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| Perens on the Virus |
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Tuesday, January 27 2004 @ 06:28 PM EST
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Bruce Perens has published the following article, which I reproduce in full, from the version on NewsForge.
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The master version of this notice is at http://perens.com/Articles/SCO/DOS/. Please check that location for a more recent version. You may re-publish this material. You may excerpt it, reformat it and translate it as necessary for your presentation. You may not edit it to deliberately misrepresent my opinion.
January 26, 2004, a new virus became rampant. I have reports that the virus payload has two purposes: to send an email spam for a mail-order "Viagra" vendor, and to perform a denial-of-service attack on SCO's web site.
Denial-of-service attacks via virus have been a common trick of email spammers. They were first used to take out some of the anti-spam blacklist sites. Several of those sites had their (non-spam-related) business so heavily disrupted that they closed the doors of their anti-spam projects rather than be attacked again.
The Open Source developers are a target of spammers. We are the creators of most high-profile anti-spam technology. For example, SpamAssassin started out as, and remains today, an Open Source project. The predominant mail delivery programs of the Internet are Open Source projects such as Sendmail and Postfix, and thus most efforts to spam-proof those programs are Open Source as well. This is important, because it gives spammers a reason to defame us.
SCO also has a reason to defame us, as part of their stock-kiting scheme. We have assembled ample evidence that they have lied under oath in court. Such a company would not balk at attacking their own site in order to paint their opponents in a bad light.
Thus, it is likely that this virus has been assembled for the purpose of defaming the Linux developers by spammers, SCO, or others. Your behavior will influence whether or not it succeeds in this mission.
Thus, I urge all persons who have sympathy for Free Software, Open Source, and Linux:
- Do not cheer on attacks on the SCO site. By doing so, you falsely implicate our community in the attacks, in the eyes of outsiders who read your words. Our community believes in freedom of speech, not silencing our opponent's speech through net attacks. We will defeat SCO using the truth, not by gagging them.
- Publicly deplore the attacks as an attempt to defame us, and not an effort of our community. Show others this notice.
- Continue to fight SCO, using all legal means at your disposal. Show others the analysis of SCO's ongoing fraud at Groklaw.net and elsewhere, and explain to them your own experience as a participant in the Free Software community.
- Continue the visible presence of Free Software as a force for good in the world by producing excellent original software for everyone's free use and deploying it wherever possible. Promote these projects to the press and public as you carry them out. Do what you can for other public-good projects such as schools and non-profit organizations. FreeGeek.org is an excellent example of how to carry this out.
- Show others by example that our side always takes the high road. When they see a low-road sort of action like denial-of-service, spam, or stock fraud, they'll know who to blame.
Remember that your actions count. You are ambassadors of our community.
Many Thanks
Bruce Perens
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 27 2004 @ 06:44 PM EST |
I don't completely agree with Mr. Perens on this issue.
For one, as a "community" we have to recognize that we are a
community of people. As such, we will vent in our fora. We will cheer when our
perceived enemies receive rough justice. We will poke fun at them. We will not
always take the high road.
So I think we should cheer when SCO gets hit with something as annoying as an
e-mail virus, written to target customers of one of SCO's licensees, with a
payload aimed partially at taking down their website. It's funny. Really, it
is.
What we shouldn't do is perform these things ourselves. Leave that to the
penis enlargers and scammers; the general scumbags of the earth. They're
already low, dirty, mean, and venal; let them do what they're good at and just
be happy that it's not us they're targetting for once.
I don't so any wrong in enjoying a little levity at the expense of a target so
deserving as SCO.
Pierre[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Mark_Edwards on Tuesday, January 27 2004 @ 06:53 PM EST |
>You may not edit it to deliberately misrepresent my
opinion.<
I wonder why he placed this at the top of the letter?
grin... [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: SkArcher on Tuesday, January 27 2004 @ 06:53 PM EST |
...that comment on /. and elsewhere tended to break down as
follows;
- 40% - Which idiot did this?
- 30% - WooHoo!
- 20%
- conspiracy theories.
- 10% - trolls & flamebait
This kind of
thing is just WRONG. I don't care how ill-treated anyone feels, or how much
"1337" status whoever wrote this thinks he is gaining from his associates, it is
just dumb.
SCO are almost bound to use this as an attempted excuse for
delaying, and have put out a Bounty offer for whoever did this.
