Originally shared by Andreas Schou

Originally shared by Andreas Schou

Why I'm Paying Ex Bono For A Former Client: Battelle v. Southfork

As anyone who's been following my stream for the past week knows, late last week, an Idaho security startup -- Southfork Security -- was recently the subject of an unprecedented ex parte data seizure and injunctive order. Between competitors in a single industry, this might be relatively normal. It might be the kind of case which would be worth hashing out at length and enriching the lawyers.

But instead, the day I found out, I sent $500 to my ex-client's legal defense fund. I'm going to send another $500 bucks today. And because I can't take his case pro bono, and am not his lawyer with respect to any related issue, if this drags on, I'm going to keep sending his legal defense fund $500 until I've refunded every last dime he's paid me in legal fees. 

That's how important this is to me. And here's why:

Battelle Isn't A Competitor. It's a Government Contractor.

As many of you might know, Battelle isn't a cybersecurity company. It's an enormous, hypothetically not-for-profit government contractor that runs a number of American national labs. That includes Idaho National Laboratory, which hosts ICS-CERT (the embarrassingly-named 'Industrial Control System Cyber Emergency Response Team') and a number of associated laboratories, each of which is associated with critical infrastructure vulnerability assessment and protection.

This year, Battelle licensed a product it had been working on -- a network visualization, whitelisting, and fingerprinting tool -- to a private company, NexDefense. Southfork Security, my former client, also bid to open-source the software, but withdrew before the competition was over. If you're aware of the state of network security, you're probably aware that this is a solved problem. Perhaps not the special case of industrial control system security, but the principle is not substantially different. 

That leads us to the second problem.

Battelle Tried to Patent Sophia.

Up front, this case is nominally about copyright. I mean, all the pleadings are about copyright, and all the damages are based on copyright, but -- as the complaint mentions here -- the real issue is probably the patent.

On May 23, 2012, BEA filed for a patent entitled “Systems, Methods, and Computer Readable Media for Monitoring Communications on a Network,” Serial No. 13/478,343 (the “Sophia Method Patent”). The named inventors on the patent are theDevelopers. However, pursuant to their employment agreements with BEA, the Developers have each assigned all right and title to the Patent Application to BEA.

What everyone in the field is aware of, and Battelle is apparently not, is that there is a giant expanse of prior art. And government funds are being used to reach into that prior art, and -- if we, the public, are unlucky -- indefinitely swipe valuable, if not particularly novel, ideas from the public domain. On behalf of a private entity.

If there's an open-source product, the complainant -- that's NexDefense, which after yesterday no longer has a web presence -- might find it impossible to use its taxpayer-funded monopoly to extract license fees from its competitors. That's in the purely hypothetical event that it had a patent, which it doesn't.

Which leads us to our next problem.

Some Basic Googling Would Have Prevented This.

As Corey Thuen discusses at length in his declaration, and has been entered into evidence in the form of commit logs, Visdom's source code has been up on the web since the first stable release. It's on the second page of the Google search results. And its commit logs go back to March, after he took an unpaid leave of absence from Battelle to bid on Sophia.

Although you might notice the plaintiff's claim that the code submitted on March 28th was "substantially complete," you might also notice that (per the declaration) that that first commit was only 2000 lines. The last commit brings it up to a total of 19,000 lines. Perhaps I am missing a full understanding of what the phrase "substantially complete" means.

But probably not.

Oh, and it's also in Javascript. Which is an interpreted language. And the original is in C. Which is a compiled language. 

Also, Corey Thuen, who was the only Sophia dev accused, didn't write the back end. Someone else did. That person had never seen Sophia's code. He now works for Battelle, and as far as anyone knows, he disclosed the Github address in his COI paperwork.

Battelle Accused Corey of Being a Hacker. This Is What They Hired Him For.

In order to get the most invasive civil evidence order I've ever seen -- an ex parte order for preservation of evidence which required him to shut down his business for the better part of a week -- Battelle's investigator swore out an affidavit claiming that "hackers" are well-known to cover their tracks, and are capable of deleting evidence. And while I suppose that is the case, I -- a lawyer who owns a power drill and an electromagnet -- am perfectly capable of munging my hard drive until it'd be hard to get something off of it.

And here's the difference between me and my belt sander, and Corey and his sophisticated hacking skills:

I am not a guy who has passed incredibly invasive clearance interviews to gauge my propensity to munge my hard drive with a drill, electromagnet, and hammer. Corey Thuen is. When I was asked, when I was interviewed for his clearances, whether he had a reputation for honesty and forthrightness, I didn't hesitate. Of course he does. 

Which is why he's been, for his entire career, an incredibly trustworthy public servant, defending our country from both cyberattacks on our infrastructure and self-serving bullshit from antiterrorism hacks about cyberattacks on our infrastructure. Both of which are incredibly valuable.

