Netfront Application Hacking Cease and Desist Order

how convenient, just what i have in mind now.


altho this is a bit off topic... i did design, implement and distribute freeware. just not sell. i know there is a big difference, but i know about the issue. i also worked in a software development company, altho not as a coder. perhaps that's why our perspective of the actual sales of the license are somewhat different. btw, "knowing more about the issue" does not automatically make one's view correct, or "more correct". in any case, qualification or any background of the person that makes a statement has nothing to do with the objective validity of the statement itself. on that note, i should never have mentioned about your profession and the question of your understanding on the issue based on that fact. it was just a curiousity (which I thought was clearly so), and had nothing to do with the argument itself.


it's not about whether you have the ability, it's about whether you SHOULD do that. a lot of us have the ability to hack the software in question, but it's about whether we should do it.


that definition contradicts with the entire issue here. netfront supports ppc2003, but it does not support win ce.net. it simply does not run on win ce.net in its current state. if the product is to add support for win ce.net, there will be issues. issues that a software developer will have to spend resources to address.

the modifications that are "demostrated" are 1) not complete; netfront modded to run on win ce has some glitches (both aesthetic and functional) which means it does not have all features defined by the design of the software, hence incomplete, and 2) out of specs; the specifications of a "proper" win ce applications are vastly different from that of a modded PPC app. if it works, you're lucky; if it doesn't, there is no telling what causes it, unless you want to reverse engineer both platforms (or at least the entire API of both) to find the exact differences that results in incompatibilities.

you cannot sell something that happens to work, you have to *make sure* it works, as I originally stated.


At any cost? there is no point in "making money" if in the end you lose more in your costs. in this case i believe Access will not make a profit by doing a CE version. However I understand that is quite debatable, so I would suggest that Access also believes they won't make a profit out of it. Hope that explains why they are not doing it.


not sure what you mean by that. are you suggesting that if a company does not sell you a license that you like, you can buy the license that they do offer, and then violate it? i really do not see the justification of that.

coming back to the example I used. If your boss does not like the way you work, he can still hire you, and then force you to work in their ways?

at this point I hope I misunderstood you on that one.


1) your intent may not be sabotaging or robbing them, but your actions can lead to it. by modifying the software, you are disabling the software's security.
2) they refuse to do business with you, so you can violate an agreement with them? if your tenant says you are refusing to decrease the rent next year, he/she doesn't have to honor the contract you signed for this year?


Well I know what you are trying to say, but I wonder if you're also trying to get personally attacked... just kidding... in any case, just because you don't want it does not mean no one has any legit reason to.

Edited by takwu 2007-10-11 5:45 AM

now you lost me. i read everything and try to understand it as best as i can. not sure where the confusion is.

i dont agree that they are wasting time on this cease and desist order. it costed them what? one email? and it's intended to prevent their software from being violated, so it's a pretty good deal in my book.

your quote there, was after you quoted what I said, and then the word "wrong". that means you were saying what I wrote was wrong.

again i'm not sure where I misinterpret what you wrote. if you think I have misinterpreted, and you want to correct me, please be very specific.

I'll reply to takwu in a moment. I want to post this first.

§ 117. Limitations on exclusive rights: Computer programs

(a) Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy. — Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided:

(1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner....

Taken from this source: http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#117

- - -

The FIRST stipulation in US Copyright Law regarding computer programs states that you can modify proprietary programs to make them work on your hardware, as long as you own a license. Not the 362nd stipulation -- THE FIRST STIPULATION. This law supercedes any EULA that states otherwise.

Yes, knowing more about the issue does make my view more correct, by virtue of being better-informed. Someone who knows nothing about the issue could accidentally "hit the nail on the head", so to speak, but they would still be wrong as a result of not knowing what they're talking about.

I'm not going to get into a philosophical debate. All I care about is that Access is not in a position to demand anything from people they refuse to do business with.

Yes, and it's up to them to decide whether the resources it would take to recompile their app to run on Win CE.NET are reasonable compared to the profit they stand to earn from doing so. However, if they refuse to meet the market's demands, then they are themselves in no position to demand anything from the market.

