"Cloudy Future" For CueCat 252
Edgester writes "There is an article at Security Focus about Digital Convergence and the CueCat Barcode Scanner. DC thinks that those Cease and Desist letters completely stopped the hacker community from hacking the CueCat scanners." Oh - and we should just point that in the continuing example of Digital Convergence's wonderful security their site was cracked and all user info was captured.
I love loss leaders (Score:2)
Loss leaders don't love us, though! And we definitely don't like the way many of them treat us.
This is obvious damage control on DC's part; not news that slashdot should be spreading. (Except on slashdot it means that hundreds will now go set up mirrors...)
What a crock! (Score:1)
Sad to say I've never heard of DC, and after reading this piece, the linked pieces, and their web site, I don't think I want to know them.
Re:DC is focusing on the pennies... (Score:1)
Re:Intellectual Property (Score:1)
Re:Loss-leader hacks (Score:1)
Anyone who "owns" a house knows how little they really own it. My gas meter is inside my garage, connected to pipes I own, but if I do anything to the meter, they start by cutting off my service, and then make me pay for damage to their property. A similar situation exsts for my cable box. Not to mention what would happen if I stopped paying my property taxes...
imagine what would have happened if 40, 50, 60 years ago, Henry Ford declared the engines of automobiles off limits.
"Warranty void if seal removed."
Re:Argh (Score:1)
There's a lot of similarity between this and the DeCSS case: A company (or group of companies) wants to control private consumer behavior through a mechanism other than appealing to consumer economic self-interest. That's not how things have worked in the past, and it's scary to think that it might change. The only reason I participate in the capitalist economy is because I think it's better for me. If I wanted other people to tell me how to live, I'd go to Sweden or somewhere, where at least they have my interests at heart.
Re:More CueCat (Score:1)
You didn't want one in your Pentium III. You didn't want them in your Microsoft Word documents. But you've got one in your CueCat. No big deal, DC just wants to track everything that you do on the Web.
I never agreed to anything! (Score:1)
I can't imagine how a company could send you something UNSOLICITED (Wired sold their mailing list) and then hold you accountable for misusing it. They may have a better case against folks who purposefully went to Radio Shack to get one, but what about the poor saps who had one handed to them UNSOLICITED?
I probably should take WIRED MAGAZINE to court for getting me mixed up with this!
--- Speaking only for myself,
Re:How much $$$ to produce?? (Score:1)
My God, it's full of URLs (Score:2)
This link, http://www.securityfocus.com/news/89, [securityfocus.com] led to no fewer than fourteen URLs:
http://www.securityfocus.com/frames/ad.html?group= secnews? &_ref=19861971m l?id=89&_ref=19861971e f=19861971m l?&_ref=19861971l ?&_ref=19861971m l?&_ref=19861971m l?&_ref=19861971m l?&_ref=19861971s =home&_ref=19861971t ml?&_ref=19861971m l?&_ref=19861971= home&_ref=19861971t ml?&_ref=19861971
http://www.securityfocus.com/focus/home/menu.html
http://www.securityfocus.com/templates/article.ht
http://www.securityfocus.com/frames/logo.html?&_r
http://www.securityfocus.com/frames/upper_left.ht
http://www.securityfocus.com/frames/left_edge.htm
http://www.securityfocus.com/frames/lower_left.ht
http://www.securityfocus.com/frames/right_edge.ht
http://www.securityfocus.com/frames/upper_edge.ht
http://www.securityfocus.com/frames/top.html?focu
http://www.securityfocus.com/frames/upper_right.h
http://www.securityfocus.com/frames/lower_edge.ht
http://www.securityfocus.com/frames/ad.html?group
http://www.securityfocus.com/frames/lower_right.h
Someone tell these guys to read some basic web design docs. (You can't even link to a printable text-only version!)
sulli
Re:More CueCat (Score:2)
I've already scanned in my books and CDs, so I can tell you before you start that it's not as easy as it sounds.
For one thing, if your book collection is anything like mine, you'll have a good number of books that don't have ISBN's (crummy British paperbacks from the 60's), let alone bar codes. Then there are a bunch where there's some stupid sticker, or a bend in the book cover, etc. to make it unreadable. Then, once you've got the barcode, at least a third of them don't successfully get a title and author from Amazon. I even hacked up a CGI-Z39 gateway to look up the ISBNs in Melvyl (Univ. of Cal's catalog), and got about the same hit rate there (though better data when it did hit).
CD's are roughly the same: a third of mine (mostly old stuff and punk) didn't have UPCs on them, so didn't match. I pointed them at barpoint.com, and got a hit rate of roughly 75% on the ones that did have barcodes.
I also did a lot of mucking around with the various different drivers, and wound up recoding some of it in Perl (the UPC->ISBN stuff was in Python), so I spent a lot of time before I even got started messing around with the drivers and stuff.
My $0.02, anyway.
--
-Esme
Re:DC is focusing on the pennies... (Score:2)
I (or my father) was on their mailing list, and I recall receiving a catalogue advertising a hard-disk (probably called a Winchester in them days) for some TRS80 machine. At the time I'd no idea what one was, and for the amount of money that they wanted, I wondered who could afford one.
Then there were all the components. Resistors, diodes, switches and so on. Few other places sold them.
Now the local Tandy has become a telephone store. Other shops still exist, but have cut down badly on geekish things. Couldn't even buy a box of floppies (I needed some to install Debian) last time I visited one. And I couldn't find a fuse for my PSU, either. Not a geek hangout any more. We do have Maplin stores, though. The local one is huge.
Totally OT, but related to this thread.. (Score:2)
I support the EFF [eff.org] - do you?
Re:More CueCat (Score:4)
Re:Why do companies get away with this? (Score:2)
What type of laws do you thing would benefit us consumers? Should the government pass a law stating that all systems must be totally secure? How would this be enforced? How would anyone know whether their systems are completely secure? I don't believe it is possible to prove a complex computer system as being secure. It can only be proven insecure. As such, prosecutors could only go after companies whose servers have been cracked. Maybe crackers could then become employees of various law enforcement agencies.
Anyway, civil recourse against breaches of privacy seems to be the only sane route. Companies should be liable for gross negligence about security, but then how gross is gross?
As far as "the police/military/sceret services[sic]" just sitting back, I would rather have that than Carnivore/BadEvilGuyFinder watching everything. The system just needs time to settle into equilibrium.
Build our own? (Score:2)
Seriously, why don't we build our own open-source bar-code scanning solution? True, one can get laser and wand scanners that output to serial ASCII pretty cheap and all, but even for those one must surf the used market. Doing it ourselves though is the way we work - we are geeks, right? A soldering iron and some simple parts never hurt anyone (outside of a burn here or there, right?)...