They Haven't Dropped Their Lawsuit Yet.

You would think that, after receiving the source code, finding out that it was in the wrong programming language, and running a guy whose business and clearances depend on his reputation through the mud, Battelle would stop digging. 

The problem is they haven't. They're still coming.

As an enormous company that buys legal services in bulk, they can afford to lose this case as slowly as they care to. As two guys who buy legal services at retail, Southfork can't afford to win slowly. Which means that even if they're not bankrupted by an expert-intensive IP suit, they could easily be bankrupted by their own reliance on their attorneys. (Which is not to criticize Brad and Jason at Hawley Troxell. For IP litigators, they're working cheap. This case is just a lot of work.)

So long as Battelle keeps coming, I'm going to keep shoving money into Southfork's bankroll. I guess I'll just call it ex bono -- I've already done the work. I'm just giving them their cash back for it, because I believe in what they're doing.

If you care about software patents, or open-source software, or public-private coercion, or government overreach, or big corporations crushing the little guy, there's something here to outrage anyone of any political orientation. This is an important issue.

So let's tilt at some windmills. Because, seriously: screw this windmill. 
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/visdom-legal-defense

Originally shared by Irreverent Monk

Originally shared by Irreverent Monk

This is incredibly sad.

http://www.theherald.com.au/story/1848433/the-ocean-is-broken/?cs=12
http://www.theherald.com.au/story/1848433/the-ocean-is-broken/?cs=12

Originally shared by G. Gibson

Originally shared by G. Gibson

Petition (see below): Prosecute The Conspirators Who Plotted The Government Shutdown In Violation Of 18 USC § 2384

Conspirators Include:

Edwin Meese III – Former Attorney General under Ronald Reagan Charles Koch – Co–owner, Koch Industries
David H. Koch – Co–owner, Koch Industries
Michael A. Needham – CEO Heritage Action for America
Ted Cruz – United States Senator from Texas
Alfred S. Regnery – President, The Paul Revere Project
Andrea Lafferty – President, Traditional Values Coalition
Andresen Blom – Senior Strategist, Center for Civic Virtue
Angelo M. Codevilla – Professor Emeritus, Boston University
Becky Norton Dunlop – Former White House Advisor, President Ronald Reagan
Bob Reccord – Executive Director, Council for National Policy
Brent Bozell – President, ForAmerica
Brian Baker – President, Ending Spending
Chris Chocola – President, Club for Growth
Cindy Chafian – President, The Mommy Lobby
Colin Hanna – President, Let Freedom Ring
Craig Shirley – Reagan Campaign Biographer
David Bossie – President, Citizens United
David Bozell – Executive Director, ForAmerica
David McIntosh – Former U.S. Representative, Indiana
David Williams – President, Taxpayers Protection Alliance
Don Devine – Senior Scholar, The Fund for American Studies
Duane Parde – President, National Taxpayers Union
Eric Cantor – House Minority Leader
Erick Erickson – Editor, RedState.com
Gary Aldrich – President, Patrick Henry Center for Individual Liberty
Gary Bauer – President, American Values Grace
Marie Turner – President, The Galen Institute Heather Higgins –President, Independent Women's Forum
James Martin – Chairman, 60 Plus Association
Jenny Beth Martin – Co–Founder, Tea Party Patriots
Joe Gregory – CEO, Gregory Management Co.
Kay R. Daly – President, Coalition for a Fair Judiciary
Kenneth Blackwell – Conservative Action Project; President, Constitutional Congress, Inc.
Kevin Gentry – Koch Public Sector
Lee Beaman – Businessman, Nashville, TN
Lewis Uhler – President, National Tax Limitation Committee
Marco Rubio – United States Senator from Florida Marjorie Dannenfelser – President, Susan B. Anthony List
Mat Staver – Liberty Counsel
Mathew D. Staver – Chairman, Liberty Counsel Action
Matt Kibbe – President, FreedomWorks Michael Grebe – leads the Bradley Foundation
Mike Lee – United States Senator from Utah
Mitch McConnell – Minority Leader, United States Senate, representing Kentucky
Myron Ebell – President, Freedom Action
Pat Toomey – United States Senator from Pennsylvania
Patrick Pizzella – Conservative Action Project Penny Nance – President, Concerned Women for America
Phyllis Schlafly – Conservative Action Project
Ralph Benko – President, Center for Civic Virtue
Senator Rand Paul – United States Senator from Kentucky
Rebecca Hagelin – Activist and Right Wing journalist
Rev. Lou Sheldon – Chairman, Traditional Values Coalition
Richard Rahn – President, Inst. for Global Economic Growth
Stuart Epperson – President, Council for National Policy
Susan Carleson – President, American Civil Rights Union
T. Kenneth Cribb – Former Domestic Advisor, President Ronald Reagan
Tom Donelson – Chairman, America's PAC
Tony Perkins – Conservative Action Project
William Wilson – President, Americans for Limited Government
http://www.credomobilize.com/petitions/prosecute-the-conspirators-who-plotted-the-government-shutdown-in-violation-of-18-usc-2384?source=facebook-share-button&time=1381510965

