Hi,
I had written a broadband dialer for sify (antidialer) some time back. during this time, sify decided to change its dialer protocol for unknown reasons and include some cryptography** in it. I wanted to know if it would be legal to reverse engineer the dialer (not necessarily disassemble it) or wireshark packets to analyze and try to write an alternate dialer for the new protocol. I'm asking this for the following reasons:
1) I am not using the dialer for unauthorized access -- it is simply an alternative means to login using a valid account. I have to do it because the linux dialer crashes before or after I login and the customer care has not been responsive to my complaints so far. 2) There is no EULA for which I have to click through when I use the Linux based dialer, so reverse engineering it should not be illegal right? 3) Someone had mentioned once on a forum (indiabroadband.com or something like that) a while back that it is illegal to "break" cryptography.
If it is legal then I could go around attempting to understand and implement what the protocol does.
**It's really some silly xor/reverse with MD5s from what I could understand so far.
On Sunday 22 Feb 2009, Siddhesh Poyarekar wrote:
I had written a broadband dialer for sify (antidialer) some time back. during this time, sify decided to change its dialer protocol for unknown reasons and include some cryptography** in it. I wanted to know if it would be legal to reverse engineer the dialer (not necessarily disassemble it) or wireshark packets to analyze and try to write an alternate dialer for the new protocol. I'm asking this for the following reasons:
As far as I know India doesn't have any equivalent law to the DMCA, so there is nothing illegal in what you're doing. Since you're reverse engineering the protocol and not the application itself you should be even safer. And in the highly unlikely scenario that Sify sues you for doing that, you have the further safe haven of claiming that the software supplied by them was defective and you needed to do this in order to utilise their services on an OS of their choice.
I'd recommend filing a ticket about the faulty Sify dialler in any case, so that you're doubly protected -- if Sify is not able to fix the problem in a reasonable amount of time you can sue them instead of the other way around :)
On the other hand, I'm not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice, just my interpretation of the situation. If you do get arrested I'll not be held responsible, though I promise to send you pizzas in your cell :)
Regards,
-- Raju
On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 11:55 AM, Raj Mathur raju@linux-delhi.org wrote:
As far as I know India doesn't have any equivalent law to the DMCA, so there is nothing illegal in what you're doing. Since you're reverse engineering the protocol and not the application itself you should be
I'm not sure they can even do that. There is no EULA that comes up before the dialer installation in any case. I also checked their terms of use and they too do not menion anything about a dialer.
I'd recommend filing a ticket about the faulty Sify dialler in any case, so that you're doubly protected -- if Sify is not able to fix the problem in a reasonable amount of time you can sue them instead of the other way around :)
Already did, second time yesterday morning on an STD call to Chennai since their local call center IVR was malfunctioning. They were supposed to revert within 12 hours but no response yet. Also had sent an email regarding this, so I figured I'm amply covered on that end.
On the other hand, I'm not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice, just my interpretation of the situation. If you do get arrested I'll not be held responsible, though I promise to send you pizzas in your cell :)
Great, an incentive to do this then ;)
On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 12:26 PM, Siddhesh Poyarekar siddhesh.poyarekar@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 11:55 AM, Raj Mathur raju@linux-delhi.org wrote:
As far as I know India doesn't have any equivalent law to the DMCA, so there is nothing illegal in what you're doing. Since you're reverse engineering the protocol and not the application itself you should be
I'm not sure they can even do that. There is no EULA that comes up before the dialer installation in any case. I also checked their terms of use and they too do not menion anything about a dialer.
I'd recommend filing a ticket about the faulty Sify dialler in any case, so that you're doubly protected -- if Sify is not able to fix the problem in a reasonable amount of time you can sue them instead of the other way around :)
Already did, second time yesterday morning on an STD call to Chennai since their local call center IVR was malfunctioning. They were supposed to revert within 12 hours but no response yet. Also had sent an email regarding this, so I figured I'm amply covered on that end.
