French Court Allows Reverse Engineering of Skype Protocol • Hacker News Board

Re: French Court Allows Reverse Engineering of Skype Protocol

#61

Post by byroot » Wed, Oct 23, 2013, 1:06 PM UTC

nraynaud wrote: post #53

fulafel wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh, what law would you break by publishing the reverse engineered details? They're not protected by copyright or patents. Do you mean it's possible for a court to uphold some license or contract terms where you promised not to do it?

I guess that would be Code de la propriété intellectuelle - Article L122-6-1

Here's the law http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichCodeArticle.do?cidTexte=... (Google Translate at your own risk)

It's indeed pretty restrictive, some parts:

> Les informations nécessaires à l'interopérabilité n'ont pas déjà été rendues facilement et rapidement accessibles aux personnes mentionnées au 1° ci-dessus

> Informations required for interoperability, haven't been easily and quickly accessible.

This one is pretty easy to argue, unless you reverse engineer an application that implement a standardized protocol / format.

> ces actes sont limités aux parties du logiciel d'origine nécessaires à cette interopérabilité.

> You can only reverse engineer the parts needed for interoperability

Make sense.

> Les informations ainsi obtenues ne peuvent être communiquées à des tiers sauf si cela est nécessaire à l'interopérabilité du logiciel créé de façon indépendante ;

> Obtained informations cannot be shared with others unless it's required for interoperability.

Should be easy to workaround by making an open source library.

Re: French Court Allows Reverse Engineering of Skype Protocol

#62

Post by alkonaut » Wed, Oct 23, 2013, 1:10 PM UTC

Wasn't this the case with ICQ? That is, once the protocol was reverse engineered, all the protocol authors had to do was change it slightly and the 3rd party implementations had to play catch up.

Re: French Court Allows Reverse Engineering of Skype Protocol

#63

Post by byroot » Wed, Oct 23, 2013, 1:12 PM UTC

pingou wrote: post #15

marincounty wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no problems with your country. Any country that ties traffic infractions to income is fine with me. I heard most of your schooling is free to? The French have a lot we(USA) should look into.

There's no such thing in France, maybe you're mistaken with some Nordic countries? Edit : I was talking about the traffic fines. Source : I'm French, which may explain my broken English.

> maybe you're mistaken with some Nordic countries?

I think it's switzerland [0]

[0] http://www.rts.ch/info/suisse/1118676-bientot-des-amendes-se...

Re: French Court Allows Reverse Engineering of Skype Protocol

#64

Post by alkonaut » Wed, Oct 23, 2013, 1:12 PM UTC

mtrimpe wrote: post #37

StavrosK wrote: post #32

I'm afraid that this, while a significant decision, will lot mean much in practice. Companies can play cat and mouse indefinitely, and have more resources than hobbyists, if they need their protocols to remain secret.

A French company should now be able to offer a chat messenger which is interoperable with Skype for sale, potentially giving it to keep up with the cat and mouse game.

It will be easy for free software to offer such a solution, the problem is that commercial software probably can't promise much about how much or how long it will be interoperable. I'd be reluctant to pay for a commercial skype client that can break tomorrow.

Re: French Court Allows Reverse Engineering of Skype Protocol

#65

Post by mtrimpe » Wed, Oct 23, 2013, 1:33 PM UTC

alkonaut wrote: post #64

mtrimpe wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A French company should now be able to offer a chat messenger which is interoperable with Skype for sale, potentially giving it to keep up with the cat and mouse game.

It will be easy for free software to offer such a solution, the problem is that commercial software probably can't promise much about how much or how long it will be interoperable. I'd be reluctant to pay for a commercial skype client that can break tomorrow.

The free version could also break at any time of course. What you'd be paying for the privilege of having a client that works again the day after tomorrow.

Also, the ability to run chat bots on the Skype network is something that can be quite valuable for certain companies.

Re: French Court Allows Reverse Engineering of Skype Protocol

#66

Post by dalore » Wed, Oct 23, 2013, 2:21 PM UTC

nnnnni wrote: post #33

dalore wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm proud I rolled a 6 on my dice.

But... that's one less than average! (Assuming 2d6)

Who wants to be average?

Re: French Court Allows Reverse Engineering of Skype Protocol

#67

Post by dalore » Wed, Oct 23, 2013, 2:22 PM UTC

shin_lao wrote: post #50

kleiba wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly, I never understood why anyone should be proud because they happen to be of a certain nationality.

Why is it so strange to be proud of the blessings of good fortune? If you are born beautiful, can't you be proud of it? If you are part of an ancient and rich civilization, can't you be proud of it?

You can respect it and count your blessings but what are you proud for if you didn't contribute anything to it?

Now if you are part of an ancient and rich civilization and you continue to further that civilization, that you can be proud of.

Re: French Court Allows Reverse Engineering of Skype Protocol

#68

Post by maw » Wed, Oct 23, 2013, 2:22 PM UTC

alkonaut wrote: post #60

kleiba wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly, I never understood why anyone should be proud because they happen to be of a certain nationality.

It's not pride of being born at a certain location (that's coincidence), It's pride to be part of a community (state, city, organization, ...) that makes good, rational decisions. Like how you can be proud if you live in a country with a sensible healthcare system or patent system, or proud to work at a company with good policies and a healty work environment.

Why should you be proud of being part of a community that makes good, rational decisions? That's also coincidence.

(You should be happy and thankful, perhaps. But not proud, because, to any reasonable approximation, you have had nothing to do with it.)

Re: French Court Allows Reverse Engineering of Skype Protocol

#69

Post by mercurial » Wed, Oct 23, 2013, 2:42 PM UTC

maw wrote: post #68

alkonaut wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not pride of being born at a certain location (that's coincidence), It's pride to be part of a community (state, city, organization, ...) that makes good, rational decisions. Like how you can be proud if you live in a country with a sensible healthcare system or patent system, or proud to work at a company with good policies and a healty work environment.

Why should you be proud of being part of a community that makes good, rational decisions? That's also coincidence. (You should be happy and thankful, perhaps. But not proud, because, to any reasonable approximation, you have had nothing to do with it.)

One of the advantages of living in a democracy means that you do get a say in who gets elected to make the laws. The main disadvantages are that other people do too, and that the pool of politicians you draw from is mostly unappetizing.

Re: French Court Allows Reverse Engineering of Skype Protocol

#70

Post by pessimizer » Wed, Oct 23, 2013, 3:15 PM UTC

cb_ru wrote: post #54

kleiba wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly, I never understood why anyone should be proud because they happen to be of a certain nationality.

Will you be proud of your children sometimes? Because they could have been born in any family in the world...

The question is whether your children should be proud of the accomplishments of their parents. Presumably, you have some responsibility for the accomplishments of your children.