Apple Now Relaying All FaceTime Calls Due To Lost Patent Dispute 179
Em Adespoton writes "Before the VirnetX case, nearly all FaceTime calls were done through a system of direct communication. Essentially, Apple would verify that both parties had valid FaceTime accounts and then allow their two devices to speak directly to each other over the Internet, without any intermediary or 'relay' servers. However, a small number of calls—5 to 10 percent, according to an Apple engineer who testified at trial—were routed through 'relay servers.' At the August 15 hearing, a VirnetX lawyer stated that Apple had logged 'over half a million calls' complaining about the quality of FaceTime [since disabling direct connections]."
uhuh sure (Score:5, Interesting)
Nothing to do with ability to intercept.
Re:uhuh sure (Score:5, Funny)
NSA bot #43386
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Your sarcastic comment regarding civil liberties has been logged.
NSA bot bot #43387.
Re:uhuh sure (Score:5, Funny)
Two-party communication regarding civil liberties detected. This conspiracy has been flagged for follow-up.
NSA bot bot #43385.
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nope.. the two bots are working together to protect us from the terrible secret of space.
Re: uhuh sure (Score:2, Funny)
Unauthorized loggning registered. Sending drones to location of target IP: 127.0.0.1
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There will always be a possibility of intercept as long as Apple keeps the source code secre and prevents you from rebuilding and installing the software on the mobile computer. You would have to use free software on hardware controlled by you in order to avoid it.
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Re:uhuh sure (Score:5, Interesting)
This is marked troll, but consider that Skype has been taken from a distributed system to a system with a central server farm in Redmond.
Totally more inefficient for users (relaying makes Skype suck more), but much more efficient for TLAs.
And considering recent events (and events over the past 20 years, really) it's common sense.
--
BMO
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The 'common sense' for the wannabe tyrants is not the 'common sense' for the liberties of the rest of us.
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Skype was moved to centralized servers so they could survive the new era of communications: mobile devices. It was impossible to do Skype on mobile devices without centralized servers because the P2P communications would eat your battery AND your data bill. I'm sure this helps with interception as well, but it wasn't he main intention. This is discussed in detail by a former Skype engineer here:
http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/2013/06/sort/time_rev/page/1/entry/6:271/20130623090855:0B714E0A-DC06-11
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Re:uhuh sure (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing to do with ability to intercept.
Wait, why was parent marked troll?
In the case of Skype the very FIRST thing Microsoft did (was forced to do) was bring all call routing back through their own servers
How do you know the patent troll in this case wasn't funded by the NSA to force the very same thing on Apple? By forcing Apple to route all sessions through their already compromised data centers, the ability for the government to monitor the calls is restored, and Apple doesn't have to admit anything. Apple already appears on the leaked Prism source chart [theguardian.com]. So forcing all facetime sessions to go through already compromised data centers would be a high priority for the NSA.
I don't think you can dismiss out of hand the possibility that this was a planned outcome.
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Not far fetched IMO, Skype used to be far more secure. Relaying most certainly gives a central monitoring point.
Govt agencies have apparently complained that iMessage's encryption stops them, does FaceTime enjoy the same sort of crypto? I've only recently used FaceTime and found it's performance acceptable but I too cannot help but wonder.
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How do you know the patent troll in this case wasn't funded by the NSA to force the very same thing on Apple? By forcing Apple to route all sessions through their already compromised data centers, the ability for the government to monitor the calls is restored, and Apple doesn't have to admit anything.
What makes you think the NSA needs it to go through Apple's data centers in order to monitor/log it? And either way if they're not bothering with the actual content of the call but just who called who when, then that part has always gone through Apple's servers.
