If those wireless drivers are realy not GPL and only binary modules... Then shouldn't the kernel be complaining that it is "tainted"? Cause if it's not, then either they've made mods to kernel 2.4.5, 2.4.5 is before the "tainted" complaint started, or the drivers themselves are saying "hey, look at me, I'm a GPL module!" MODULE_LICENSE("GPL") Right?
Someone should check this out, as it looks like linksys is not complying wholeheartedly with the GPL already, we might as well see if they really owe even more than it appears they do.
Thought this up myself a short while ago. They (Linksys) don't distribute the modified GCC, unfortunately. Search for it yourself, it ain't there. Now, on the other hand, if you can get the company that makes the bcm4710a0 board (Broadcom?) to ship you some a sample board and the linux stuff associated with it, you're entitiled to the source of the modified GCC, which you are then free to feed back into the GCC tree.
Actually, I reccommend that someone try this. Who knows, they might ship allong the full source of the kernel, and the wireless drivers may have GPL stuff up top. Wouldn't that be cute?
Someone confirm the legality of my GCC statement though?
Download the firmware updated, dd the right section, mount it cramfs. Look at the busybox binary. run strings on it. There is at least 1 error message that isn't in standard busybox. That is a surefire sign that they made a modification to it.
As for zebra, I heavily suspect it's the same deal.
I know someone who has a candle with an uncommon scent that he lights whenever he does serious work. It's actually a pretty good strategy - the scent is a reminder to work, and since smell is the sense that has the most effect on us, it's probably one of the best reminders to work work work that you can have.
Granted, it's not a big help until you start associating the smell with work, but I'd give it a try.
The other option is red bull, but after drinking those regularly, you start to feel like crap.
It's not YOU who would be SOL for duplicating the formula. It's Coca Cola. Trade Secrets are allowed to be reverse engineered. Now, if someone went into the Coca Cola formula vault (if such a thing exists), stole the formula and distributed it around the world, that would be a different story - you would want to stay clear from that formula on the internet, especially if you were planning on legitimately reverse engineering it.
I heavily reccomend moving to GNUnet or some similar service. Granted, I am now downloading GNUnet and have not used it before, but here is the big one that GNUnet offers:
Deniability.
Since on GNUnet it is unclear both who has the goods you're looking for and who originated the search, and transfers do not happen directly, just because there is data coming into your box does not mean that you are it's destination. Similarly, data coming out does not implicate you as the source.
I saw the intro movie for vib ribbon game a while back - I would totally buy that game if it were in stores. As it stands, I'm waiting for a hastle-free ps2 mod so I can import the sucker. It is totally cool.
Bring back Farscape. Damn, I loved that show. I wonder what those savefarscape.com people are up to these days? First Dune, now BS??? Exactly how bad were the revenues that Farscape was bringing in? 'Cause they'd have to be pretty damned bad in order to prioritize a Battlestar Galactica remake...
But hey, I'm just drunk and frustrated. Minus the drunk part.
I actually hunted down a copy the new HP book online the day it came out; after failing to find it in bookstores. Then, I found it again online, the no-shipping variety, and finished the book before it even arrived last wednesday. Though I'm sure the author would love to sue me for saying so, you don't lose too much in reading the electronic format. Unlike music or a movie, however, a book is something we don't always finish. A bad book we put down. When we finish a book, we know that it was at least readable. I guess what I'm saying is that I've never finished an ebook without suffereing the immediate compulsion to grab myself a copy of the real deal. Movies, music, anime, tv... these things are more impulse buys. I would never buy them in the first place normally, but after being exposed to them in a way I wouldn't have been in the first place, I at least have a reason to purchase them. A book is something I cannot avoid purchasing if I enjoy it. Don't ask my why, I don't know. But I suspect that I am not alone in this; I also suspect that as much as a mediocre amount of piracy can help music sales, it can probably be a great boon for the sales of a less popular book. I'm not saying "Go forth and pirate books!"; I'm just saying that maybe having people get exposed to your book, no matter how it happens, results in drastically increased sales?
So he's already paying damages for potential losses? Sounds like free license to DO the damages. You can't realisticly be sued twice for the same *potential* damages, now can you?
Your Honor, my client, SatCorp, alleges that Mr Scapegoat is planning to cause another 180 million dollars in damages. I think we should be compensated again for the damages he might be causing my client.
I couldn't agree more with you. It's both within your rights and something that more people should be doing. And regardless what the AC just before me said, busybox doesn't suck.
It takes so little effort for them to comply with the GPL that they should be doing it anyhow, but maybe companies need a little incentive to start complying. How long does it take to put up a webpage linking to source for busybox v. whatever, stock kernel x, or whatever? Practically none. Think about all the time and money they saved by using the GPL'd stuff in the first place? TONS.
