Security warning draws DMCA threat (News.com) [LWN.net]

Here's a News.com article about a new attempt to use the DMCA to suppress security vulnerability information. This time the DMCA is being wielded by HP. "In a letter sent on Monday, an HP vice president warned SnoSoft, a loosely organized research collective, that its members 'could be fined up to $500,000 and imprisoned for up to five years' for its role in publishing information on a bug that lets an intruder take over a Tru64 Unix system." (Thanks to Christof Damian).

to post comments

Security warning draws DMCA threat - time to boycott HP?

Posted Jul 31, 2002 14:36 UTC (Wed) by alspnost (guest, #2763) [Link] (1 responses)

Oh well, we feared it would happen soon enough, and now it has. The
rational world's fears that the DMCA would be used to suppress
bonafide security research are no longer theoretical. As LWN has
eloquently warned us many times, the world is becoming a bizarre
and scary place. Tell me I'm wrong people - is HP somehow behaving
reasonably to protect its interests? Or is this just taking the
worrying Sklyarov precedent another step further? I don't really
want to imagine what sort of world we'll be inhabiting in another
few years....

Security warning draws DMCA threat - time to boycott HP?

Posted Aug 1, 2002 15:12 UTC (Thu) by tlj0001 (guest, #3044) [Link]

This is an example of how our government leaders do not see the big picture.
HP should have been focus on fixing the security hole and not attacking
someone finding it and letting the world know about it.

Government at work . . . .
What a sad sight

Security warning draws DMCA threat (News.com)

Posted Jul 31, 2002 16:04 UTC (Wed) by copsewood (subscriber, #199) [Link]

Looks as if a consumer boycott of HP's products is on the cards until
they withdraw this threat. Guess I'll have to buy that next laser
printer from one of HPs competitors.

Security warning draws DMCA threat (News.com)

Posted Jul 31, 2002 16:24 UTC (Wed) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link]

I can't help thinking that the message this sends is that Tru64 is hopelessly insecure, and HP isn't going to fix it. If I were using Tru64, I'd probably do switch to something else if possible. Of course, it's certainly possible that they really don't care about Tru64 and would be just as happy if people switched to something they're more interested in supporting. A single company having two different commercial UNIX flavors can't be much fun.

Alan Cox was right after all

Posted Aug 1, 2002 9:24 UTC (Thu) by eru (subscriber, #2753) [Link] (1 responses)

Remember when most people said Alan Cox was overreacting or
being political, when he withheld some security-related information
from change notes of his Linux patches because of DMCA fears?
HP has just proved that he, unfortunately, had a valid point.

Alan Cox was right after all

Posted Aug 1, 2002 22:36 UTC (Thu) by rmdirms (guest, #2659) [Link]

Well, well,

Now what do about Intel going after the company that had Yoga Inside?

Here is what I have to say (more at my site www.jabybi.com where you can freely get my business plan for my hope to start Linux-based Internet cafe; see link "The Plan"; you need StarOfice 6.0 or OpenOffice.org 1.0 to use the spreadsheet ProForma, otherwise use the .pdf files

:

Range, MARK! Bearing, MARK! Target is a fat, greedy, bloated, lumbering, ms-copycat omnivore needing a shot across the bow! LOAD TUBES 1,2, 3, and 4. Check final bearings and SHOOT without DELAY. Set warheads for proximity detonation. Set blast yield to 1.5 gigatons. Pattern: Ring of FIRE! SHOOT WHEN READY!

Admin, Please: DO NOT consider this to be obscene or inflammatory. It is proper response to an OUTRAGE.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/3/26435.html

Well, check THIS out. Intel has just TICKED ME OFF!!!! I guess I won't be buying ANY more of their chips. I say it here, DavidSyes'OpinionInside and David Syes' Opinion Inside. Just COME AFTER ME, INSMELL!!!! DO IT. I am jobless and I could USE money from a counter suit. DOIT! DOIT! Picking on small companies and paying only 400Lb (L) to snuff out a mapping company. I wouldn't be surprised to hear of or see links showing so many other "enlightened" companies doing this to domestic AND foreign businesses. (OK, I am sure somebody will tell me "this is routine business, and people do it to "our" companies, too. Well, remember when gates and company tried to pull this crap on HancomSoft in Korea. Well, the Koreans weren't gonna take it and ms got shamed and booted out of court. I hope a Korean or other nation DELIBERATELY sets up a company or issues internal patents/copyrights with "INDIA STUFF INSIDE" "Malay Inside"..."FSR Underside" "Nihongo de wa mata ashita Inside", and so on...

This just goes to show why we in the US are going to have BAD TECH KARMA. I root for the little guy, REGARDLESS of his/her country. INSMELL, until you change your attitude, go to, well, where, well, what rhymes...

THIS CORE, BASE, myopic attitude on the part of SOOOO many AMERICAN companies (I don't get to analyze & critique other nations, and doing so would make me "just another contemptable American" in the eyes of my Earth neighbors living outside the borders of my country of birth (yeh, I was born at Letterman General Hospital, on the Presidio, in 1965, and delivered by USMC Captain (for real) Harry C. Beaver. The County of San Francisco Birth Records /whatever department can verify it. So, as a person born in the US, delivered on US Military property to a USMC enslitedman, and having worn the Uniform myself for 4 years, I HAVE THE RIGHT TO LAMBAST WHAT I CONSIDER OUTRAGEOUS AND that which make this country just one more inch away from a nose-punching. This kind of crap, I am sure, does not happen JUST in the confines of the US. Dig around in these and other sites files and you'll notice some WIPO issues and similar. That doen't make me a traitor, either. It just further underscores why my business plan salaries set myself not too far above my future employees.

My last 5 computer purchases were Intel ("celeries"). Well, back to AMD as is my laptop and my Gateway Select. YES! I can buy my products based on what I think of a company. Before my Gateway, my PowerSpec was also deliberately non-Intel, a Cyrix chip, 'till Cyrix got run into the ground. Time to stop giving InSmell any more of my money. AMD, I hope you're not going to follow the same track (course and speed) as InSmell. In wonder if any InSmell employees fell InHell enough to urinate in batch of chips. Isn't Feen-a-Ment or ExLax what we put in our own luch to punish the lunchbag thief? What is WRONG WITH THE USPTO and related offices these days????? (OH, GREED, payoffs, bribery, graft? What IS IT?????!!!!)

David Syes.

========

=======

end of what I posted

Umm, CORRecTION: DavidSyesInside