Yet more world+dog patent suits, this time over encryption A hitherto little-known company called Maz Technologies has taken aim at seven major vendors, filing lawsuits claiming that they infringe its security patents. Maz Technologies first popped its head over the patent parapet in 2002, when it sued a company called PC Dynamics over a security patent, and in 2008 it settled a suit …
Needs to be something hard and sandpapery, and no lubricant. Covered in Tabasco? Barely 2000 on Scoville. Something more like Scotch Bonnets, or Moruga Scorpions.
A three-phase chainsaw would work if you can't find the traditional bloody spear. Wielded by a robot, though — wouldn't want to get too close. You never know what bloodborne pathogens you could catch that way.
My coat would be the one with pockets containing a mix of dental tools and construction implements.
This post has been deleted by its author
"Fuck them. Fuck every single patent troll. With something pointy; plugged into the mains; and bred from a particularly convoluted cactus.
EDIT: (because I can): Also; apply it with a cordless hammer drill. And cover everything with tabasco."
But tell us how you really feel... (also, swap the tabasco sauce with jelly made from ghost chilies)
This post has been deleted by its author
Real product. Real Company. Patent has been around since the late '90s. Cast your mind back to that time and try and remember how you encryped your work then. This would have been cutting edge stuff in those days and it is quite clever, removing (L)users from the loop and ensuring their work was encrypted when it mattered most.
Save your contempt for those that have ripped off the idea and are selling it as their own.
Emacs has had crypt mode, with automatic en/de-crypting of files on read and write, since 1988 at the latest. How does it do it? It adds a software module (crypt.el) to an electronic document management system (Emacs) which traps file i/o events (load, save) and applies crypto.
General encryption of *any* (non-setuid) Unix program by using LD_PRELOAD to hook into the file i/o at the system library level has been around since well before 1998.
And surely IBM have been hooking crypto into file i/o since the year dot?
"Real product" in the sense that they're really trying to assert a false claim of invention, you mean. We've had encrypted containers that act as filesystems for a long time.
This isn't even a patent for a technology, it's a patent on when you can USE a technology. Defenestrate the miscreants forthwith.
Encrypted filesystems/containers have been out there far before this company. And given the method they patented (intercepting I/O calls and encrypting data on that point) pretty much covers any kind of whole disk encryption systems. There's a program that predates this patent for more than a couple of years, and it worked on DOS.
It is a troll. As trolltastic as Apple's "phone as a hyperlink" patent, which patents a feature found on a lot of phones predating that patent as well.
Looking at Maz's court filings there is an obvious lack of detail, basically they claim that vendor xyz is infringing patent abc - a style of filing common to those who are trying it on.
I find the specific filing against Lenovo interesting, as here they are claiming Lenovo's ThinkVantage software used inconjunction with the fingerprint reader infringes their patent US8359476; a patent that was filed in 2010. From what I can determine, my 2007 Thinkpad with factory installed fingerprint reader and ThinkVantage software also infringes this patent...
The patent US6185681 (filed in 1998), seems to infringe the Wang patent US4633430 (filed in 1986) as effectively all Maz are doing is a specific "document manipulation means" and "document access means". What is interesting is that Maz are not taking on the major document management system vendors and hence we can assume that they know they don't really have a case.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