These devices are simple! Something could be built quite easily with a handful of parts (heck, most or all could be found in a busted remote control). Find something to stuff it all in, and a scanner can be built.
What isn't so obvious is the software to decode the barcode - plenty to normalize the scanning speed, direction of scan, and probably a million other things that I don't know of would need to be coded, but come on! Open Source enthusiasts have managed to put together amazing packages of complexity - a bar-code decoding package shouldn't be too difficult, I would think. What is stopping us?
I would think that we could come up with a true open design for a wand style reader, made from a few parts (I would imagine on the low end the scanner would consist of a high brightness red LED, a phototransistor, and a low val resistor, like 470 ohm - vcc (5 volts) would be run through the resistor (to drop current and voltage a bit), then split to drive the collector of the phototran, and the LED. The emitter of the phototran (I am thinking a NPN phototran here) could drive a pin on a parallel port. Throw all of this into a nifty case - like a BIC pen). Once the code is done (GPL'd, of course), distribute it with schematics for the reader, maybe a few pictures of a completed sample device, and construction hints...
We have an itch to scratch - let's scratch it!
I support the EFF [eff.org] - do you?
Why don't they just *sell* the things (Score:2)
Searching for CDs via bar-code? (Score:2)
I'd like to see someone take that hack that directs CueCat scans to an Amazon page another step further...
I'd like to be able to scan the bar-code on the back of a CD and have a CDDB [cddb.com] (or MusicBrainz [musicbrainz.org], etc.) record be returned.
Obviously, you first would have to find a place to search the bar-code against and then filter those results and plug them into a CDDB query...
Well, I can dream anyway...
"Do no unnatural thing today." - Captain Flak
Re:My favorite quote (Score:2)
Here's an example:
^[[21~.C3nZC3nZC3nXE3b7DxjZCNnX.fHmc.C3PWDxf3Dx
DATA 000000002838610102 UPA 093624609322 9362460932
CUE 9362460932 http://t.dcnv.com/CRQ/1..ACTIVATIONCODE.04.c3Nzc3
BN 093624609322 http://search.borders.com/fcgi-bin/db2www/search/
tab delimited fields, one record per line.
---- ----
Different Product Model (Score:2)
I totally agree with you on the merits of alternative uses of the device.
I've got a PalmPilot and a keyboard interface from the folks that brought us the "Happy Hacker's" keyboard; I could use that as a portable bar code collector.
Velcro the components to my belt, and I could run around my apartment, barcoding all my books into a notepad, and then decode en masse to put together a library listing.
Note the use of the PalmPilot; the reader is a whopping lot more useful if there is some way of collecting a bunch of bar codes as you walk around.
The other piece of the puzzle is to be able to PRINT your own bar code stickers to attach to things. That then means that there is no "fixed" interpretation; you have to create your own framework in which to interpret the code.
As with putting a bar code on each CD you burn, so that you can do an inventory in ten minutes of 100 CDs...
There's lots and lots of cool stuff to do with this; hopefully we'll get past the idiocy of the present situation.
Re:Intellectual Property (Score:2)
Most of the people responding here missed my point. In an ideal world this would be used for knowledge and easy access. I pointed out that i knew that this would b used for commercial purposes and that that was really sad.
I could care less about the damn barcode reader, it was a stupid little toy to play with. I'm talking about their end result... Linking traditional media to web accessible information.
That's what I would love. Not commercials, not ads. Real information. We all know that it won't be used for that. I remember when the net was good for that also.
Re:DC is focusing on the pennies... (Score:2)
Except that they didn't install the software, and won't do it, because they don't want to be bound by the obnoxious license "agreement", so using the cuecat isn't really possible for those hackers, who, ironically, are probably in the top 5% of people who might actually want to buy something at Radio Shack!
This is where DC is hurting themselves.
Please leave DC alone. (Score:5)
--
I went and got a CueCat (Score:2)
Why do companies get away with this? (Score:2)
Don't Believe It. Devel still going strong... (Score:5)
Linux Driver has steadily progressed
from 0.0.8 to 0.1.3, and has gotten a
lot better. Pierre Coupard and other
folks have done a lot with the device.
Since the C&D letters, the driver has
added support for multiple CueCats, we've
put together 2 different models of serial
port converters for the CueCat (think Palm)...
and added support for using the CueCat on
a serial port, keyboard port, or mouse port.
The driver is now a loadable module, and even
supports the USB CueCat which isn't even
officially RELEASED yet!! We've also been able
to test the CueCat with all kinds of different
barcodes and figure out many of the CueCat
codes for them.. On a hardware level, we've
figured out how to wipe or even reprogram
the ID code... I don't know about you folks
or about Kevin Poulsen for that matter,
but I see this as a successful project so far..
For the 1 week after the C&D letters, people
were a bit worried and the development went
more private, but that's only 1 week! That's
a reasonable amount of lag time to allow lawyers
to digest the problem. After 1 week without
response from Digital Convergence, we all just
started breathing again and went back to work.
PS... Happy RSA Freedom day..
Flawed Business Model (Score:3)
They probably would have been better off selling the CueCat Reader for a small fee (maybe at cost) and then providing some sort of special service (beyond simple linking) with their software. That way they don't lose any money if the hobbyist wants to disect their CueCat and they give your average joe a reason to purchase it.
-Jennifer
CueCat technological problem (Score:2)
I've scanned many barcodes with a couple different copies of their device now, and I've found that it consistently reads UPC/EAN, 3 of 9, Code 128 and all these other symbologies really well. I try to scan the Cues in the catalog -- maybe a 33% first time scan rate. Appalling. I've tried varying my scan speeds, the angle with which I hold the scanner, the distance from the page, starting and stopping within the white space near the ends of the code, but nothing seems to help.
I don't know if it's because the barcodes in the catalog are too dense or if they were printed poorly. I imagine the 22.5 offset angle probably made for some uneven aliasing during the catalog printing process.
Has anybody else noticed this problem?
John
The Church of the SubGenius [subgenius.com] -- because somebody had to put all that slack in there...
Oh the shame! Oh the horrors! (Score:5)
"An Internet company that's given away one million cat-shaped barcode scanners to magazine subscribers and Radio Shack shoppers is claiming victory in a skirmish with hackers over how the feline freebies can be used."
PR 101: Manage expectations. When you have completely lost, declare unconditional victory.
"We had to make a bold statement up front that we didn't authorize you to do this, we encrypted our cat data, and you're not allowed to take over that output," says David Mathews, vice president of new technology at Dallas-based Digital Convergence.
