sortofageek
Premium,Mod
join:2001-08-19
Valhalla Dr
clubs:
 ·Comcast
Host:
Team Helix
Distributed Comput..
Linksys
Comcast HSI
Comcast Cable TV
| reply to 11337845
Re: Sveasoft defamation
Okay, everyone, it has been interesting. However, I haven't seen a new concept for awhile and the flames/trolls seem to increase by the hour. Let's call it a dead horse now and move on, please. 
--
Team Helix Forum - Join Us? |
|
adz133
join:2002-12-03
| reply to Sveasoft6
I think they're actually the same person. They say the same crap, the stick up for one another ceaselessly.
There's a bar bouncer in England with an IQ of 200. OH MY GOD! You scored well on an abstract analogies test!
I'm going to go download the source code, just to spite James. I'm not actually going to use it, but I would feel better knowing I have pirated something free. |
|
11337845
Live free or die
Premium
join:2002-12-20
Seattle, WA
1 edit | reply to TooMuchBS
said by TooMuchBS:
Then why don't you go away with all this BS? I mean come on - this is like Beirut or something. What do you do shoot him or something? There is bigger problems than stupid GPL stuff when it's for free anyway.
You've GOT to love annonymous cowards. Why don't you sign in and say something lame like that?
Problems:
1. Sveasoft is punishing paying customers for exercising their rights under the GPL.
2. Sveasoft is altering each download of their beta software. While it is not known the extent of what is altered, at the very least it is part of a system to track which users have exercised their rights under the GPL and re-distributed their copy of the software.
While the tracking of the software in and of itself is not a violation of the GPL, distributing these slightly modified binaries without their slightly modified equivalent sources IS a violation of the GPL.
At the very worst, there may be a backdoor or "phone home" aspect contained in these files and that worries people. However, this has not been proven in the slightest, and at this point is only rumor and worry.
3. In some hair-brained attempt to control the chaos that he himself has made worse, Sveasoft has decided it is prudent to only distribute the source of his betas on cd's, and that the cd's will cost $50. How this accomplishes anything but alienation of customers I do not know.
It's not about the money. It's about the lying, the shady tactics of Sveasoft, and following the spirit of the GPL and the open source community.
-----NO CARRIER----- |
|
rwhitby
join:2002-01-22
Australia
| reply to joako
said by joako  :
said by TheIndividual:
The "friend" probably passed it on, maybe accidently. Having two routers run on the same subscription is no problem at all so that's not how Sveasoft can determine a leak.
But if you want to make it public, you'll have to risc getting your subscription canceled should Sveasoft get their hand on the firmware or its MD5 sum.
In 24 hours? I highly doubt that the firmware would have gone around the internet and back in 24 hours.
It took just under two hours for Satori-pre3.10 (a Sveasoft subscriber-only release) to make it to widespread distribution on the P2P networks.
24 hours is an eternity in Internet time. |
|
_Iceman_
@net.au
1 edit | reply to maaaac
$49 US a cd? James...
First you neutered your community by shutting off the forums where non paying users, ie 'the Internet' came to discuss and shape the project. (FYI this WAS your strongest future subscriber base - I was one of these people, I was considering subscribing, now you're actions have ensured you will never see a cent from me and I guarantee I'm not the only one.)
Now you're pissing off the only people who are actually PAYING you money? Great business model! Nobody is trying to end your precious project, some people may be trying to end *you* however (not that I blame them, you're acting like a stuck up brat).
I don't see a happy end to any of this, once someone has tried to 'take his ball and go home' they never have enough face to come back and act like decent people again. |
|
TooMuchBS
@168.143.x.x | reply to maaaac
Then why don't you go away with all this BS? I mean come on - this is like Beirut or something. What do you do shoot him or something? There is bigger problems than stupid GPL stuff when it's for free anyway. |
|
maaaac
join:2004-06-20
| reply to TooMuchBS
said by TooMuchBS:
There's free stuff from Sveasoft all over. How come you guys gotta get everything? I mean who cares? They been releasing free stuff for a long time now and everyone is upset about it. Maybe they should stop so all you guys go away and leave it alone.