Tell that to Microsoft.

No, seriously. They can release a product that "happens to work", let users pay for the opportunity to test it, and then fix errors as they arise. It's called "beta testing" and it's a fantastically-popular and extremely-effective way to test a product.

You can believe whatever you want, but you don't know how much money Access could earn by marketing their product more widely. Furthermore, as you have said yourself, you have never even attempted to earn money from your own software development efforts, so you don't even have the reference point of how much money your own effort is worth on the open market.

I'll address the first part of this later on. As for whether my boss can hire me to do X and then pay me to do Y, yes, he can. And I can say 'no' and walk out the door. It's called "at-will employment", and the only time there is any restriction on it is when "job Y" is degrading according to the law, or when there are so many more workers than jobs that I would be indefinitely unemployed if I refused to do "job Y" (which, technically, falls under the definition of "degrading work", and is the sole reason why unions are useful to society nowadays).

No, I am not automatically disabling the software's security by modifying the software. I have to modify the software specifically to disable the security before the security will be disabled.

Furthermore, you can't punish someone for having the capability to do something they have no intention of doing. Conspiracy to commit a crime still requires intent, and that isn't present in this case.

A rental contract is not unilateral. An End-User License Agreement is unilateral. Go ahead, call Access and ask to re-negotiate the terms of your license agreement, see if they agree. If they do, then I'm an asshole. If they don't, then violating the agreement is the only way (short of litigation) to make it clear to them that the agreement is unacceptable as presented.

I have no idea what you meant by the first part of that, but in the second part, you are correct that my disinterest in absolute control over my products doesn't preclude anyone else having an interest. However, nobody deserves to have that much control over a product that someone else uses, regardless of how much effort they invested to develop it.

Despite the running argument, please scroll up to read the piece of U.S. Copyright Law that I quoted. I think it settles the matter once and for all.

confusion: you were reacting to me as if i was demanding Access to do something to support the software for hpc's or even develop a version for hpc's.

i never did that. please read my earlier posts again.

all i said was it would be best if Access just didnt care and leave us alone. which is not what has happened.

and, it cost one email to them? what if C:Amie hadn't obliged it? then it'd have wasted more of their time trying to get him to agree. there was a risk of more waste of time. so they did bother to do this and risk wasting time.

hope it is more clear now.

sorry to get in this other argument but couldnt resist

1) are you serious? i can't believe it. how would it disable the security of the software? do you even know what modifying netfront to run involves?

for hpc2000:
- (for version 3.3 only) edit OS version (subsystem version) to make it lower so the CE loader attempts to run the software.
- optionally edit the mfcce300.dll import dll name to mfcce301.dll if you want to avoid conflicts with other software.
(and copy aygshell.dll, cellcore.dll (cellcore for version 3.3 only), mfcce and olece dll's to your device - this isn't a modification)

for ce.net 4.2:
- copy cellcore.dll, mfcce and olece dll's to your device (optionally aygshell.dll)
- optionally edit the mfcce300.dll import dll name to mfcce301.dll if you want to avoid conflicts with other software.
- optionally edit coredll.dll import name to coredl2.dll


how is that to do with security??????????????????
(dont take the question marks personally! i'm just surprised!)

note: for version 3.0 on hpc2000, and for either version on ce.net you may not have to modify the software at all in some cases.

note2: to disable the trial expiration or anything like that, modifying it would be much harder and would require actual understanding of assembly and opcode encodings and usually also a debugger, etc. etc.
so the two things have nothing to do with each other.


2) bad analogy, the software again has no feelings or anything.



p.s.: i don't consider this as detailing the hack, because i'm not telling how to edit the imported dll name or OS version.

Edited by cmonex 2007-10-11 1:37 PM

I read it, and it appears pretty clear-cut. So maybe someone should confront Access with this information - right? Only problem: as noted above, we're supposedly not actually buying a product - we're only buying a license to use it.

