‘Technology News’ Category

Microsoft has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against TomTom alleging that the device maker’s products, including some that are Linux-based, infringe on patents related to Microsoft’s FAT32 filesystem. This marks the first time that Microsoft has enforced its FAT patents against the Linux platform, a move that some free software advocates have long feared could be disastrous.

Microsoft has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against navigation device maker TomTom. The suit alleges that several of TomTom’s products, including some that are Linux-based, infringe on a handful of Microsoft’s patents. Several of the patents in question relate to car computing systems and navigation, but there are also two that cover Microsoft’s FAT32 filesystem. If Microsoft begins to systematically enforce its FAT32 patents, it could have broad ramifications for the Linux platform and for mobile device makers.

The lawsuit, which was reported today at Todd Bishop’s Microsoft blog, is thought to be the first time that Microsoft has directly targeted Linux with patent litigation. In an interview with Bishop, Microsoft deputy general counsel for intellectual property Horacio Gutierrez claims that this is not the beginning of a broader intellectual property campaign against Linux. Gutierrez characterizes the lawsuit as a last resort option that Microsoft is pursuing after attempting to negotiate a private settlement with TomTom for over a year.

Two of the patents in question are #5,579,517 and #5,758,352 which cover techniques for implementing a "common name space for long and short filenames." The patents basically cover a backwards compatibility hack that Microsoft implemented in its filesystem to preserve compatibility with the filename munging scheme that was used in MS-DOS where filenames were limited to 11 characters in length. The software methods described in the patent are used in modern variants of Microsoft’s FAT filesystem.

Microsoft’s FAT patents have been vigorously challenged in court, but were finally upheld in 2006. Eben Moglen—a Columbia University law professor and the chairman of the Software Freedom Law Center—once described the FAT patents as a "proverbial Sword of Damocles hanging over the open source community" and warned that Microsoft could use them to do immense damage to the Linux platform. Indeed, Microsoft’s filesystem format is used broadly on external storage devices such as camera memory cards.

TomTom publishes a list of GPL-licensed software that is used in the company’s products. One of the items on that list is dosfstools, a package of tools that are used to perform various checking and repair operations on FAT filesystems. It’s not clear yet if dosfstools itself is the source of the patent infringement, but it seems likely that FAT support in general is problematic. The dosfstools package is also used on Amazon’s Kindle, Google’s Android platform, and Nokia’s Maemo platform.

If Microsoft attempts to broadly enforce this patent against Linux users and vendors, the Open Invention Network (OIN) might decide to invoke the so-called "nuclear option" and retaliate with its own massive arsenal of software patents. The OIN, which was founded to assemble a defensive patent portfolio for protecting Linux and some open source technologies, includes patents on basic principles of computing including networking, e-business, and bytecode compilation.

Microsoft has previously made broad threats against the Linux kernel and the broader open source application ecosystem, alleging that the Linux desktop stack infringes on over 200 of the company’s patents. These claims have never been substantiated and Microsoft has never disclosed specific details about which patents it believes have been infringed.

Other Microsoft patents that TomTom allegedly infringes inlcude #6,704,032, which covers "Methods and Arrangements for Interacting with Controllable Objects within a Graphical User Interface Environment Using Various Input Mechanisms", and #6,175,789 which covers methods for creating a "Vehicle Computer System with Open Platform Architecture." Microsoft is asking the court for an injunction against TomTom and treble damages for willful infringement.
 

We’ve all heard arguments about whether the command line is a powerful and elegant tool or an unnecessary pain, but does using a no-pretty-colors interface constitute suspicious behavior? That’s the way it looked in the case of a Boston College student whose computer was confiscated during an online harassment investigation. Some say a deeper reading of the police’s warrant yields a different conclusion.

Mention "Linux" and "police" in the same sentence, and you’re pretty sure to get bloggers’ attention. Mention them in such a way as to suggest that Linux was a motivating factor behind a police investigation, and you’re likely to have a virtual riot on your hands.

Sure enough, that’s exactly what has been going on in the Linux blogosphere over the past few days following reports suggesting that a Boston College student is being investigated and has had his property seized at least in part because he uses "a black screen with white font which he uses prompt commands on."

Hard to believe? Read on.
‘Suspicious Activities’

It all apparently began when an email was sent to a Boston College mailing list alleging that a particular student was gay, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). "Police say they know who sent the email and that the sender committed the crimes of ‘obtaining computer services by fraud or misrepresentation’ and obtaining ‘unauthorized access to a computer system,’" the EFF explained.

