SCO Spokesman Blake Stowell said the memo was a sign that IBM saw SCO's claims as a viable threat.
"I think they are taking the threat seriously otherwise they wouldn't be informing their salespeople about that," he said. "We've had a lot of customers suggest they'd be interested in taking out a license."
I spend a great deal of time working with attorneys analyzing technical patents. I'd be an idiot to express specific opinions on a specific patent in a forum like this, so I'll confine myself to generalities.
The author of the article seems to base his analyis of the patent primarily on what is written in the abstract. This is meaningless. What matters primarily in any patent is the claims. The description and figures can be used to indicate intent in some cases, but this is very much secondary to the text of the claims.
Strongly suggest that, before forming any opinions, you read the patent itself (follow the link in the main posting). Pay particular attention to the claims, and bear in mind that, in order for a device to infringe the patent, it must do *all* of the things listed in any given claim. Doing only some of the things doesn't count.
because the efficiency enhancement isn't free. It adds complexity and cost. However, as the data rate goes up, the payback goes up too. So there's a tradeoff which is going to be different based on the data rate that you can achieve.
802.11b, a, and g are primarily physical layer (OSI layer 1) extensions to the base 802.11-1997 standard (also referred to as 802.11-1999, which is actually the same thing published by ISO). None of these speaks to security issues, or QoS issues for that matter.
802.11i is the security extension (still in development) which is MAC layer (OSI layer 2). It applies to all of the physical layers.
802.11e is QoS extensions, again at the MAC layer, and applies to all the physical layers.
802.11n will include both physical layer (higher bitrate) and MAC layer (higher efficiency) extensions, but is orthogonal to security. 802.11i will also apply here. It is likely that the MAC extensions in 802.11n will use 802.11e as a starting point.
not quite true. However, the letter "l" has been skipped for exactly this reason... the actual quoted reason is that "802.11l" would be "a typographical accident waiting to happen". We haven't got to "o" yet
Intel filed a patent on this, that's all. Filing a patent on something that looks interesting isn't a big deal. I don't know exactly how many patents Intel files each year, but it's a huge number. And I can absolutely guarantee that merely filing a patent doesn't indicate any strategic intent. It's very unlikely that any senior execs even saw this before it got filed. Most filings are completely speculative.
Who's working their panties into a froth here? Intel filed a patent on this technology in, what, 1996, or thereabouts? Have they actually implemented it? No.
Back when this was filed, there was a significant issue of unscrupulous "remarkers" relabelling chips as being of a higher speed grade. That potentially damages Intel's reputation if there results in anybody concluding that Intel's processors are unreliable. There are many ways of fixing this problem, of which this is one. Any technology company with their heads screwed on right will investigate many possibilities, and file patents on methods and techniques that look like they might turn out to be promising.
Before screaming "GROW UP INTEL" you should look a little more closely. There's really nothing to see here...
uh... but what would be the impulse (thrust x time) per unit mass? Might be cheap, but if you need to lift the fuel in addition to the payload, it probably doesn't help overall.
From what I've read, the people at xcor are more than capable of doing the math.
It will be very interesting to see how network equipment manufacturers respond to this, since the wording of the act (which looks very much like that in the TX bill) makes selling, importing into the state, etc etc illegal. So it's not just the end users that are targeted (difficult to find) but the manufacturers.
IANAL either, but my interpretation is that a VPN tunnel, by embedding the final destination of the communication inside an encrypted wrapper, is hiding the destination. Actually, I'm pretty sure that the kind of thing that a VPN tunnel does is precisely what what meant to be covered, although clearly the drafters didn't see the other implications.
as per an earlier post, this is the bit that I think VPNs would violate (from the proposed TX act):
SECTION 6. Sections 31.14(a), (b), and (d), Penal Code, are amended to read as follows:
(a) A person commits an offense if the person intentionally or knowingly manufactures, assembles, imports into the state, exports out of the state, distributes, advertises, sells, or leases, or offers for sale or lease:
(1) a communication device with an intent to:
(A) aid in the commission of an offense under Section 31.12 or 31.13; or
(B) conceal from a communication service provider, or from any lawful authority, the existence or place of origin or destination of any communication;
scroll down a bit further - that wasn't the offense I was referring to. This is from the TX bill:
SECTION 6. Sections 31.14(a), (b), and (d), Penal Code, are amended to read as follows:
(a) A person commits an offense if the person intentionally or knowingly manufactures, assembles, imports into the state, exports out of the state, distributes, advertises, sells, or leases, or offers for sale or lease:
(1) a communication device with an intent to:
(A) aid in the commission of an offense under Section 31.12 or 31.13; or
(B) conceal from a communication service provider, or from any lawful authority, the existence or place of origin or destination of any communication;
Note the "or" at the end of section 6, part (a) subpart (1)(A). The offense I was referring to was 6(a)(1)(B), which has no language about intent do defraud, harm or anything else. Just concealing the origin or destination from the service provider. Actually, just distributing, importing, etc etc equipment that could be used to do so.
yes, I read them. Did you? "Intended to prevent theft of service" they may be, but in doing so the text scoops up anybody using NAT (aguably, the language is vague, but could certainly be interpreted that way) or a VPN client (definitely - there's absolutely no question about that)
Suggest you go read the text again. There's one of the offenses defined that doesn't include any of the "intent to defraud" language. Merely possession of equipment that conceals origin or destination of communication from the service provider. That's what all the fuss here is about.
