According to various other articles on this subject (ZDNet, for instance), the deal includes both desktop and server software and unlimited upgrade privileges over the life of the deal. In addition, the Army believes that the deal will save from $50 - $100 million over what they were paying piecemeal.
Since the PDF linked above appears to be slashdotted, you might try here for the full patent.
They make some pretty broad claims and the patent appears to cover renting most anything and refers to games specifically.
Both the writer of the article and most of the respondants here seem to be confused about how patents work. If you read the actual patent, the things MicroSoft is attempting to patent are spelled in the "claims" section. They are claiming the actual interface and the interface box as the things they are protecting. They clearly are not attempting to patent all VOD. Hell, they even describe interactive television as the field of their patent. Clearly you can't claim to patent the entire field, the patent office would laugh at you and that is in no way what MicroSoft has done.
The author almost gets it with "an astute legal observer might opine that Microsoft is merely attempting to patent a program guide for an on-line video system." But then rambles on about the secret meaning of the background and preferred embodiment as if all the important claims are hidden in the fine print. It don't work that way. All they really seem to claiming is the rights to a programmable automatic scrolling method in a VOD implementation.
I'm as willing to argue MicroSoft is evil as the next guy, but it would be helpful to the cause if you didn't find conspiracies under every rock.
The effort doesn't relate to the stuff that is downloaded from the modem. It is an attempt to decrypt a password whose encrypted form is known which is used to activate "backdoor" features. Therefore, there is no way to attack it from the tty stream -- it is never used there.
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According to various other articles on this subject (ZDNet, for instance), the deal includes both desktop and server software and unlimited upgrade privileges over the life of the deal. In addition, the Army believes that the deal will save from $50 - $100 million over what they were paying piecemeal.
Since the PDF linked above appears to be slashdotted, you might try here for the full patent. They make some pretty broad claims and the patent appears to cover renting most anything and refers to games specifically.
Both the writer of the article and most of the respondants here seem to be confused about how patents work. If you read the actual patent, the things MicroSoft is attempting to patent are spelled in the "claims" section. They are claiming the actual interface and the interface box as the things they are protecting. They clearly are not attempting to patent all VOD. Hell, they even describe interactive television as the field of their patent. Clearly you can't claim to patent the entire field, the patent office would laugh at you and that is in no way what MicroSoft has done. The author almost gets it with "an astute legal observer might opine that Microsoft is merely attempting to patent a program guide for an on-line video system." But then rambles on about the secret meaning of the background and preferred embodiment as if all the important claims are hidden in the fine print. It don't work that way. All they really seem to claiming is the rights to a programmable automatic scrolling method in a VOD implementation. I'm as willing to argue MicroSoft is evil as the next guy, but it would be helpful to the cause if you didn't find conspiracies under every rock.
The effort doesn't relate to the stuff that is downloaded from the modem. It is an attempt to decrypt a password whose encrypted form is known which is used to activate "backdoor" features. Therefore, there is no way to attack it from the tty stream -- it is never used there.