The police in question then obtained a search warrant to search the Linux user’s room, citing "suspicious activities" including "being seen with ‘unknown laptop computers,’" using multiple names to log on to his computer and using two different operating systems — including one that is not the ‘regular B.C. operating system,’" the EFF said.

The student was also guilty of working for the college’s IT department, according to the warrant application.
‘A Fishing Expedition’

"However, nothing presented by the investigating officer to obtain the warrant, including the allegation that the student sent the email to the mailing list, could constitute the cited criminal offenses," added the EFF, which is now representing the student.

"The police used inapplicable criminal laws as a basis for a fishing expedition to determine the author of an anonymous email," charged EFF Senior Staff Attorney Matt Zimmerman. "Now, this student has been suspended from his job, and he is without a laptop and other devices he needs to do his schoolwork. His private communications and papers are in the hands of police who are searching for evidence without just cause. Even his cell phone and iPod were taken, clearly an overreach if the goal is tracking the source of an email."

On Friday, the EFF and the Fish and Richardson law firm filed an emergency motion to quash and for the return of seized property on behalf of the student in question.
‘Using Linux Is a Crime’

Now, as is so often the case, bloggers’ reactions to this bit of news have been at least as interesting as the news itself was.

"Should Boston College Linux users be looking over their shoulders?" the EFF’s Zimmerman asked on his blog.

Even more so: "Apparently, using Linux is a crime at Boston College," charged ZDNet’s Christopher Dawson.

Bloggers on Slashdot and Digg picked up the torch in no time, together bombarding the blogosphere with almost 2,700 Diggs and more than 1,000 comments in just a few days.
‘Command Line Interface Terrorism’!

"This would be funny except it’s scary instead …" wrote Slashdot blogger platypussrex.

"What’s scary about it?" shot back Anonymous Coward. "The Police are merely guarding our rights and preventing any of those terrifying terrorist hacker nazi communist muslims from setting off a dirty bomb and infecting us with anthrax.

"Don’t you feel that giving up a few freedoms is worth the security that the Boston College Campus Police can give you in return?" quipped Anonymous Coward.

Alternatively: "Hey, is it any surprise campus security are afraid of Command Line Interface Terrorism?" pondered Red Flayer.

In response: "Yes, actually it is surprising," wrote Shakrai. "Anybody who has ever seen 24 knows that terrorists and the Government both rely on a single GUI interface for everything from tracking motor vehicles to taking over nuclear power plants."

If ever there was a story to inspire controversy, this one is it. So we here at LinuxInsider took to the streets to see what we’d find.
‘Panic and Paranoia’

"From time to time and definitely since 9/11, folks in charge of public places panic or show paranoia for anything they do not understand," blogger Robert Pogson told LinuxInsider. "Fifteen years ago everyone using DOS had occasion to use typed commands, but with the advent of the GUI (graphical user interface) on PCs, this is less common. All many know about typed commands is what they see on TV/movies/news, suggesting that evil ‘hackers’ use it."

The police’s own technology may also be a factor, Slashdot blogger hairyfeet told LinuxInsider –specifically, the fact that most of their forensic tools work only on Windows. "By using Linux, an OS that law enforcement is unfamiliar with and [on] which the tools normally used in their investigations won’t run, you will automatically raise a red flag with the police," he explained.

On the other hand: "I actually read the warrant application, and the police are not nearly as ignorant as the EFF’s press release makes it seem," Slashdot blogger Mhall119 told LinuxInsider. "They weren’t claiming that using a command line made him suspicious; it was used as an example of the defendant’s computer knowledge and skills, to justify a more extensive search of all his personal electronics."
‘Nothing to Do With Linux’

At the heart of the actual charges, Mhall119 added, were "rather incriminating network logs provided by Boston College showing what appears to be the defendant falsely representing himself to a third-party Web site in order to create a profile depicting another student as being gay."

Bottom line? "The charges have nothing whatsoever to do with the defendant’s use of Linux," Mhall119 asserted.

Indeed, "I am quick to defend Linux from spurious attacks," Slashdot blogger yagu began. Nevertheless, "you need only to read the actual warrant to find nothing could be further from the reality" than what much press coverage of the case has suggested, he pointed out.

Specifically, among the claims on the warrant are that:

    * "the accused had been involved in other and previous illegal computer shenanigans"; and
    * "he used a university mailing list for inappropriate messages," yagu told LinuxInsider.