The argument of "it's ok, because they won't care about your little NAT box" is absolutely, positively, definitely, not good enough. If you're ok with being made a criminal just as long as nobody comes after you, fine. But it's sure as hell not good enough for me.
As you say, this kind of law should only apply when actions are performed "with intent to defraud". But that isn't what it says (and yes, I did read the bill. Suggest you do the same). The article written by Prof Felten points to the relevant clause, which says none of that. Possession of equipment which conceals the intended origin or destination of a communication from the communication service provided is proposed to be made an offense. Period.
What is seems to me is, this law looks like a classic trojan horse: there's stuff about preventing theft of service, yadda yadda, with intent to defraud, all of which looks perfectly reasonable. But then there's this other, mostly unrelated and egregious stuff buried in it.
Suggestion to ISPs: if you're really concerned about theft of service by people "splitting the bill" start charging by the megabyte actually transferred. Then it works the other way around. The more bandwidth people (or their neighbors) use, the more they pay. If people want to open up a Wi-Fi access point to passers by, ok. All good. More revenue to the ISP whenever anybody actually uses it.
NAT is probably arguable - depends on how stringently you interpret the language about "origin". The question is "origin of communication to what level of detail?". Arguably, NAT doesn't contravene any of that stuff, because you don't conceal which premises the traffic is coming from or going to, even though you can't see the specific machine.
VPNs are a different matter. In that case, the ISP has absolutely no idea what the eventual destination of the communciation is. So, forget about any kind of remote corporate network access, like Wi-Fi hotspots, or even encrypted dial up. Not only that, if your laptop has software capable of doing VPN, or has dial-up software that does encryption, it would be illegal to take it into any states that pass such a law, irrespective of whether you even use it.
Nice one. Great job, guys! Keep making sure corporate networks are completely insecure!
It is mandatory to pay H1-Bs prevailing wages. I have heard numerous reports of abuse, but never seen any. H1-Bs are now sufficiently easily transferable between employers that abuse is pretty much impossible. There's no reason to suggest that H1-Bs significantly distort the salary market.
And since when did an H1-B visa exempt the employee from tax or social security payments? The taxation rules are exactly the same as for US citizens.
Nobody doubts that the tech jobs market has declined since 2001. The question is, was 2001 an aberration or is today?
But back to the point - blaming all of the woes of the industry on "H1-Bs taking our jobs" is BS. This assumes that there is somehow a fixed pool of jobs to be distributed around a variable number of people. Just not true. If you screw down the availability of engineers to get some short term relier from declining engineering jobs, you can count on engineering jobs in the US continuing to decline as the center of gravity moves elsewhere.
It seems to me that the H1-B visa was designed to get around the normal quota of green cards. This was needed for tech workers (in many industries) while the market was tight, because the import of talent is not taken into account (much). (The pool of green cards may be taken up by 10,000 plumbers and 2 techs in one particular year.)
Not really. You can't apply for a green card straight off. You have to actually be resident in the US to do that. So, for employment related immigration, you need to get an H1-B first, then move to the US, then apply for a GC. When everything is said and done, you'll be eligible to apply for US citizenship after approximately 13 years, if you don't have any hiccups with the INS (I'm about 11 years away myself...)
what you describe here doesn't match my experience. Not in the least.
I know of nobody on an H1-B who gets "squeezed" until they "go home". There is a significant cost to get somebody here on an H1-B, and no employer I can think of would do that except to hire good talent - and remember that H1-Bs are very easily transferable. The "captive audience" feature is largely a myth.
Immigration keeps the jobs in the US, which ultimately is good for the US engineering industry. Outsourcing overseas sends the jobs elsewhere, which long term is very bad for the US engineering industry. If the H1-B program was cancelled and not replaced with something else (killing off employment related immigration, since this is the only mechanism there is) what do you think would happen?
There is a bit of a premium for managers to actually see "butts in chairs" instead of via phone and email.
Apparently - otherwise all the jobs would have been outsourced to cheaper locations. But what happens when you take away all the options?
Despite all of the screams about record unemployment, EE unemployment really isn't that high.