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And either way if they're not bothering with the actual content of the call but just who called who when
Sad to see someone so far out of touch with reality.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57589495-38/nsa-spying-flap-extends-to-contents-of-u.s-phone-calls/ [cnet.com]
http://www.breitbart.com/InstaBlog/2013/07/29/Greenwald-NSA-Listens-to-Your-Phone-Calls [breitbart.com]
http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/305803-report-nsa-admits-listening-to-phone-calls-without-warrants [thehill.com]
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2342579/NSA-listen-U-S-phone-calls-warrant-according-congressman.html [dailymail.co.uk]
http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/the-ns [macobserver.com]
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That sounds very weaselly, in the sense that if one person anywhere had such a thought but never spoke it, your statement would be true. And it sounds like the kind of baseless nutball regurgitation we have come to expect from internet conspiracy crazies.
You should meet AC, he's informative but shy. [slashdot.org] This is probably why it was marked troll initially, since it has been going around for a while, and calling out the NSA
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Uh - US ability to intercept is not restricted to cabled telephony and relays.
No, but it helps.
Re: uhuh sure (Score:5, Insightful)
US intel is not "stupid" except when talking to Congress, which is.
This is the same 'US intel' which missed the collapse of the USSR, 9/11, the Boston Bombers, and were totally sure Saddam Hussein had WMDs, right, not another 'US intel' that's actually competent?
As for original comment, intercepting calls is vastly easier when they go to a central server and they have direct access to the decrypted data than when they go peer to peer with encryption.
Re: uhuh sure (Score:4, Insightful)
US intel is not "stupid" except when talking to Congress, which is.
This is the same 'US intel' which missed the collapse of the USSR, 9/11, the Boston Bombers, and were totally sure Saddam Hussein had WMDs, right, not another 'US intel' that's actually competent?
As for original comment, intercepting calls is vastly easier when they go to a central server and they have direct access to the decrypted data than when they go peer to peer with encryption.
The collapse of the USSR was well known in the press ahead of time. I remember reading predictions a couple months in advance.
The NSA knew about 9/11, they were monitoring those guys, but nobody was listening to them seriously in those days. That's the date they started being taken seriously.
Boston Marathon: I bet they knew something was up with those guys as well, although a quiet plot between brothers is pretty hard to intercept.
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"Boston Marathon: I bet they knew something was up with those guys as well, although a quiet plot between brothers is pretty hard to intercept."
Well, the Russian authorities warned the US about them.
Re: uhuh sure (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a good thing our government doesn't waste resources checking all of them out instead of high priority tasks like groping airline passengers and busting pot dispensaries.
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You missed the WMD part - where the CIA said that they had raw intel about it and our "leaders" who wanted a war took it as gospel and ran with it to support their cause. So far as I know CIA never delivered a finished vetted report claiming WMD, I'm pretty sure it would've been "leaked" if such a thing existed.
Considering the lead up to the war I'm quite sure any REAL WMD were shipped off to Syria long before we got there.
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Interesting, first I'd heard of that - thanks! I'm not at all surprised that the weapons existed, if indeed that proves it, but at the time our Govt. took raw intel and used it as the basis to send us in. I don't think the CIA was quite ready to make that case but they wanted to go and bent things to their ends. A mess from end to end for sure. I miss the days when reporters just reported facts...
Re: uhuh sure (Score:5, Insightful)
...and so you link to the Washington Times, and completely destroy any credibility you might have had.
Two problems. One, the mainstream press [nbcnews.com] did cover the story. [washingtonpost.com] Two, old rocket engines and old chemical weapons shells in dumps and scrapyards tell us only that Iraq used to have WMD --- never a contentious point.
The conclusion that Iraq had no WMD at the time of the American attack isn't some liberal media (ha!) conspiracy, it's the conclusion of the gorram CIA [cnn.com].
Bush lied, and the Fox "News" set continues to lie, about Iraq.
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That goddamn mainstream press.....wait hang on you linked to 2 of them!
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This is the same 'US intel' which missed the collapse of the USSR, 9/11, the Boston Bombers, and were totally sure Saddam Hussein had WMDs, right, not another 'US intel' that's actually competent?
But this time they're sure the Syrian government used chemical weapons.
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The reality is someone used chemical weapons in Syria. The problem is was it rebels, Al queada, or Asssad.
All of them have equal motivation to use them. And the entire lot is nothing but brutal violent sociopaths who like to rape and murder with unlimited impunity.
