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“Stop reverse engineering our code”

blogs.oracle.com

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Re: “Stop reverse engineering our code”

#181

Post by DarkIye »

jtreminio wrote: post #178
bmir-alum-007 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stanford was taken to the cleaners to the tune of $1.5 x 10^8 USD in the deployment of Oracle Financials and related products via endless "consultant implementation" charges that didn't really deliver much value, were rarely on schedule or on budget. Oracle's enterprise calendaring program was totally inadequate and had UX that made most point-of-sale systems look effortless by contrast. Also, the assets managing app…

> to the tune of $1.5 x 10^8 USD Was it really necessary to type it like that?

For general sanity: $150,000,000

Re: “Stop reverse engineering our code”

#183

Post by zyM7A6bQzJKBHnS »

mhuffman wrote: post #155
Thriptic wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, it's your product, but this is my home! My stance is that EULAs are bullshit, period. If you purchase a product, it is yours, and no one should be able to dictate how you use it.

Unfortunately courts seem to not share your stance, it seems.

Courts of which country? There are a lot of countries out there, some of them allowing reverse engineering (especially in Europe for example).

Re: “Stop reverse engineering our code”

#184

Post by bunderbunder »

greggyb wrote: post #169
rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went to a prominent tech school that adopted an Oracle platform for student course management in my last few years. I won't mince words: it was a piece of shit, and my school's administrators ate shit by agreeing to a contract that forbid them from making any changes to Oracle's broken system. Now I work in college administration and we have to deal with the very same pile of junk. Someone once told me that Larry E…

You might want to fact check yourself on Rockefeller: Founded 1870, antitrust 1911: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil Crude prices in that time frame (and beyond): https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oil_Prices_Since_186... Production in that time frame (having trouble finding a nice long time-series chart): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_petroleum_indus... If we want to make a strong claim…

According to the very Wikipedia article you link, Standard Oil was found guilty of anticompetitive actions.

Note that monopolistic behavior does not necessarily imply rising prices. See: Wal-Mart. Also see this quote from that Wikipedia article again:

"The evidence is, in fact, absolutely conclusive that the Standard Oil Co. charges altogether excessive prices where it meets no competition, and particularly where there is little likelihood of competitors entering the field, and that, on the other hand, where competition is active, it frequently cuts prices to a point which leaves even the Standard little or no profit, and which more often leaves no profit to the competitor, whose costs are ordinarily somewhat higher."

Re: “Stop reverse engineering our code”

#186

Post by GhotiFish »

op00to wrote: post #84
duncan_bayne wrote: post #23

So, I disagree with the poster on a bunch of things here (no surprise, really). But: this is authentic. This is what we (i.e. hackers) are always claiming we want. Someone speaking her mind, shooting from the hip, etc. Not an anodyne blob of corporate-speak: this is an opinion, stated pretty clearly, and backed up with fighting words. You'd expect: "Our legal team has advised us to remind consultants that they are bo…

The blog post is as authentic as a big pile of rubber dog shit. The faux-folksy patina does nothing to hide the utter contempt Oracle has for their customers.

I very much don't agree, the only time I've seen writing like this is when someone is deeply frustrated about something.

I don't think it's an unreasonable fairy tail to say this is a person who is frustrated, who has drunk the corporate kool-aid in a big way, who is dealing with the detritus of a rather nasty security confidence scam industry, and is putting their views out there. Even if you or I don't like the message, I believe she meant it. I believe it. Maybe I'm gullible.

Re: “Stop reverse engineering our code”

#187

Post by jpgvm »

jaawn wrote: post #132

I don't really see how a lot of the responses here match with the original blog post. People seem to be airing a lot of long-standing grievances about Oracle rather than responding to the specific post on its own. Viewed on its own, the post can basically be summarized as "Please stop treating our products like they are open source. They're not, and it is against the license agreement to reverse engineer our stuff to…

I don't think it's the lack of open-source code that is causing the grievances but rather the tone of the blog post and the overall theme of "Our IP is more important then your security concerns, no we don't care if you are a core bank".

Microsoft, SAP, VMware all have closed source software that is very prevalent in enterprise, often in entrenched positions just like Oracle. Sure they aren't exactly all peaches either but atleast they have a decent way of responding to security problems or plain bugs.

They also don't wield their license agreement as a weapon against their customers, they only use it to make sure they get paid.

Re: “Stop reverse engineering our code”

#188

Post by worklogin »

throwaway7767 wrote: post #100
wolfgke wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is Oracle even allowing this person to be a voice for their brand? Because her text will probably only infuriate people that will arguably never be Oracle customers?

> Because her text will probably only infuriate people that will arguably never be Oracle customers? As a sysadmin with customers who run oracle, and who put some stock in what I say, I can say I am more likely to warn people away from oracle in the future. While in some companies, tech purchasing decisions are made by suits with little or no input from techies, that's not universal.

As if Oracle's practices shouldn't have already warned you away. If this is what set you off...

Re: “Stop reverse engineering our code”

#189

Post by wvenable »

jaawn wrote: post #162
sklogic wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Reverse engineering software is completely different from penetration testing How is it so? You cannot find funny vulnerabilities without reverse engineering the binaries. > It doesn't make sense for it to be illegal to forbid reverse engineering in a license agreement, where is that the case? France, Switzerland, Russia and many more. > it would make more sense to just forbid closed source software How did you mak…

I think there may be a language barrier here. So, this should clear it up: The only definition of "reverse engineering software" that I use is this -- "Using tools and deep binary analysis to take a compiled binary, and convert it back to source code as close to the original as possible". It is a very specific definition. I do not mean general "analysis" or vulnerability testing or input manipulation, etc... only att…

> The only definition of "reverse engineering software" that I use is this

That's the definition of decompiling not reverse engineering. The original IBM BIOS was reverse engineered by two teams: one which read the disassembled binary and wrote a written specification and a second team that took that specification and wrote code.

Re: “Stop reverse engineering our code”

#190

Post by rz2k »

jtreminio wrote: post #178
bmir-alum-007 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stanford was taken to the cleaners to the tune of $1.5 x 10^8 USD in the deployment of Oracle Financials and related products via endless "consultant implementation" charges that didn't really deliver much value, were rarely on schedule or on budget. Oracle's enterprise calendaring program was totally inadequate and had UX that made most point-of-sale systems look effortless by contrast. Also, the assets managing app…

> to the tune of $1.5 x 10^8 USD Was it really necessary to type it like that?

At the very least keep it to multiples of three, as in 150e6 or 150 * 10^6! Though a very simple 150 million is easy to think of in terms of erasing past donations that sounded impressive.
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