Bold statement (n.) - Impotent claim that is ignored by everyone. See political speech, press release.
"Digital Convergence was aghast. "If people take over our cat and start using their own databases, the world becomes cloudy," says Mathews. "Our revenue model is being the gate keeper between codes and their destinations online."
Oh the horrors! The world will become cloudy if we don't stop using our own databases! Why, we might even get access to our own information and then where would we be? I mean, think it through people! Is a free world the kind of world you want for your children?
"By way of example, Mathews points to one hack, created by network engineer Michael Rothwell, that allows users to scan the ISBN number on the back of a book with the CueCat. "You could swipe a code, and it would serve up a page on Amazon.com. But what if [the publisher] doesn't want it to go to Amazon.com, they want it to go to web site under their control..."
Think of the implications! We might wind up at a web site that is not under their control!
"By the Linux community taking over and redirecting where these swipes go to, they were circumventing our software."
Oh the shame of it all...
________________
My favorite quote (Score:3)
"You could swipe a code, and it would serve up a page on Amazon.com. But what if [the publisher] doesn't want it to go to Amazon.com, they want it to go to web site under their control... "
Umm...tough shit what the publisher wanted. What right does the publisher have to force me to a certain web page? None whatsoever. Yet another example of a clueless corporation trying to control every little detail and getting pissed when normal citizens won't play along.
Re:Nice product, shame about the concept (Score:2)
The thing that really made me laugh though was this SciFi channel commercial - 30 minutes long, you know the type. The setting was in Heaven, where Bob the Angel (can't remember the name) visits Heaven's R&D department, and the top-of-the-line item that Heaven's R&D department has come up with is - no, not an Aston Martin with flamethrowers and ejector seat, but THE CUECAT!!!
Then they described it as the biggest technological breakthrough ever. Seriously, that's *exactly* what they said.
The word arrogance doesn't even come close.
You're probably right about the lawyers, but offering a similar service under not such an obvious name might be a good idea. Maybe some jobbing hardware hacker can design the same thing but for the COM port - and while she's at it, make it accept data from remote controls too, so I can operate my DVD drive from my bed ;)
For DC, hackers are on the start... (Score:2)
If we can distribute software for the CueCat, in a way that suits our needs without going through DC - What's to stop Staples or OfficeMax from offering their own software that reads barcodes printed in their catalogs without going through DC?
They're seeing the big picture now... so I think. They screwed up and now they're going to have to fight for their life or go out of business having provided all of North America with free bar code readers.
Those who ask why they're bothering with a few geeks aren't seeing the bigger picture of them allowing "rogue" software to proliferate.
While I agree entirely that we have every right to use the device as we see fit, (I've downloaded various decoders alrready) they ain't going to just let this one go.
Perhaps their TV tech will be the real "killer" app of for them and ordinary bar code reading won't matter a great deal, but I figure them for toast.
QUESTION:
Anyone think of some sort of action to "teach" them a lesson?
-- While normally I would consider the following very unethical, given this companies willingness to use scare tactics against honest legal hackers, I suggest the following:
Every time you see a Radio Shack, stop in and pick up another CueCat. Collect them, discard them, whatever, every geek here that picks one up and doesn't use it (in their intended manner) makes a nick in their bottom line. If we all do it that becomes a major dent.
Hopefully they take note and apologize.
Re:More CueCat (Score:2)
Why? Because I'm an Ubergeek and I like barcodes, shiny red lights, and coming up with neat things to do with free hardware. Hell, I even like the thing when it's just sitting on my desk shining the LED light on my wall.
I have been using it on my Windows machine as it was designed, scanning things and bumping my profile value for them up a few pennies... but soon I plan to attach it to a little 486 computer on top my fridge.
Why? Because then I can scan things as I throw empty containers out. And then post that to my own private house 'intranet'. And then at the market, browse my shopping list from my WAP phone. Eventually, I might even automatically have certain things ordered via internet once I've built a buying profile on myself.
After that, I might even get bored and start cataloging my CD's & Books (several 1000 items in each collection) for insurance purposes. I figure that might work better than photographing everything.
See, that's what being a Geek is about. Have stuff. Open the hood. Hook stuff together and make it do stuff it probably shouldn't. For fun.
In the end, my advice to DC would be to embrace the hacking community. The value they 'lose' on hackers not providing profile data could be recouped in cultivating a community to help generate new ideas for their product. Hell, establish projects for bounty using the CueCat. Sell the CueCat for up to US$20 for hackers who aren't going to use it as designed for marketing money.
Spread good will in the hacking community, let me do my projects, hire me to polish them up and let you sell them... (I mean, I don't have the business sense or money to produce the hardware) and my mom will still use it to scan things and see the neat home pages. And eventually you (DC) might even be able to sell my fridge idea.
Re:DC is focusing on the pennies... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Please leave DC alone. (Score:2)
If you don't uphold your rights you loose them.
Re:More /. Sensationalism (Score:2)
Yes, they have a cloudy future.
Re:Um enough already, ok? (Score:2)
The issues at stake are deeper than you think. Companies like DC are using a nebulous law to threaten the "hackers'" freedom to innovate and experiment (and I don't mean this in the M$ sense).
Computers, Internet(TM), etc. are where they are today because kids all across this nation (and the world) dared to experiment and try new things. DC is just trying to kill that spirit to protect an inherently flawed business model.
And oh, BTW, "loss leaders" are welcomed with open arms (and open tool boxes
Re:Why Stop? (Score:3)
Because receiving the threat of a lawsuit from a company is a scary thing. J. Random Hacker does not have a legal budget, let a lone an entire legal department. We've already seen that corporations use litigation as a stalling tactic, and try to drag the case out until the defendant has to give up due to lack of resources. Aside from the massive amount of money you could lose (without even losing the trial, just on legal fees), this is something that will dominate your life for an indefinite amount of time - if you're spending all you time in court or preparing for court, how do you work?
Litigation, or threat of it, is unfortunately a very effective tactic from a corporate point of view. It's a rare kind of person that can push crappy laws like the DMCA to the limit and still have the time and desire to go to court to obtain their rights for the rest of the country.
Re:Please leave DC alone. (Score:2)
--
DC CueCat for Clueless cats. (Score:2)
This is not the first time that barcodes were put in magazines. They want people to leave them alone. I'm sure they'll be quite pleased.
As a Mac owner I don't even have a choice. First: no effin drivers. Second: the CluelessCat USB cabling sucks! Its a standard, DC. A standard! A simple connector. Stick your parallel and keyboard cable kludge where it'll hurt.]
I predict an overwhelming yawn from the public. The Linux hackers are probably the ONLY people who will have installed and played with this stupid looking piece of plastic.
