Practical Technology

for practical people.

June 11, 2008
by sjvn01
2 Comments

One small lawsuit for Red Hat, One big legal step for open source

Red Hat announced the settlement of patent litigation involving Firestar Software and DataTern on June 11th. Yadda, yadda. Another day , another patent lawsuit settled. Where the script changes is that Red Hat’s settlement covers not just its programs, but any open-source programs connected with the settlement.

“Typically when a company settles a patent lawsuit, it focuses on getting safety for itself,” said Rob Tiller, Red Hat’s VP and assistant general counsel for intellectual property, in a statement. “But that was not enough for us, we wanted broad provisions that covered our customers, who place trust in us, and the open source community, whose considerable efforts benefit our business.”

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June 11, 2008
by sjvn01
2 Comments

Ransomware: Malware Armageddon approaches

Some day soon, you may go in and turn on your Windows PC and find your most valuable files locked up righter than Fort Knox.

You’ll also see this message appear on your screen:

“Your files are encrypted with RSA-1024 algorithm.
To recovery your files you need to buy our decryptor.
To buy decrypting tool contact us at: ********@yahoo.com”

That’s right, ransomware is back and it promises to be nastier than ever.

This newest way of holding your PC at hostage was discovered by anti-virus and malware company Kaspersky Lab. This new piece of malware crap is the latest variant of the venerable Windows-based encryptor virus Gpcode.

The first time around Gpcode wasn’t that big a deal because it wasn’t that hard to crack its encryption. This time around, a few days after the malware appeared on Kaspersky’s radar, Kaspersky has been forced to look for help in busting the encrypted files.

The best part? This latest malware’s private security key is created by Windows’ own built-in cryptographic component, Microsoft Enhanced Cryptographic Provider. Kaspersky has the public key, but like any public/private key cryptographic method you must have its associated private key to unlock the encrypted files.

It’s moments like this that make me glad I abandoned Windows for desktop Linux years ago.

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June 10, 2008
by sjvn01
5 Comments

Violate the GPL at your own risk

It used to be that companies could get away with stealing GPLed open-source code into their own software and no one would be the wiser. Those days are done.

Oh, it still happens, but the SFLC’s (Software Freedom Law Center) recent legal actions on behalf of BusyBox‘s principal developers have been putting the fear of open-source violations into unscrupulous software companies. In the latest chapter, SFLC has sued Bell Microproducts Inc. and Super Micro Computer Inc. for using BusyBox’s open-source software without honoring its open-source license.

Both companies have been distributing BusyBox’s lightweight embedded Unix tools illegally without complete source code. By the rules of the GPLv2, which is the open-source license that covers BusyBox, every downstream recipient of the program must be provided access to the program’s source code

The SFLC contacted each company, but the businesses ignored them. Dumb move.

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June 10, 2008
by sjvn01
0 comments

Five reasons why it’s not business as usual for Microsoft

Bill Gates will be leaving Microsoft for good at the end of the month and Microsoft would have you believe that it will be business as usual for Microsoft. I understand they also have a great bridge between Manhattan and Brooklyn that they’d like to sell you. Cheap!

1) You can’t replace genius. Steve Ballmer is moving into the top slot, but I’ve met Bill Gates, and Steve Ballmer is no Bill Gates. He’s a big, bouncy sales guy.

Can’t you just see Ballmer selling used cars on a local TV ad spot? Instead of running around a stage shouting: “Developers! Developers!” just visualize him running around a car lot shouting, “Cars! Cars!” I find it far too easy to do just that. This is the man who’s going to replace Bill Gates? I don’t think so.

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June 9, 2008
by sjvn01
2 Comments

Firefox 3: Past, Present, and Future

July 2004 — Internet Explorer has held more than 95 percent of the browser market since June 2002. Over the last month, however, its market share has slowly dropped from 95.73 percent on June 4 to 94.73 percent on July 6.A loss of 1 percent of the market may not mean much to Microsoft, but it translates into a large growth, proportionately, in the number of users running Mozilla and Netscape-based browsers. Mozilla and Netscape’s combined market share has increased by 26 percent, rising from 3.21 percent of the market in June to 4.05 percent in July.—PC World, Mozilla Gains on IE.

June 2008 — Firefox 3 is almost here. The latest version is now at release candidate two and, in a word, it’s great.

It strikes me that we forget, even as many of us look forward to this great open-source browser just what hurdles Firefox had to overcome. Four years ago, Internet Explorer, thanks to Microsoft’s monopoly owned the Web browser market. Netscape, while still around, was already dead and buried for all practical purposes.

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June 8, 2008
by sjvn01
0 comments

The Mac’s new friends

Macs have been on sale in Apple stores for years now. They also show up in reseller stores from time to time. What they haven’t done, until recently, is show up in conventional box stores.

That’s why I was pleasantly surprised when I went in to kill some time at my local Best Buy in Asheville, NC to find a mini-Apple-store within a store. The store featured only four laptops, including the MacBook Air and a pair of Apple iMacs.

The little display area may be nothing compared to an Apple store, but what caught my attention was not only how many people paid attention to the mini-store, but how they paid attention to it. In the usual areas, you see two kinds of people.

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