Much as
I don't like SCO, this does not help anyone. I don't believe the conspiracy
theories that SCO or MS engineered it themselves as it would be too dangerous
for them to do so.
I think this is someone selfish and foolish acting
off their own bat. I doubt it is anyone who has actually contributed code to a
FOSS project, as it seems this worm is a modification of earlier worms and is
designed with obvious knowledge in MS systems, not FOSS ones - and besides,
anyone with deep knowledge and interest in the court case can see how tenuous it
is and knows that the best solution is to let the case run its
course.
Now; If this can be traced, can we catch the culprit?
Collecting money from SCO and donating it towards the Linux defense fund would
be profoundly ironic...---
irc.fdfnet.net #groklaw [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 27 2004 @ 07:09 PM EST |
I agree with Mr. Perens that taking the high road is the proper course of
action. However, two actions suggested by Mr. Perens stand out as failing to
take the high road. First of all, insisting that the entire open source
community is innocent of wrong-doing in the MyDoom outbreak. At this point in
time, the open source community cannot be certain that one of our members is not
the guilty party. To claim that we are all certainly innocent undercuts our
credibility. To claim that SCO is culpable in the outbreak is likewise
uncertain, and undercuts our credibility again. We must deplore the damaging
and unlawful activities regardless of the source and be prepared to take our
public relations lumps bravely and without shrill responses. Our community is a
subset of mankind, and as such contains both the good and the bad. To claim
otherwise is unconvincing.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: m0nkyman on Tuesday, January 27 2004 @ 07:10 PM EST |
C|NET had an article that has a possible motive buried at the
bottom:
Gates also said Microsoft is looking at ways of developing
e-mail protocols so that a recipient can verify the sender of the e-mail. "This
is critical for security," he said, "and for getting rid of
spam."
Let's see, if MS can somehow take control of the standards
for email, it might break the hold on server systems that UNIX/Linux have. To do
that, one would almost have to make email unusable in it's current form....
Not that I'm a crazed paranoid MicroSoft basher or anything ;)
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: blacklight on Tuesday, January 27 2004 @ 07:34 PM EST |
"Show others by example that our side always takes the high road."
I agree with Bruce Perens is that a solid kick to the head is just as effective
as a kick to the groin. We have refrained from delivering low blows, which
should amount to little to no consolation to the SCO Group since we are hitting
it as hard and as fast as we can. The SCO Group should know that the fight ends
when we so decide and only when we so decide: the fight does not end merely
because the SCO Group says "no mas" and throws itself on its knees
begging for mercy. As one my friends used to say: "I can't hear
you!"[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Stumbles on Tuesday, January 27 2004 @ 07:52 PM EST |
| This non-sense talk open source is some how involved goes beyond
any current
substantiated facts, of which concerning the origin and
author,
there are none.
By the logic of Chris
Belthoff, for Sophos,
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/01/27/mydoom.spread/index.html
I can easily surmise the following;
Let's use
all those companies who are/have been in direct
competition with
Microsoft and suffered DDOS attacks from other
notable Windows based
viruses and Trojans. The culprit most clearly
has to be
Microsoft as they are the only ones who would
benefit from
disrupting their competitors daily operations.
It continually amazes me
how some people can keep theirs jobs
making such false accusations. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: snorpus on Tuesday, January 27 2004 @ 07:54 PM EST |
| Bruce Perens is certainly in a better position than I to have inside
information, and I respect his statement. I will simply offer the following as
an alternative, simpler, explanation.
The purpose of Novarg/MyDoom is to
create spam relay sites. The one week away DDOS on www.sco.com is a diversion
(which with this much notice, should be fairly easy to counter). SCOG may have
been chosen just because it's a hot topic these days... would anyone care if
www.levitra.com were DDOS'd. OK, you really don't have to answer that.
I do,
however, entirely concur with Bruce (and most of the responses that I have read)
that "the high road" best befits a software philosophy that is based on trust
and openness.
---
73/88 de KQ3T [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 27 2004 @ 08:00 PM EST |
I am feeling completely stupid, but it seems a whole thread is lost?!
