Malicious Compliance

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People conforming to the letter, but not the spirit, of a request. For now, this includes text posts, images, videos and links. Please ensure that the “malicious compliance” aspect is apparent - if you’re making a text post, be sure to explain this part; if it’s an image/video/link, use the “Body” field to elaborate.

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Here's all the source code (lemmy.sdf.org)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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In 2000, I wrote a Linux device driver that "decrypted" the output of a certain device, and my company, which hosted open-source projects, agreed to host it.

The "encryption" was only a XOR, but that was enough for the maker of said device to sue my company under 17 U.S.C. § 1201 for hundreds of millions in damages.

The story got a lot of press back then because it highlighted how stupid the then-new DMCA was, and also because there was a David open-source enthusiasts vs. Goliath heartless corporation flavor to it.

Our lawyer decided to pick up the fight to generate free publicity for our fledgling company. For discovery, the maker of the device requested "a copy of any and all potentially infringing source code". They weren't specific and they didn't specify the medium.

So we printed the entire Linux kernel source code including my driver in 5-pt font and sent them the boxes of printouts. Legally they had been served, so there was nothing they could do about it.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (10 children)

Professionally

My title is senior vulnerability researcher. Focus on mobile devices. That’s all I can really say without doxing too much

But the Linux kernel is always a juicy target because of the coverage and exploit there gets you.

[–] crbn 3 points 1 year ago (9 children)

Neat. Why is Linux kernel relevant for many mobile users? Is iPhone built off of it the same way Mac OS is?

What do you mean by coverage and exploit?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

MacOS is based of a BSD distrobution of Unix. iOS is a fork of MacOS

[–] crbn 1 points 1 year ago

Ah ok makes sense

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