Lawsuits, patent claims silence Black Hat talk
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A planned talk on RFID security by a security researcher has been pulled from this week's Black Hat Federal security conference after secure card maker HID claimed the talk violated the company's patent rights and threatened to take legal action against Chris Paget, the researcher, and IOActive, Paget's employer, if the talk went forward.
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The U.S. Supreme Court declined Tuesday to hear appeals in two cases concerning the right of the entertainment industry to subpoena file-traders and whether telecommunication companies have to share their networks with startup competitors.ADVERTISEMENTSBC Case Study: Crate & BarrelWhat sold them on improving their network? A system that could cut management costs from the get-go. Find out more.
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No sense pointing the finger at Hewlett-Packard anymore; we have Congress and the FBI to do that. But I did want to discuss the âI didnât know what my employees/vendors/executive staff were doingâ defense -- which was, of course, made famous by Enron , so you have to know it just wonât do. Instead of looking backward, I spoke with a couple of experts on governance, privacy, risk, and compliance assessment about how companies can do the right thing in the future.
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A plan to help overburdened patent examiners solicits online advice from outside sources (read: you), calling on Slashdot's founder for a system to rank user comments. Plus: China blocks LiveJournal. In 27B Stroke 6.
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(InfoWorld) - Secure card maker HID Corp. is objecting to a demonstration of a hacking tool at this week's Black Hat Federal security conference in Washington, D.C. that could make it easy to clone a wide range of so-called "proximity" door access cards. HID has sent a letter to IOActive, a security consulting firm, accusing Chris Paget, IOActive's director of research and development, of possible patent infringement over a planned presentation, "RFID for beginners," on Wednesday, a move that could lead to legal action should the talk go forward, according to Jeff Moss, founder and director of Black Hat. IOActive will hold a press conference Tuesday at 9:00AM to discuss the issue, according to Joshua Pennell, IOActive's CEO told InfoWorld. Paget's talk will address widespread security issues with the implementation of RFID in proximity cards that are sold by HID and other companies and that are widely used for building access. His RFID cloner was on display at the recent RSA Security Conference in San Francisco, where he demonstrated for InfoWorld how the device could be used to steal access codes from HID brand proximity cards, store them, then use the stolen codes to fool a HID card reader. Paget's presentation at Black Hat Federal will go deeper, providing schematics and source code that attendees could use to create their own cloning device, and discussing vulnerable implementations of RFID technology in a wide variety of devices, Paget told InfoWorld at RSA earlier this month. "Hopefully I'll be able to give people some information about RFID and get some pressure on vendors to fix these lousy RFID implementations," Paget said. "As it stands, I can walk up to someone on the street or maybe stand next to them in an elevator, grab their card ID and get into the building," he said. So far, Black Hat organizers have not been contacted or asked to cancel Paget's presentation, but lawyers representing Black Hat, which was purchased by CMP, are ready should that happen, Moss said. "We're prepared for the worst," Moss said. The incident between HID and IOActive recalls a 2005 imbroglio between researcher Michael Lynn and Cisco Systems over a presentation of a flaw in Cisco's IOS at a Black Hat event in Las Vegas. In that incident, Cisco attorneys demanded that Lynn's presentation be torn out of the printed conference proceedings and that Lynn be blocked from giving his talk. Lynn ultimately resigned his position at Internet Security Systems Inc. (ISS) and gave the talk anyway, spawning lawsuits and even an FBI investigation of him. Lynn now works as a researcher at Cisco competitor, Juniper Networks. Whereas Lynn's hack of IOS was considered novel, however, the IOActive demonstration of RFID vulnerabilities is largely a rehash of known issues, intended more as an introduction, Moss said. "They've known about this for years and years," Moss said. Kathleen Carroll, a spokeswoman for HID's Government Relations group