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3393 discussions

Microsoft and their Indian promoters can be sued...
by CK Raju, Thrissur 09 Feb '07

09 Feb '07

Information Technology Act provides stiff penal clauses through which proprietary software agencies like Microsoft and their (scrupulous) Indian promoters like IKM (in Kerala) can be sued. Here's the relevant paras ... "70. Protected system (1) The appropriate Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, declare that any computer, computer system or computer network to be a protected system. (2) The appropriate Government may, by order in writing, authorise the persons who are authorised to access protected systems notified under sub-section (1). (3) Any person who secures access or attempts to secure access to a protected system in contravention of the provision of this section shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years and shall also be liable to fine.72. Penalty for breach of confidentiality and privacySave as otherwise provide in this Act or any other law for the time being in force, any person who, in pursuance of any of the powers conferred under this Act, rules or regulation made thereunder, has secured assess to any electronic record, book, register, correspondence, information, document or other material without the consent of the person concerned discloses such material to any other person shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to two years, or with fine which may extend to one lakh rupees, or with both." All we need to demonstrate is loss of data without the consent of the owner, here, the Government, for which only an internet connection to a protected system is needed. Microsoft, would pull out data without the requisite consent, and they and their promoters can be tried in Indian courts. "75. Act to apply for offence or contravention committed outside India (1) Subject to the provisions of sub-section (2), the provisions of this Act shall apply also to any offence or contravention committed outside India by any person irrespective of his nationality. (2) For the purposes of sub-section (1), this Act shall apply to an offence or contravention committed outside India by any person if the act or conduct constituting the offence or contravention involves a computer, computer system or computer network located in India." State IT Policy can remind the agencies of this issue, though its not mandatory, law is binding, whether you know it or not. Traitors, beware.... CK Raju Thrissur -------------------------- All fire, no smoke... http://ernakulam.sancharnet.in/doxa

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Electronic Voting Machines Software
by Ajay Pal Singh Atwal 06 Feb '07

06 Feb '07

Sorry and asking the same questions without using abbreviation Can anyone advise if the the Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) in use in India have their firmware open for inspection. -- Sincerely Ajay Pal Singh Atwal Dept of CSE & IT BBSBEC, Fatehgarh Sahib Punjab, INDIA -------------------------------- http://www.bbsbec.ac.in http://www.ajaypal.com -------------------------------- ajaypal[at]bbsbec.org, ajaypal[at]acm.org

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EVM Software
by Ajay Pal Singh Atwal 06 Feb '07

06 Feb '07

Hi Can anyone advise if the the EVM in use in India have their firmware open for inspection. -- Sincerely Ajay Pal Singh Atwal Dept of CSE & IT BBSBEC, Fatehgarh Sahib Punjab, INDIA -------------------------------- http://www.bbsbec.ac.in http://www.ajaypal.com -------------------------------- ajaypal[at]bbsbec.org, ajaypal[at]acm.org

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congratulations and thanks
by Nagarjuna G. 04 Feb '07

04 Feb '07

My hearty congratulations to all of you, who made the gnowledge.org portal launch a great event. let us all continue to make this one of the largest collaborative portals in the world. Though the event marks the end of a project, for those who are in it, it is a beginning. The gnowledge portal team is now ready to take calls to conduct workshops to introduce the new way of organizing a very large amount of free knowledge that already exists on the Internet. Best way to begin is to register at the portal and begin contributing in your area of work. We can all decide together, how to shape this portal in future. Nagarjuna

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Doug Mahugh : Linux Asia Open XML Workshop
by Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay 04 Feb '07

04 Feb '07

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Mr. M. Moni, the head of India's e-Government Standards Committee, kicked off the event by saying "it is both strange and welcome to have Microsoft here today." He then discussed the Indian government's commitment to open standards, stressing the importance of open dialog between government and industry, and spoke of the huge investment in existing documents in both the public and private sectors. http://blogs.msdn.com/dmahugh/archive/2007/02/03/linux-asia-open-xml-worksh… - -- You see things; and you say 'Why?'; But I dream things that never were; and I say 'Why not?' - George Bernard Shaw -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Fedora - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFFxYAZXQZpNTcrCzMRAmRpAJ4xe9geq6Ncpp2y0Qa2FEgJIDZ9RQCeOvg3 hAfmePQ7HpvVmusg6FRYZdE= =SB2g -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Vista DRM Cracked on Launch Day
by Vihan Pandey 01 Feb '07

