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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
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.
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 );
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?
Since when do patents include inventions? I always believed patents were describing old stuff, and are meant to provide lawyers with jobs.
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
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.
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?
I was using Visual Route way back in '99.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/metricmusic
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...
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)
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.
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?
No, if this patent is upheld noone can release any similar functionality under any license for any reason. More or less.
Having said that, a patent is more or less useless until the patent owner successfully sues someone. Until a court upholds their patent it's just an assertion that's 'checked' by the USPTO. But I sure wouldn't want to be the poor bastard sued first .....
Cheers Koz
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.
I fear a world where Microsoft has a patent on "Operating System"
I think it would be "Method of configuring a computer to spread viruses"
In the same train of thought: could one patent a "Method of encoding a self-replicating computer program", release it under a non-transferrable license, and then sue the crap out of everyone who gets infected?
fast as fast can be. you'll never catch me.
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.
Works for monsanto.
I'm guessing that wasn't on their radar screen...
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".
I think it would be "Method of configuring a computer to spread viruses"
That would be "Method of configuring computers for extremely quick and reliable spread of various software without user interaction" This is a lawyer talking, remember?
The only reason there IS a microsoft, is because courts decided "look-and-Feel" of an operating system was unpattentable.
Back then it was Apple who vigurously chanted the "I've got a pattent" song.