acknowledged that a letter was sent to IOActive but that it did not mention patent infringement. She said that the company has long been aware that its proximity cards are vulnerable to hacking but does not believe that the cards are as vulnerable as Paget suggests. "For someone to be able to surreptitiously read a card, they'd have to get within two or three inches and get into the same plane as the card," Carroll said. HID is also concerned that Paget's demonstration will popularize the vulnerabilities in its proximity cards and endanger its many customers. "These systems are installed all over the place. It's not just HID, but lots of companies, and there hasn't been a problem. Now we've got a person who's saying let's get publicity for our company and show everyone how to do it, and it puts everyone at risk. Where's the sense of responsibility?" Carroll said. According to Moss, HID has charged Paget with patent infringement over his presentation, but has not laid out any particular remedies or threatened actions, making it difficult to ascertain what the company might do -- if anything -- to block the presentation. Security problems with implementations of RFID are well known and have been publicized before. In 2005, security consultant Jonathan Westhues detailed attacks against implanted VeriChip RFID chips. More recently, in January, Westhues posted detailed code and schematics for an RFID hacking device that can act as a reader, eavesdrop on RFID transactions between reader and a tag, analyze the signal received over the air, or impersonate a tag.Â  In 2005, Avi Rubin and other researchers at Johns Hopkins also sounded the alarm about weak security in RFID implementations by hacking technology from Texas Instruments that is used in late model car ignition systems and electronic payment systems, as well. All that attention hasn't sparked much change at companies like HID, which makes fifteen different types of proximity cards in their Prox Products and Indala Prox Products lines, all of which are believed to be vulnerable to cloning, according to Paget. "Some of these cards have been around for 15 years and were developed when there was no awareness of the problem," Carroll said. Asked why HID hasn't addressed the issue in more recent proximity card systems, after knowledge of RFID threats became common, Carroll said that doing so would cause "major upheaval" among customers.Â  Inertia is a more likely cause, said Dan Kaminsky, director of penetration testing at IOActive. "They didn't want to change to a more secure implementation because of backwards compatibility issues, and they had a lot of sites that use these cards, and HID has stuff to sell them," Kaminsky said. Paget's hack was no feat of engineering wizardry, Kaminsky said. "It took a month -- and he wasn't even working on it full time." The problem is that RFID technology, although good for inventory tracking as a replacement for barcodes, is not well suited for security, Kaminsky said. "The technology is very convenient, but don't interpret the convenience as security," Kaminsky said. "At the end of the day, many companies are essentially using barcode technology to control access to their facilities. I'd posit that perhaps there are more secure technologies out there." HID recommends that customers who are concerned about cloning upgrade to one of HID's smart card products, which do encrypt transmissions between card and reader and are more difficult to hack, Carroll said. HID also recommends that companies that use the cards train their employees to look for suspicious activity that might indicate that someone is trying to clone or spoof access cards. As for Paget's presentation, Moss expressed frustration over HID's actions, especially given the widespread attention to RFID security holes. "It's just so frustrating from a security standpoint. Now anytime someone wants to talk about anything, they need a team of lawyers. Even when it's about commonly understood problems," Moss said. For now, Moss said Black Hat is supporting Paget and his presentation -- even if last minute changes are needed to satisfy HID, Moss said.
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Toshiba is taking action to protect its patents. The Japan-based company has accused Hynix Semiconductor of violating seven patents in the United States, including ones for DRAM, and three flash-memory patents in Japan.
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Red Hat Inc.  Chief Executive Matthew Szulik said his company last year held talks with Microsoft Corp  over a patent agreement that broke down before the software giant signed a deal with Red Hat rival Novell Inc .