Afair
it was started by a posting of Pierre. Am I certifiably insane?[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: PJ on Tuesday, January 27 2004 @ 08:10 PM EST |
I note new people posting comments today that are totally out of
character for Groklaw. I have gotten rid of them, as they appeared to be
trolling. If anyone sees any more offensive comments, please let me
know.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 27 2004 @ 08:14 PM EST |
Whether the person who initiated the DDOS on SCO is part of the Linux community
or not is not important at all. He/She is just a criminal. Even if that person
is a Linux fan, so what? If that is how people characterize this person, how are
we to characterize all the past virii writers? They must be SCOUnix fans, no? Or
maybe Windows fans![ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: shoden on Tuesday, January 27 2004 @ 08:14 PM EST |
CNN has gotten on the SCO owns UNIX bandwagon in this article about the
virus.
Expe
rts: Vicious worm 'Linux war' weapon
---
S.K.
MR.
MCBRIDE: Your Honor, I have a smaller, obviously -- [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: RDH on Tuesday, January 27 2004 @ 08:15 PM EST |
The man is correct. For my own purposes, I follow one simple creed:
"Be responsible; be accountable; bring no harm to others."
I don't want to be lumped in the same league as SCO by accusations that my
being part of the OpenSource movement means I will resort to underhanded tricks.
OpenSource means transparency and being up front. Virus writers (and spammers)
are neither. They seek to create havoc for their own selfish ends... and
doesn't this sound like the motto of a certain company?
Anyone who advocates OpenSource Software and sings praises for the virus writers
are living a contradiction, and they do not belong in the OpenSource community.
'Nuff said by me.
RDH[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 27 2004 @ 08:17 PM EST |
| CNN quoted the Sophos site but neglected to include the following quote from the
Sophos writer:
"Of course, it's the last kind of assistance the open source
community would want at this time."
But we've come to expect this kind of
slander from the mainstream press.
This link is to the Sophos article
itself, so you're not victimized by CNN's laziness:
http://www.sophos
.com/virusinfo/articles/linuxwars.html
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 27 2004 @ 08:23 PM EST |
Come on .... Linux programmers .... Windows (or DOS) code ... am I the only one
that sees a problem here?[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: blacklight on Tuesday, January 27 2004 @ 08:32 PM EST |
The groklaw community implicitly agrees and endorses Bruce Perens' statement
that we should stick to the high road: anyone who has followed groklaw over a
period of time should have been able to reach the conclusion that the facts, the
law and the facts applicable to the law are on the side of the OSS community and
that for this reason, the SCO Group's legal flights of fancy are bound to end
in a series of crash landings. In this context, acts of vigilantism are not only
unnecessary, they are counterproductive in that they distract everyone's
attention away from dealing with the issues at hand and they give the SCO
Group's PR machine a free opportunity to paint the Open Source community with a
broad brush - thus lowering the signal to noise ratio. Recall that in order to
be considred credible by third parties such as corporate America, the SCO
Group's PR machine must lower the signal to noise ratio to the point where
there is little to choose between the SCO Group's noise and ours. Unnecessarily
self-inflicted wounds should remain a SCO Group monopoly.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 27 2004 @ 08:33 PM EST |
As I type this a pr flak from Symantec Asia Pacific is on national radio
confidently stating that :
- "huge dissruption's" are being caused by a new worm called
...blah blah
- this worm is "on step away from cyber terrorism" by
"dissaffected unix" geeks against SCO. ( words to that effect)
- this "huge dissruption" is due to "the power" of this
worm.
No mention that the diruption is caused by long standing well known faults in
Monopoly$oft's products.
No attempt by reporter to determine how he arrived at the conclusion as to who
is really behind it.
No doubt the rest of the main stream press will fall in with this intellectually
lazy approach.
You know, I used to admire journalists when I was younger.
I try to remain open minded but I see more & more evidence of big business
alling all the shots.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: brenda banks on Tuesday, January 27 2004 @ 08:41 PM EST |
on sco?
they are already beaten but just dont know it
that is why they are scrambling to avoid court dates
why would the OSS community even bother ,if their site is down we miss all their
funny releases on it that are so funny
where is the logic to slow someone down when they are on a speeding train and
bridge ahead is gone
how are we going to get to read anymore constitution letters or anything
similar
we never know what fun is liable to appear
---
br3n
irc.fdfnet.net #groklaw[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 27 2004 @ 08:48 PM EST |
From Financial Times
Outages Continue
as SCO Offers $250,000 MyDoom reward
"SCO said it is
working with the U.S. Secret Service
and FBI to investigate the company's
reports of a DDoS
today, as well as the origins of the MyDoom virus"
I honestly hope the FBI and/or the CIA catch the culprit.