On the other hand, I'm not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice, just my interpretation of the situation. If you do get arrested I'll not be held responsible, though I promise to send you pizzas in your cell :)
Great, an incentive to do this then ;)
-- Siddhesh Poyarekar http://siddhesh.in -- http://mm.glug-bom.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxers
Yes siddhesh you can reverse engineer & go ahead with the thing that you are trying to do. Best of luck but do keep in mind that after you are done you cant sell it to anyone but yes you can share it with anyone that you wish to just like linux.
On Sunday 22 Feb 2009, Information Security wrote:
[snip] Yes siddhesh you can reverse engineer & go ahead with the thing that you are trying to do. Best of luck but do keep in mind that after you are done you cant sell it to anyone but yes you can share it with anyone that you wish to just like linux.
I'll bite: what's preventing him from selling it?
Regards,
-- Raju
On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 4:40 PM, Information Security khanolkardilip@gmail.com wrote:
Yes siddhesh you can reverse engineer & go ahead with the thing that you are trying to do. Best of luck but do keep in mind that after you are done you cant sell it to anyone but yes you can share it with anyone that you wish to just like linux.
Not that I was looking to sell it anyway, but who would really want to buy it ;)
On Sunday 22 Feb 2009, Siddhesh Poyarekar wrote:
On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 4:40 PM, Information Security
khanolkardilip@gmail.com wrote:
Yes siddhesh you can reverse engineer & go ahead with the thing that you are trying to do. Best of luck but do keep in mind that after you are done you cant sell it to anyone but yes you can share it with anyone that you wish to just like linux.
Not that I was looking to sell it anyway, but who would really want to buy it ;)
BTW, I'd recommend the India-GII and Claw-In mailing lists if you want more professional advice. Those two (specially Claw-In) are thoroughly infested with lawyers and people playing with the law.
Regards,
-- Raju
On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 10:01 PM, Raj Mathur raju@linux-delhi.org wrote:
BTW, I'd recommend the India-GII and Claw-In mailing lists if you want more professional advice. Those two (specially Claw-In) are thoroughly infested with lawyers and people playing with the law.
Cool, thanks, I'll check them out as well. Anyway it doesn't seem to be very soon that I'll be able to do anything significant either. I've still not been able to work out how they're doing their crypto. Don't have access to sify for another couple of weeks either.
On Sunday 22 February 2009 16:40, Information Security wrote:
On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 12:26 PM, Siddhesh Poyarekar
siddhesh.poyarekar@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 11:55 AM, Raj Mathur
raju@linux-delhi.org wrote:
As far as I know India doesn't have any equivalent law to the DMCA, so there is nothing illegal in what you're doing. Since you're reverse engineering the protocol and not the application itself you should be
I'm not sure they can even do that. There is no EULA that comes up before the dialer installation in any case. I also checked their terms of use and they too do not menion anything about a dialer.
India tends to follow the Brit model of Copyright and patent laws. One of the requirements is fair use. So reverse engineering would be definetly permitted.
Besides I doubt SIFY will be suing anyone in a very long time.
Yes siddhesh you can reverse engineer & go ahead with the thing that you are trying to do. Best of luck but do keep in mind that after you are done you cant sell it to anyone but yes you can share it with anyone that you wish to just like linux.
Says who you cant sell. You are not copying their software (i presume). And software patents are illegal in India.
On Monday 23 February 2009 14:39:37 jtd wrote:
Says who you cant sell. You are not copying their software (i presume). And software patents are illegal in India.
they are not illegal. The are not legal. There is a difference.
On Monday 23 February 2009 18:12:58 Kenneth Gonsalves wrote:
On Monday 23 February 2009 14:39:37 jtd wrote:
Says who you cant sell. You are not copying their software (i presume). And software patents are illegal in India.
they are not illegal. The are not legal. There is a difference.
s/the/they/
On Monday 23 February 2009 18:12, Kenneth Gonsalves wrote:
On Monday 23 February 2009 14:39:37 jtd wrote:
Says who you cant sell. You are not copying their software (i presume). And software patents are illegal in India.
they are not illegal. The are not legal. There is a difference.
True. Noted.
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Information Security -
jtd -
Kenneth Gonsalves -
Raj Mathur -
Siddhesh Poyarekar