This is about an idea as D.A.T. in an age of CD-ROM burners.
The DeCSS decision (under appeal) has zero effect on this. I have the DeCSS code on a t-shirt I bought here. I wear it with pride.
The RIAA, MPAA and other bullies of this world who try to restrict technology by force of will are sitting on beach chairs telling the tide to stop. I pity them, but not much.
Changes in distribution and payment technologies will sweep away the useless and leave us all with more money in our pockets.
Bad business plan? (Score:2)
They built them to be of interest to people who basically wanted a better WebTV, i.e. something which came with a high resolution screen and would work with a wider variety of internet sites.
That segment of society isn't at all interested in making it run something else, they just want easy to use.
The reason why these became appealing to geeks was only because nobody else has been selling a reasonably priced small computer with a LCD display like this. It's the only one available, therefore people want to find out how to make it work for them.
Was it iOpener's fault that they hadn't realized the appeal to other people? Perhaps.
But I don't think that makes their business plan invalid. If this is true, then WebTV's business plan is bad as well despite 4 million+ users.
Now maybe they should have realized the opportunities they would have to sell this hardware outside the framework of their ISP service.
For instance, if they had formulated a contract, sort of like the internet appliance from Compaq whereby the cost of hardware is $500, but if you sign up for 3 years of their internet service you get a $400 rebate, they would have been in a better position and we'd likely have seen fewer complaints.
Re:DC is focusing on the pennies... (Score:2)
Maybe you should look into rechargable batteries, then. Or just plug stuff in to the wall sockets.
If you sign up for their Battery Club, the batteries are free. IIRC, you used to be able to get a free 9V or small blister pack of RS brand batteries every month. It's one way of getting people into the store and having them actually buy something else. Grocery stores do it all the time. They advertise products with prices that are below cost and hope that you buy something else once you are in the store. When I picked up a RS catalog + CueCat, I bought a few other things. Wal-Mart is a master at this. I don't know how many times I've gone into a WM to get a package of diapers or something else for the kids and end up buying $50 of other stuff. My wife say's it is due to a chemical they put in the Sam's brand drinks and food that makes one addicted to shopping at Wal-Mart. Along with floride, it's a standard additive in the tap water in Bentonville, Ark. =)
Re:Nice product, shame about the concept (Score:2)
DC have actually got a really, really good business plan. It goes like this: give people free barcode scanners, get them to scan their stuff in, then they go to our website (via our software) and we redirect them to the company that "owns" the barcode.
So Digital Convergence's real money-spinner is not the cuecat at all, it's SELLING SPACE TO ADVERTISERS. You think Coke aren't going to be paying to have CueCat link to their site from their barcode? You think Pepsi won't pay Cuecat more to have the Coke barcode take people to the Pepsi site?
All DC need is a huge database of barcodes and URLs, and a large market share - currently, they have the only market share. They want to be the VideoPlus of URLs.
Since that's their main asset, then, I simply DO NOT UNDERSTAND why they care about people reversing their hardware. It's a lousy design anyway - people need to use a keyboard to surf the web (esp. to "reorder pharmaceuticals" - an advertised use of CueCat - so they can enter their Visa/MC number). It should go in through COM2.
The only thing they should be worried about is if another company made a better database than them. But that's simple free-market competition. I guess they're trying to lock down the cuecat to make it harder for such competitors, but they're not going to succeed, so why don't they invest their time and money in making their product the best so that the competition can't out flank them?
Maybe because they know their actual service is a shoddy pile of crap? I don't know - I haven't used it. But since it's just a 1-table SQL database with an ASCII string as the primary key and an ASCII string as the only other column, how bad could it be?
I say that the OS movement should make a rival site - www.qcat.com - and write software to send people there from *every* OS. Everytime anyone sees a DC barcode they should scan it, note the URL, and put it onto the qcat database. It'd be like CDDB. Then we can offer the exact same service, but with privacy, and cheaper for businesses to subscribe to, and drive the fsckers out of business. We could use the proceeds to fund Open Source projects. Then DC would be a *good* memory - "Hey, remember that company that gave us all free barcode scanners before going out of business? They were cool." ;)
Any takers?
WHAT stop? (Score:2)
And then note that
If the DC folk fail to respond to the not unreasonable expectation that they actually indicate what "intellectual property" is being infringed on, then it seems to be, as you say, "totally fair game" to continue tinkering.
After all, if they can't or won't document the nature of the infringement, is it infringing?
I'm not surprised that:
It appears that they think that simply using the :Cue:Cat represents their "intellectual property," which seems pretty nonsensical.
Intellectual Property (Score:3)
Okay... I'm sorry but this is getting rediculous. They are treating this damn bar code scanner like it's the holy grail of cool things. It's not... It's a cheap little barcode scanner that doesn't even really do that good of a job.
They do have some work and some intersting things in their C.R.Q. software. I never used it (I'm really glad now), but what it does actually probably took 5 years to develop.
In case no one looked at it. You hook up and audio source (T.V. or Radio) to your sound card. There are specially encoded audio codes that the C.R.Q. software will recognize and open a browser to the appropriate page. Basically barcodes over tv/radio audio.
That's kinda cool. It would be cooler if it wasn't mainly used for advertising (although I hear PBS is going to use it). I am also fairly certain that there is quite a bit of skill, talent and hard work in that.... there is however NOT in a cheap little barcode reader.
DC sells software and a service, they make their money from companies being able to use their barcode and audio codes. I wish that they would realise this... let the crap with the cue cat drop and focus on making their real products useful.
I would love to be watching a Discovery channel show about say, penguins, and be linked to a site that has more in depth information about penguins.
More about Cue Cat's silliness (Score:4)
1. It's a dumb idea to scan barcodes just to go to a web page.
2. The thing is really really hard to get to install.
3. It doesn't even work right when installed.
Yep, mine is still in the box and staying there.
Re:Please leave DC alone. (Score:2)
It is not a 'sane' business practice to expect people to not do something that it is their right to do. If this fails because people only want the gear to rip it apart, that is THEIR fault for not undertsanding their market.
Re:DC is focusing on the pennies... (Score:2)
--
Well... (Score:2)
You are not. (Score:2)
You own the hardware AND the software copy that was mailed to you, per laws that apply to the US Postal Service.
Besides, I have yet to see one case in the US where a judge found that click-through licenses are legally binding. Just to be on the safe side, get your 12 year-old sister to fill in the form: contracts signed by minors are invalid.