And personally, I seriously doubt a notice that "hey, we use some GPL'd software in here, these are their names, they may be stock packages, but for licensing reasons we are providing the source at http://www.companyx.com/products/rotofruitskinner/ GPL/" is going to act as an impediment to people buying the product. If anything, I'd be more convinced of its reliability; I've had enough devices running unstable software to make me a selective purchaser.
Clearly you don't realize that there is a distinction between work you do for a company and work you do for yourself. Most of us are not fortunate enough to make a living doing the kind of stuff we want to do in exactly the way we want, but there are a crapload of people who write GPL software as a hobby.
If you're saying this because you don't realize that, I'm sorry for you. If you're saying this because you're defending companies that jack GPL'd code, put it in their products, and don't mention it anywhere and offer the source as they are obligated by the terms of the GPL, you're a bastard. If you're saying this because you're defending companies that jack GPL'd code, hack it to do new things and then distribute it in a product without giving cred and offering the source, then you're not only a bastard, but an asshole as well, and I would love to rip you a new one because the world clearly needs more of you guys.
Looking further, it looks like Broadcom is shipping a modified GCC to vendors... if you run strings on just about anything, it says it was compiled by "GCC: (GNU) 3.0 20010422 (prerelease) with bcm4710a0 modifications" looking at the product brief for broadcom's BCM94306 reference board, http://www.broadcom.com/pbs/BCM94306.pdf they mention "Convenient software integration tools to enable routers, gateways and other products for wireless LAN" and ease of integration with embedded linux drivers - I can't help but assume that that means Broadcom has done some work on GCC as well. Anyone have some thoughts on this? I'm no GCC guru but it seems like the GCC people might be be entitled to some new code as well.
I actually think this guy has hit the nail on the head. If you consider it, he's right, the economic incentive to attack mod chippers drops; since they can get everything they want at a reasonable expense beyond the current, limited version.
Hell, I never considered buying an Xbox before reading this post; if Microsoft released such a product (hopefully with a nifty "secure/open" switch on the top) I'd totally want an Xbox to play around with.
Granted, there are some costs associated with releasing another version of the box; but I wonder if demand for such a box wouldn't justify them and then some?
Oafy the Spambot (who actually sends very relevant emails) would thank you. On another note, I agree with every one of your points. The tax is a shit shit shitty idea.
Seriously, I know this kid, we call him "Oafy the Spam Bot" - he responds to literally 4/5 emails he's ever gotten. Not only that, he initiates about as much as he responds.
For someone like him, this would royally suck. And as much as it sucks to be spammed by my good friend Oafy, Oafy is still a friend, and his spam isn't advertisements for hot sexy teens to suck and fuck my cock.
Effective, yes. Good, no.
Plus, what are they going to do next? Tax pings? Times you initiate connections over port 6667?
Actually, no I'm not talking about getting BitTorrent from a distribution site, I'm talking about links to.torrent files for less legitimate media files. So unmod me, I'd prefer to be -1 (Obscurity) than +1 (don't take him seriously).
that their counterparts have already started. Anyone recall that huge DOS against BitTorrent trackers for the past several weeks? Considering the nature of the action, I can't help but realize that nobody who would like to call themselves a hacker, and that includes can't hack it script kiddies, would ddos TRACKERS to torrents, which only leaves one party left under suspicion.
You don't go free after being declared NGRI. It's quite different than being declared not guilty. You go to a mental hospital until such time as some guy on some board decides that the hospital is correct and that you are sane. Until then, and that can be a long time after you've regained your sanity, you are in a mental hospital.
This is a very good example of a plausible situation where you get fux0red. In this case, I doubt that you would have a great deal of luck determining if your cell phone had been cloned, and showing that to the court - though the burden of proof should be on the prosecution to show that your cell phone had not been cloned.
However, I don't think that a cell phone call is sufficient evidence to build a case around you without some other stuff - and yes, it is very conceivable that a number of circumstantial elements could converge on your and you get screwed.
In the case of this trojan, however, an effort should have been made to locate the trojan and determine how it works so that the prosecutor could have either avoided embarassment or disproven the defense conclusively.
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None of the modules contain the "license" tag. Oh well.
If those wireless drivers are realy not GPL and only binary modules...
Then shouldn't the kernel be complaining that it is "tainted"? Cause if it's not, then either they've made mods to kernel 2.4.5, 2.4.5 is before the "tainted" complaint started, or the drivers themselves are saying "hey, look at me, I'm a GPL module!" MODULE_LICENSE("GPL") Right?
