Wi-Fi Redirect Gateway Patent for Hotspots 172
Glenn Fleishman writes "Over at WiFiNetNews.com, we just broke the story that Nomadix was issued a patent covering hotspot gateway page redirection. Nomadix makes hardware and software for the hotspot industry, and this patent would cover redirection used by community networking portals (like NoCat), sponsored free networks (like NewburyOpen.Net), and fee networks (like Wayport, T-Mobile HotSpot, and Cometa). It's unclear what terms Nomadix wants for a license, but this patent seems to take a standard way of doing business and put it under fee -- although Nomadix may have been the first firm to employ this method for proxy URL redirection."
Damn... (Score:1, Redundant)
It's just getting ridiculous. We really need to do something about patent and copyright law in this country.
m.m.
Re:Damn... (Score:1)
Re:Damn... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Damn... (Score:2)
Re:Damn... (Score:2)
Re:Damn... (Score:2)
Re:Damn... (Score:2)
Re:Damn... (Score:2, Informative)
At least, that appears to be the issue here. I don't know enough about the technology here to say whether the implementation was actually novel or not. But the distin
Re:Damn... (Score:2)
Yeah! And then I'll throw in patenting squid to make sure that users who are new to the network see my webpage!
Sure, I didn't invent a single thing, and all I did was use existing tools for the purposes they were designed (authenticating and tracking users: dhcp, controlling websites viewed by users: squid) . But hey! Accordi
Re:Damn... (Score:4, Insightful)
From the article this looks to be what they patented.
The only difference is how the authentication tokens get into the database... and any system architect worth a damn could solve that problem if faced with it.
I'd say that there is prior art... and, that anyone versed in the art could come up with the solution...
Either of these facts alone is supposed to be enough to reject a patent.
Re:Damn... (Score:2)
The user gets a page telling them that they need to reconfigure their browser to use the proxy (on a different port) and authenticate. We could have just as easily set the proxy to work in transparent mode and not have the users bothered by reconfiguring their browsers... but I wanted it to be a PITA to any staff/students that brought a machine from home... which was against the p
no-auth? (Score:1)
Re:no-auth? (Score:1)
Re:no-auth? (Score:2)
Do you realize that patents take THREE YEARS to process? They applied THREE YEARS AGO. Their idea was copied and put into open source software. The open source community wasn't the first to come up with it. Sorry.
Re:no-auth? (Score:2)
Until this shakes out a bit, it is hard to tell if OSS came up with it first or not. I suspect that prior-art of using re-direction to log-in would be significant and enough to stop this.
Keep in mind that the vast majority of the reviewers are people waiting to earn their US citizenship. They are not really knowledgable in the arts nor are they native in englis
Re:no-auth? (Score:4, Informative)
Here's an easy way to tell if OSS came up with it first: when was the OSS project started, before or after December 8, 1999?
Re:no-auth? (Score:4, Interesting)
But more importantly, the patent should be invalid simply because it's an obvious engineering solution. I'm sure we can find previous commercial or free implementations that go back to the early 1990's.
As for why it took four years to get the patent--who knows. Maybe it was poorly written or maybe it was iffy to begin with. I also don't see what difference it would make even if this were a proper patent.
Re:no-auth? (Score:2)
It just takes a little bogus info over DHCP... (Score:5, Informative)
The trick is simple to explain... it's a conditional DHCP server. If the MAC address is recognized, the user is supplied valid DHCP information and is allowed to go about their way to the open Internet. If the MAC address is not on the guest list, then the user is supplied an IP address that's in a firewall-restricted range so they can't get out, and DNS server that will map any domain name to the same place, the internal "Please pay..." server. No matter what the user's homepage is, all requests on port 80 will lead to the "Please pay..." page, and all other requests will get dropped on the floor. The internal DHCP settings are set to renew very frequently, so once the user pays they just have to wait a few seconds for their current DHCP settings to expire, an the next lease comes with the proper info.
Still, that setup could be complex to be patented...
Re:It just takes a little bogus info over DHCP... (Score:1)
Re:It just takes a little bogus info over DHCP... (Score:2, Informative)
Why go to all that trouble? (Score:2)
I suspect that if anyone decides to fight the patent they won't have too much difficulty unless the patent was filed for quite a long while ago.
