Defending Our Brand • Hacker News Board

Re: Defending Our Brand

#71

Post by greenspot » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 3:21 PM UTC

Out of curiosity: Why didn't Letsencrypt applied for a trademark right at the start?

That this happens was quite foreseeable and occurs quite often if people forget to secure trademarks (I know this won't be a popular opinion because most as I like Letsencrypt and their outstanding service)

Re: Defending Our Brand

#72

Post by ceocoder » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 3:22 PM UTC

Comodo - if you are reading this, you lost about 3000 USD worth of business from me. And someone else is going to gain the same.

Drop this nonsense. It helps no one.

Re: Defending Our Brand

#73

Post by tomcorrigan » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 3:22 PM UTC

I would love to see Mozilla (a big backer of Let's Encrypt) drop the Comodo root certs from their alpha and beta Firefox builds for a couple of days to show them how ugly things get when both sides play nasty.

Re: Defending Our Brand

#74

Post by hathym » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 3:25 PM UTC

mwambua wrote: post #68

4h53n wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment motivated me to think about doing the same.

I'm donating to keep this nested motivation going. :-)

I am donating now...

Re: Defending Our Brand

#75

Post by brian_cloutier » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 3:25 PM UTC

natch wrote: post #58

I'm pretty sure the lawyer would have known about letsencrypt.org and their Let's Encrypt project before filing this. So that being said, reading the fine print of what the lawyer had to sign in order to submit the application, shouldn't the lawyer be vulnerable to perjury charges? Excerpt from http://tsdr.uspto.gov/documentviewer?caseId=sn86790719&docId... : The signatory believes that: if the applicant is filing th…

You would have to prove the lawyer knew. It sounds difficult to prove short of an email exchange and I have no idea how the courts work but hopefully you can't get access to a company's emails just by filing a suit based on "I'm pretty sure"

Re: Defending Our Brand

#76

Post by imglorp » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 3:25 PM UTC

Fej wrote: post #4

The bullshit the CAs pull never ceases to amaze me.

CAs charge so much and offer so little value at such high risk. Comodo has already been subverted once before.

Another reason to use distributed identity.

Donated to Let's Encrypt.

Re: Defending Our Brand

#77

Post by ComodoHacker » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 3:25 PM UTC

NetStrikeForce wrote: post #44

AngeloAnolin wrote: post #9

Next thing we'll likely see is that Comodo getting hacked / breached and their data exposed, making them the least trusted computing security firm.

Next thing you say? http://www.cnet.com/news/fbi-probes-comodo-web-security-brea... !

I picked my nickname after that breach.

Re: Defending Our Brand

#78

Post by nickpsecurity » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 3:25 PM UTC

mwambua wrote: post #68

4h53n wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment motivated me to think about doing the same.

I'm donating to keep this nested motivation going. :-)

So, "Pay it Forward" is playing out for real on Hacker News to fight mass or criminal surveillance? Hell, I'm in! Threw them some dough. :)

Re: Defending Our Brand

#79

Post by sokoloff » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 3:27 PM UTC

jordigh wrote: post #69

sokoloff wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tend to disagree (on the latter point). Encrypt is a generic word here. I don't think it's appropriate (nor consistent with the law) to grant broad trademark protection for generic terms. To me, it's closer to "Joe's Pizza," "Anna's Pizza", and "Arlington Pizza" all selling, well pizza. Could someone confuse Arlington Pizza and Anna's Pizza? Sure, especially if Anna's Pizza is in Arlington and the owner of Arlingto…

"Encrypt" on its own is generic but the " Encrypt" form of it doesn't sound generic enough to me. Trademarks don't have to be original to be trademarkable, just not cause confusion. I can see people getting confused by "start encrypt" vs "let's encrypt". There could be a case for trademark confusion there. > Nevertheless, you can't trademark " Pizza" Yep, you totally can. Again, because originality has got nothing to…

Absolutely correct that you can trademark those phrases. I thought one thing and typed completely another. My mistake.

What I meant is that you can't use your trademark on " Pizza" to exclude anyone else from registering " Pizza" and competing with you [edit: under that mark].

Re: Defending Our Brand

#80

Post by vox_mollis » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 3:27 PM UTC

throwanem wrote: post #6

Fej wrote: post #4

The bullshit the CAs pull never ceases to amaze me.

Comodo in particular has a long history of shady bullshit. Tarring all CAs with that brush strikes me as unduly harsh.

Indeed. Their PCI-DSS compliance scanning service is completely useless. Service version fingerprinting only, regardless of binary patch level or actual vulns.

Yet somehow, the PCI SSC accepts their scan results as actionable for Level 1-3 compliance.