They
need to show the public that they are capable of
tracing this kind of criminal
activity. If they can't
catch this person, I'm afraid to say, they aren't worth
their salt. Regardless of the level of obfuscation, there
are logs and trace
evidence that should, at minimum, point
to an originating computer address.
At minimum, catching this criminal would save SCO's poor
investors
$250K. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: grayhawk on Tuesday, January 27 2004 @ 08:50 PM EST |
There is a legal way that SCO can be brought down. All contributers to Linux
could individually file suit against SCO internationally and locally in as many
venues as possible since they are trying to make money through illegally
licensing the real copyrighter's contribution which was submitted under GPL
license. If SCO had to face hundreds if not thousands of court cases worldwide
to defend its actions, it, as they say in the far east, "Would die the
death of a thousand cuts". There would be so many legal fronts that SCO
could neither afford it nor cover them all. There is no need for any illegal
activity such as DDos since doing so only lowers one to their level.
---
All ships are safe in a harbour but that is not where they were meant to be.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: miss_cleo_psy4u on Tuesday, January 27 2004 @ 09:03 PM EST |
Again, as posted elsewhere on Groklaw, I call on Groklaw and
FLOSS to offer a bounty for the apprehension of the perpetrator.
Let us be the first to pay for the information leading to the arrest,
ahead of SCO. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: belzecue on Tuesday, January 27 2004 @ 09:14 PM EST |
From the press release:
"The SCO Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: SCOX), the owner of the UNIX(R) operating
system and a leading provider of UNIX-based solutions, today confirmed that it
is experiencing a distributed Denial-of-Service (DDOS) attack."
Okay, I don't understand. The worm is programmed to flood SCO's server on Feb
1. Here in Australia it is Jan 28. Are they misreading the surge in traffic to
their site from curious netizens as the DDOS itself?
Darl goes on:
"We do not know the origins or reasons for this attack, although we have
our suspicions. This is criminal activity and it must be stopped. To this end,
SCO is offering a total of $250,000 reward for information leading to the arrest
and conviction of those responsible for this crime."
Yes, of course you have your suspicions, Mr McBride. If you have evidence, we
would all like to see it put on the table. In fact, you would have the entire
FOSS community helping you to follow up on those leads.
As for 'it must be stopped', if Microsoft and all their enormous resources
cannot stop this beast of their own creation (viruses and worms), how will SCO
do it by offering a 250K reward?
And what is the real point of offering a reward? If you nail one virus writer,
will this bounty safeguard SCO from all future worm/virus attacks? Couldn't
you spend that 250K on the distributed server technology that would protect SCO
from this kind of attack?
Instead of throwing hissy fits and stomping your feet, why not -- as pointed out
many times before -- engage Akamai or some other distributed host so that any
DDOS will be ineffective in future? No money left in the kitty to actually run
a business after handing over the wallet to Boies?
Interesting that the tone of the press release is no longer just 'we are the
victim'; it has become 'we are victims just like you'. Another call to the
business 'silent majority' who supposedly support SCO.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: brooker on Tuesday, January 27 2004 @ 09:15 PM EST |
PJ, I am what many might call "Joe Six-Pack's Mom". Though I may
be a little more computer savvy than many women my age, I am by no means an
expert on anything (IABNMAEOA?).
I am posting this comment as an ordinary member of the general public. I have
been following Linux & Open Source stories in the news for many years. I am
interested and fascinated by the dynamics of the community, and the concept of
Free & Open Source Software. I do not hope to ever understand the technical
ins & outs of everything I read, but I have always been impressed with the
goals and attitudes of the community as a whole.
The fact that some folks in this world expect your community to hold itself to a
higher standard than they hold such companies as Microsoft and SCO actually says
a lot. It means that they know your community is up to the challenge.
Certainly few people are surprised by bad behavior from large corporations. It
is almost expected these days.
It seems that Mr. Perens also believes that the community is up to the
challenge, and will do its best to maintain the highroad at every turn...and I
believe he's right.
For those in the community who feel the message is not getting out to ordinary
folks (like me?), please take heart. We may not know how to be helpful, but we
probably understand what's going on better than we sometimes get credit for.