Re:Why go to all that trouble? (Score:2)
Re:Why go to all that trouble? (Score:2)
Re:It just takes a little bogus info over DHCP... (Score:4, Insightful)
Funny you should mention that. I'm an employee of a state system of higher education (I leave figuring out which one as an exercise for the reader). Several of the schools that I deal with in the system are using Bluesocket [bluesocket.com] boxes which would almost certainly be considered infringing devices. It will be interesting to see if Nomadix only approaches other vendors, or if they use the SCO tactic and go straight to consumers.
Re:It just takes a little bogus info over DHCP... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, we discussed doing exactly that here several years ago, for those users whose systems didn't have their MAC addresses properly registered in our systems database.
If only I had realized we had a non-obvious, patentable idea that we could claim over everyone in the country, we'd be rich.
Re:It just takes a little bogus info over DHCP... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:It just takes a little bogus info over DHCP... (Score:3, Informative)
MAC spoofing might be a possible hole, but it would eventually get caught when the same user appears to be in two places at the same time.
Re:It just takes a little bogus info over DHCP... (Score:5, Informative)
Even this method is open to session hijacking, depending largely on the behavior of the victim who's session is hijacked, but it's better than what you suggest (which only requires ignoring the DHCP server to bypass).
Incidentally, I've been wrapping up a slightly more complex system of this for my employer. I can't remember where I got the idea to redirect outgoing port 80, but it seems pretty obvious to me. I know a couple of companies, such as Reefedge [reefedge.com] and Bluesocket [bluesocket.com] that do pretty much the same thing.
Prior art, anyone?
Re:It just takes a little bogus info over DHCP... (Score:2)
NoCatAuth is what I use at home [artoo.net]. Even if you spoof my MAC, you still have to auth as me before you can go anywhere.
Re:It just takes a little bogus info over DHCP... (Score:2)
Not necessarily all that easy, but theoretically possible. The only solution I see is encrypting the whole thing with something like VPN.
Re:It just takes a little bogus info over DHCP... (Score:2)
This patent covers a method of redirection thru manipulation of the arp protocol. In more 'geeky' terms, it's ethernet spoofing.
I wonder if there's anybody on slashdot that would admit to, and show, a spoofing setup of an age sufficient to qualify as prior art. There's gotta be a few hundred here that qualify...
Re:It just takes a little bogus info over DHCP... (Score:2)
Then again, there's always Patent number 5,786,818 to stand as a grim (or humorous) reminder of how asinine this can be. Apparently, by 1998, no one had figured out a system that "...essentially follows the pointer and the equivalent of a single click is sent to objects such as icons or system menus for the desktop environment."
The preexistence of the same features in X
Yup (Score:2)
Re:It just takes a little bogus info over DHCP... (Score:2)
I wrote a redirect system for a coffee shop that was installed back in September. I use a script to knit data together between iptables and dhcpd to sort out who paid and who didn't. A copy of tclhttpd provides the web interface.
If your IP wasn't pulled from DHCP, or you mac address isn't listed as a paying customer you are redirected to the homepage of the coffee shop. It's actually a specially formated 404 error page, so I'm probably in the clear. Just remove the link to th
Re:It just takes a little bogus info over DHCP... (Score:2)
http://www.net.cmu.edu/netreg
It is quite widely used.
May be invalid for most purposes (Score:5, Informative)
Is it just me... (Score:4, Interesting)
Sure URL redirection is neat, but is this that big a deal?
As a standard prior art question, has anyone seen anything like this for wired networks or similar applications?
Re:Is it just me... (Score:1)
Re:Is it just me... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you provide wireless over a large area, you don't mind perhaps putting up small signs to advertise that it's available in this area, but you don't want to have to put all the instructions, terms of use, etc up there. That's a lot of text.
We aren't talking about businesses who's employees all already know this stuff. We're talking about universities, hotspots in hotels and airports, etc. Public hotspots, where users have to read a terms of use agreement and instructions before continuing, and who may not be the least bit familiar with the necessary steps.
A lot of these sorts of people do this now. I can't remember where I got the idea for this myself, but I doubt I read it off of their patent application.
Re:Is it just me... (Score:3, Interesting)
A sign saying "Wireless available. Visit www.wifico.com to start" would not be that taxing on the brain of someone capable of connecting to a wireless network in the first place. Not as simple as the open a browser to anywhere and get redicted method which this patent concerns, but still plenty simple.
Re:Is it just me... (Score:3, Informative)
That said, I still think that a) some places signs aren't obvious or can't be placed everywhere (do you really want to plaster a library with signs about wifi? what about parks and open locations?) and b) it's just easier to do it in such a way that all someone has to do is connect to the network to find out how to use it.