Someone should check this out, as it looks like linksys is not complying wholeheartedly with the GPL already, we might as well see if they really owe even more than it appears they do.
Thought this up myself a short while ago.
They (Linksys) don't distribute the modified GCC, unfortunately. Search for it yourself, it ain't there.
Now, on the other hand, if you can get the company that makes the bcm4710a0 board (Broadcom?) to ship you some a sample board and the linux stuff associated with it, you're entitiled to the source of the modified GCC, which you are then free to feed back into the GCC tree.
Actually, I reccommend that someone try this. Who knows, they might ship allong the full source of the kernel, and the wireless drivers may have GPL stuff up top. Wouldn't that be cute?
Someone confirm the legality of my GCC statement though?
Download the firmware updated, dd the right section, mount it cramfs.
Look at the busybox binary.
run strings on it.
There is at least 1 error message that isn't in standard busybox. That is a surefire sign that they made a modification to it.
As for zebra, I heavily suspect it's the same deal.
I know someone who has a candle with an uncommon scent that he lights whenever he does serious work. It's actually a pretty good strategy - the scent is a reminder to work, and since smell is the sense that has the most effect on us, it's probably one of the best reminders to work work work that you can have.
Granted, it's not a big help until you start associating the smell with work, but I'd give it a try.
The other option is red bull, but after drinking those regularly, you start to feel like crap.
As for the formula.
It's not YOU who would be SOL for duplicating the formula. It's Coca Cola. Trade Secrets are allowed to be reverse engineered. Now, if someone went into the Coca Cola formula vault (if such a thing exists), stole the formula and distributed it around the world, that would be a different story - you would want to stay clear from that formula on the internet, especially if you were planning on legitimately reverse engineering it.
I heavily reccomend moving to GNUnet or some similar service.
Granted, I am now downloading GNUnet and have not used it before, but here is the big one that GNUnet offers:
Deniability.
Since on GNUnet it is unclear both who has the goods you're looking for and who originated the search, and transfers do not happen directly, just because there is data coming into your box does not mean that you are it's destination. Similarly, data coming out does not implicate you as the source.
Lawyers nightmare, anyone?
Like, yeah. Totally.
I saw the intro movie for vib ribbon game a while back - I would totally buy that game if it were in stores. As it stands, I'm waiting for a hastle-free ps2 mod so I can import the sucker. It is totally cool.
Bring back Farscape.
Damn, I loved that show. I wonder what those savefarscape.com people are up to these days?
First Dune, now BS??? Exactly how bad were the revenues that Farscape was bringing in? 'Cause they'd have to be pretty damned bad in order to prioritize a Battlestar Galactica remake...
But hey, I'm just drunk and frustrated. Minus the drunk part.
I'm gonna be buying one of these in the next week unless some other product jumps to the fore - and even then...
Plus, the neuros looks sexy.
Granted, it's got that slow connection thing going on - but as I have less than 20 gigs of mp3's total, it's not too troublesome for me.
I actually hunted down a copy the new HP book online the day it came out; after failing to find it in bookstores. Then, I found it again online, the no-shipping variety, and finished the book before it even arrived last wednesday.
Though I'm sure the author would love to sue me for saying so, you don't lose too much in reading the electronic format. Unlike music or a movie, however, a book is something we don't always finish. A bad book we put down. When we finish a book, we know that it was at least readable.
I guess what I'm saying is that I've never finished an ebook without suffereing the immediate compulsion to grab myself a copy of the real deal. Movies, music, anime, tv... these things are more impulse buys. I would never buy them in the first place normally, but after being exposed to them in a way I wouldn't have been in the first place, I at least have a reason to purchase them.
A book is something I cannot avoid purchasing if I enjoy it. Don't ask my why, I don't know. But I suspect that I am not alone in this; I also suspect that as much as a mediocre amount of piracy can help music sales, it can probably be a great boon for the sales of a less popular book.
I'm not saying "Go forth and pirate books!"; I'm just saying that maybe having people get exposed to your book, no matter how it happens, results in drastically increased sales?
Thoughts?
So he's already paying damages for potential losses? Sounds like free license to DO the damages. You can't realisticly be sued twice for the same *potential* damages, now can you?
Your Honor, my client, SatCorp, alleges that Mr Scapegoat is planning to cause another 180 million dollars in damages. I think we should be compensated again for the damages he might be causing my client.
My understanding is that a double agent is someone who is acting as an agent for one country while secretly being an operative for another country.
In this case, the accusation is not that she is a double agent, but that she acted as a spy, or something on that order.
I couldn't agree more with you. It's both within your rights and something that more people should be doing. And regardless what the AC just before me said, busybox doesn't suck.
