Posted on 11/13/2009 1:37:37 PM PST by Swordmaker
Microsoft Patents Sudo?!! - Updated 2Xs |
Wednesday, November 11 2009 @ 10:36 AM EST |
Lordy, lordy, lordy. They have no shame. It appears that Microsoft has just patented sudo, a personalized version of it. Here it is, patent number7617530. Thanks, USPTO, for giving Microsoft, which is already a monopoly, a monopoly on something that's been in use since 1980 and wasn't invented by Microsoft. Here's Wikipedia's description of sudo, which you can meaningfully compare to Microsoft's description of its "invention". This is why what the US Supreme Court does about software patents means so much. Hopefully they will address the topic in their decision on Bilski. Sudo is an integral part of the functioning of GNU/Linux systems, and you use it in Mac OSX also. Maybe the Supreme Court doesn't know that, and maybe the USPTO didn't realize it. But do you believe Microsoft knows it?
Perhaps Microsoft would like everyone in the world to pay them a toll at least, even if they don't want to use Microsoft's software? Like SCO, but with more muscle behind the request? Or maybe it might be used as a barrier to competition? What do you personally believe Microsoft wants patents on things like sudo for? To make sure innovative new companies can compete on an even playing field with Microsoft? Although the invention has been described in language specific to structural features and/or methodological steps, it is to be understood that the invention defined in the appended claims is not necessarily limited to the specific features or steps described. Rather, the specific features and steps are disclosed as preferred forms of implementing the claimed invention.Please don't ever again write to me that software patents are good for us because they include full disclosure, so others can build on the "invention".
And to the USPTO, whose representative just argued in oral argument in Bilski that software should be patentable and that software can make a regular computer a special use computer, and all that drivel, please put those thoughts together with this patent, and consider the market implications of giving anyone that kind of monopoly, and especially the implications of giving it to a monopoly named Microsoft. It's like giving a serial killer his very own machine gun, stronger than any gun his intended victims are allowed to purchase. You have to ask, what were you thinking? Obviously, if they could figure that out, they'd never have issued this patent in the first place. The fact that they did, without realizing the implications, or the obviousness, or the prior art, tells us that the USPTO simply lacks the foundational technical information, or the awareness of technical history, to make wise patent decisions about software and patents.
The earliest sudo reference in the patent database Microsoft told the USPTO about is 1997, for patent 5655077, and in other references 1991, so for all the patent-loving dolts in the world, here is A Brief History of Sudo: Sudo was first conceived and implemented by Bob Coggeshall and Cliff Spencer around 1980 at the Department of Computer Science at SUNY/Buffalo. It ran on a VAX-11/750 running 4.1BSD. An updated version, credited to Phil Betchel, Cliff Spencer, Gretchen Phillips, John LoVerso and Don Gworek, was posted to the net.sources Usenet newsgroup in December of 1985.I guess Microsoft forgot to mention that. They certainly must know. And of course Microsoft and patent lovers will argue that this is a new and improved sudo, which has quirky new bells and whistles that no one else ever thought of before. From the patent: The invention claimed is:Etc. blah, blah. Dude. It's sudo. With a gui. Sudo for Dummies. That's what it is. Software and patents need to get a divorce, before all the geeks in the world either stop coding in disgust or die laughing.
