3COM's Ergo Audrey Hacked 134
It looks like the 3COM Ergo Audrey hacking scene is finally taking off. A guy named Sowbug has hacked the 3COM Ergo Audrey to shell. He has pictures of it here(1) and here(2). Another site has opened to cover this hack, here(3). And of course the Linux Hacker messageboards are covering it quite a bit.
Re:Be careful folks. (Score:2, Interesting)
From what I've seen of this trick NONE of it falls under the DMCA: no encryption/decryption involved. It can be argued, probably successfully, that getting an image of the software that runs the system is copyright violation. However, estimating the value of the code per copy at less than 100 dollars, a single copy under the non-profit copyright laws would be insufficient for jailtime. Of course, I could be remembering the statute incorrectly: it has been several months since I last looked at the law.
As for a licence... that's a civil matter. Thank goodness that so far no company has managed to convince congress that violation of a click-through or shrink-wrap agreement should result in incarceration.
Someday these companies will realize that what we want is to pay a fair price for a box that works on our terms. In the mean time, let's pay an absurdly undervalued price and hack away.
Not a fake (Score:4, Interesting)
Faked Screenshots (Score:0, Interesting)
All the people pointing out the tiny little pixel-sized inconsistencies in the pictures are going to be disappointed to know that the the screenshots are real. The guy didn't do any graphical manipulation to make these; they're actual legitimate photo images of what was being displayed on the monitor at the time.
What's faked is the shell prompt itself. Look at the top of the screen. See the little menu bar? That ain't Linux, that's Audrey. All the guy did was display a bunch of text on the screen that looks like a shell prompt, or take a screenshot of a real shell prompt and display it on the Audrey's screen.
That is all. You may now return to writing conspiracy theories.