Here in Quebec, about 90% of these agreements are against consumer protection laws, unenforcable and illegal. Furthermore, a judge clearly found that since you had no way of proving you were really the one pressing the "I agree" button, there is no way it could be considered legally binding. Besides, contracts signed under pressure are also invalid, and in most cases the software you bought is not refundable (since most stores won't take back an open CD, you could have made a copy of it..), in which case, to get something for your money, you are forced to accept the terms without possible negociation.
Basic point: There are MANY legal problems with click-through agreements, which most companies would rather you not know about and they surely don't want them tested in court when they can avoid it.
Re:CueCat tally. How many Radio Shacks did you rai (Score:2)
Paid cash for what?
Anyways, the first store didn't even ask my name. He still had to ring it up ($0.00), but didn't bother with the name. I guess he didn't wanna type it in. Others asked, but generally conceded when I refused. One guy was a bit insistent, but said that I could give a business address or anything, but that they just needed *something*. I said Bill Clinton, 1600 Pennslyvania Ave. He sighed, but acquiesced.
I wonder how many catalogs Bill gets...
Are default judgements actually happening? (Score:2)
Or is this merely something that the "spammeisters" are claiming to be true?
I can imagine such a situation occurring, but wouldn't expect it to persist.
Remember that as soon as such a scheme would start to appear viable, "your company" would be a nice, fat target for a class action suit by whatever class of folk the scheme has been ravaging.
Turnabout is quite fair play :-).
Re:screw gettting a free cat, go to ebay and buy o (Score:2)
Re:Please leave DC alone. (Score:2)
Nice product? Its totally lame-ass. (Score:2)
For what? This is a remarkably useless product. Really lame too. They probably thing they can slap that bad-boy onto a WinCE "GameBoy" and
The IR port on my Handsprint Visor can be hacked to do the same thing. Big Deal. I cant' think of a single application where this would be worth doing.
Its been tried before for scanning in software and the magazines that tried it have disappeared.
This is NOT a good idea. Its just some idiocy spouted by some fast-talker who has managed to talk some dentists into investing their surplus disposable income into his "vision."
In a word: Errata (Score:2)
--------
Re:I'm sick of this... (Score:2)
I watched a story on the news this morning (on CNN) that the games in Sydney are suffering from a bit of controversy. Why? Well, Coke is one of the sponsors, and if you are caught drinking a Pepsi, you are 'banned' from entering until you get rid of it. McDonald's is another sponsor. There is a restaraunt near the Olympic stadium that serves breakfast sandwiches similar to an egg McMuffin. If one of the game officials (or a cop) sees you eating one of these sandwiches, they will take it from you, throw it away, and tell you to purchase from McDonald's next time. If you are wearing a Pepsi tee-shirt, you are not allowed in until you change into something else. If you wear or use anything produced by a company in direct competition to one of the sponsors, you are banned from entering any of the competitions (banned from watching I should say).
Of course, CNN (with all its corporate sponsors) was really willing to see both sides of this story. They interviewed three 'regular people' that all said, "These companies have invested a lot of money in the games and deserve to have some recognition for it." I would like to have seen them interview one of the people that had their breakfast ripped out of their hands and thrown away, or someone that had their Pepsi taken away from them, or someone that got told, "You can't wear that shirt here."
Frankly, the corporate controlled world is becoming the norm. And anybody that doesn't like it will soon be 'banned' from participating in anything in society. You say that wouldn't happen if the games were in America? Take a look at some of the ridiculous crap that goes on (and is covered on Slashdot) and think again. Also consider that most of the companies that are promoting the Olympics are American companies, and you'll start to see that it is just as much an American problem (probably moreso an American problem as we are the country with the stupidest IP laws in the world) than any other country.
Sorry for the slightly off-topic rant, but that news story just pissed me off and made me feel like boycotting Coke, and McDonalds for life. That won't be so hard, I'm not a big fan of either. But I wanted others to know, and felt it applied to the 'companies protecting their (supposed) intellectual property' conversation.
Re:Focusing on the pennies/diodes... (Score:2)
It seems that the UK chain was sold recently, and the less profitable stores became "Carphone Warehouse", who oddly set hand-held mobile phones. Two of the local ones have now changed, the other two are still called Tandy.
The remaining stores seem to have become more mass-market shops, selling games consoles, video recorders, cheap hi-fi. the components appear to be stock left-over from before the sale of the chain, and the number of components appears to be slowly decreasing.
Maplins is a lot better. The local store in Leeds is the size of a furniture shop, also sells lego Mindstorm and R/C gear (The advertise in the awful Robot Wars magazine). It's also open until 8pm some evenings
Man. Attacking the /.-ers is really stupid. (Score:2)
However, its still a lame-ass product. It won't fly any better than it has before (and it has been tried before...
Re:More CueCat (Score:2)
However, I don't like the idea of any peice of hardware being released (free or not) which tries to pretend it has the protection of the law preventing you from using it any damn way you please. The only protection this has is the ability of the company to file frivolous lawsuits against you to take your time and money (for a lawyer) to make it a pain to do something they don't approve of.
However this now seems to be becoming a trend in the consumer electronics market (iOpenr, Tivo) and I think its a trend that needs to be stopped. Hardware makers seem to have started thinking they should have the same type of lame licenses that software companies have on their products (ie. we'll sell you this but no you don't own it and can only use it how we want you to).
Thus I'm only interested in it because I don't like the idea of EULA's for hardware I buy or receive for free.
Re:Why Stop? (Score:5)
You believe what DC said? Go to freshmeat and search for cuecat. As far as I can see, the *only* one who doesn't still have their code up is flyingbuttmonkeys. Online decoders like http://www.jounce.net/~maarken/decode.html are still up (never went down, as far as I know).
I wonder if DC really believes the hacking has stopped or if they see this as the only face-saving stance that they could take.
The only other reason I can think that there is any "less" hacking is that the decoding is 100% solved in 7 lines of perl:
#!
printf "%s %s %s\n",
map {
tr/a-zA-Z0-9+-/ -_/;
$_ = unpack 'u', chr(32 + length()*3/4) . $_;
s/\0+$//;
$_ ^= "C" x length;
}
Stopped? (Score:3)
I'm still considering trying to round up about 10-15 of em, daisy chain them, if possible, and have a bright colorful window decor for Xmas.
Who needs twinkle lights when you've got Cuecats?
Hackers appear as black holes to DC (Score:2)
She subscribes to Forbes, and gets a
How does this look any different to DC than the "evil linux hackers"?!!!
Not a sausage.
Joe hacker gets a
See, to DC, both scenarios look the same. They pay to send out a scanner, but get no consumer tracking information back. And I really don't see them busting down aunt Martha's door just because she didn't use their gizmo.