The only thing to do is shove all the refugees back into syria all it off to Jordan, and turkey and let Iran deal with the mess.
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The reality is someone used chemical weapons in Syria. The problem is was it rebels, Al queada, or Asssad.
Apparently the US government has evidence that it was the Syrian government, now I'm not a fan of the Syrian government anymore than I was of the last target that the US has 'evidence' around WMDs for but they hardly have a good track record on 'intelligence' despite their extensive surveillance.
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And after we bomb Syria, I'm sure they'll be moved to another country we don't like, so we can bomb them in a couple years.
Perhaps Canada someday?
Something I noted... (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, I noted that some "patent expert" didn't report this at all, despite being one who is self proclaimed as following and reporting on patent issues. I am sure if this involved Google/Motorola or Android, this "expert" would have lots to report on the issue. I will abbreviate his name as FM. Is there a trend?
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Nobody really cites him anymore as a legitimate resource ever since he was outed as an Oracle paid shill. His focus isn't so much on praising Apple as much as it is shining negative light on Google. Seeing as this has basically nothing to do with Google, he likely simply didn't have anything to say, because he's not getting paid to say it.
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Curious, I see everyone calling him a paid shill. However, I haven't seen any evidence that he actually does that? He presents his source materials for his analysis.
How is he a shill? Just because he needs to make a living and gets paid by Oracle - and publicly announces that he does get paid by Oracle?
Re:Something I noted... (Score:4, Interesting)
Look at the proceedings of the Oracle x Google case about the Java patents. Oracle listed him as a paid source.
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He didn't publicly announce it. It was found out after years of him hiding it due to the lawsuit between Oracle and Google.
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In school, when I do my homework, I had to present my work, step by step, and cite my sources.
He appears to do that in his blog posts. So are you saying that he is a factual shill?
And I thought it was a few months, not a few years (I didn't follow it that closely).
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> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shill [wikipedia.org]
" A shill, also called a plant or a stooge, is a person who publicly helps a person or organization without disclosing that they have a close relationship with the person or organization. "
Yes, he is a factual shill...by definition.
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so... once he discloses it, he is not a shill any more?
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Of course the guy is a shill. He was being paid by Oracle to write pro-Oracle commentary. Worse, it's not even the first time he did it. Remember all the nonsense he posted on the SCO vs. Linux battles? The guy is a dishonorable piece of shit.
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Curious what nonsense are you referring to? I don't remember (even though my friend was one of the "holder" of evidence for that trial)
Re:Something I noted... (Score:4, Interesting)
If you haven't seen any evidence, then you have not actually done any looking.
Anyway, I cannot see why anyone would put any stock in anything he has to say.
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The thing that really erased all semblance of credibility from him is when he was revealed to be on Oracle's payroll throughout the Oracle v. Google case which he covered extensively (and almost invariably rooted in favor of Oracle, strangely enough!). Never once did he put a disclaimer saying he had ties with Oracle; instead, he actively denied it. THAT is inexcusable and
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Nobody really cites him anymore as a legitimate resource ever since he was outed as an Oracle paid shill.
Nobody with a brain really cited him as a legitimate resource before either.
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If you're not joking or trolling, that would be Florian Müller. (Not giving him a free link, either--use the Google if you want or need to know more.)
What patent? (Score:5, Interesting)
What is the patent involved here? Establishing a connection between two entities on an IP network? NAT traversal techniques? Usage of Interactive Connectivity Establishment protocols?
Re:What patent? (Score:5, Insightful)
What is the patent involved here? Establishing a connection between two entities on an IP network? NAT traversal techniques? Usage of Interactive Connectivity Establishment protocols?
Better question: Who cares? The patent system is so hopelessly corrupt it might as well be "Company A wants to extort money from Company B"... and so, a patent is produced, that is vaguely worded and could possibly cover something vaguely related to what Company B does. And then it's elephant mating season, with its attendant judges, teams of lawyers, reporters, etc. ...