01 Feb '07

> > A ReactOS developer and first year student of bachelor's degree in > > software engineering Alex Ionescu [1] from Canada has blogged about > > a way to bypass the PMP (Protected Media Path), a DRM technique > > used in Windows Vista. Read the blog here [2] > > I'm not convinced that putting Winduhs down is the right way to go > about promoting freedom and/or free software. What does the list > think? i agree. Instead of harping on Winduhs' weaknesses, maybe we should be talking > about how it takes freedom away and entraps users. agreed. In fact i did some reading on the guy Alex Ionescu, he started out with DOS 4.0(majored in Hex editing) later adopted the windoze family and saw *nix's in between. Based on his history, he was and is majorly into win32 kernel stuff. Another angle on the same is that reverse engineering windoze is against the law(as one has signed the EULA during the install) and could probably land the person concerned up in jail. Should we be breaking the law even if it is for exposing cracks in an already broken system? Probably not, to quote RMS on the same ``breaking an agreement even for preventing a bad thing is NOT good". Anyway there are enough high priority GNU and other Free Software projects out there. Personally i would NEVER want to go on a windoze box EVER. Even if it were just for idle curiosities. Regards, - vihan

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The MS trojan horse in Linux Asia 2007
by Sandip Bhattacharya 31 Jan '07

31 Jan '07

In the Economic Times (at Bangalore) today, there is an article on page 6 titled "MS takes linux world by storm" """ When asked about its participation in Linux Asia, Microsoft said that the company will try to educate clients and communicate about its new stance towards open source. Mr Radhesh Balakrishnan, director, platform strategy, Microsoft, told ET, “Open source software is turning commercial and commercial software is becoming more open to open source. We believe that interoperability between the two is the way to the future. People have created a myth in the minds of clients that the world can work only either on open source. Rather than being carried over by rhetoric, clients should rather look at lowering TCO (total cost of ownership). According to a Frost & Sullivan study, Windows offers 15.9% lower TCO than Linux on the server side.’’ """ It is quite obvious what their point of participating in the event is about. I don't understand how a company which doesn't contribute to Linux is any positive/constructive way, can be allowed to participate in such an event. What is the criteria for participating in this apparently Linux event? Conversely, is there any way a Linux company can participate in an Microsoft promoting event and talk about the virtues of Linux? - Sandip

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Vista DRM Cracked on Launch Day
by പ്രവീ ണ്‍‌| Praveen എ|A 31 Jan '07

31 Jan '07

Vista DRM Cracked on Launch Day A ReactOS developer and first year student of bachelor's degree in software engineering Alex Ionescu [1] from Canada has blogged about a way to bypass the PMP (Protected Media Path), a DRM technique used in Windows Vista. Read the blog here [2] [1] http://www.reactos.org/wiki/index.php/Alex_Ionescu [2] http://www.alex-ionescu.com/?p=24 Cheers Praveen -- Join The DRM Elimination Crew Now! http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-DRM-Campaign

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Re: [Fsf-friends] GNU Linux - trusted by Microsoft India
by Ajay Pal Singh Atwal 30 Jan '07

30 Jan '07

----- Anurag <anurag(a)gnuer.org> wrote: > Sometime on Monday 29 January 2007 12:45, CK Raju said: > > When a non-free proprietary software leasing agency like Microsoft > Inc has > > its portals hosted on Free Software (GNU Linux) platforms (details > at > > http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=microsoft.co.in), our > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > > A point to note is that the domain "microsoft.co.in" has been squatted > over by > some ``eTechSupport.net'' and is not owned by Microsoft. > > The result being shown by netcraft are actual ones, eTechSupport does > run > gnu/linux. > Indeed the domain name in question does not seems to belong to Microsoft. Check the whois information, as has already been reported by Anurga, indeed it is some Nasik based company. Maybe MS layers in India are lazy. -- Sincerely Ajay Pal Singh Atwal Dept of CSE & IT BBSBEC, Fatehgarh Sahib Punjab, INDIA -------------------------------- http://www.bbsbec.ac.in http://www.ajaypal.com -------------------------------- ajaypal[at]bbsbec.org, ajaypal[at]acm.org

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BlueJ threatened by Microsoft.
by Debarshi Ray 30 Jan '07

30 Jan '07

BlueJ is a free software IDE which aims to teach object-oriented programming and Java to beginners and is developed by University of Kent and Deakin University with support from Sun Microsystems. The following link tells you about how it is being threatend by Microsoft through software patents. http://www.bluej.org/mrt/?p=21 Regards, Debarshi -- After the game the king and the pawn go into the same box. -- Italian proverb

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