/ GPL/" is going to act as an impediment to people buying the product. If anything, I'd be more convinced of its reliability; I've had enough devices running unstable software to make me a selective purchaser.
It takes so little effort for them to comply with the GPL that they should be doing it anyhow, but maybe companies need a little incentive to start complying. How long does it take to put up a webpage linking to source for busybox v. whatever, stock kernel x, or whatever? Practically none. Think about all the time and money they saved by using the GPL'd stuff in the first place? TONS.
And personally, I seriously doubt a notice that "hey, we use some GPL'd software in here, these are their names, they may be stock packages, but for licensing reasons we are providing the source at http://www.companyx.com/products/rotofruitskinner
Poor show linksys. Keep it up BB maintainer!
Secret investigations are a big no no.
FTC, just do it the old way.
Clearly you don't realize that there is a distinction between work you do for a company and work you do for yourself. Most of us are not fortunate enough to make a living doing the kind of stuff we want to do in exactly the way we want, but there are a crapload of people who write GPL software as a hobby.
If you're saying this because you don't realize that, I'm sorry for you.
If you're saying this because you're defending companies that jack GPL'd code, put it in their products, and don't mention it anywhere and offer the source as they are obligated by the terms of the GPL, you're a bastard.
If you're saying this because you're defending companies that jack GPL'd code, hack it to do new things and then distribute it in a product without giving cred and offering the source, then you're not only a bastard, but an asshole as well, and I would love to rip you a new one because the world clearly needs more of you guys.
Looking further, it looks like Broadcom is shipping a modified GCC to vendors...
they mention "Convenient software integration tools to enable routers, gateways and other products for wireless LAN" and ease of integration with embedded linux drivers - I can't help but assume that that means Broadcom has done some work on GCC as well. Anyone have some thoughts on this?
if you run strings on just about anything, it says it was compiled by
"GCC: (GNU) 3.0 20010422 (prerelease) with bcm4710a0 modifications"
looking at the product brief for broadcom's BCM94306 reference board,
http://www.broadcom.com/pbs/BCM94306.pdf
I'm no GCC guru but it seems like the GCC people might be be entitled to some new code as well.
I actually think this guy has hit the nail on the head. If you consider it, he's right, the economic incentive to attack mod chippers drops; since they can get everything they want at a reasonable expense beyond the current, limited version.
Hell, I never considered buying an Xbox before reading this post; if Microsoft released such a product (hopefully with a nifty "secure/open" switch on the top) I'd totally want an Xbox to play around with.
Granted, there are some costs associated with releasing another version of the box; but I wonder if demand for such a box wouldn't justify them and then some?
Oafy the Spambot (who actually sends very relevant emails) would thank you.
On another note, I agree with every one of your points. The tax is a shit shit shitty idea.
Seriously, I know this kid, we call him "Oafy the Spam Bot" - he responds to literally 4/5 emails he's ever gotten. Not only that, he initiates about as much as he responds.
For someone like him, this would royally suck. And as much as it sucks to be spammed by my good friend Oafy, Oafy is still a friend, and his spam isn't advertisements for hot sexy teens to suck and fuck my cock.
Effective, yes.
Good, no.
Plus, what are they going to do next? Tax pings? Times you initiate connections over port 6667?
My $0.02 US
Actually, no I'm not talking about getting BitTorrent from a distribution site, I'm talking about links to .torrent files for less legitimate media files. So unmod me, I'd prefer to be -1 (Obscurity) than +1 (don't take him seriously).
that their counterparts have already started.
Anyone recall that huge DOS against BitTorrent trackers for the past several weeks? Considering the nature of the action, I can't help but realize that nobody who would like to call themselves a hacker, and that includes can't hack it script kiddies, would ddos TRACKERS to torrents, which only leaves one party left under suspicion.
Comments?
You didn't read the full post.
You don't go free after being declared NGRI. It's quite different than being declared not guilty. You go to a mental hospital until such time as some guy on some board decides that the hospital is correct and that you are sane. Until then, and that can be a long time after you've regained your sanity, you are in a mental hospital.
This is a very good example of a plausible situation where you get fux0red. In this case, I doubt that you would have a great deal of luck determining if your cell phone had been cloned, and showing that to the court - though the burden of proof should be on the prosecution to show that your cell phone had not been cloned.
However, I don't think that a cell phone call is sufficient evidence to build a case around you without some other stuff - and yes, it is very conceivable that a number of circumstantial elements could converge on your and you get screwed.
In the case of this trojan, however, an effort should have been made to locate the trojan and determine how it works so that the prosecutor could have either avoided embarassment or disproven the defense conclusively.