If you read my summary post about a page back, you'd see that this is not about having to pay $20 for access to free software, but about Sveasoft going after people for redistributing that free GPL'd software. Redistributing the firmware is not illegal, but Sveasoft sure would like it to be. I would love for Sveasoft to go away so these baseless attacks (under the guise of "defending" their software) stop. They would sure piss off a lot of paying users if they did that though. |
|
tdb
join:2002-05-30
Concord, NC
 ·CT Communications
| reply to joako
said by joako :
Besides, doesnt Sveasoft have better things to do than scour the internet for the GPL code he distributes himself?
Based on what I've seen and heard, somehow I don't think so...
--
Linux, it's what's for dinner. |
|
TooMuchBS
@168.143.x.x
| reply to Sveasoft6
There's free stuff from Sveasoft all over. How come you guys gotta get everything? I mean who cares? They been releasing free stuff for a long time now and everyone is upset about it. Maybe they should stop so all you guys go away and leave it alone. |
|
jig
join:2001-01-05
Hacienda Heights, CA
| reply to Sveasoft6
just a couple questions. please link me to the proper posts if i missed them in the thread.
1) what stops the sveasoft firmware from being in perpetual beta? wouldn't this be an end-run of the GPL?
2) isn't his beta distribution model, by subscription, considered a 'public' distribution since anyone with $x can get it? where is 'public distribution' defined in the GPL?
3)how can his 'private' distribution also be considered licensed under the GPL (james seems to say this in the FAQ)? shouldn't he have it licensed under some other license? if the argument is no, because it contains GPL code from other authors, then i guess i get back to question 1.
-jig |
|
joako
Premium
join:2000-09-07
/dev/null
 ·AT&T U-Verse
1 edit | reply to TheIndividual
said by TheIndividual:
The "friend" probably passed it on, maybe accidently. Having two routers run on the same subscription is no problem at all so that's not how Sveasoft can determine a leak.
But if you want to make it public, you'll have to risc getting your subscription canceled should Sveasoft get their hand on the firmware or its MD5 sum.
In 24 hours? I highly doubt that the firmware would have gone around the internet and back in 24 hours. Besides, doesnt Sveasoft have better things to do than scour the internet for the GPL code he distributes himself? He saw the MD5sum, clicked on my name, saw my email address and connected it with my account on his site. |
|
tdb
join:2002-05-30
Concord, NC
·CT Communications
| said by Tut Tut:
Sveasoft will still live where he resides now.
Are you seeing the picture clearer now??
Just keep stirring the mud fellas.
And I'm sure James will continue with his anti-"freeloader" tirades, hunting down and harassing his own customers, and being pissed off at the big bad open source meanies out there. I, for one, think that is no way to run a business.
--
Linux, it's what's for dinner. |
|
TheIndividual
| reply to north7
The "friend" probably passed it on, maybe accidently. Having two routers run on the same subscription is no problem at all so that's not how Sveasoft can determine a leak.
But if you want to make it public, you'll have to risc getting your subscription canceled should Sveasoft get their hand on the firmware or its MD5 sum. |
|
tdb
join:2002-05-30
Concord, NC
·CT Communications
| reply to north7
said by north7 :
um, newb question here...
How could Sveasoft know that binaries that were tagged with a particular subscribers userid were flashed on routers that were not owned by that user?
I've read the entire thread, and my memory might be a little off, but wasn't someone's subscription revoked because he shared pre-release binaries with some friends who then flashed their routers?
Correct me if I'm wrong...
What happened was that those copies got out onto the p2p networks (primarily) and websites. Sveasoft would simply download the binary from wherever, look at the tag, and can the subscriber who originally downloaded the firmware.
