Solution is simple... [LWN.net]

Solution is simple...

Posted Nov 10, 2011 17:03 UTC (Thu) by job (guest, #670)
In reply to: Solution is simple... by khim
Parent article: Firefox 8 released

I'd like to challenge that. Even if keys were unique for each build they are stored somewhere and a third party installer could just as easily extract them. You would need to obfuscate keys by hand at random positions for each release for this scheme to slow down a third party installer noticeably.

It amounts to a pretty standard copy protection scheme, and all of those are broken not very long after release. (By people who receive by pay by the way, defeating this installer would be worth money.)

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This is not so simple.

Posted Nov 10, 2011 17:42 UTC (Thu) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (1 responses)

You would need to obfuscate keys by hand at random positions for each release for this scheme to slow down a third party installer noticeably.

Nope. We are talking crapware here, not malware. You only need to slow down it enough to trigger § 1201. After that point you don't have an example of crapware. It's clearly illegal malware and should be treated as such: it will be added to virus databases, etc.

This is not so simple.

Posted Nov 14, 2011 20:28 UTC (Mon) by job (guest, #670) [Link]

I see. I would never have thought that I would find EUCD/DMCA on my side some day, but what do you know...