I gave up long ago trying to keep up with the news on these things -- is the patent valid? Isn't it? What legal process will happen now? Aww fuck it. You know what; Corporations are like children. They don't play well with others and really need their ass paddled to learn some discipline. Unfortunately, Uncle is drunk off his ass ranting about the war and not watching the kids...
Re:What patent? (Score:5, Insightful)
The technology to establish a connection between two peers for voice or video communication is standardized, in particular by the IETF, and implemented by many vendors.
If there is a patent on that technology, that would put into question hundreds if not thousands of products worldwide.
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SIP is another standard for VOIP. It works with off the shelf hardware from many vendors as well as softphones.
Re:What patent? (Score:5, Informative)
What is the patent involved here? Establishing a connection between two entities on an IP network? NAT traversal techniques? Usage of Interactive Connectivity Establishment protocols?
Following links in the article will eventually get you to an article listing the patents [arstechnica.com].
The disaster of allowing software patents (Score:5, Insightful)
The patents in question describe nothing more than perfectly normal combinations of Internet services that any software engineer who knows basic networking would be expected to create as a matter of course. Combining such services into higher protocols is simply algorithmic construction in network programming.
This patent suit illustrates well the chilling effect that software patents have on our ability to use computers and the Internet to best effect. When you allow software algorithms to be locked away in patents, the ability of engineers to use computers and networks as an enabling technology decreases dramatically, to the extreme detriment of our ability to improve our systems.
Each new software patent just adds further bars to the prison. If this disease isn't stopped soon, the profession is going to be worthless except as a feeding pit for lawyers.
Re:The disaster of allowing software patents (Score:5, Insightful)
When you allow software algorithms to be locked away in patents
Actually that is not the biggest problem. That would be fair enough if those algorithm required years of R&D. What we are talking about here is stuff that is normal everyday problem to solving for the engineer in charge of developing the feature.
Patent are supposed to expose secrets in exchange for a temporary monopol. However, if nobody look at the patents to find those secrets and yet manage to reinvent them, what exactly is the value of those patent ? If you have a patent system where people need to search for the patent to license after they have made their product, your patent system is broken at a fundamental level.
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If you create a patent, you are responsible for finding infringements of the patent in products (as usual) and once you do, you can only claim a royalty of a maximum 90% of the revenue from the product less marginal costs from once the infringement was found, no previous damages or anything and the company is still allowed to continue production. This 90% however is divvied up between all patent holders who find infringements.
So that should cut patent troll re
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What is the patent involved here? Establishing a connection between two entities on an IP network? NAT traversal techniques? Usage of Interactive Connectivity Establishment protocols?
No, its "telephony .. over the internet, on a COMPUTER!!1 or smartphone!777"
SIP (Score:2)
How is this different from canreinvite=yes/no in Asterisk? Doesn't SIP allow for the same thing?
Digital LMR radio systems (Score:2)
We've had to evaluate several systems for possible deployment where I work. Invariably, they want to route all calls through a central server. So if someone on a site a hundred miles away wants to talk to someone on the same site, it routes the call all the way back to a main server, then all the way back to the tower and out over the air. Who gives a crap about delay or user experience any more?
Why do they do this? They say customers are requiring all calls to be logged, and sending all traffic back to the
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Sarbones-oxley - and similar laws can mean that you are required to log buisness transactions.
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Just because device A can talk to device B, and device A can talk to device C, doesn't mean that device B can talk to device C at all/completely/reliably.
Also, CALEA very well might require this hub-routed functionality.
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What freaking customers? The NSA?
Umm, yeah. SAIC [wikipedia.org] is a defense contractor, headquartered right in the middle of TLA government land. I wouldn't be surprised if the settlement for infringement is 'we either sue your company into the ground or you route all traffic through a central server with our taps on it'.