I don't know about EE, but software development jobs are dead dead dead.
I can only talk with any certainty about my own field - but this doesn't really address the point. What is the percentage unemployment rate?
and unashamed racism
Racism? I hate all H-1B's equally.
That's very nice of you, friend. But you didn't really answer any of my points. Just try this one: if H1-Bs went away, do you think the US engineering industry would get stronger or weaker?
Slashdot Mirror
Note the response from a SCO representative:
SCO Spokesman Blake Stowell said the memo was a sign that IBM saw SCO's claims as a viable threat.
"I think they are taking the threat seriously otherwise they wouldn't be informing their salespeople about that," he said. "We've had a lot of customers suggest they'd be interested in taking out a license."
Speaking with some significant knowledge of the design of these products, I can assure you that it isn't...
The author of the article seems to base his analyis of the patent primarily on what is written in the abstract. This is meaningless. What matters primarily in any patent is the claims. The description and figures can be used to indicate intent in some cases, but this is very much secondary to the text of the claims.
Strongly suggest that, before forming any opinions, you read the patent itself (follow the link in the main posting). Pay particular attention to the claims, and bear in mind that, in order for a device to infringe the patent, it must do *all* of the things listed in any given claim. Doing only some of the things doesn't count.
how about a variant of the "laugh, it's funny" foot icon, but with a gun pointed at it. That would make more sense....
that should be "freedom of religion is probably all we'll have left - and that's if we're Christians."
because the efficiency enhancement isn't free. It adds complexity and cost. However, as the data rate goes up, the payback goes up too. So there's a tradeoff which is going to be different based on the data rate that you can achieve.
802.11a - physical layer
802.11b - physical layer
802.11c - addition to 802.1D bridging tables
802.11d - international roaming
802.11e - QoS
802.11F - inter AP protocols (the capital letter is important, but I won't go into that here)
802.11g - physical layer
802.11h - 5GHz regulatory conformance in Europe
802.11i - security
802.11j - Japanese 5GHz band extensions
802.11k - radio resource measurement
802.11m - maintenance
802.11n - high throughput
802.11b, a, and g are primarily physical layer (OSI layer 1) extensions to the base 802.11-1997 standard (also referred to as 802.11-1999, which is actually the same thing published by ISO). None of these speaks to security issues, or QoS issues for that matter.
802.11i is the security extension (still in development) which is MAC layer (OSI layer 2). It applies to all of the physical layers.
802.11e is QoS extensions, again at the MAC layer, and applies to all the physical layers.
802.11n will include both physical layer (higher bitrate) and MAC layer (higher efficiency) extensions, but is orthogonal to security. 802.11i will also apply here. It is likely that the MAC extensions in 802.11n will use 802.11e as a starting point.
not quite true. However, the letter "l" has been skipped for exactly this reason... the actual quoted reason is that "802.11l" would be "a typographical accident waiting to happen". We haven't got to "o" yet
Intel filed a patent on this, that's all. Filing a patent on something that looks interesting isn't a big deal. I don't know exactly how many patents Intel files each year, but it's a huge number. And I can absolutely guarantee that merely filing a patent doesn't indicate any strategic intent. It's very unlikely that any senior execs even saw this before it got filed. Most filings are completely speculative.
Back when this was filed, there was a significant issue of unscrupulous "remarkers" relabelling chips as being of a higher speed grade. That potentially damages Intel's reputation if there results in anybody concluding that Intel's processors are unreliable. There are many ways of fixing this problem, of which this is one. Any technology company with their heads screwed on right will investigate many possibilities, and file patents on methods and techniques that look like they might turn out to be promising.
Before screaming "GROW UP INTEL" you should look a little more closely. There's really nothing to see here...
From what I've read, the people at xcor are more than capable of doing the math.
It will be very interesting to see how network equipment manufacturers respond to this, since the wording of the act (which looks very much like that in the TX bill) makes selling, importing into the state, etc etc illegal. So it's not just the end users that are targeted (difficult to find) but the manufacturers.
IANAL either, but my interpretation is that a VPN tunnel, by embedding the final destination of the communication inside an encrypted wrapper, is hiding the destination. Actually, I'm pretty sure that the kind of thing that a VPN tunnel does is precisely what what meant to be covered, although clearly the drafters didn't see the other implications.