You make a good point about marketing products without making sure that they work the way they're supposed to. Heck, the pharmaceutical industry has done it for decades. Cases in point: 1) heroin (marketed a century ago as a cough remedy); 2) phencyclidine (PCP - used half a century ago as an animal tranquilizer); and 3) methylphenidate hydrochloride (Ritalin - pharmaceutical "researchers" never could really explain the paradoxical effect of this stimulant on hyperactive children). The bottom line always trumps any effort to look out for the consumer.

My sense is that the real motivation behind the language of these software EULAs is to prevent cracking of the software code to avoid paying for the product. If I can make it work outside its intended platform, how do they know I can't crack the registration code?

No judge will support the argument that you're only buying a license to use the product, because 1) the product exists in physical form as aligned magnetic bits on your hard drive, if nowhere else, and because 2) the law states that the exemption applies to "the owner of a copy of a computer program", not "the owner of the original copy of a computer program."

- - -

With regards to product testing, obviously you have some unresolved disagreements with the pharmaceutical industry, but in the software industry, alpha-testing and beta-testing are simply the most practical and effective ways to test applications. Takwu seems to draw his experience from the European school of software design, which breaks down every application into its component algorithms and then uses mathematical proofs to demonstrate their validity, and that is appropriate for certain products, such as banking software, autopilots, nuclear detonators, and so on. When it comes to mass-marketed products, though -- especially freaking ginormous products like MS Office, MS Windows, Linux, World of Warcraft, and so on -- the number of possible combinations of commands is so large that it would literally be beyond the capability of the entire population of the world to test them all in a reasonable period of time. (I seem to recall a statistic regarding Windows XP, claiming that it would take five billion people three thousand years to test every possible combination of commands, at a rate of one combination per minute.) That's why beta-testing exists; rather than taking the exhaustive approach, which will invariably test things that nobody will ever try to do, and rather than taking the selective approach, which will invariably exclude tests for commands that will end up being used much more than expected, it's simply more effective to let the users actually use the product and then give them free patches to fix the problems they discover in real life.

Edited by deusexaethera 2007-10-12 2:02 PM

Well, I'll go back to my first statement - the statute language you cite appears pretty clear; have you confronted Access with this information?

did you not read my last post (Posted 2007-10-11 7:30 PM)

let me quote myself





also........ if someone wants to crack it (and has the knowledge for it), no EULA or cease & desist will stop them.

so why should we suffer from this?

oh well, i think i have made myself clear enough, i'll shut up for the rest of this thread.

You've just confirmed my point. That seems to be why they don't want anyone to touch the code at all. Sure, they can't stop anyone, but if anyone gets caught, they can be made to pay dearly. Of course, they can't catch anyone who does it for him/herself at home, but they can go after people who post the hacking method online (or, failing that, threaten to shut down the sites where such posts are made), or who sell the hacked code.

Of course, it's stupid that they don't recognize that they could solve this problem by working with us to port an H/PC version (and thereby generate additional profits, small as they may be). They'll lose additional business because at least a few smart people won't want to do business with a company that shows that it really cares little about customer satisfaction. The question is, will they lose enough business to care?

I really do not want to get into the "nuts and bolts" of the issue, but want to address the comment "No judge will support the argument". Comments like this are really made with the assumption that a company such as Access would never really go to the trouble of actually taking this to court, especially in a country that is not Japan, where they are located. This is a really bad assumption, and I need to get away from software and a EULA to illustrate the point.

My business is that of a Tour Operator, speciallizing in Bike trips, mostly in France. For quite a few years, up until two years ago, I did a very large business bringing Americans to France during the three weeks of the Tour de France. For those who do not follow the sport, the Tour de France is pretty much a national festival where for three weeks the race winds through just about every region of France, and is attended by millions of people who sometimes camp out for days just to see the riders go by. There is support by every local police department as well as the government of France. The roads are closed where need be, and the whole country supports the event. There is no ticket required to see the event ... just a lot of patiience and fortitude to get where you need to be in order to participate in this glorious specticle.