The mainstream news sites, and journalists, seem to be their own biggest fans
and readers as far as I can tell. I think the general public has long since
learned to take their stories with a grain of salt.
PJ, you are rather amazing. I applaud your efforts, and appreciate your hard
work and good sense. This web site is a valuable source of information, and a
favorite part of my day. I'm sure your wonderful research, fact-finding, and
well written explanations have already helped to tip the scales of justice in
the right direction.
You have reason to be very proud of that.
Thank you. brooker [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: converted on Tuesday, January 27 2004 @ 09:40 PM EST |
I was read a book last week
that finally put words to something I was feeling
but did
not quite know what it was. The humanity behind the
internet and
wondeful communities like Groklaw. No more
force fed messages. No more
sanitized pr? I believe is
stood for progaganda during wars. Anyway... I just
thought
other might enjoy a book I found mind set awakening
The
Cluetrain Manifesto
the end of business as usual.
Personally...I'm greatly enjoying
the re discovered human
voice....
...or is that voices? :^P
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: lpletch on Tuesday, January 27 2004 @ 09:42 PM EST |
From the article FBI probes new
internet virus
More than one million copies of the virus
had been intercepted so far, according to the security firm MessageLabs, which
said the first copies detected were from Russia.
No
mention of SCO from FBI though.---
lpletch@adelphia.net [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: The Mad Hatter r on Tuesday, January 27 2004 @ 10:00 PM EST |
Bruce, PJ, RMS, Linus, and the vast majority of the Free Software/Open Source
communities are right in that we should the high road. I strongly doubt that
anyone directly connected with the FS/OS communities is involved in this latest
DDOS on www.sco.com - after all most of us are not experts at Windows
programming - why would be?
From SCO's point of view though we've been taking the low road against them
all along. Consider:
1) Bruce wrote an excellent article about SCO, Unix, and the case just after
things started.
2) PJ started a blog called Groklaw that was critical of SCO.
3) Bruce (and others) ripped apart their code show in August.
4) Various members of the FS/OS communities have been writing letters to the
Press pointing out errors in stories, and many cases were SCO has been less than
truthful.
5) Complaints against SCO have been filed with the governments of the USA,
Australia, Germany, Canada, United Kingdom, etc. by members of the FS/OS
communities.
6) The major Linux distributors have refused to roll over and die - in fact Red
Hat is suing SCO, and SCO is suing Novell (who purchased SUSE).
7) Linus tore apart their arguments about the ABI files in a typically Linus way
(with a king sized dose of humor).
SCO is clearly in the right - but the FS/OS communities keep interfering.
Children are supposed to be seen and not heard, but the children of the FS/OS
communities refuse to be quiet.
So I would not be surprised to find that SCO was involved with the SCO
Denial-Of-Service Virus. Everything that SCO has tried has blown up in their
faces. Desperate people do desperate (and stupid) things.
Another possibility - remember King Henry II of England saying, "Will no
one rid me of this priest?", and several of his knights deciding that he
wanted the Archbishop of Canterbury killed? I suspect that many of the execs at
SCO have made comments like this about us.
And of course there's IBM. That our communities, known mostly for our continual
state of anarchy would back Big Blue must have been inconceivable to SCO. It was
inconceivable to most of us that we would end up cheering for IBM a year ago.
SCO has been so rattled by our backing of IBM (and I suspect that IBM itself is
more than a little bemused by this) that they've even gone so far as to claim
that IBM has been orchestrating our attacks on them. After all a group so
disorganized as we are couldn't hit them as accurately or as often as we have
without someone pulling the strings. And of course IBM has the programming
talent to do just about anything...
So from SCO's warped point of view, we took the low road the second that we
opposed them. We've kept to the low road by continuing to oppose them. The case
was supposed to be SCO and IBM, not SCO, IBM, and 25 million kibitzers.
Is it any wonder that SCO is upset?
Wayne
telnet hatter.twgs.org
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: mobrien_12 on Tuesday, January 27 2004 @ 10:33 PM EST |
Perens Wrote:
I have reports that the virus payload
has two purposes: to send an email spam for a mail-order "Viagra" vendor, and to
perform a denial-of-service attack on SCO's web site.