There are two situation a not insane person would try to avoid:
- One target influences other targets (who would normally use the device) to not use the device as intended
:Cue:Cat.
- Instead it taking one device to service one target, one target consumes many devices (and maybe uses none of them).
:Cue:Cats in the drawer. :Cue:Cat. :Cue:Cats, 2) Make RS either a) instate a "one per customer" policy or b) RS pays for the HW and it's RS's loss.
Having people laugh at you and mock you as an idiot isn't good business and should generally be avoided. (unless you're making a ton of money for it).ok, so this kinda gives them a reason to fear the spread of info on hacking the
For the same reason they could fear a bunch of luddites boycotting them.
So aunt Martha subscribes to Forbes and Wired. She tosses two
Joe hacker gets greedy and goes to every RS in town for a free
I could see how DC might want to avoid this situation too. So they could : 1) cross reference the subscriber lists before mailing out
Re:DC is focusing on the pennies... (Score:4)
Amateur radio hobbyists, especially those from the Linux community, end up sending part of their paychecks to places like RShack. I'm there at least once a week buying stuff. But how can I use the CueCat when the DC PHB's forgot to develop a Linux driver for it? Sorry boys, but the five boxes down in my shack don't have a single Microsoft product on them!
Instead of firing up the attorneys, why not pull the Microsoft "embrace and extend" trick. Grab those drivers, thank the community, contribute $10,000 to
Instead of boycotts, hacking and general disasterous public relations that is a serious abuse of their investor's bucks, you might find a bunch of new customers (who are usually the bigger spenders at RShack) who'd cost you only an occasional un-intercepted barcoding scan of their books in the home library.
*scoove*
"Poor sportsmanship: They just can't stand to see the other man win."
Re:DC is focusing on the pennies... (Score:2)
The number of hackers expressed as a percent of the computer-using population is maybe 5%-10%. Sure, the number who "shop the Shack" is certainly much higher, but they're still barely statistically significant. It's the AOLers of the world that will make them ALL of their money, regardless of hackers.
Hackers tend to understand cookies and privacy issues better than the general population, too. Most privacy-informed people wouldn't ever fire up the software that came with it, once they understood the tracking mechanisms beneath it. These people are already lost to Digital Convergence, whose stated goal is to build up a marketable database of info on their users.
So, given that hackers and privacy wonks will never use their software the way it was intended, D.C. should drop that market segment and focus on making sure that every AOLer gets to see Pepsi ads at $.025/eyeball. As Willie Sutton said about robbing banks "that's where they keep the money!"
The Church of the SubGenius [subgenius.com] -- because somebody had to put all that slack in there...
More /. Sensationalism (Score:2)
Re:You are part of the problem. (Score:2)
You realize wrongly. This is whoring for (+1, Funny). See the sig.
--
Re:Please leave DC alone. (Score:3)
They don't want their intellectual property to be reverse engineered.
Correction, that should be: "They don't want their intellectually property to be reversed engineered." See their CEO's letter [slashdot.org] for more useful grammar and spelling tips.
So who stopped? It got me going. (Score:2)
Ever since the cease-and-desist letters came out, I've been working on aspects of the CueCat. That effort spawned a section of my Web site [fluent-access.com] that worked to expose all aspects of the red-nosed pussy. On my pages, you will find the anatomy of the proprietary cue, a complete description of the output of the CueCat and how one would discover the base-64+XOR algorithm without disassembling or decompiling a single instruction of executable code. I've also put together a capabilities list of what the 'Cat can do (and that list is expanding as people report additional capabilities). I even publish a rationale for why I did all that work.
The only reason I'm slowing down is that I've done about all I can do. That included publishing source code to an interpreter [fluent-access.com] that runs as a console app in both Linux and Windows.
Now, where do I draw the line? I draw the line at providing code without license that would infringe patents 5,933,829, 5,978,773, and 6,108,656...held by NeoMedia Technologies Inc. I stop at interpreting the barcode on stdout in order to bring the CueCat to the same level of functionality as other barcode readers.
Now, I'm looking at PaperClick...
Consumers don't have deep pockets (Score:2)
The only way "lawsuit-oriented" business works is if you plan to sue people that have millions of dollars that could actually pay you something.
Insurance companies are good targets; TI makes lots of its dollars charging companies for access to its patents; IBM's patent portfolio is useful against companies.
None of this is good for dealing with consumers.
Loss-leader hacks (Score:4)
The truth about this is that the only devices that have been exploited have been loss-leader type electronics, and built on useful hardware, which often makes the best loss-leader (ie, it's a good product).
Things that haven't done so well, and haven't been hacked have been *extremely* proprietary devices like the Mailsite personal email box [linux-hacker.net] (man that'd make a sweet portable bash terminal).
So... useful things tend to get reused if they're given to us. The only way companies can avoid a situation like this is to make something damn near worthless if hacked (funky hardware, no ram, no hd, odd processors, etc)... The problem of course is that those types of things don't always make good products.
----
They call that encryption? (Score:2)
Re:Device not reliable? (Score:2)
Hey, that sounds like the cable that feeds audio/video into the 1/8" VIDEO IN jack on my handheld TV. Maybe that's "another use" for the cable.
I'm sick of this... (Score:4)
"Our revenue model is being the gate keeper between codes and their destinations online."
In other words, they want to protect their bottom line. The truth is, they should have thought of this sort of thing happening, and taken steps to protect their interests before releasing their product. It's their own damn fault, and I have no sympathy.
User Data Cease & Desist? (Score:2)
Nice product, shame about the concept (Score:4)
It seems pretty obvious that here's a company who have read "New Economy 101" and decided that their tangible product should be free so they can create money on the spin-off merchandise (the software). Shame they didn't think one step further.
Now they seem to be *proving* their ignorance of the real world. I mean, how naive can these people be? Does their whole business plan smack of "pointy haired boss" or what? "Our revenue model is being the gate keeper between codes and their destinations online!
Sorry DC, but I think you'll find that your (Cue) Cat is out of the bag and no amount of bullsh*t is going to put it back again. Better rethink that business plan.
"Give the anarchist a cigarette"
Re:Don't Believe It. Devel still going strong... (Score:3)
Its a good think lego did not do this! (Score:3)
James
Re:My favorite quote (Score:3)
I'd certainly rather go to Amazon where I can read reviews that are NOT controlled by the publisher than to a fluff site about the book.
When I want to know about a movie, I go to the IMDB. If I want hype, I guess I'd go to the studios site. Same difference.