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Oh, so you want Skype? A P2P service with end to end crypto that uses a central login server and a distributed directory service? Sorry, Microsoft bought them and centralized their servers. They are also dropping the supported APIs real soon now (and breaking them). I hope you didn't build your business on this service (many did). Skype, was sketchy in that no one knew exactly what went on under the hood and people were starting to break into it's traffic management and directory services but i don't think
Ongoing? (Score:3)
Both sides in the litigation admit that if Apple routes its FaceTime calls through relay servers, it will avoid infringing the VirnetX patents. Once Apple was found to be infringing—and realized it could end up paying an ongoing royalty for using FaceTime—the company redesigned the system so that all FaceTime calls would rely on relay servers. Lease believes the switch happened in April.
So, from that, it appears that Apple infringed up until April, but no longer does.
Meanwhile, Apple has handed over its customer service logs from April through mid-August to VirnetX's attorneys. At the August 15 hearing, a VirnetX lawyer stated that Apple had logged "over half a million calls" complaining about the quality of FaceTime, according to Lease.
If that's accurate, the data will bolster VirnetX's arguments that its patents are technologically significant, hard to work around, and deserve a high royalty rate.
And if the customers are complaining because it currently uses the sucky work-around, then that also indicates that Apple stopped infringing in April.
The judge and lawyers present at the hearing didn't discuss numbers regarding what a reasonable ongoing royalty might be, but VirnetX is asking for royalty payments of more than $700 million for the ongoing use of FaceTime, according to Lease.
... so why would there be ongoing royalties? If you stop using someone's patented improvement and return to using the previous, public domain system, you shouldn't have to keep paying them royalties. This would be like if someone patented a better mousetrap, and then when you stopped using it, they also wanted you to pay a royalty for owning a cat.
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... so why would there be ongoing royalties?
Presumably because the plaintiff believes that their patents are still being infringed. From the wording, I'd guess that whether that is actually true has not been decided yet; just asking for something doesn't mean they'll get it.
("Chocolate ice cream, please." Nope. Doesn't work.)
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Apple is claiming that this patent wasn't critical, look how easily they removed it and worked around it, and thus they should owe little money for their infringement. Plaintiff claims that indeed this was a HUGE deal and that Apple lodging so many complaints after having removed a super duper critical feature to prevent infringement demonstrates just how critical it was and thus they should now be owners of half the company. Or something along those lines - both sides are trying to downplay or play up the
Perhaps Apple can countersue (Score:2, Interesting)
Where is the innovation? (Score:5, Insightful)
Making direct connection between nodes is so fucking obvious. Any kind of service that would benefit from it, the designers would just do it. A patent that covers that in general adds nothing. A patent with some kind of innovative idea in this area might be possible for ways to improve direct communications. But such an innovative patent would not cover the obvious aspect of direct communication.
The problem is not the patent trolls that exploit bugs in the patent system to their own unjustified financial gain. Instead, the problem is the USPTO that issues patents for obvious ideas just because they were able to find someone in their office that could not think up the idea, which appears to be more than 99% of patent applications. This is where the fix needs to happen. Patents must pass the innovation test and USPTO is not even aware how to do this test.
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Punching holes in NAT is a fucking nightmare
I thought it was just a case of getting both parties to attempt to send packets to each other on an agreed UDP port - that's how I thought Skype did it anyway.
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Punching holes in NAT is a fucking nightmare
I thought it was just a case of getting both parties to attempt to send packets to each other on an agreed UDP port - that's how I thought Skype did it anyway.
Depends on the NAT. There is absolutely no guarantee that the NAT won't alter your source port (which means the traffic from the other end that is directed at that port won't get to you). This stuff isn't too bad if one end is behind a NAT, but it becomes unreliable once you have both ends behind a NAT because there's just no way to guarantee the NAT will behave how you need it to behave.
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I'd think the obvious solution to how to map port numbers for NAT would be to map each host/port pair to a single random external port, regardless of the address it's sending/receiving to/from. That way you have just one lookup table for the mapping each way. IF the NAT router does that, then all you do is connect to a common server, which notes your external IP address/port and passes that on to the other party (and vice versa).
This is a misunderstanding of how a lot of NATs work.