Not saying it's a big deal, but the redirection thing is pretty nice. Also, it has the benefit of only harassing people who aren't yet authenticated (so t
Re:When did Nomadix come up with this... ? (Score:2)
On the other hand, there are plenty of good arguments for why patents are beneficial and even necessary for cert
Re:Is it just me... (Score:1)
i wonder were all the innovation has gone? (Score:1)
we need a slush fund to take these obvious ideas to court and get them invalidated.
Re:i wonder were all the innovation has gone? (Score:2)
just to give you a sense of "genuinely innovative", we would take the technology to experts in the field (people who had been working with that general class of technology for 10-20 years), to get a response of "you can't do that", followed by about an hour of explanation, at which point the response became "you can do that? wow! when can we have one?".
there ar
Re:i wonder were all the innovation has gone? (Score:2)
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Re:i wonder were all the innovation has gone? (Score:3, Insightful)
And play right into the hands of the IP attorneys that are helping file for these frivolous patents in the first place, enriching them further.
No, the solution is to reform the USPTO itself. Patent applications need peer review. Or software patents need to be abolished.
In other news... (Score:1)
In all fairness (Score:4, Informative)
Sadly, once a patent is gotten, it tends to take a life of it's own because of investor pressures. Patents do not help the honest littel inventor in the back yard (99% of the time) - I wish we could just get rid of them.
Re:In all fairness (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet, patents are something we just can't get rid of. Think of the medicine industry. To get a new drug, they have to do lots of research and testing... and sometimes the tests end in a failure which means all the money spent on the project is lost, it's a dud. When a working pill is invented, it might take only pennies to make the actual pill, but the research company has got to be paid for its effort. That's where the patent protection comes in, it allows the company to charge an inflated price for a specified number of years in order to recoop that investment... after which time the buzzer sounds and the generics rush in and the price plumets to be in line with the cost of the pill itself and not the discovery of the pill.
How long that protection lasts, and what's enough of an advance to qualify for protection are both points for debate, but we can't exactly throw out patents all together if we want research to go forward...
Re:In all fairness (Score:1)
plus medical patents seem to be much more stringent since they have the whole FDA process which is limiting.
medicine has fewer players unlike the garage inventors.
patents take the rule that only one person can invent something uniquely. which is the major problem. lots of people invent
Re:In all fairness (Score:2)
The drug industry is a beast quite unlike anything else. It should be handled without harming everyone else along the way. Perhaps we could link it's monopolies to the approval process. If a company is the first to get a drug approved it could be given a license to be the only producer for a fixed number of years. It could even be evaluated based on the co
Re:In all fairness (Score:2)
Re:In all fairness (Score:2)
Right now we have multiple private companies duplicating effort trying to find a cure for AIDS. Once this cure is found, it will be the property of that single company and they will be able to charge whatever they want for it. If you don't understand what's wrong with that perhaps you should read about the recent battle over the production of generic AIDS drugs in Africa.
God forbid we actually think about stopping this madness and working together to cure di
Re:In all fairness (Score:2)
Re:In all fairness (Score:2)
That may be so, but when companies try to enforce such patents against others without provocation, it is hostile and needs to be condemned.
Prior Art? (Score:1, Interesting)
I do seem to remeber telneting to a shell account, and being presented a list of terms for service and a registration dialog with my invalid login (and an opportunity to return to login in case a typo had brought me there).
Does anyone else remeber this? Did nether.net operate this way at one time? Would this be enough to invalidate the patent?
This isn't nearly as bad as it sounds... (Score:5, Informative)
The basic claim (which is what
matters, not the invention descriptions) has seven steps, ALL of which much
happen for the patent to cover your activities:
1. A method for redirecting an original destination address access request
to a redirected destination address, the method comprising the steps of:
receiving, at a gateway device, all original destination address access
requests originating from a computer;
determining, at the gateway device, which of the original destination
address requests require redirection;
storing the original destination address if redirection is required;
modifying, at the gateway device, the original destination address access
request and communicating the modified request to a redirection server if
redirection is required;
responding, at the redirection server, to the modified request with a
browser redirect message that reassigns the modified request to an
administrator-specified, redirected destination address;
intercepting, at the gateway device, the browser redirect message and
modifying it with the stored original destination address; and
sending the modified browser redirect message to the computer, which
automatically redirects the computer to the redirected destination address.
