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Re: server hardware



Peter,

>> >Once you aquire property, as opposed to leasing it, it is yours, and there
>> >exists no law that can stop you from selling it on, as long as you pay the
>> >taxes involved and find a buyer, at least not in a capitalist society. Ok,
>> >weapons, and certain substances work differently but that is another
>> >issue.
>> >
>> >Also, no-one can stop you from providing this as a Pentium
>> >socket and software compatible processor, as long as you don't involve
>> >Intel and the Pentium name in any way.
>>
>> A recent USA HR legislation adopts a WIPO recommendation, in such a way
>> that, for example, owning a piece of binary code will not allow you do
>> decrypt it, reverse engineer it, or bypass any installed protection
>>measures.
>> (See HR 2281).
>
>You are ALWAYS allowed to do whatever it is that you need to do to improve
>your property in any way that you see fit. If this implies reverse
>engineering, don't tell anyone.
              ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hmm. This does not imply "legal", now does it :-)
(Read on)

>The trick is that modifying a piece of
>hardware or software such that it serves a purpose for which it was not
>designed by its maker, is NOT reverse engineering. Look up reverse
>engineering's definition. You can always say that you used 20,000 Pentium
>chips making random mods on them until they started working in SMP
>config, because your chiropractor predicted that this would happen.
>
>Moreover, the legislation brought by that court is illegal in most
>countries as far as I know, and some will fight it to the death, and I
>mean it. If the makers of software wish it to remain uninspected then they
>have to invest in cryptography etc and make it suitably unpenetrable for
>anyone whom they want not to see its inner workings.

My above reference was not to a court ruling. It was to a US legislation,
by the House of Reps. HR2281. Much more serious and scaring than a court
ruling.
(Read on)

>> So much of "property ownership" :-(
>
>I want to see the day when you are forbidden to lift the hood on your
>car's engine compartment because it contains 'trade secrets'. Don't be so
>funny, you make me laugh.

I'm glad this makes you laugh. I didn't laugh when I saw it though.
Actually it's pretty frightening. Strictly legally read, it might mean
that Intrusion Detection systems are illegal, as they "decypher"
code that was not meant to be decyphered. Anti-Virus software does
the same. You get my meaning. A whole new world of "crimes".

Note that you may have misunderstood my standpoint: I do *not* condone
this. Au contraire - I believe that passing this bill at the house was
a sad day for all of us.

>> (This probably does not apply to the Pentium modification - although
>> I can't be sure - but to the general statement quoted above).
>
>Big bodies of clueless bureaucrats who elaborate laws and standards have
>been known to shoot themselves in the foot before, so this one is tiny.

No it is not. This is heavy stuff. More countries now plan to follow suit.

>Just to drive a point home: The law you mentioned would make it illegal
>for an American government agency to reverse engineer or examine for
>example Russian software of whatsoever kind, including captured military
>stuff, in their own country. The crypto export stuff is bad enough as it
>is, and now they had to add this. I am ROFL.

Government agencies are always exempt, don't you know.

>It would also make all Y2K mods required by software whose source is not
>available illegal. I could think of about 2000 other oopses related to
>this but I don't have the time.

Yes it probably would. Plus many other things. It's a Bad US law.
We should do our best to make our local legislators smarter (yes, yes...).

We may be far off topic here...

Doron Shikmoni