Re:My favorite quote (Score:3)
Here's a page about converting barcodes to ISBN's just in case you are interested. It also describes a complete barcode scanner to Palm Booklist
http://www.eblong.com/zarf/bookscan/ [eblong.com]
Winton
Re:Loss-leader hacks (Score:5)
But the irony of it all is that this "damn near worthless" situation is exactly what drives the so-called "hackers" in the first place. When you have a piece of hardware sterilized by lack of software (or lack of a monthly 'hookup' in the case of the TIVO or iOpener), it's only human nature to examine closely the relationship between the hardware and the software that some business guy says we need to operate it.
Moreover, this loss-leader shit does expose some pretty lousy business models. TIVO is an exception here because they actually take a pretty generous view of their boxes and the hackers that tweak them -- but take a look at the iOpener, for example: why in the world would they seriously expect everyone to just sit back, not touch their boxes, and pay their US$21.95 a month for internet service when (in most cases) the people who take the most interest in their boxes are people who (a) already have an ISP subscription, (b) probably already have a home LAN, and (c) don't like to be told what they can and can't do with hardware once it's in the confines of their own home?
It's a lousy business plan -- and that's why (despite the fact that iOpener continues to try to be generous to the "open-source" community) iOpener substantially raised the price of their hardware. (They have other reasons, of course -- service reasons -- but I think it's pretty obvbious that they raised the prices because their initial business plan was a piece of shit, they realized it, and now they want to, uh, 'reposition' [as the suits love to say] themselves in the market.)
What, do these companies expect a bunch of "laws" to stop hackers? (I say this tongue in cheek -- and while I know they *do* expect laws to stop the hackers, they can't *really* expect the laws to stop hackers.)
What's even more insidious is the fact that -- if you look at this stuff in a more general, big picture sort of way -- these companies -- iOpener, Dig Converg -- are really attempting to 'reposition' themselves into our private spaces. And by that, I mean that they're attempting to control their products even when their products -- and I'm talking hardware here, the physical stuff -- are in the confines of our private bedrooms, living rooms, and kitchens.
What's at stake here isn't some dumb lawyer letter from a dumb, corporate lawyer paid by the dumb corporate shitheads at DC -- or wherever -- what's at stake here is control of our private space and far the corporations (thanks to the government) will be allowed to intrude upon our private space.
I'm not talking 'privacy' here as it is traditally used -- privacy of information like our names, credit card numbers, and medical records -- I'm talking about our private spaces: the walls in which we live, eat, breed, and sleep. This isn't about some dumb reverse engineered algorith that would take a freshman compsci student 45 minutes to crack -- it's about how far are we (consumers, slashdotters, geeks, whatever) going to let business control our physical, private space.
That's what's at stake here. And, IMHO, it's even more insidious than information -- the bits and bytes that make up our identity and our credit history and the files on our computers, etc -- it's the actual, physical space that -- up until recently -- we've considered our homes.
It's clear that the government -- at least in the past few months -- is siding with the corporations: the government (our fat cat elected officials) is saying, look, we know stuff like copyright and intellectual property is important, so, um, we'll keep passing legislation so that you (Big Business) can keep making profits.
But what are the implications of these laws? The implications are simple: the physical space that I consider my private space -- my home, my car -- is being given away, given up, and sold down the river by government to big business. We'll soon not be able to 'touch' hardware inside our homes.
I mean, for chrissake: imagine what would have happened if 40, 50, 60 years ago, Henry Ford declared the engines of automobiles off limits. "If you fuck with my engine, I'm gonna sue your ass so hard and so deep you won't be able to feed yourself and your family, much less ride around town in my automobile. You can ride in my automobile, Pal, and you can *pay me* for my automobile, but god dammit almighty: if you so much as pop the hood and clean those valves, I'll get my lawyers on your ass and make you weep. You can't look at that engine or touch that engine. Why? Because that's my life. That's my livelihood. And, come to think of it, not only can you not touch it, I want US$21.95 a month before I allow you to take the gas cap off to fill it with gas. Hell, I'll be generous: I'll give you one free tank of gas. But once that's gone, it's $21.95 a month for rights to unscrew that gas cap." (Which translates -- in the case of legal MP3s, for example -- into this: you pay me a monthly fee so that you won't get sued.)
It's madness.
Re:Hand in the cookie jar... (Score:2)
When you're creating an algorithm from scratch to translate a sequence of bits to something resembling the known input (the barcode), you have no way of knowing that there definitely is an encryption present. The public CueCat programs use XOR to produce barcode values, but we don't know that the CueCat is using XOR in its logic. The CueCat is a black box, and we can't see if there is a "no trespassing" component.
For that matter, we don't know that the public CueCat algorithm always works. There may be barcodes for which it fails. The correct algorithm has not been disclosed by the manufacturer, so we can only use what seems to work without knowing that it works.
For that matter, what seems to be a serial number at the beginning might actually be some interesting and useful data. We just don't know how to use it. Maybe if there were an authorized CueCat public driver with interesting uses, we would have more confidence in the device and have more uses for it.
Click-through licenses (Score:2)
Unfortunately, no. See ProCD [fortknoxescrow.com]. And it's a circuit court decision reversing a district court, too.
Re:DC is focusing on the pennies... (Score:2)
If they had any sense, they would focus on the other side of the transaction. That is, getting the Cue barcodes into everyone's catalog and advertisement for a fee. It wouldn't matter that the Linux people were using it for other things, they too might want product information, and only Cue's database would be able to resolve the link.
Of course, they would have to stop ripping off the valuable intellectual property of all those AOLers who don't know any better first.
Intellectual property? (Score:4)
Now, if someone were to pull apart a cat, and build one and market it to emulate the original, yes, that'd be infringement.
However, their encryption isn't of their own devising, so, no real reverse engineering there. Just application of existing algorithms.
Data generated from the cat isn't Intellectual Property at all.. Merely generated statistics.
Ok, I understand their stance that it'll affect their revenue stream by hijacking the cat, and using it for things it was never intended.
Still, what percentage of their market will persue this track? If they've done their marketing correctly, an absolutely minimal amount. And some of those may still use it for it's intended purpose.
Basically, if someone doesn't want their device pulled apart, and reverse engineered, don't throw it mainly at the tinkerers market segment.
It's like putting your hand in a tank of hungry pirhanas, and expecting them to ignore it.
In just about every venture, there's the concept of 'acceptible losses'.
As DC don't seem to be tying the whole thing down, and chasing it carefully, I think they just hit the kneejerk 'Call in the legal vultures, and the world will conform', and ignored it.
Not the kind of behaviour of a company really worried about the release of this info.
Malk.
DC is focusing on the pennies... (Score:5)
I think they're really barking up the wrong tree trying to shut down the hobbyists and the LINUX driver writers. Their true revenue stream lies with the AOLers of the world, and not with the bitheads that read Slashdot.
