I would like to lodge a strong protest with the admins of ILUG-BOM over this member's behaviour : http://db.ilug-bom.org.in/wiki/index.php/Talk:Broadband_Pacenet.
He (she?) has deleted all traces of matter pertaining to decryption of Pacenet's password and inserted standard sales talk in its place. I have not undone this as I want to know whether doing so is "illegal" as the user 'Pacenetrules' claims.
Perhaps we need to get a LUG meet arranged with these fanboys and ISP heads. Why should users of non-windows opeating systems bend over backwards to rightfully get what they have paid for?
He (she?) has deleted all traces of matter pertaining to decryption of Pacenet's password and inserted standard sales talk in its place. I have not undone this as I want to know whether doing so is "illegal" as the user 'Pacenetrules' claims.
<rant> I tried doing what he says. The lady said I have to enlist the help of my local cable guy. He has to send an email to cs@pacenet-india.com with my hardware MAC address and the linux support request. I'm in office, and besides I'm NOT going to bend over to their demands. Triband, I'm coming!! </rant>
On 29-Dec-06, at 11:23 AM, rohit bhute wrote:
I would like to lodge a strong protest with the admins of ILUG-BOM over this member's behaviour : http://db.ilug-bom.org.in/wiki/index.php/Talk:Broadband_Pacenet.
He (she?) has deleted all traces of matter pertaining to decryption of Pacenet's password and inserted standard sales talk in its place. I have not undone this as I want to know whether doing so is "illegal" as the user 'Pacenetrules' claims.
no need to get het up about it. First revert the wiki page to what it was when you last edited it. If Pacenetrules wants to edit he can first put his proposed edits in the discussion page. If he persists and keeps editing without permission, he is deactivated/prevented from editing. This is the way wikipedia handles it. So first revert to your last edit. Then lets see what happens.
On 12/29/06, Kenneth Gonsalves wrote:
no need to get het up about it. First revert the wiki page to what it was when you last edited it. If Pacenetrules wants to edit he can first put his proposed edits in the discussion page. If he persists and keeps editing without permission, he is deactivated/prevented from editing. This is the way wikipedia handles it. So first revert
Hmm, done. But going off on a tangent, is "reverse engineering the password" illegal?
On 29-Dec-06, at 12:08 PM, rohit bhute wrote:
and keeps editing without permission, he is deactivated/prevented from editing. This is the way wikipedia handles it. So first revert
Hmm, done. But going off on a tangent, is "reverse engineering the password" illegal?
afaik not if you paid for it - only reverse engineering someone else's password would be illegal
On Friday 29 December 2006 12:25, Kenneth Gonsalves wrote:
Hmm, done. But going off on a tangent, is "reverse engineering the password" illegal?
afaik not if you paid for it - only reverse engineering someone else's password would be illegal
No pure software patents in India. U arent copying code so no copyright violation. U are not cracking someone else's password. so no illegality there. U are just using whatever u paid for.
On 12/29/06, jtd jtd@mtnl.net.in wrote:
No pure software patents in India. U arent copying code so no copyright violation. U are not cracking someone else's password. so no illegality there. U are just using whatever u paid for.
So does that mean I can buy a copy of Windows and reverse engineer it despite the EULA?
Regards,
On 29-Dec-06, at 6:18 PM, Siddhesh Poyarekar wrote:
No pure software patents in India. U arent copying code so no copyright violation. U are not cracking someone else's password. so no illegality there. U are just using whatever u paid for.
So does that mean I can buy a copy of Windows and reverse engineer it despite the EULA?
no
On 12/30/06, Kenneth Gonsalves lawgon@au-kbc.org wrote:
On 29-Dec-06, at 6:18 PM, Siddhesh Poyarekar wrote:
No pure software patents in India. U arent copying code so no copyright violation. U are not cracking someone else's password. so no illegality there. U are just using whatever u paid for.
So does that mean I can buy a copy of Windows and reverse engineer it despite the EULA?
no
Samba is what? Reverse engineering. Isnt it? Microsoft cant to anything about it.
Amish.
Sometime Today, Amish Mehta assembled some asciibets to say:
Samba is what? Reverse engineering. Isnt it? Microsoft cant to anything about it.
You're confusing software and protocols. A software's licence can prohibit reverse engineering the software itself. A protocol cannot be protected by a licence.
If a company wants to protect their protocol, they need to document it completely, and patent it, and then put restrictions on use of the intellectual property within the patent. No one does that because no one wants to document and publicise their protocols.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. I'll let our list's lawyers comment on this from a legal point of view.
On 30-Dec-06, at 9:12 PM, Philip Tellis wrote:
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. I'll let our list's lawyers comment on this from a legal point of view.
incidently, never act on advice from a lawyer unless you get a written opinion on his letterhead and signed by him.
On 12/30/06, Philip Tellis philip.tellis@gmx.net wrote:
Sometime Today, Amish Mehta assembled some asciibets to say:
Samba is what? Reverse engineering. Isnt it? Microsoft cant to anything about it.
You're confusing software and protocols. A software's licence can prohibit reverse engineering the software itself. A protocol cannot be protected by a licence.
As far as I know for knowing SMB protocol, MS Windows was reverse engineered, probably to know exactly how passwords are passed. Same is true for this Pacenet issue.
Wine, OpenOffice.org are also other examples of reverse engineering certain softwares.
The issue is if you can reverse engineer a software or not, whatever it is done for. Dont count on it but my opinion is as long as its not patented and its for personal use and it does not harm anyone, it should be ok.
"In the United States and many other countries, even if an artifact or process is protected by trade secrets, reverse-engineering the artifact or process is often lawful as long as it is obtained legitimately."
I referred to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_engineering
Only problem is, in India no one clearly knows what is legal and not legal until the case is won.