I
submit that the SCO DoS attack component is just a red herring thrown in by the
spammer who wrote this virus. After all, who will be looking for a Viagra
spammer when clearly there are more juicy targets (those theoretical open-source
terrorists who want to torment SCO for protecting its IP) out there.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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- Red Herring. - Authored by: Jude on Tuesday, January 27 2004 @ 10:48 PM EST
- Red Herring. - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, January 28 2004 @ 03:35 AM EST
- Red Herring. - Authored by: jesse on Wednesday, January 28 2004 @ 11:30 AM EST
- Red Herring. - Authored by: dht on Wednesday, January 28 2004 @ 05:32 PM EST
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| Authored by: Joss the Red on Tuesday, January 27 2004 @ 10:40 PM EST |
"Denial-of-service attacks via virus have been a common trick of email
spammers. They were first used to take out some of the anti-spam blacklist
sites. Several of those sites had their (non-spam-related) business so heavily
disrupted that they closed the doors of their anti-spam projects rather than be
attacked again."
So, remember parents, by using an OS that is succeptable to email viruses
you're helping spammers to put porn into your child's inbox.
Kinda makes windows sound a little less user-friendly, doesn't it?
---
I don't even play a lawyer on TV.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 27 2004 @ 10:59 PM EST |
While I agree with most of this I would add one observation, don't mistake a
lack of sympathy for SCO and being a supporter of this DDoS foolishness.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 27 2004 @ 11:31 PM EST |
I agree totally about taking the high rode, but is there anyone else that just
can't feel sympathy for SCO??[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, January 28 2004 @ 01:01 AM EST |
You know the truly ridiculous thing about all this is the presumption that the
"Open Source" or "Linux Community" has an official
membership and that we have some mysterious control over who uses Linux or
admires it.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, January 28 2004 @ 01:10 AM EST |
Yes, this is the definition of a team member. It's not whether he
is seen walking around in the office or at other meeting areas.
Or even his claims of being a member. It's his ACTIONS that
says what +he is.
One can take on the "colors" of the enemy by acting against
one's group.
Our team could be defined as those how writes code for the
greater good of all. Part of that is that our group does not
support unlawful actions. We DO fight, but, within the law.
If the originator(s) of those viruses are developing OSS s/w
they are not acting as OUR team members, but have taken on
the color of the enemy. This could be a mistake, however it does
show a low regard for law and order.
I don't recall if the previous attacks on SCO were proven to
have originated from themselves, but in my opinon darl is not
above doing something like this. In fact, I see him try this kind
of clumsy dancing around the truth as soon as he opens his
mouth.
Steve. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: zjimward on Wednesday, January 28 2004 @ 09:59 AM EST |
First I have to wonder what people from the community were cheering on the virus
attack. If Mr. Perens is responding to some comments left in regards to an
article then he might be making assumptions that some one cheering on the attack
is of the community. That is not a good assumption either. I hope if any thing
he only made the comment hoping to remind people how to respond professionally.
Secondly, wouldn't the best thing for the community to do would looked for ways
to produce safeguards/software which would help defend against this attack? It
appears that the best PR would be having open source developers providing free
solutions, even for Windows, against attacks like this one. Then where would SCO
and others stand when trying to explain how bad it is to have the open source
community.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, January 28 2004 @ 10:12 AM EST |
Am I the only one noticing the coincidence of the timing?
SCO would have had a due date for producing information already, but they
managed to get the court date deferred to Feb. 6. Recent events, including
letters released by IBM make it pretty clear that SCO does not want to (or just
can't) produce specific evidence regarding their claims.
So, now, as I see it, there's pretty much nothing stopping them from hitting a
legal brick wall on Feb. 6.
Except, of course, for this virus. Imagine Darl walking into the courtroom and
saying "I'm sorry your honor, I would have had the information already,
but this virus targetted our servers and brought down our corporate
infrastructure. We've been down since the DDOS started on Feb. 1, and won't
be able to recover until it stops, which we hope will happen on Feb. 15. Please
grant us an extension." What judge wouldn't be sympathetic towards a
plight like that? And of course, they come back two weeks later with further
tales of woe, about backup servers that crashed and data that was lost, and how
it'll take even more time...
IANAL, but, as I see it, this virus is their best hope for not completely
imploding on Feb. 6.