They should recognize that 5% of the people are going to hack their cats NO MATTER WHAT THEY WANT, and that the other 95% will be firing up AOL so they can quick scan the barcode on the front of the Radio Shack catalog.
Even if a Windoze version comes along (AOL compatible), over 75% of the users will still not circumvent their device. Mr. Matthews should chalk these up to "acceptable losses" and make sure that the content he provides to his "real" subscribers is good enough that the hacker substitutes don't compete in features.
When did "Cease and Desist" become an acceptable substitute for "Common Sense"?
John
The Church of the SubGenius [subgenius.com] -- because somebody had to put all that slack in there...
Giving away the hardware is a mug's game... (Score:2)
They could have come here FIRST, got all the drivers they could ever need, come up with a whole lots more reasons to use this thing and sold them at 300% mark-up. They'd be making money now.
Instead, they though they'd slip this in as a Trojan horse between consumers and their vendors. This business plan was cobbled together by someone with zero imagination and a sneaky, theiving heart.
Their CluelessCat was already in the trash compactor (I own Macs.) After the stupid handling of the entire debacle, I'll do without a spy in my midst thank you. Don't bother sending me another one. Not even if it has a REAL USB connection.
NEXT!
Re:Nice product? Its totally lame-ass. (Score:2)
You've pretty much gotta agree that a cheap barcode scanner that can be easily programmed is a nice idea. Sure there are alternatives, but some of us don't have Visors and want something cheap and cheerful that we can couple up to our Linux boxes and hack away at.
There's plenty of people out there looking to simplify the process of cataloguing books/CD's etc.
"Give the anarchist a cigarette"
Re:Why are we bothering? (Score:3)
I don't care if they understand my "convictions." I don't care if they give a "flying fuck" about us. We never gave them our "hard earned money." We're not asking for "customer support."
We're not asking for anything except to be left alone, essentially.
---- ----
Re:Hooray. A free bar code scanner. (Score:2)
Other than that, it's free, why not get one just in case you find an application for it someday in the future.
A swift, quick shutdown??? (Score:2)
Re:Why Stop? (Score:2)
I think you hit the nail on the head right there. DC's statements read like a PHB trying to convince other PHB's that their business situation is stable, everything's okay, and would you please go back to sleep and feed us more venture capital. Sure, it seems stupid to us, but it's probably plausible to the class of people who can listen to DC's business plan without snickering.
--
DMCA? (Score:2)
Maximum
Control of
America
Pretty sure... (Score:2)
Re:More CueCat (Score:3)
If I get REALLY bored I might see if I can hack something similar for my CD collection.
That, and what self-respecting geek wouldn't be interested in ANY toy like a barcode scanner to play with? Especially if the price is right?
Re: the SecurityFocus article. Does this guy have his head way up his arse or what? He really thinks the cease-and-desist had any real impact? Doesn't he realize all those sw bits are still out there, just hidden a little better? This guy appears a textbook example of a clueless suit in charge of a tech company. No fscking idea of what is going on in the real world.
Re:Um enough already, ok? (Score:2)
Re:Nice product, shame about the concept (Score:2)
> DC have actually got a really, really good
> business plan. It goes like this: give people
> free barcode scanners, get them to scan their
> stuff in, then they go to our website (via our
> software) and we redirect them to the company
> that "owns" the barcode.
> So Digital Convergence's real money-spinner is
> not the cuecat at all, it's SELLING SPACE TO
> ADVERTISERS.
That is what they want the public to think. Their real plan is far more sinister. They want John Q. Public to run around the house, frantically scanning all his belongings. You see, each 'cat has its own ID, which is linked with your personal info by the software registration process. Then each time you scan something, the ID goes out to them along with the UPC code. This secret info they had been filing in their publicly readable plain text file to sell as demographics info to whoever wants to pay. Hence, the Hyde of DC/DD, Digital Demographics. Unfortunately, their top secret plain text file was accidentally, (or not so accidentally) stumbled across by person or persons unknown. To apologize to their dear victims, er members, they emailed them each a gift certificate for $10. Unfortunately, according to one slashdotter, the person doing the emailing CCed instead of BCCed, granting email recipients a free list of all their victims, er members, along with the $10. No word yet as to whether another email is planned to apologize for the apology.
> Since that's their main asset, then, I simply DO
> NOT UNDERSTAND why they care about people
> reversing their hardware.
Well, if their main asset is the demographics, not the advertising, they would care because Linux hackers toss the privacy invading ID away, and write their own book (or whatever) cataloging software. That, and their silly management somehow think a common simple encryption of a public domain UPC symbol equals intellectual property. Then again, they also think they are some divinely appointed guardian of the link between UPC symbols and the web. And that all the hacked software has somehow disappeared. Not to mention that they can put a page on the web stating that it is a EULA and anyone who opened one of their unmarked (from the outside) packages is bound by it, and that it applies to the hardware, which is not free, but actually still owned by them. Silly, silly, silly.
> I say that the OS movement should make a rival
> site - www.qcat.com - and write software to send
> people there from *every* OS.
IANAL, but I would imagine that the proceeds from that, if you name it qcat and do the same thing with their hardware, would go to lawyers fees, because those involved would find themselves at the pointy end of a trademark infringement case. They are extremely lawyer happy, and their lawyers are letterhead happy.
But your online UPC/website database idea is cool. It might be okay if you rigged it to work with any UPC scanner, and didn't use a name similar to cue cat. Otherwise, I guess it is back to the usual:
collecting the whole set of cats from RS using assumed identities,
writing new and unusual cat apps (is there one in Prolog for BeOS that can be attached to a Mindstorms robot and used as a scanner yet?),
writing any company involved,
and a lot of slashdot discussion.
Did I leave anything out?
Dumb (Score:5)
The CueCat case is a problematic one. On one hand you can not deny obvious user benefits from the product, everybody seems to want one, so in a way the company has created a market for the product. On the other hand the company failed to realize that the consumers tend to minimize their costs, just like the eco classes teach them. Nobody wishes to pay more than is required by the law, and the law does not require making any payments to the CueCat, since CueCat did not bother to protect themselves. So what is CueCat to do in order to stay in business? I imagine the costs are already high for the CueCat. To save the situation they should think of some kind of user benefit they can offer to the customer to buy CueCat software, maybe they should offer an UPGRADE and SUPPORT for the CueCat hardware only to the customers that buy their software.
But, what would I know, I only took the first level of economics...
Hand in the cookie jar... (Score:4)
Chief Wiggum (to Ralph): "What IS your fascination with my forbidden closet of mystery?"
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