Most people, including those who are real afficianados just assume that it is run by the Republic of France. In fact this is not true. The race is run, and the name "Tour de France" is put on by and owned by a private company ... the company that owns the sports daily newspare Equipe. It is a huge money maker, and the regions where the tour rides through actually bid to have the tour pass through because of national pride, and the impact on tourism.

About 2/12 years ago, some of the marketing people who had been woring for French Open Tennis went to work for the Tour de France organisation. One of the first things they came up with was that no one should be able to use the name Tour de France without paying a licencing fee. The name "Tour de France" in fact is registered in just about every county as a Trade and Service Mark. This included advertising a trip to the Tour de France, or even using the name Tour de France in any advertising. They decided that anyone wishing to use the name for tourism should become licenced, for the fee of 20,000 Euros (now about $28,000 per year, as well as having to pay 10% of the gross sales for any trips. Since there was not THAT much money to be made with these trip, the numbers were outragious.

When word of this came out, tour operators such as myself just laughed at it. It was felt that it was a French national event, there was no ticket involved, and that the French government would kill the idea since the event brought so much tourism to France. Within a short time all tour operators selling and advertising such trips received letters from the French lawyers of the TdF Organinzation.

There was an huge amount of discussion about this, that makes the discussion here seem trivial. It was felt that the threat of os lawsuit was just a threat, and there was no way that they would really go after anyone. Most of us tour operators ignored the Cease and Desist request and just went on as we did before, and continued advertising out planned trips. Within a couple of months we in the US, as well as other operators in other countries received certified letters that if we do not either obtain a license that we would face legal action.

Four years ago I was honoured by being presented with the "Gold Medal For Tourism" by the Republic of France. I am very active with the French Government Tourist Office both here and on the other side of the pond. As a result I do have access to those that matter. I had many conversation with executives and government officials in France after this mess was announced. The bottom line was that although the French govenment was not really happy about the situation, it was explained that there was nothing that could be done about it, even though the government provided so much support for the event.

At that point, most of the US tour operators decided to just give up on these trips, especially since Lance Armstrong had retired, and there would now be minimal interest in the event for US travelers. There a few who decided that it was just a threat, and continued to advertise these trips, and did run trips the following year.

To make a long story short (if that is still possible ), these tour operators were served and sued, and now are in a position that they will have to spend thousand upon thousands of dollars defending them selves. Some did offer to now stop the paractice to get rid of the suits, but the offer was refused. The ltigation will go on for quite a while, at great expense.

The point of all of this is that regardless of any opinion that any of this software and EULA stuff would never be held up in a court, it is not worth the risk to find out. Once the monster of legal action is set into motion, the consequenses could be catistrophic.

Sorry to have taken so much space to make the point, but it is a good illustration of what can happen when a law suit is threatened by a company that is contractually in the right.

Smart people pick their battles. I am sure that anyone who was sued for downloading songs off of the internet really did not think there would be any consequenses .... but anyone who has followed the news has seen what the results are.

Len

Edited by Leonard_Caplan 2007-10-12 6:25 PM

sorry, i do not understand how i confirmed your point.

am i talking to people here who never hacked netfront to run?

you should be fully aware of how you have no idea about assembly and cracking, you don't have the slightest idea on how to start disabling the security of an app, and yet, you can get netfront working on an HPC...

(do not interpret this in the wrong way please. )

Edited by cmonex 2007-10-12 11:02 PM

Leonard_Caplan:

It was a good example, but it neglected two points:

1) Japanese law doesn't apply outside of Japan, and outside of Japan is where any modifiers would have to be sued, unless Access could somehow convince various foreign governments to extradite the defendants to Japan.

2) In the USA (which has more/less the most restrictive copyright laws in the world), the law specifically prohibits copyright owners from winning lawsuits involving computer programs modified by defendants strictly for the purpose of using them with the defendants' hardware. They haven't a leg to stand on. Access may not be aware of that law, since they are based in Japan, but any lawsuit would not be much of a lawsuit as the law is quite clear on the issue.