I do not think decrypting password algorithm is such a big crime and infact Pacenet should instead have used better algorithm if they were much concerned about security.
Amish.
On 01/01/07 09:12 +0530, Amish Mehta wrote:
On 12/30/06, Philip Tellis philip.tellis@gmx.net wrote:
Sometime Today, Amish Mehta assembled some asciibets to say:
Samba is what? Reverse engineering. Isnt it? Microsoft cant to anything about it.
You're confusing software and protocols. A software's licence can prohibit reverse engineering the software itself. A protocol cannot be protected by a licence.
As far as I know for knowing SMB protocol, MS Windows was reverse engineered, probably to know exactly how passwords are passed. Same is true for this Pacenet issue.
No. They used a network sniffer to figure out the network protocol, but they never touched the Windows code itself.
Wine, OpenOffice.org are also other examples of reverse engineering certain softwares.
Wine is an implementation of the Win32 API. Pretty public information. OOo uses filters for document formats, not code.
The issue is if you can reverse engineer a software or not, whatever it is done for. Dont count on it but my opinion is as long as its not patented and its for personal use and it does not harm anyone, it should be ok.
Software reverse engineering was pretty clearcut in the US from 1984 till the DMCA was passed. Properly done reverse engineering started the PC revolution (yay for Compaq). Patents harm software development simply by existing.
Any implementation of the same process would still result in infringement.
Devdas Bhagat
On Monday 01 January 2007 09:12, Amish Mehta wrote:
The issue is if you can reverse engineer a software or not,
Depends on how you do it. If it is not patented u can as long as u are not reading the source code and hence possibily creating a derived work. If it is patented u set up two teams. One to use the original package and create a specification. And one to implement the specs. The implementer should not ever see the original package.
However if the business method is patented u are in a still bigger mess like RIM. U can use the above method to reverse engineer, but cant use it in a similiar business model.
whatever it is done for. Dont count on it but my opinion is as long as its not patented and its for personal use and it does not harm anyone, it should be ok.
In India and EU software patents as well as business methods are not recognised, hence u can reverse engineer a software package using a debugger / profiler.
Only problem is, in India no one clearly knows what is legal and not legal until the case is won.
standalone software patents are NOT recognised in India. That is 100% certain.
I do not think decrypting password algorithm is such a big crime and infact Pacenet should instead have used better algorithm if they were much concerned about security.
We do not have DRM / DMCA laws right now. So decrypting passwords or algorithms when not used for illegal copying is certainly legal.
Sometime Today, Amish Mehta assembled some asciibets to say:
As far as I know for knowing SMB protocol, MS Windows was reverse engineered, probably to know exactly how passwords are
Nope, MS Windows was not reverse engineered. The protocol over the wire was reverse engineered. Big difference.
The issue is if you can reverse engineer a software or not, whatever it
No. No software was reverse engineered, so it's a moot point.
On Saturday 30 December 2006 06:59, Kenneth Gonsalves wrote:
On 29-Dec-06, at 6:18 PM, Siddhesh Poyarekar wrote:
No pure software patents in India. U arent copying code so no copyright violation. U are not cracking someone else's password. so no illegality there. U are just using whatever u paid for.
So does that mean I can buy a copy of Windows and reverse engineer it despite the EULA?
no
The EULA specifically prohibits you from reverse engineering (I havent read their eula nor installed M$ in a long time for myself.). But KG installs M$ and connects to my box. I can reverse engineer - including patented stuff, in India and EU. I did not agree to anything. In USA fair use allows me to reverse engineer and use for myself with any other software / device - but no publishing or disclosing because of patents. It would also be suicide, since i would be a will full offender (penalties several orders of magnitude higher) if something i wrote or invented later were to violate the patent. The ultimate idiocity is when i read the patent from the patent office i am permanently tainted. Copyright allows fair use (reverse engineering) and publishing (i am not reading the code). But patents prevent publishing cause i have learnt something about the tech by reverse engineering.
BIG FAT WARNING: CONSULT A LAWYER BEFORE MESSING ABOUT
On Friday 29 December 2006 11:23, rohit bhute wrote:
I would like to lodge a strong protest with the admins of ILUG-BOM over this member's behaviour : http://db.ilug-bom.org.in/wiki/index.php/Talk:Broadband_Pacenet.
He (she?) has deleted all traces of matter pertaining to decryption of Pacenet's password and inserted standard sales talk in its place. I have not undone this as I want to know whether doing so is "illegal" as the user 'Pacenetrules' claims.
Perhaps we need to get a LUG meet arranged with these fanboys and ISP heads. Why should users of non-windows opeating systems bend over backwards to rightfully get what they have paid for?
Maybe you should ask him nicely to talk to the management of Pacenet. We can explain them the positive aspects making themselves more Linux friendly. By now most companies know / atleast have heard of Linux and know that is far superior than Windoze in most aspects and its users are the 1337 crowd =P So they better support it or lose customers to MTNL ;)
On 31-Dec-06, at 5:11 PM, Dinesh Joshi wrote:
backwards to rightfully get what they have paid for?
Maybe you should ask him nicely to talk to the management of Pacenet. We can explain them the positive aspects making themselves more Linux friendly. By now most companies know / atleast have heard of Linux and know that is far superior than Windoze in most aspects and its users are the 1337 crowd =P So they better support it or lose customers to MTNL ;)
whole issue was resolved long ago - see:
http://db.glug-bom.org/wiki/index.php/Talk:Broadband_Pacenet
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Amish Mehta -
Devdas Bhagat -
Dinesh Joshi -
jtd -
Kenneth Gonsalves -
Philip Tellis -
rohit bhute -
Siddhesh Poyarekar