The benefits of reverse engineering apply not only to the consumer world, but also to the coporate world. Consumers get detailed info on the innards of a particular piece of hardware or software, and companies scream bloody murder. What they are ignoring, however, is the opportunity to improve their products. The reverse engineering people are a perfect target market. Companies can give (or sell) initial versions of their products to reverse engineers, in the HOPES that a security flaw or bug will be uncovered. They can reduce their PR problems by fixing the major (and, hopefully, minor) bugs and security holes in their products BEFORE THEY BECOME A MAJOR ISSUE. This benefits companies in another way, as well: a decrease in their quality assurance budgets. By turning over their products to a few people to play with, they don't have to spend hundreds (or, in some cases, dozens) of man-hours testing a product for bugs. You can be sure that reverse engineers will either be pushing the product to the limit, or going over every square inch of it to try to figure out how it works. This brings me to a third point. Companies can use reverse engineers as a test market for new tech toys. Wouldn't it have been nice if Digital Convergence had decided to let people use their devices for USEFUL purposes? They could have found out any number of applications for them by simply giving them out to people who would have some idea of the implications of such devices.
Patenting part of pi? As precedent, look at the companies taking out patents on human DNA. They patented something preexisting that they discovered. And that's a FINITE sequence. Just take out a patent on, say, the 700 trillionth digit of pi and sue anyone who uses any value whatsoever of pi on the basis of using something integral to your patent (can't have the 700 billionth digit without the 600 billionth). This would prevent the use of quite a bit of software without licensing fees (trig functions, etc.)
Square wanted to release Final Fantasy 2 and 3 in the US, but Nintendo, because it felt that American gamers didn't like RPGs very much, nixed the project (developers had to get permission and pay royalties to publish NES games, and Nintendo had the option to reject these requests). When Final Fantasy 4 was translated and released, Nintendo didn't want gamers to question why Final Fantasy 2 and 3 were never released in the US, and changed the number of the game to 2. They passed up releasing Final Fantasy 5 here (for whatever reason), and so they changed the numbering for 6 to 3. When Final Fantasy 7 was released in the US, Nintendo begged Square to change the number of the game to 4 (to continue to cover for them), but Square declined. Also, Square did have Final Fantasy 4 translated for the Playstation (at least partially), but due to technical problems (it had a hideous load time, something like 10 seconds for the menu to pop up, and some other stuff I can't remember right now), they put a sound track in the American Final Fantasy Anthology instead of Final Fantasy 4.
Actually, the Famicom (Family Computer, Japanese NES) was a 10-bit system. For some reason (I dunno why), it was reduced to an 8-bit system when it was released in the US.
Why is it that whenever some piece of technology is developed, some company tries to take possession of it, whether it developed it or not, and sues everyone else? Examples: Microsoft writes BASIC software for the Altair. BASIC was a generally accepted language at the time, but did not have an interpreter for the Altair; GPL; x86 microprocessor design; SDRAM is developed. Results: Microsoft threatens to sue Homebrew; Sun finds a way to get around the GPL; not only did Intel try to sue companies that manufactured x86 compatible processors, they were sued by the remnants of Fairchild; Rambus tries to take ownership of it and either kill it off to profit their own RAM architecture, or hike royalties on it. Am I the only one who sees a frightening pattern here? What's next? A biotech company claims that from its research it owns the pattents to resperation and sues everybody on the planet that doesn't give them money?
Has anyone thought about kids under 18? Minors cannot be legaly bound by a contract. So, here's a thought. I can see it now: instead of kids trying to get people to buy them cigarettes/alcohol, people will be trying to get kids to get them CueCats. Since the kids aren't bound by the license agreement, the CueCats can be considered their property, leaving them free to dispose of it as they choose. Maybe they won't give people anything but the device itself. That way, no one has to see the messy EULA.
Here's a novel idea: set up an open-source (or geek-related) legal defense fund. Assuming it gets off the ground, something like this could look for cases in which a company is trying to bully someone into withdrawing perfectly legal software, or reverse engineered software (CueCat software or DeCSS). If a large organization with a large budget started taking these cases, companies would be a lot less eager to try and step on the little guy, because he might get adequate legal funding.
Just be careful. They have a tendancy to explode when they're heated, sending out large volumes of shrapnel. Maybe the "killer app" for these is in hand grenades . . .
Since when is is a "crime" to make backups of your movies. As far as I know, federal law provides the right to make backups of the software/digital media you own. So, doesn't this ruling seem to be breaking federal law?
Microsoft puts it in all their recent betas. I do see a good use for it, though. Every time Winodws successfully boots, write up a bug report. If it lasts five minutes without crashing, write up another one.
This is probably pretty useless, but a company wrote some software for Windows and Linux to make:Cues. It's open source, BTW. They're saying that it "implements a variation of Code 128 read by various free or low-cost bar codes scanners recently introduced into the market." It'll be interesting to see if they get a letter from DC.
