Month: July 2021

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Microsoft has rolled out another preview build of Windows 11, and while it’s mostly bug fixes, there are a few design tweaks and a new entertainment widget (which is basically just an ad for movies in the Microsoft Store). Meanwhile, MediaTek has unveiled two new smartphone processors with an emphasis on high-quality camera and display […]

The post Lilbits: Windows 11 inches closer, MediaTek’s new smartphone chips, and Linux smartphone news appeared first on Liliputing.

The U.S. Government is known to go after copyright infringing companies and individuals, both domestically and abroad.

This doesn’t mean that there are no copyright issues within its own ranks.

Five years ago the US Navy was sued for mass copyright infringement and accused of causing hundreds of millions of dollars in damages.

Software Company Sues US Navy

The lawsuit was filed by the German company Bitmanagement. It’s not a typical piracy case in the sense that software was downloaded from shady sources. However, the end result is the same.

It all started in 2011 when the US Navy began testing the company’s 3D virtual reality application ‘BS Contact Geo’. After some testing, the Navy installed the software across its network, assuming that it had permission to do so.

This turned out to be a crucial misunderstanding. Bitmanagement said it never authorized this type of use and when it heard that the Navy had installed the software on 558,466 computers, the company took legal action.

Bitmanagement Wins Appeal

In a complaint filed at the United States Court of Federal Claims in 2016, the German company accused the US Navy of mass copyright infringement and demanded damages totaling hundreds of millions of dollars.

The Court initially dismissed the complaint but Bitmanagement appealed. Earlier this year, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit sided with the German software company, concluding that the US Government is indeed liable.

This meant that the matter was reverted back to the Federal Claims court, to determine the appropriate damages amount. Over the past weeks, the US submitted several sealed filings hoping to keep the damages under control, but Bitmanagement was having none of it.

$155,400,000 in Piracy Damages

Unlike the Government’s arguments, BitManagement’s position is not kept out of the public eye. The company openly argues that it has the right to $155,400,000 in copyright infringement damages.

This figure is based on more than 600,000 copies of the software that were installed. This is multiplied by the negotiated $370 license per install, minus a 30% discount.

“The evidence at trial showed that the Navy made at least 600,000 copies of BS Contact Geo that were not monitored by Flexera. For these 600,000 copies, unrebutted expert testimony at trial demonstrated that the parties would have agreed in a hypothetical negotiation to a final negotiated price of $259 per copy,” Bitmanagement writes.

The Government’s filings are not public but Bitmanagement’s brief suggests that the Government tried to have the damages amount lowered. Among other things, it suggested that a bigger discount should have been possible.

Massive Discount Wasn’t an Option

The software company disputes that. While it did consider bigger discounts for other software, this never was an option for “BS Contact Geo.”

“[T]he Navy would not have sought, nor would Bitmanagement have accepted, a volume discount greater than 70%. Although years before the hypothetical negotiation Bitmanagement considered selling its software at more discounted prices to the Navy, those preliminary discussions and offers involved less-advanced software than BS Contact Geo”

Also, by the time the licensing discussions would have taken place, the Government indicated that the software was hard to replace, which boosted the software company’s negotiation position.

[B]y the time of the hypothetical negotiation in July 2013, the Navy had determined that BS Contact Geo was a ‘critical component’ to the Navy for which there were no viable alternatives. According to the Navy, “BS Contact Geo was the only software that could fulfill its needs.”

It is now up to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims to determine if the Government must pay $155 million in damages or if a reduction is warranted. It seems unavoidable that some compensation has to be paid, however.

Interestingly this is not the first time that the U.S. military has been “caught” pirating software. A few years ago it was accused of operating unlicensed logistics software, a case the Obama administration eventually settled for $50 million.

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A copy of Bitmanagement’s brief regarding the damages calculation is available here (pdf).

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Enlarge (credit: KiwiSDR)

A spectrum painted image made using KiwiSDR. (credit: xssfox)

KiwiSDR is hardware that uses a software-defined radio to monitor transmissions in a local area and stream them over the Internet. A largely hobbyist base of users do all kinds of cool things with the playing-card-sized devices. A user in, say, Manhattan can connect one to the Internet so that people in, say, Madrid, Spain, or Sydney, Australia, can listen to AM radio broadcasts, CB radio conversations, or even watch lightning storms in Manhattan.

On Wednesday, users learned that for years their devices had been equipped with a backdoor that allowed the KiwiSDR creator—and possibly others—to log in to their devices with administrative system rights. The remote admin could then make configuration changes and access data not just for the KiwiSDR, but in many cases to the Raspberry Pi, BeagleBone Black, or other computing device the SDR hardware is connected to.

A big trust problem

Signs of the backdoor in the KiwiSDR date back to at least 2017. The backdoor was recently removed under unclear circumstances. But despite the removal, users remain rattled, since the devices run as root on whatever computing device they’re connected to and can often access other devices on the same network.

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Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images)

The US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) yesterday filed a complaint against Amazon over the sale of hundreds of thousands of hazardous products, including carbon monoxide detectors that fail to detect carbon monoxide, hair dryers without required protection from shock and electrocution, and flammable sleepwear meant for children. The CPSC said it sued Amazon to "force [the] recall" of the dangerous products. While Amazon has halted sales of most of them already and issued refunds, the CPSC said it isn't satisfied with how Amazon notified customers and said the industry giant must do more to ensure that the faulty products are destroyed.

The dangerous products were offered by third parties using the "Fulfilled by Amazon" (FBA) program, in which Amazon stores products in its warehouses, ships them to customers, and takes a sizable cut from the proceeds. The CPSC's administrative complaint alleges that Amazon hasn't taken enough responsibility for dangerous third-party products that it ships via FBA.

The complaint didn't mention any specific incidents of injury but said the evidence supporting the charges includes "lawsuits concerning incidents or injuries involving various consumer products identified in the Complaint." It also said that CPSC staff tested the products and found that they don't meet safety requirements. Products that don't meet these requirements pose a substantial risk of injury or death to consumers, the agency said.

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