A connection is identified by a tuple of (protocol, source IP, source port, destination IP, destination port). The source IP and source port are going to be rewritten by the NAT. The NAT will maintain a table of connections, which will map:
(protocol, original source IP, original source port, destination IP, destination port) <-> (protocol, translated source IP, translated source port, destination IP, destination port)
The "translated source IP" is
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I can see hoe maybe there are special techniques and such for people w/ firewalls or NAT or other such things, but for most of the world's internet users, I dont see how that would be a problem? Cant they just use the relay servers in cases where they WOULD have to bypass/punch a NAT?
Because a massive majority of end-users on home "broadband" connections (at least in the US, where Apple lives) use NAT. Without supporting it you're not supporting your target market. If you're using Facetime on an iDevice, chances are you're using it over home WiFi, so you can pretty much figure that means such a huge majority of the Facetime calls are made with at least one user behind a NAT that it would be pointless to do what you're talking about.
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Most devices are quite capable of being directly connected to the net safely.
What the hell are you basing that assertion on? Or is there some weasel in the combination of "capable" and "safely" that I'm not getting?
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So you "mean most high CPU capacity devices with built in firewalls that most people don't disable by default" can be connected to the internet without a second firewall, not say, Smart TVs, etc. I'd argue the point on people not disabling their firewall on the laptop/etc too, since I still see a lot of people do that.. but Smart TVs seem as vulnerable as toddlers in a lion enclosure...
I'm assuming you're not talking corporate either.
My linux box is my firewall :P But that's cause I'm too lazy to maintain s
Virnet's licensing statement (Score:2)
Emphasis mine:
"Customers who want to develop their own implementation of the VirnetX patented techniques for supporting secure domain names, or other techniques that are covered by our patent portfolio for establishing secure communication links, will need to purchase a patent license."
Hard not to notice the lack of links for say, SDK documentation, samples, registration -- just a statement that you can email them to ask. There are no demos. Also, they have crawling disabled. So I can't, for example,
Some problems here... (Score:2)
Okay, they have logged over a half million complaints that had something to do with FaceTime. How many did they log prior to this? How large an increase, if any, was this? Were the additional complaints having to do with something specific that leads anyone to believe it had to do with this change? did these complaints start immediately after the change? Simply the fact that a company the size of Apple has logged that many complaints doesn't seem unusual at all, this article lacks a great deal of context ar
WTF? (Score:3)
That's exactly how SIP based VOIP phones have always worked. The routing information is passed over SIP and the voice connection is free to be routed over a different path, or directly.
I'd read TFA but I can't be bothered. Other comments here mention the patents being filed in 2002/2003. The SIP RFC was filed in mid 2002. Maybe I should be on the lookout for new RFCs and file patents for every one of them that looks interesting.
The right time for WebRTC (Score:2)
Your browser (Chrome, Firefox) probably already has more advanced technology onboard than Facetime.
It's called WebRTC and allows peer 2 peer video, audio and data communication and it's always encrypted.
If you ask me, it's the right time to start adoption of WebRTC.
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It is possible it would try to do so.
I don't think they can attack WebRTC directly.
The advantage of WebRTC might be that it doesn't define a signaling protocol.
But companies don't sue IETF, they sue other companies.
What about Napster? (Score:2)
Seems Napster was setting up peer to peer connections around 1998 or 1999.
I'm not sure how this invention isn't obvious after Napster.
well, that explains it (Score:2)
had the crappiest time using FaceTime for D&D last Wednesday. Knowing that I'm not using a direct connection would explain the crappy video quality, frequent disconnects, and audio dropouts. Guess we'll have to start using a second SKYPE account.
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Hardly. As far as I can tell, VirnetX is basically a combination of academics and lawyers that won against a real business like Apple.
Re: Obvious patents and patent trolls (Score:5, Insightful)
What? I am eagerly awaiting VirnetX's release of it fabulous point to point video communications software. I mean its sure to be released soon right, right?!
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You are absolutely correct, but the sad truth is that patent laws only require you to submit a working proof of concept within 18 months after filing. The poc doesnt have to be any good only to show the claim in some working order.
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I eagerly await VirnetX's lawsuits against all the SIP phone manufacturers because, as I understand it, SIP allows two phones to directly talk to each other once initial setup is done...