The timing is just *too* perfect. A week later, and it wouldn't affect their
court date. A week earlier, and it might have mostly blown over before the
court date. The fact that this timing is so perfect seems to me to be pretty
hard evidence that SCO is behind it. One thing is certain, this is much better
and more concrete evidence than anything SCO has shown to back up their claims.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, January 28 2004 @ 10:38 AM EST |
I can appreciate Bruce's comments to a point. I do however think he should give
a bit more credit to the Open Source users and advocates in the area of what we
should and should not do as representitives of the Open Source Movement. Most I
believe would agree that Linux enthusiasts for example have more respect for
others and their work and tend to not act like 3 year olds spamming, attacking,
and dossing others networks. Nor do most geeks have the time. Are we capable?
Well sure. But our belief system stems deeper than just the software itself, and
our gratitude shows in the way we return our favors.
Bruce,
Please remember that the word "Movement" when associated with
"Open Source" is a belief system. Not just software. Please remember
that for the most part, we are all capable of doing both bad and good and have
the capacity due to our technical knowledge to make either happen. We choose to
support the efforts in which we join forces. A grade card or a written
"how to" is not necessary, but as always your words still remain
appreciated.
OSS Advocate
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| Authored by: kcassidy on Wednesday, January 28 2004 @ 12:07 PM EST |
May as well just wait until SCOs current ground of litigation is done. I mean,
programmers could file suit now, but nothing will be determined until the
outcome of the IBM / Novell / RH cases at any rate. And, if the company goes
belly-up after that, what is the point? You won't get any money from SCO anyways
and you will be stuck with lawyer fees. The best bet would be wait and see how
it turns out and THEN go for SCO, so that you can claim your share of the
$2.50 left in their accounts after everything is said and done.
Look
at it this way: If IBM wins, then odds are SCO will be gone anyways, and the
only money they will have will be from selling their "ownership" of UNIX to some
other company.
If SCO wins (and we still have to consider the scenario,
no matter how unlikely), then the proof that IP in code is protected by a
specific owner, and by their own argument all of the coders of Linux software,
kernel updates, etc. have grounds to sue SCO. Sure, they may claim that kernel
changes are derivative work, but there is tons of code out there "in" Linux (as
they put it) that can not be declared a derivative work and is therefore subject
to a lawsuit. And (and this is something I would do if I had something out
there), should I not be able to afford my own lawyer, I would talk to IBM and
see if they are willing to represent me if I assign partial ownership of my
copyrights to them. (Is this even possible?) It may sound underhanded and
sneaky, but that is what SCO is used to.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, January 28 2004 @ 02:24 PM EST |
Bruce is right; what is wrong is wrong no matter what the cause.
I find it rather amusing though that SCOX is always the "victim".
DDOS's happen all the time on the Internet, and with SCO being a bunch of lying
dogs, what do they expect? There are THOUSANDS of programmers out there. If
the OSS community were as vicious as they claim they'd be down 100% of the
time. Someone out there will attack them, and how that gets put into
"it's Linux activist fault" or "it's SCO's fault" or
"it's Microsoft's fault" is beyond me!
I'd put my money on none of the above. Most of the Woohoo! comments on /. I
thought were just people joking and blowing off some steam on their frustrations
with SCO.
What has happened to Common Sense in this post 9/11 world of ours? Stupidity is
so rampant in the last few years...
I think SCO blaming everything from the bad weather in Utah to DDOS attacks to
the rise of New Communism on Linux and OSS activists will eventually really,
really backfire on them. Even the Politically Correct out there will get tired
of them eventually!
I think we are lucky that such an inept bunch of guys are attacking Linux. The
whole thing is going to end up giving Linux some good precidents for future
challenges.
Keep the faith guys..[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: zjimward on Wednesday, January 28 2004 @ 04:35 PM EST |
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=94433&threshold=0&commentsort=1&
tid=187&tid=88&mode=thread&cid=8098796
I never thought I'd say this... (Score:0, Funny)
by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 27, @08:42AM
(#8098796)
Quick, disable your AV software, and get some Windows boxes on the internet!
Since this message there as been an apology posted at the following URL:
http://swamprat.homeunix.org/index.cgi/2004/01/28#20040128-2[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, January 30 2004 @ 06:37 AM EST |
| This were translated into portuguese at Propus
Este texto foi traduzido
para o português em Propus [ Reply to This | # ]
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