker.com, tucows.com, etc. etc.)
This is hardly a new concept... and definately there are prior arts.
We banned Norton from our IT shop due to the outrageous fees they charge in addition to the horrible installation and configuration problems and complete lack of technical support. Symantec is a company that is living off of the old Norton reputation and it's days are numbered.
It is time to organize and work to dismatle the patent and ip system as we know it today. The EFF would be a nice org to start "the work". Maybe another org that is singularly focused on Patents/IP legal issues would be better. This is a large undertaking but what are you going to do? You have to start somewhere. And think of it like this, you get to go to war with "The Empire", Darth Vader, and all. To use another movie reference, "It's time to go to the mattresses."
This from the people who make you dependant on IE for antivirus updates. Absolutely unbelievable.
Oh man, this could happen only in America, baby!
I'd hate to say it, but maybe this is also our fault for choosing NOT to participate in politics. I feel as if the geek community was some kind of Amish guys in their computer farms, and then wham. Here comes the government and there you go. (Funny, didn't that happen to the hobbits in the shire, too?)
As much as you dislike it, you guys should start participating. Get organized, talk to the candidates, tell them about the patent problem.
The internet has grown, we can use this to our advantage. Start groups named "no software patents in [your city here]", maybe sign up at meetup.com, etc.
Because if all we do is rant about boo-hoo mommy the big bad guy patented my ideas, you're not getting anywhere.
I don't live in the US, but many of you do. And you better hurry because things are only getting worse.
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing".
1. I'm going to patent my dick as:
"...a {small} device for facilitating impregnation of ova and creating new people."
2. *ALL* you bastards (and non-bastards) owe me royalties.
3. PROFIT?
"Lazar said piracy has cost the Redmond-based company "billions of dollars over the past 10 years," but he would not be more specific."
Ok, there are enough posts that say for 150 - 300 dollars for an OS is resonable. Now consider that it was release in 2001. So the expiration is?? 2005 or 2006? I have seen XP pro for 150-199 for an upgrade (an upgrade people). Now that OS is going to be outdate in a year or two. How is a full price OS that will expire in a year or two resonable.
Tips to Microsoft:
1) Charge a price that is reasonable:
a) For an OS
b) For an Office Suite
2) Lower a price for a product that is at the end of a life cycle.
As for MS promise to support an OS for 10 years. Well thats pure hog wash. Look at w2k; they decided not to release SP5 for it. Only a patch here or there will trickle in for said product. A single patch here or there never gets the die hard test of a SP. Odds are that the time between patchs will get longer and longer. So users have no choice.
Yes, I am aware that they cannot support a product forever. However, w2k was put on the scrap heap in 2002/2003 in favor of XP. There was 2 years left before it expired. No new feature enhancements like SP2 for XP. They could have postponed the the relegation of w2k on the 4th year.
Same thing happened to NT and eventually XP.
The greed is just digusting, IMHO.
This would accomplish two goals, first it would protect those items that the non profit group does patent, second it would increase (greatly if the group grew in size) the amount of requests the USPTO would receive, and may actually cause them to hire someone who understand software to throw out these clearly unfair patents.
They may as well, since the courts allow the very same thing in the case of genetically modified agriculture.
I'll patent ranting, and sue you all.
can we say prior art.
I recently switched from Windows to Linux and on my old windows system I have been using NeoTrace && NeoWatch for YEARS! Ironic that McAffee bough out NeoWorx a few years ago which gave them the right to, IMHO the best windows firewall and traceroute package available. Crying shame that they are also going to destory what was good software.
Cole
So one of the few thousand patent examiners makes a mistake on one of the millions of applications it deals with...sorry people aren't perfect
It doesn't work! The IP addresses of packets arriving at a firewall have no guarantee that they're really from that address. If it's a handshaking protocol like TCP, and if you open the port, let the syn/syn-ack/ack proceed, then you can trust the IP address--but that would be a strange thing for a "personal firewall" like McAffee to do on a blocked port. It definitely doesn't work for UDP IPs which are forged all the time.
Perhaps this patent can be booted just because their "invention" doesn't work as promised?
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Why duplicate an idea that doesn't work? (I thought an invention or idea had to work to be patentable?) My comment
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
then it is not novel and is unpatentable, whether or not there is prior art.
This patenting rubbish is going to aid the self-destruction of the USA. Banning US companies from using basic patented technology without paying for the right is just going to destroy any semblence of competition. The only way for competing companies to get back is to acquire an equally stupid patent for something critical to McAfee's software. The patenting system can work. Intellectual property should be protected, but please, some common sense. No life, no software, no general patents. A little brain power goes a long way.