SECTION 6. Sections 31.14(a), (b), and (d), Penal Code, are
amended to read as follows:
(a) A person commits an offense if the person intentionally
or knowingly manufactures, assembles, imports into the state,
exports out of the state, distributes, advertises, sells, or
leases, or offers for sale or lease:
(1) a communication device with an intent to:
(A) aid in the commission of an offense under
Section 31.12 or 31.13; or
(B) conceal from a communication service
provider, or from any lawful authority, the existence or place of
origin or destination of any communication;
specifically, 6(a)(1)(B)
SECTION 6. Sections 31.14(a), (b), and (d), Penal Code, are
amended to read as follows:
(a) A person commits an offense if the person intentionally
or knowingly manufactures, assembles, imports into the state,
exports out of the state, distributes, advertises, sells, or
leases, or offers for sale or lease:
(1) a communication device with an intent to:
(A) aid in the commission of an offense under
Section 31.12 or 31.13; or
(B) conceal from a communication service
provider, or from any lawful authority, the existence or place of
origin or destination of any communication;
Note the "or" at the end of section 6, part (a) subpart (1)(A). The offense I was referring to was 6(a)(1)(B), which has no language about intent do defraud, harm or anything else. Just concealing the origin or destination from the service provider. Actually, just distributing, importing, etc etc equipment that could be used to do so.
Suggest you go read the text again. There's one of the offenses defined that doesn't include any of the "intent to defraud" language. Merely possession of equipment that conceals origin or destination of communication from the service provider. That's what all the fuss here is about.
The argument of "it's ok, because they won't care about your little NAT box" is absolutely, positively, definitely, not good enough. If you're ok with being made a criminal just as long as nobody comes after you, fine. But it's sure as hell not good enough for me.
As you say, this kind of law should only apply when actions are performed "with intent to defraud". But that isn't what it says (and yes, I did read the bill. Suggest you do the same). The article written by Prof Felten points to the relevant clause, which says none of that. Possession of equipment which conceals the intended origin or destination of a communication from the communication service provided is proposed to be made an offense. Period.
What is seems to me is, this law looks like a classic trojan horse: there's stuff about preventing theft of service, yadda yadda, with intent to defraud, all of which looks perfectly reasonable. But then there's this other, mostly unrelated and egregious stuff buried in it.
Suggestion to ISPs: if you're really concerned about theft of service by people "splitting the bill" start charging by the megabyte actually transferred. Then it works the other way around. The more bandwidth people (or their neighbors) use, the more they pay. If people want to open up a Wi-Fi access point to passers by, ok. All good. More revenue to the ISP whenever anybody actually uses it.
NAT is probably arguable - depends on how stringently you interpret the language about "origin". The question is "origin of communication to what level of detail?". Arguably, NAT doesn't contravene any of that stuff, because you don't conceal which premises the traffic is coming from or going to, even though you can't see the specific machine.
VPNs are a different matter. In that case, the ISP has absolutely no idea what the eventual destination of the communciation is. So, forget about any kind of remote corporate network access, like Wi-Fi hotspots, or even encrypted dial up. Not only that, if your laptop has software capable of doing VPN, or has dial-up software that does encryption, it would be illegal to take it into any states that pass such a law, irrespective of whether you even use it.
Nice one. Great job, guys! Keep making sure corporate networks are completely insecure!
And since when did an H1-B visa exempt the employee from tax or social security payments? The taxation rules are exactly the same as for US citizens.
Nobody doubts that the tech jobs market has declined since 2001. The question is, was 2001 an aberration or is today?
But back to the point - blaming all of the woes of the industry on "H1-Bs taking our jobs" is BS. This assumes that there is somehow a fixed pool of jobs to be distributed around a variable number of people. Just not true. If you screw down the availability of engineers to get some short term relier from declining engineering jobs, you can count on engineering jobs in the US continuing to decline as the center of gravity moves elsewhere.
Not really. You can't apply for a green card straight off. You have to actually be resident in the US to do that. So, for employment related immigration, you need to get an H1-B first, then move to the US, then apply for a GC. When everything is said and done, you'll be eligible to apply for US citizenship after approximately 13 years, if you don't have any hiccups with the INS (I'm about 11 years away myself...)
I know of nobody on an H1-B who gets "squeezed" until they "go home". There is a significant cost to get somebody here on an H1-B, and no employer I can think of would do that except to hire good talent - and remember that H1-Bs are very easily transferable. The "captive audience" feature is largely a myth.
why would any other nation want to help out with regulations? Do you actually think that any nation likes "exporting" its best talent to the US?
There is a bit of a premium for managers to actually see "butts in chairs" instead of via phone and email.
Apparently - otherwise all the jobs would have been outsourced to cheaper locations. But what happens when you take away all the options?
Despite all of the screams about record unemployment, EE unemployment really isn't that high.
I don't know about EE, but software development jobs are dead dead dead.
I can only talk with any certainty about my own field - but this doesn't really address the point. What is the percentage unemployment rate?
and unashamed racism
Racism? I hate all H-1B's equally.
That's very nice of you, friend. But you didn't really answer any of my points. Just try this one: if H1-Bs went away, do you think the US engineering industry would get stronger or weaker?