Originally shared by James Salsman

Originally shared by James Salsman

via Morgan Woroner 
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/10/government-shutdown-affects-biomedical-research/

" Since I started working with the Snowden documents, I bought a new computer that has never been connected to the internet.... "

" Since I started working with the Snowden documents, I bought a new computer that has never been connected to the internet.... "

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/05/nsa-how-to-remain-secure-surveillance
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/05/nsa-how-to-remain-secure-surveillance

Beyond the grave:

Beyond the grave:
http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3088#comic
http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3088#comic

Waiting for the end

Minutes before the demolition of Warren Hall.   It fell in absolute silence in my telescope view; half a minute later the explosions echoed through:
live video here: http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_23880450/hayward-hillside-landmark-warren-hall-set-demolition-saturday

Charles Stross on Snowden

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/08/snowden-leaks-the-real-take-ho.html
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/08/snowden-leaks-the-real-take-ho.html

Worth knowing...

The new profile picture (generated w/ "papercamera") had no face in it, according to google.

Just contributed $695 to the Ubuntu Edge Campaign

Just contributed $695 to the Ubuntu Edge Campaign: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ubuntu-edge/x/917214.  It's an interesting gamble: I think there is about an 80% chance that funding will fail, but if it succeeds, and if they pull it off, I will have a potentially delicious gadget to deal with...
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ubuntu-edge/x/917214

Update 5 years later: Yes, it failed, and my $695 went down the toilet.

The Guardian on Snowden

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/jul/28/edward-snowden-death-of-internet
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/jul/28/edward-snowden-death-of-internet

Daniel Ellsberg's "Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnamand the Pentagon Papers"

Just finished reading Daniel Ellsberg's "Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers" -- a really great book, and a sad reminder that the institutional bureaucracy of the US government is capable of enormous evil.

There is no meaningful comparison between 2,000,000 dead in Indochina and the NSA PRISM program, but the mechanisms that kept us in Vietnam for 25 years are alive and well, and just as much a concern.

Little Guy and Kaylee, watching us eat...

Little Guy and Kaylee, watching us eat...

Empire State Building, June 30, 2013

Empire State Building, June 30, 2013

The Economist on Snowden

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2013/06/edward-snowden?fsrc=nlw|newe|6-17-2013|5918266|35269293|
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2013/06/edward-snowden?fsrc=nlw

SMBC comic...

http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2939#comic
http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2939#comic

1/180 ???

At the bottom of the page, it says: "1/180"... 180 pages of dense legalese.  Aside from the sheer humor value, does this constitute an unenforceable shrink-wrap agreement?

Rereading "The Ballad of Lost C'Mell" by Cordwainer Smith.

Rereading "The Ballad of Lost C'Mell" by Cordwainer Smith.  

Smith didn't write many stories, but they linger in my mind far more than most. The first one I remember reading was "No, No, Not Rogov!" -- I remembered the story intensely, but forgot where I read it, or who the author was.  "Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons" was the same -- the story burned itself into my memory, but I couldn't remember where I read it or who it was by.

A couple of years ago the mystery resolved:  there's a book that reprints his complete short works.  Some of the titles have an amazing poetic liveness:  "The Dead Lady of Clown Town",  "Alpha Ralpha Boulevard", "Scanners Live in Vain", "The Colonel Came Back from the Nothing-At-All".
http://www.amazon.com/Rediscovery-Man-Complete-Science-Cordwainer/dp/0915368560/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1362700388&sr=1-1&keywords=cordwainer+smith

Gunnerkrigg Court

Gunnerkrigg Court -- one of the most beautifully drawn web comics: http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1159
http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1159

Nexus 7, RIP

Pulled my nexus 7 out of my gym bag and opened the cover to find the screen festooned with a thick spiderweb of cracks.  The screen lights up with no flaws in the image, but the touch response is gone.  I can't even acknowledge the "OK" to power it off.

The gym bag was just clothes and notebooks, but it was in a place where other people could dump stuff on it.  Someone must have hit it hard, or sat on it, or something.

A quick search indicates that there isn't really a cost-effective way to repair it; has anyone used an old 8G model as a source of spare parts?

Refugee

I laughed...

I laughed...
Colin Hay - Talking about Sir Paul
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fOkadJSvvY

Stuck in the rain for too long...

Stuck in the rain for too long...