Why I’m Suing the US Government • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I’m Suing the US Government

#311

Post by StillBored » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 4:57 PM UTC

DoubleGlazing wrote: post #157

ggambetta wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would be easier to do a hex search on the binaries, find the device id of the old mic, and patch in the device id of the new mic. I'd be surprised if they had bothered to obfuscate the id in any way.

Now you mention it I feel like I overlooked the obvious solution.

Although, did you get any of the other legitimate mic's to work? Its possible that the device has a serial number burred in one of the USB descriptors and is using the mic like a hardware dongle (or worse a robust DRM scheme).

But, if you hack the binary, its probably worthwhile to spend a little extra time and completely remove the id check. That way you can use any random mic you find.

Re: Why I’m Suing the US Government

#312

Post by SilasX » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 5:23 PM UTC

LukeShu wrote: post #225

SilasX wrote: post #216

Can someone do a tl;dr? This is upvoted very highly but it's assuming a ton of context I don't have. All I get is that someone wants to be able to tinker, but today that necessitates breaking some legally-enforced protections on the product. That's a valid point but I don't see how it's gotten to 1000 points, so I think I'm missing something. What's the lawsuit? What's the egregious use case?

DRM. I assume you know of it, and that it's massively hated. It's "copy protection" software mechanisms that is meant to control how you use and copy media that you have. It's a pain. Nominally, it's there to prevent you from copying the media in illegal ways, but it often also prevents you from doing perfectly legal things with it. However, it's not just a pain to be worked around. In the US, since the DMCA section…

I'm familiar with DRM and the related DMCA criticism. I just don't get what's so special about this case. It's like when you see a really boring scene in a movie and everyone is laughing at references and subtext you're not getting, or on the edge in suspense.

Like, if the scene is some dinner party, but right before you started watching someone had set a bomb under the table or something. What's the bomb here?

Re: Why I’m Suing the US Government

#313

Post by blastrat » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 5:44 PM UTC

int_19h wrote: post #280

blastrat wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this company has not taken action to enforce DMCA or any other licensing gripe with the guy, so as yet he hasn't forced to pay obeisance to anything, and he didn't, so that issue is not really on the table. you are essentially taking the position that the company should be forced to sell its software unbundled with hardware because you would prefer it that way. Under your logic, the unicorn Uber could be forced to pr…

They didn't sue him, yes. But they did specifically mention DMCA, and that they believe what he did to be illegal. So, at the very least, it was an implied threat. Which he ignored because " if we lived in the US we would have been in breach of the DMCA". I also don't see anything in that comment saying that they should be forced to decouple software from hardware. What it says is that they shouldn't be allowed to le…

look, I am in favor of open systems, right to repair, right to modify, etc. Hell, I'm in favor of the GPLv3 which puts me way to the free-open-copyleft side of 90% of HN. So yes, I am against the DMCA.

What I am objecting to in this thread is the tone of everybody that this one little anecdote concerning the bad luck of one guy with a copy protected system is somehow egregiously bad behavior on the part of one little company. It's not. It is further evidence that we could have a better system without the DMCA etc.

What I'm saying is, when I drive a car, sometimes I speed, and if I get caught, I take my ticket like a grownup, I don't start pissing and moaning about cops, The Man, how I was treated, "we shouldn't have speed limits" etc. which many people I know do. Even though I've seen a lot of bad behavior by cops, I see a lot of bad behavior by a lot of people, many of whom have jobs that I don't want myself.

This thread should be a celebration of somebody's diligent hack around some arbitrary rules. It's not a poster child for the evils of corporate ethics.

People whose blood is boiling over what happened here? I hope they don't own guns or feel like I sped past them too fast on the highway, because I think they're *.ragers, is the argument in favor of rationality I'm trying to make.

Re: Why I’m Suing the US Government

#314

Post by wheaties » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 10:05 PM UTC

briandear wrote: post #297

onetwotree wrote: post #100

Good luck! What's kind of cool about this issue is that it attracts support from citizens of all political stripes - whether you're a farmer who just wants to be able to fix his own damn tractor, or a hacker who wants to futz with proprietary hardware, the law is patently bogus. Unfortunately, farmers and hackers have far less political influence than corporations. Hopefully by pursuing this through the courts and wi…

Just as a point of fact, farmers have huge political power. Look at farm subsidies, look at Ethanol mandates. To be more accurate, I would say the number of farmers that want to work with code/electronics to fix tractors is a small subset of "farmers." Try cutting a farming subsidy and you'll quickly see how powerful farmers really are. Ted Cruz was the only candidate who dared challenge Ethanol mandates -- while cam…

No, farmers have very little power. Agri-corps, big business which collects the majority of those subsidies, have power. These laws keep little guys down.