Re:This isn't nearly as bad as it sounds... (Score:5, Informative)
What has been described here sounds very similar to the SSG-SESM [cisco.com] solution from Cisco Systems. This has been around for a very long time. I have been part of a project to implement an SSG solution for traffic accounting on a University network. We capture and redirect clients that have not logged in to a login page and once they have been authenticated, their browser continues to the originally requested location.
In other projects this has been implemented as short DHCP leases and a bogus DNS that returns the same address for any hostname asked for. See NetReg2 [sourceforge.net] for more details.
It seems this patent is rather broken... (Score:5, Interesting)
"modifying, at the gateway device, the original destination address access request and communicating the modified request to a redirection server if redirection is required;"
Better yet, claim 1 is fatally flawed. It includes the words "storing the original destination address if redirection is required". Claim 6 is likewise flawed: "stores the original destination address request if redirection is required". So the really obvious and easiest solution is to do exactly what you've been doing, except that you don't store where the user was trying to go, and they have to type the URL or back up and hit the link again.
While this was a valiant attempt by Nomadix to patent a process that was in common usage (my university used something with this effect, though not necessarially this process when I first hooked up on its dorm network the second half of my sophomore year, in '98), it ultimately falls short of the goal, and Nomadix should fire whatever patent attourney they had file this one.
Hotel networks have done this before WiFi (Score:3, Informative)
Screw them.. I did it first.. (Score:1, Flamebait)
Re:Screw them.. I did it first.. (Score:2)
--D
This planet is too big for patents. (Score:2, Insightful)
We did something like this. (Score:4, Informative)
No matter what webpage you requested, you got the sign up page to buy access. Pretty basic, and most hotel type places employ a system similar to this.
this comment is probably not relevant.
Re:We did something like this. (Score:2)
Re:We did something like this. (Score:2)
I don't know enough about exact patent law to know if what I did up to that point would invalidate some or all of the patent (as the idea was not finished until much later).
What do you expect? (Score:5, Funny)
Geez, what do you expect? Do you really think that you are going to find an Einstein in the patent office?
No, wait.
Patent examiners/clerks can be very clever... (Score:2)
Re:What do you expect? (Score:2)
It's more likely than finding an Einstein commenting on patent law in a Slashdot thread.
How do I do this on my home WLAN? (Score:2)
Re:How do I do this on my home WLAN? (Score:4, Informative)
Similar product from 1998 (Score:5, Informative)
Prior Art (Score:2)
It's time to write your elected legislature and tell them you're tired of the patents and the system needs a overhaul. The USPTO thinks that they are not responsible for doing any simple research on a patent and that the Judicial system will sor
Is it novel? (Score:2)
This crap is driving me crazy. (Score:2, Interesting)
I am grinding my teeth right now.
Re:This crap is driving me crazy. (Score:2)
Look, I'm not in favor of a lot of patents, but if I came up with something so obvious people hadn't even thought of it yet, I'd want to be able to have the patent to protect my business I'm going to build around it.
NoCat makes my life as a WISP sooooo much easier, if it wasn't free I would definitely pay for it. Wish they had gotten the patent first.
--D
What to do? (Score:4, Informative)
It is in the Patent Office's best interest to accept everything and let lawyers battle it out.
So, why would someone smart enough to do a great job at an understaffed office work for government pay and crappy workload when they can work in the private sector for more $$$ and recognition?
Why would the Patent Office examine patents thoroughly when they don't have to? When it is in their best interest to be a cash cow for the government? When the private sector does all the work, research, and 'enforcement'?
How can we change the Patent office so that it's useful again? Here is a rather extensive history of the Patent Office. [myoutbox.net] (When it was useful)
Answer these questions that are clouded by money, and we could have patents that actually encourage innovation and invention rather than controlling the use of obvious technology for which prior art is bigger than life.
Obvious solution (Score:2)
Sometimes patents work, but in the opposite way (Score:3, Insightful)
This patent would appear to be a perfect example.
Vomiting Vultures (Score:2)
So goes the wireless world. The greedy jackasses will do thier best to shove hotspots into your face instead of offering wireless as a competitive edge. The same morons would charge for lighting and hot water if they could.
More theft via patent ... (Score:2)
If Martha Stewart can be liable for jail time for what she did then thieves like this (to say nothing of SCO) should be stocking up on vaseline and cigarettes and getting ready for life inside.
Murderous theiving patent on a "gateway" (Score:2)
They are essentially patenting "redirection" and the concept of a "gateway" - either becasue they are too stupid to r
What? (Score:2)
Re:What? (Score:2)
"Are you saying that patenting one method for doing wifi registration is equivalent to actually literally killing someone?"