"Heck, after reading the warrant, *I* would like to see the guy arrested!" yagu exclaimed.
‘Guilty of FUD’

Yet "the warrant barely references a ‘non-standard’ computer as justification for seizing computers — it is merely one item mentioned," he added.

Translation? "The ones screaming foul on this are every bit as guilty of FUD as Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) More about Microsoft, but they use FUD to claim unfair treatment of the Linux user community," yagu charged. "In this case, they’re wrong."

The case doesn’t serve the Linux community well, yagu added. "I don’t know who to be most irritated with: The online rag posting the original article, or the Diggs and Slashdotters who piled on. There are worthy examples of bizarre negativity around Linux, but this isn’t one of them."
‘Stretching the Law’

The issue has been "overhyped," Chris Travers, a Slashdot blogger who works on the LedgerSMB project, agreed.

"The computers were seized not just because they had secondary operating systems, but because of an informer who had previously given reliable tips to the police in other investigations," Travers told LinuxInsider.

A far more serious issue, however, is that "the crimes alleged do not match the accusation," as mentioned in the EFF blog, Travers noted. "The police appear to be attempting to stretch the law to cover an activity that they think should have been a crime in retrospect.
‘A Very Real Threat’

"In this regard, this is an important case, and I am glad the EFF is involved," he said.

It’s parallel in many ways to the case of Lori Drew, Travers asserted. Specifically, both focused on "unauthorized access," he said — that allegation "is being brought up here, with an argument that sending an email accusing someone of being gay to the college’s email server somehow constituted ‘unauthorized access,’" he said.

"We are supposed to be free from arbitrary government according to our Constitution," Travers concluded, "so stretching ‘unauthorized access’ so far as to effectively criminalize nearly everyone is a very real threat to our rule of law."

The Internet Systems Consortium has announced that it has received enough support from sponsors to launch the BIND 10 project, to create a replacement name server for BIND 9. BIND 9 began its development in 1998 and is the most widely used DNS server software on the Internet. Among the sponsors are the UK’s Nominet and Germany’s DENIC.

The ISC wants to completely redevelop the server software for the domain name system. BIND 10 aims to incorporate current security techniques, such as DNSSEC, while being constructed as a modular system, so that it can work as a simple resolver for small LANs, or a full authoritative server for top level domains. Another possibility is the development of SQL database server connectivity as a module.

Another focus for the development process will be the robustness of the software. BIND 10 developers want to replace BIND 9’s response to many errors, of logging and exiting, which has the potential to be exploited for Denial of Service attacks. The BIND 10 server should be able to reset itself and continue operations. The BIND 10 developers are also looking at being able to integrate BIND into back end systems, a closer coupling with DHCP and support of clustering.

According to DENIC the development phase for BIND 10 could be up to five years. Other registries participating in the development are AFNIC (France), CIRA (Canada), JPRS (Japan) and SIDN (Netherlands).

Yahoo Kills Off GeoCities

It’s soon to be lights out for the free home page service, purchased for a steep price during the dotcom boom.

Yahoo is shutting down GeoCities, a free service that hosts personal home pages for consumers, which it acquired for more than $4 billion 10 years ago during the heyday of the dotcom boom.

A posting on a Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO) Help page for GeoCities on Thursday said the service was no longer accepting new customers and that it will be closing later this year, with more details about how individuals can save their data coming this summer.

The move comes a few days after Yahoo said it would lay off nearly 700 workers, or 5 percent of its workforce.

Since CEO Carol Bartz took the reins in January, Yahoo has pruned various products and properties to cut costs and focus on fundamentals, as it seeks to revive growth in a tough economy and fierce competition from Google Inc.

Last week, Yahoo said it was shutting down Jumpcut, an online service for editing videos.

Yahoo acquired GeoCities in 1999 in a stock deal valued at roughly $4.6 billion, Reuters reported at the time.

GeoCities was among the first companies to build online communities, with more than 3.5 million Web sites hosted on its service in the late 1990s.

But GeoCities fell out of favor in recent years, as a generation of social network sites such as Facebook and News Corp.’s Myspace have become popular among Web users.

"We have decided to discontinue the process of allowing new customers to sign up for GeoCities accounts as we focus on helping our customers explore and build new relationships online in other ways," Yahoo said in a statement.

"As part of Yahoo’s ongoing effort to build products and services that deliver the best possible experiences for consumers and results for advertisers, we are increasing investment in some areas while scaling back in others."