Re: Why I’m Suing the US Government

#315

Post by Qwertious » Sat, Jul 23, 2016, 6:59 AM UTC

ant6n wrote: post #266

seanp2k2 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the case of the drug, we as a society (and I use "we" very loosely here; in this case it means "mainly people who benefit directly from this opinion") have "decided" that a "person" (company) who invents a useful drug "deserves" to gain tons and tons of money, and operate in a way which prevents others from duplicating the drug, even if that behavior leads directly to the needless suffering of potentially millions…

Isn't the actual research publicly funded in many cases anyway?

Yes, most actual scientific progress comes from government-funded and/or non-profit institutions. As the saying goes: socialise the losses, privatise the profits.

Re: Why I’m Suing the US Government

#316

Post by 6stringmerc » Sat, Jul 23, 2016, 9:49 PM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #117

6stringmerc wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're telling me Andrew Huang's business model is to make derivative content devices, for profit, without permission or compensation from the original creators and/or rights holders? I don't find this litigant to be sympathetic in the least (the second one, Green, is much more reasonable - though redundant to the John Deere case going on). My initial impression is that I might actually want Huang to lose, if the…

> So you're telling me Andrew Huang's business model is to make derivative content devices, for profit, without permission or compensation from the original creators and/or rights holders? You realize a TV fits that description, right? There is no reason for every device in the pipeline to kick back money to the content creator. You only need to pay for it once.

You apparently don't realize watching TV is not an act of creating derivative content, which is the stated goal of the device.

You only have to pay for it once when you're consuming, you have to pay for it in a different way if the intent is to allow someone else to consume a variation of what you've paid for. That's how copyright works. Questions?

Re: Why I’m Suing the US Government

#317

Post by Daphnenost » Sun, Jul 24, 2016, 6:52 AM UTC

Good. My wife is a speech therapist and uses a system that is designed to help people who have had strokes regain their voice. It comprises a piece of software that comes with a "specially calibrated USB microphone". The microphone is actually a Samson laptop USB mic that had the voice improvement systems logo stuck on it. The system came with lots of legal warnings about not copying, not telling unqualified people about how it worked and not to use an unapproved microphone. The DMCA was specifically mentioned. One day the mic failed (the program requires patients to shout aggressively at the mic) so my wife went off looking for a replacement. We had a few USB mics that we tried and and the application refused to acknowledge their existence even though they showed up in Windows. It became obvious that the software was checking the USB device ID. My wife went to the company that ran the system to get a replacement, but they said she had to buy a new copy of the software as well - total cost $659. So we took a chance and ordered a new Samson USB mic from Amazon for €30.00, but when it arrived it didn't work. It was the same model, but was a few generations ahead and therefore had a different USB device ID. My wife has some colleagues with the same package so I tested their mics and they had different USB device IDs and it became obvious that when Samson released a revision of the mic the company offering the system simply recompiled the code with he new device ID baked in and then re-branded the mic. So, not wanting to shell out $659 for a whole new package I took the old and new mics apart desoldered the cartridges from both mics and put the new one in the body of the failed mic. It worked! Now technically this would be a violation of 1201 in the sense that the individual copy of the software they sold you was tied to the specific mic they sold you at the same time - they said so in the EULA. But lets be honest that's just nonsense. They were simply trying to sell more stuff - a tactic that seems fairly common in various fields of professional therapy. This is the sort of problem caused by 1201. If we lived in the US we would have been in breach of the DMCA even though we copied nothing. Also, the software is as ugly as sin.

Re: Why I’m Suing the US Government

#318

Post by Daphnenost » Sun, Jul 24, 2016, 6:53 AM UTC

> HN is a weird place to bemoan prices when many here are seeking unicorn valuations while disrupting industry. I think the insulting tone towards those that disagree with him might have something to do with it. And the above statement is just plain absurd.

Re: Why I’m Suing the US Government

#319

Post by Susanelst » Sun, Jul 24, 2016, 6:57 AM UTC

I'm wondering if that's "more illegal" than fixing the hardware component (which is silly because changing the ID can be simpler). In hardware you can just say you've replaced a broken part even if it's 99% of the hardware, right?

Re: Why I’m Suing the US Government

#320

Post by allenz » Sun, Jul 24, 2016, 8:09 AM UTC

SilasX wrote: post #312

LukeShu wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DRM. I assume you know of it, and that it's massively hated. It's "copy protection" software mechanisms that is meant to control how you use and copy media that you have. It's a pain. Nominally, it's there to prevent you from copying the media in illegal ways, but it often also prevents you from doing perfectly legal things with it. However, it's not just a pain to be worked around. In the US, since the DMCA section…

I'm familiar with DRM and the related DMCA criticism. I just don't get what's so special about this case. It's like when you see a really boring scene in a movie and everyone is laughing at references and subtext you're not getting, or on the edge in suspense. Like, if the scene is some dinner party, but right before you started watching someone had set a bomb under the table or something. What's the bomb here?

You should be excited about this case because it seeks to overturn the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA. It is notable because it's backed by the EFF, notable researchers, and a top law firm. If it succeeds, it would be a huge win for our right to hack--many have posted stories about how those provisions affected them.