Also, because so many of the In Re Bilski amicus briefs in Bilski warned of financial devastation and decreased innovation if the US Supreme Court limits what is patentable, I wanted to highlight a research study that seems to demonstrate the opposite. Here's the summary of the paper, Patents and the Regress of Useful Arts, by Dr. Andrew W. Torrance & Dr. Bill Tomlinson, [10 Colum. Sci. & Tech. L. Rev. 130 (2009) (Published May 15, 2009)]: Patent systems are often justified by an assumption that innovation will be spurred by the prospect of patent protection, leading to the accrual of greater societal benefits than would be possible under non-patent systems. However, little empirical evidence exists to support this assumption. One way to test the hypothesis that a patent system promotes innovation is to simulate the behavior of inventors and competitors experimentally under conditions approximating patent and non-patent systems. Employing a multi-user interactive simulation of patent and non-patent (commons and open source) systems (―PatentSim‖), this study compares rates of innovation, productivity, and societal utility. PatentSim uses an abstracted and cumulative model of the invention process, a database of potential innovations, an interactive interface that allows users to invent, patent, or open source these innovations, and a network over which users may interact with one another to license, assign, buy, infringe, and enforce patents. Data generated thus far using PatentSim suggest that a system combining patent and open source protection for inventions (that is, similar to modern patent systems) generates significantly lower rates of innovation ...Sometimes what "everyone" knows to be so, actually is not so. I thought, since the US Supreme Court seemed to me to accept as "fact" that patents are beneficial, it would be useful to point out that there is a significant basis for doubt that patents increase innovation. Finally, here's a video Patently O put on its site, which addresses that very question. As Patently O's Dennis Crouch describes it, in part: The video prominently features BU law professor and economist Michael Meurer whose book Patent Failure (with Jim Bessen) uses economic analysis to make the case that patents (particularly software patents) are a net drag on innovation.You can read three chapters (here's the chapter on Abstract Patents and Software) of Patent Failure - How Judges, Bureaucrats, and Lawyers Put Innovators at Risk here, and then order it and read it. Please. Update: Steve Martin notes that sudo goes back even further, to the 1970s and mainframes: Oh, good grief! This concept goes back way past BSD, back to the mainframe days. (See, for example, the XDS Sigma 7 UTS Reference manual (1971), Appendix B, the listing for monitor error code 09, subcode 00: "The user privilege level was not high enough to allow issuing a direct device OPEN".)
Update 2: More prior art. I got an email from a member who tells me this:
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Extend, Embrace, Envelope.
If you cant beat them, own them.
Sorry, your analysis is incorrect. What MS patented is NOT sudo. What they did patent is something that sudo does not do, namely, when an attempt to access an application fails, it presents a list of people who ARE authorized to execute the action.
Reading patents is very tricky and the focus has to be on the claims section and read with an mind toward lawyer speak.
Apple has been doing since 2001 exactly what Microsoft applied for a patent for in 2005 and received in 2009... and UNIX users have been doing it for 30 years...
If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.
I just read the patent. It's not new.
envelope? gonna mail that patent to someone?
“The sudo command is a program for some Unix and Unix-like computer operating systems that allows users to run programs with the security privileges of another user (normally the superuser, a.k.a. root).”
That will teach those nixsters once and for all! /s
I see what you are getting at... but if that is what it is, it appears to me to be a method to compromise computer security more easily. It would not be something I think would be a good thing.
Sudo is short for "Super User Do," a command to execute a command which is restricted with privileges normally reserved for high level administrators of the computer. For example, formating the hard drive would be a restricted level command... but SUDO Format C: (simplisticly) would allow a restricted user to execute that command.
To the extent that it notifies the potential hacker of which accounts they CAN use to gain access, you are correct. But security is always a balance. The trade of being that if you really do need access, it provides you the person to go to and get permission.
You are right, sudo does not do this at all. The idea behind sudo was to find a way to preserve system security and still allow users to perform useful tasks. List users who have permission to execute an action gives crackers a road-map to break into the system, which decreases security.
This invention apparently cuts at least half of the security out... given that it was a two step process. One had to input both an authorized user and that user's password. By cutting out the step of knowing the authorized user's name, it makes it that much easier to compromise security. For example, if I know that Joe Blow always uses his Wife's maiden name along with his anniversary date as a password, finding Joe Blow's name on the list of users authorized to execute the command opens the door to me immediately.
This invention apparently cuts at least half of the security out... given that it was a two step process. One had to input both an authorized user and that user's password. By cutting out the step of knowing the authorized user's name, it makes it that much easier to compromise security. For example, if I know that Joe Blow always uses his Wife's maiden name along with his anniversary date as a password, finding Joe Blow's name on the list of users authorized to execute the command opens the door to me immediately.
“I just read the patent. It’s not new. “
You graduated from Stanford Law, right?
Seriously, leave patent claim analysis for professionals. Typically patents, like this one, try to capture some very detailed scenarios, not just basic scenario such as “sudo”. The claim 1 is long and includes many limitations that are presumed novel.
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