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(InfoWorld) - Leaders of Microsoft's strategy to make its products more interoperable with competitive technologies said the company still hopes to strike a Linux pact with Red Hat similar to the partnerships it's forged with Linux vendors Novell, Xandros, and Linspire. "We'd love to do the same deal with Red Hat," said Tom Robertson, general manager of corporate interoperability and standards at Microsoft in an interview Friday. "We're always open to talking with them." That sentiment so far has not been the same on Red Hat's end, as the company has said it's not interested in a deal. Red Hat spokeswoman Leigh Day said Friday that is still the case. "We continue to believe that open source and the innovation it represents should not be subject to an unsubstantiated tax that lacks transparency," she said in an e-mail. Still, some wonder -- as Microsoft lines up the other Linux ducks in a neat little row -- if Red Hat might be next, and rumors suggest a pact might be imminent. Microsoft's latest Linux deal came Thursday in an intellectual property-sharing and interoperabilityÂ agreement with LinspireÂ that would shield the company's customers from Microsoft patent-infringement claims. The deal follows oneÂ struck by Microsoft and Linux distributor XandrosÂ last week, as well asÂ a high-profile and financially significantÂ deal with NovellÂ late last year. Microsoft has said it is seeking these partnerships for a couple of reasons. The one Robertson is most interested in is interoperability, as he -- along with Jean Paoli, general manager, interoperability and XML architecture -- is in charge of Microsoft's 18-month company-wide strategy in this area. Robertson said Microsoft customers have demanded the company address interoperability issues with other companies' software, including open source, and that IP (intellectual property) in those products is a concern for them. "If you look across the industry, you see companies working together to address IP on behalf of their customer base," he said. Microsoft has publicly said that Linux and other open source softwareÂ violates 235 of the company's patents. But rather than seek litigation as a way to settle these IP claims, Microsoft is striking these individual deals, Robertson said. However, much has been made of the fact that the company has not publicly disclosed any of the patents it claims open source software is violating. Robertson would not address why Microsoft will not show its patents and stopped short of claiming the deals with Novell, Linspire, and Xandros prove those companies are indeed violating Microsoft IP. None of the Linux companies will say so, either, and Novell in fact has vehemently denied infringement. This discrepancy is one reason some feel Red Hat will never sign up for an indemnification deal with Microsoft. The size and business viability of the companies that have signed on is another. Novell was flagging when its deal was struck -- and the company has continued to wane even since -- and some familiar with how it happened said it was a bailout to save the vendor from being split up and sold piecemeal. Indeed, Novell's U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing about the deal revealed that Novell got $348 million up front from Microsoft for patent cooperation and Linux coupons, while having to shell out only $40 million to Microsoft in return. Though Microsoft will not comment on the financial terms of deals with Xandros and Linspire, those familiar with the agreements said those companies also received financial compensation from Microsoft. This begs the question that if interoperability and protecting customers are Microsoft's ultimate goals for the deals, as Robertson said, why is the company so interested in Linux companies that ultimately don't affect that many customers? Many -- particularly those in the Linux camp -- suspect Microsoft is trying to make it appear that open source distributors are violating Microsoft IP to vilify them in an effort to dissuade customers from using Linux and other open source technologies. Bruce Perens, a longtime Linux and open source advocate, said Microsoft is giving Linux companies that are on the edge of going out of business money to create the illusion that Linux vendors are stealing its IP. Perens is a vice president at SourceLabs, a company that provides testing, management, and certification of open source software to users. "Here is Microsoft out collecting the losers in the Linux business and paying them money so they can ... paint open source as music pirates out there using Microsoft technology without a license," he said. "I think they're out to scare people." Even if this is the case, it take two to tango, and it's important to note that companies such as Novell, Linspire, and Xandros benefit in various ways from their deals with Microsoft. Aside from any financial compensation, the companies also gain access to Microsoft technology that would make their own Linux products more viable in the marketplace, analysts said. "These companies want the deals with Microsoft because it will make the products more attractive and more compatible with the Windows world," said Michael Silver, an analyst with Gartner. "It's pretty clear that there is definitely value for these companies."
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Microsoft Corp. is denying that its CEO Steve Ballmer told Asian government leaders on Thursday that Microsoft believes that Linux violates more than 200 software patents.
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A company finds a sneaky new way to silence security researchers: Claim that defeating its products infringes on patents. Commentary by Jennifer Granick.
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Blog: A yearlong pilot project called Peer to Patent aims to help patent examiners by compiling public comments about computer- and software-related applications submitted by companies like Red Hat, Intel and IBM.
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Last week OPTi announced a patent infringement lawsuit against a bevy of chip companies. At issue are two patents for "Compact ISA-Bus" technology. Check out this and other original content from CNET's Blog network.