Slashdot Mirror
The benefits of reverse engineering apply not only to the consumer world, but also to the coporate world. Consumers get detailed info on the innards of a particular piece of hardware or software, and companies scream bloody murder. What they are ignoring, however, is the opportunity to improve their products. The reverse engineering people are a perfect target market. Companies can give (or sell) initial versions of their products to reverse engineers, in the HOPES that a security flaw or bug will be uncovered. They can reduce their PR problems by fixing the major (and, hopefully, minor) bugs and security holes in their products BEFORE THEY BECOME A MAJOR ISSUE. This benefits companies in another way, as well: a decrease in their quality assurance budgets. By turning over their products to a few people to play with, they don't have to spend hundreds (or, in some cases, dozens) of man-hours testing a product for bugs. You can be sure that reverse engineers will either be pushing the product to the limit, or going over every square inch of it to try to figure out how it works. This brings me to a third point. Companies can use reverse engineers as a test market for new tech toys. Wouldn't it have been nice if Digital Convergence had decided to let people use their devices for USEFUL purposes? They could have found out any number of applications for them by simply giving them out to people who would have some idea of the implications of such devices.
Patenting part of pi? As precedent, look at the companies taking out patents on human DNA. They patented something preexisting that they discovered. And that's a FINITE sequence. Just take out a patent on, say, the 700 trillionth digit of pi and sue anyone who uses any value whatsoever of pi on the basis of using something integral to your patent (can't have the 700 billionth digit without the 600 billionth). This would prevent the use of quite a bit of software without licensing fees (trig functions, etc.)
Voice over IP for a user in Britain with a dialup connection.
Square wanted to release Final Fantasy 2 and 3 in the US, but Nintendo, because it felt that American gamers didn't like RPGs very much, nixed the project (developers had to get permission and pay royalties to publish NES games, and Nintendo had the option to reject these requests). When Final Fantasy 4 was translated and released, Nintendo didn't want gamers to question why Final Fantasy 2 and 3 were never released in the US, and changed the number of the game to 2. They passed up releasing Final Fantasy 5 here (for whatever reason), and so they changed the numbering for 6 to 3. When Final Fantasy 7 was released in the US, Nintendo begged Square to change the number of the game to 4 (to continue to cover for them), but Square declined. Also, Square did have Final Fantasy 4 translated for the Playstation (at least partially), but due to technical problems (it had a hideous load time, something like 10 seconds for the menu to pop up, and some other stuff I can't remember right now), they put a sound track in the American Final Fantasy Anthology instead of Final Fantasy 4.
Actually, the Famicom (Family Computer, Japanese NES) was a 10-bit system. For some reason (I dunno why), it was reduced to an 8-bit system when it was released in the US.
Why is it that whenever some piece of technology is developed, some company tries to take possession of it, whether it developed it or not, and sues everyone else? Examples: Microsoft writes BASIC software for the Altair. BASIC was a generally accepted language at the time, but did not have an interpreter for the Altair; GPL; x86 microprocessor design; SDRAM is developed. Results: Microsoft threatens to sue Homebrew; Sun finds a way to get around the GPL; not only did Intel try to sue companies that manufactured x86 compatible processors, they were sued by the remnants of Fairchild; Rambus tries to take ownership of it and either kill it off to profit their own RAM architecture, or hike royalties on it. Am I the only one who sees a frightening pattern here? What's next? A biotech company claims that from its research it owns the pattents to resperation and sues everybody on the planet that doesn't give them money?
Still, it's better than if he were to use the name Winston Smith. The people who recognize the reference might wonder about how sure of himself he is.
Has anyone thought about kids under 18? Minors cannot be legaly bound by a contract. So, here's a thought. I can see it now: instead of kids trying to get people to buy them cigarettes/alcohol, people will be trying to get kids to get them CueCats. Since the kids aren't bound by the license agreement, the CueCats can be considered their property, leaving them free to dispose of it as they choose. Maybe they won't give people anything but the device itself. That way, no one has to see the messy EULA.
Here's a novel idea: set up an open-source (or geek-related) legal defense fund. Assuming it gets off the ground, something like this could look for cases in which a company is trying to bully someone into withdrawing perfectly legal software, or reverse engineered software (CueCat software or DeCSS). If a large organization with a large budget started taking these cases, companies would be a lot less eager to try and step on the little guy, because he might get adequate legal funding.
So, we have a wireless Tivo?
Just be careful. They have a tendancy to explode when they're heated, sending out large volumes of shrapnel. Maybe the "killer app" for these is in hand grenades . . .
Since when is is a "crime" to make backups of your movies. As far as I know, federal law provides the right to make backups of the software/digital media you own. So, doesn't this ruling seem to be breaking federal law?
Microsoft puts it in all their recent betas. I do see a good use for it, though. Every time Winodws successfully boots, write up a bug report. If it lasts five minutes without crashing, write up another one.
Sorry. Forgot the link. AzaelaQTools
This is probably pretty useless, but a company wrote some software for Windows and Linux to make :Cues. It's open source, BTW. They're saying that it "implements a variation of Code 128 read by various free or low-cost bar codes scanners recently introduced into the market." It'll be interesting to see if they get a letter from DC.