Yes, but I will take it back if people quit refering to sharing music as "piracy" (piracy is murder and theft on the high seas).
Re:Are routers "patented" too? (Score:2)
The only problem for murdering thieve IPR laywers is that the system already exists and it it hard to get a patent on something already built by others.
Hotspot Industry? (Score:3, Insightful)
There. I feel better now.
Re:Hotspot Industry? (Score:2)
Re:Hotspot Industry? (Score:2)
Sure, it's nothing compared to AOLs 15 gajillion subscribers, but there's definitelly an industry for the hardware, the software, and the expertise to install it and get it all up and running.
Fortunately, it's an industry that still has a low cost of monitary entry, but a high cost of intellectual entry... something that unemployed geeks can once again have an advantage over the
The value of patents (Score:2, Insightful)
For startups, it's always nice to show an impressive patent list to investors. Usually easier to get more funding.
Large companies encourage engineers to file patents (they sometimes get a small bonus, etc.) and again almost never try to make any money of them.
These are the reasons we see many less-than-amazing patents filed these days. It *looks* good.
There are some obvious counter-examples but these
Re:The value of patents (Score:2)
In neither case, of course, are patents about producing and protecting useful and unique inventions.
uhhhh (Score:2, Insightful)
if (user_authenticated)
iptables -t nat -I PREROUTING -p tcp --dport 80 -j REDIRECT --to-ports $SQUID_PORT
We've gotta do something about these "common sense" patents...
I think there is prior art for this... (Score:2)
Remember Belkin's routers that hijacked http connections [cabalamat.org]? They seem to be doing the same thing as this so-called "invention".
The patent is dated 24 October 2003, however Belkin's hijack software is earlier - it dates from 15 September 2003 or earlier [google.com], so it is presumably prior art.
(IANA patent laywer).
Re:I think there is prior art for this... (Score:2)
According to the patent [uspto.gov], it was filed in December 1999, so no - that wouldn't count as prior art. Not that there isn't any, but that particular example was several years after the filing.
Prior Art (Score:2, Insightful)
Heck, I had done this on my OWN PERSONAL LAN for shits and giggles before that. I think that this one will suffer a pretty quick demise, but if not, I'll go dig up an old hard driver or two.
Re:My Thoughts (Score:2)
And no one invented it there, it was just the most obvious solution to the problem that was presented.
Re:My Thoughts (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, raise your hand if you still believe that one...
The idea of the patent is enshrined in our consititution and it was intended to promote innovation, but that's not all. The patent was also intended to allow the sharing of ideas so that all of society could benefit. However, a lot of patent law has been changed in the last decade-or-so in order to tilt the balance in the direction of the large corporations.
Used to be you couldn't patent software or algorithms, for example.
No, the way the patent system is setup now is sort of like the fox guarding the henhouse. The patent office relies on the submitter to determine prior art and the patent office tends to lean in the direction of granting patents and letting the lawyers sort it out later. It's a full employment program for lawyers and the little guy doesn't have the cash to survive a court battle, only the corporations can afford that.
Re:My Thoughts (Score:4, Interesting)
Patents also theoretically require their subject to count as non-obvious (the single criterion the USPTO seems to conveniently overlook most often, IMO)... Nomadix may have done it first, and even filed for a patent first, but that doesn't make this any more "right". If truly an act of creation, then doing it first and filing first matters; In this case, they just beat the rush of literally hundreds of people who "discovered" the exact same solution to a particular problem, all within a very small timeframe. That strongly suggests this as an "obvious" solution, thus invalidating it for a patent.
That doesn't mean the USPTO sees it that way, however. The same USPTO that doesn't consider "store a cookie with customer data in it" as obvious. The same USPTO that, although overturned just today, actually ISSUED a patent that Lemelson deliberately stalled in the pipeline for half-a-freakin'-century to pop up recently and start extorting with.
So will this stand? It wouldn't surprise me. But to actually call it "fair" or in any way "non-obvious"? No way in hell. Using a butterknife to tighten a screw may sound like an admirable way to deal with the lack of a screwdriver, but any moron with a knife, a screw, and no screwdriver, will come up with the same solution, even in isolation.
Re:My Thoughts (Score:3, Informative)
That moron better have a good lawyer, because if the butterknife is in any way ornamental, he's in big trouble. [uspto.gov]
Seriously though, whatever did happen to the "non-obvious" thing with regard to patents?