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Microsoft&#39;s aggressive defense of its intellectual property, which includes claims that Linux violates a number of its patents, is nothing more than &quot;a marketing thing,&quot; according to Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux kernel.&quot;They have been sued for patents by other people, but I don&#39;t think they&#39;ve -- not that I&#39;ve gone through any huge amount of law cases -- but I don&#39;t think they&#39;ve generally used patents as a weapon,&quot; Torvalds said. &quot;But they&#39;re perfectly happy to use anything at all as fear, uncertainty, and doubt in the marketplace, and patents is just one thing where they say, &#39;Hey, isn&#39;t this convenient? We can use this as a PR force.&#39;&quot;Torvalds made the comments during the second half of an interview conducted by the Linux Foundation Executive Director Jim Zemlin on Oct. 16. The foundation is expected to make the rest of the interview publicly available on its Web site Monday. The foundation released the initial portion of the interview in January.&quot;Another reason why I don&#39;t think Microsoft really seriously would go after patents is when you&#39;re a convicted monopolist in the marketplace you really should not be suing your competitors over patents,&quot; Torvalds continued. &quot;I think that most Microsoft lawyers would say, &#39;You know, let&#39;s not do that; that sounds insane&#39;.&quot;Microsoft&#39;s recent work around improving its platform&#39;s interoperability with Linux left Torvalds largely unmoved.&quot;I think there are people inside Microsoft who really want to improve interoperability and I also think there are people inside Microsoft who would much rather just try to stab their competition in the back,&quot; he said. &quot;I think the latter class of people have usually been the one[s] who won out in the end, but -- so I wouldn&#39;t exactly trust them.&quot;Microsoft spokespeople on Friday declined to comment on Torvalds&#39; remarks. The company has said it believes that Linux infringes on its intellectual property, although it has been criticized for not being more precise with its allegations.Torvalds is instead focused on improving Linux, he said. &quot;I work weekdays, I work weekends, I work 52 weeks a year. I don&#39;t want there to be any question of who&#39;s the best maintainer,&quot; he said. &quot;And at the same time, I actually also do want to encourage competition. ... So, I actually enjoy seeing all these other kernel trees happening. All the vendors have their own.&quot;However, the Linux kernel community overall could be more welcoming to new ideas, he suggested. &quot;One of the problems is we have people who have such high criteria for what is acceptable or not that it scares away people who want to do new code and do new experiments,&quot; he said. &quot;We mustn&#39;t set the bar that high. New code, new drivers, there will be problems and I&#39;d rather take them and then improve them.&quot;Even as Linux matures as a technology, it has yet to make a major impact in the mainstream desktop market. &quot;It&#39;s really hard to enter the desktop market because people are used to whatever they used before, mostly Windows ... There&#39;s just this huge inertia in that market,&quot; he said.In contrast, he said, it was much easier to sell Linux in the context of a server: &quot;There&#39;s just a few loads, they&#39;re fairly simple, they&#39;re fairly well-understood, people have much less inertia in upgrading a server than they have in upgrading their desktop.&quot;At one point, the discussion turned to Sun&#39;s work to create an open-source community around Open Solaris. Torvalds expressed deep skepticism toward the effort.&quot;It&#39;s generally hard to build a community around a commercial entity that also wants to be in control because everybody else around that commercial entity will always feel like they&#39;re at the mercy of Sun,&quot; he said.This dynamic is reflected in Open Office, &quot;where the fact that Sun wants to have copyright assignments and exclusive control over the license ends up being something that actually drives away some developers,&quot; he argued.Overall, Torvalds expressed ambivalence toward Sun, which recently has developed an image as a particularly open-source-friendly company. &quot;In many ways, Sun has done a lot of things right. At the same time, they seem to often have trouble going the full last step,&quot; he said.Ian Murdoch, vice president of Sun&#39;s Connected Developer group, defended Sun&#39;s commitment to the open-source model. &quot;An open-source project has to have coordination, it&#39;s not anarchy,&quot; said Murdoch, who earlier in his career founded the Debian version of Linux.&quot;If you look at the Linux kernel itself, Linus is firmly in control of that, and the only difference is he&#39;s an individual and Sun is a company. ... Some of the most successful open-source projects are being driven by companies, like MySQL for example,&quot; he said.Torvalds also pulled out his crystal ball, offering predictions on how technology will change in the next five years.While hardware will be &quot;hugely better,&quot; software&#39;s power and complexity will grow alongside it, he said. &quot;I suspect things will be about the same speed because the software will have grown and you&#39;ll have more &#39;bling&#39; to just slow the hardware down.&quot;Virtualization is &quot;not that big of a deal,&quot; according to Torvalds. &quot;It&#39;s been all around for decades and it&#39;s very interesting in niche markets -- I think the people who expected to change things radically are just fooling themselves.&quot;Real change will come from entirely new uses of computers, he predicted.(James Niccolai in San Francisco contributed to this report.)
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The Software Freedom Law Center says the "junk patent" threatens open-source projects. The holder says it's willing to deal--but the group asks too much.