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I eagerly await VirnetX's lawsuits against all the SIP phone manufacturers because, as I understand it, SIP allows two phones to directly talk to each other once initial setup is done...
Well, the issue is NAT - SIP still has major troubles with it, and Facetime doesn't. And that's what is violating the patent.
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Is there more to it than UPNP port opening?
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Is there more to it than UPNP port opening?
I imagine it's UDP hole punching: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UDP_hole_punching [wikipedia.org]
The iPhone isn't free (Score:2)
a small company's attempt to compete in the marketplace against a free offering from Apple.
FaceTime is available bundled with the iPhone, and the iPhone itself is not a free offering. VirnetX could have tried to make its application a standard across every platform that isn't Apple's.
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So business should just be able to use someone else's research as they see fit?
Perhaps business does its own research.
There are many problems that have obvious solutions no matter who does the research. Some solutions are inevitable. They aren't supposed to be patented.
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Inevitable discovery is a defense, a way of overturning a patent. But people often overestimate what's inevitable. Many good ideas aren't discovered for generations even though all the pieces were in place.
Re:Obvious patents and patent trolls (Score:4, Insightful)
I've got nothing against patenting good ideas, but the techniques described in the patents involved seem inevitable to me.
But then again juries don't usually include computer engineers so everything computer seems like magic to them.
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It is very VERY difficult to judge what was inevitable, because things in hindsight often look obvious.
I could take 10 of the smartest people here, who hadn't seen this patent - only the problem it was supposed to overcome. And we could spitball ideas for a few hours. And maybe come up with a solution. Does that mean it is inevitable?
No, because even though that team possessed the ability to solve the problem, statistically speaking they were not ever tasked to solve the problem, and so would not have do
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There is nothing innovative in FaceTime and similar systems that I can see. Handing off video chats to direct connections is an obvious engineering solution; nobody should get a patent on it. Many of the software patents are written by academics with no understanding of engineering or what is actually going on in the real world.
Re:Obvious patents and patent trolls (Score:5, Informative)
Here are a couple of the patents Apple was found to have infringed. They actually look non-obvious to me. Basically they're about running a special DNS proxy server that catches non-standard requests, checks credentials in some fashion, and either sets up a just-in-time VPN, passes them through to a normal DNS server, or returns an error. They also don't seem to be a troll company; it looks like this work was done as a government contract.
I didn't look for any details on how Facetime peer-to-peer worked so I don't know if the ruling is correct and generally I consider software non-patentable (copyright and trade secret should be enough) but this is not what I'd call a meritless patent troll case.
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%252Fnetahtml%252FPTO%252Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6502135.PN.&OS=PN/6502135&RS=PN/6502135 [uspto.gov]
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%252Fnetahtml%252FPTO%252Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=7418504.PN.&OS=PN/7418504&RS=PN/7418504 [uspto.gov]
Re: (Score:2)
"Just ask Obama to overturn the ruling."
Requesting the legislative branches not to allocate resources for enforcement is more the current administrations' style.
Re:Lost a lawsuit? (Score:4, Interesting)
"Just ask Obama to overturn the ruling." Requesting the legislative branches not to allocate resources for enforcement is more the current administrations' style.
To be fair, that's easier than trying to get the Legislative Branch to *actually* do something (about anything). According to Slate [slate.com] the 113th Congress has passed only 15 bills this year for Obama to sign while "... more than 4,000 bills have been referred to committee this year, where most will die of starvation."
For comparison's sake, George W. Bush signed 13 bills into law on today's date alone [July 12] in 2005—with a Republican majority in both houses, mind you—but seven of those bills were sponsored by Democrats!
Of course, we only have ourselves to blame for voting all these weasels into office...
Patents, opening it will not fix the patents (Score:3)
patents need to be stopped.
Re:Does this affect people in other countries? (Score:4, Insightful)
Time to open an office in Dublin and move the operations.
Re: (Score:3)
Akamai has several streaming media solutions. One example http://www.akamai.com/html/solutions/sola-vision.html [akamai.com]