--
Linux, it's what's for dinner. |
|
joako
Premium
join:2000-09-07
/dev/null
·AT&T U-Verse
| reply to north7
said by north7 :
um, newb question here...
How could Sveasoft know that binaries that were tagged with a particular subscribers userid were flashed on routers that were not owned by that user?
I've read the entire thread, and my memory might be a little off, but wasn't someone's subscription revoked because he shared pre-release binaries with some friends who then flashed their routers?
Correct me if I'm wrong...
That might be me. I was mistaken, my subscription was terminated for posting the MD5sum of the firmware. |
|
north7
join:2003-01-18
Scarsdale, NY
| reply to Sveasoft6
um, newb question here...
How could Sveasoft know that binaries that were tagged with a particular subscribers userid were flashed on routers that were not owned by that user?
I've read the entire thread, and my memory might be a little off, but wasn't someone's subscription revoked because he shared pre-release binaries with some friends who then flashed their routers?
Correct me if I'm wrong... |
|
maaaac
join:2004-06-20
| reply to mcmail
said by mcmail:
So you never pay for bandwidth then? thats a first. anyone that downloads from a website eats up bandwidth. to host a domian you pay for bandwidth.
If you read closely, I said "it costs almost nothing". I pay $4/mo. for a website with 3GB of bandwidth. That works out to $.0013/MB, so for the 35MB of source code, that would be approximately 4.6 cents. That is "almost nothing" compared to $50.00 for a CD. |
|
sargeeld
Sgm Retired
Premium
join:2002-12-16
Raeford, NC
clubs:
| reply to mcmail
said by mcmail:
So you never pay for bandwidth then? thats a first. anyone that downloads from a website eats up bandwidth. to host a domian you pay for bandwidth.
Hmmm, I get 20Gigs of bandwidth per month for $4.95. If I charge $50 per 35 meg download I start making profit with the first download...... If all 20 Gigs are used for downloads that comes to $28,550.00. Minus the $4.95, that leaves $28,545.05 in profit. I see what you mean mcmail!! 
--
Help Team Starfire get into fifth place... Join Team Starfire today!! |
|
Arno Nym
| reply to mcmail
So you never pay for bandwidth then? Don't be silly. He said "almost nothing". 35MB of transfer volume costs 7 cents if your webhoster rips you off and you pay $2 per GByte. The people who could download this file had paid $20, remember? |
|
Arno Nym
| reply to TheIndividual
Re: Analysis of the Alchemy 5.1 binaries
A backdoor or phone home function is still possible if it is in every firmware binary. I only checked for differences. I have yet to compile my own binary. Sifting through the whole source for trojan code would take a long time.
The squash filesystem has a magic number. Open the firmware image with a hexeditor and look for hsqs (0x68 0x73 0x71 0x73) or shsq (0x73 0x68 0x73 0x71). In the Alchemy 5.1 binaries, this signature is found at offset 0xB84A0. Copy everything from that point on into a new file. This file can be mounted on a system with a matching squashfs driver (mount -o loop -t squashfs image.sqfs /mnt). The squashfs 2.0 final driver does not recognize the filesystem images from Alchemy 5.1, but the squashfs source from the Alchemy source package can be compiled on an i386 as well. To create a new squashfs image, you would have to use the binary only mksquashfs from the Alchemy source package, concatenate the resulting image file with a header and a kernel and adjust the checksum in the header. This could be the point where the tag is created, so check the resulting filesystem image. You could also try using the newer mksquashfs directly from the author, but to avoid bricking your router, you should first verify that you can mount the filesystem image with a kernel which has been patched with the squashfs code from Alchemy.
It should be noted that the tagging need not be this obvious and it is absolutely possible to create tags in a way which permits exact identification of the group of files which has been compared in order to eliminate the tag. Detagging could thus get all subscribers kicked who offer their downloaded firmware for comparison. You would be better off sacrificing one subscription per release. |
|
