p2pnet - rss feed: Altnet tries TrueNames on p2p ops
p2pnet.net News:- You have to give it to Kazaa owner Sharman Networks and associates Brilliant Digital Entertainment and Altnet: they’ll try anything to turn their TrueNames DRM app into hard cash.
Their latest move is revealed in a circular they’ve sent to various p2p firms including BearShare, Limewire, MashBoxx and Shareaza, that we know of at the moment.
It says, among other things:
I write on behalf of Brilliant Digital Entertainment, Inc. (“BDE”) and Altnet, Inc. (“Altnet”), the exclusive licensees for use in peer-to-peer computing of U.S. Patent No. 5,978,791, entitled “Data Processing System Using Substantially Unique Identifiers to Identify Data Items, Whereby Identical Data Items Have the Same Identifiers” (“the ’791 Patent”) and U.S. Patent No. 6,415,280 B1 entitled “Identifying and Requesting Data In Network Using Identifiers Which Are Based On Contents of Data” (“the ’280 Patent”) (collectively the “Data Distribution Patents”).
It goes on:
Based upon our investigation, we believe that other peer-to-peer applications, including applications offered by your company, use the technology claimed in the Data Distribution Patents for identifying, accessing, and distributing data items between computers. Accordingly, we believe that your company requires a license from BDE and Altnet to continue practicing the ‘791 and ‘280 Patents with your company’s peer-to-peer application.
It also says:
On December 2, 2004, BDE and Altnet filed a patent infringement lawsuit against MediaSentry, Loudeye, Overpeer, and the RIAA (case number CV-04-9823 SJO (RNBx) filed in the United States District Court for the Central District of California). According to the complaint, these entities infringe one or more claims of the ‘791 and ‘280 Patents by engaging in spoofing and monitoring activities on the networks formed by users of peer-to-peer applications.
We invite you to discuss licensing opportunities with BDE and Altnet. BDE and Altnet are willing to license your company on negotiated terms acceptable to BDE and Altnet, just as they have done with Sharman, so it can continue practicing the ‘791 and ‘280 Patents.
“We’re gathering information to find out what the goal of all this is,” a Shareaza spokesman says. “We’ll formulate where we’re going to go from there.”
MashBoxx boss Wayne Russo told p2pnet, “Well, when I stopped laughing …..” .
MashBoxx is the upcoming Big Music-approved application that identifies copyrighted music files on a p2p network and allows copyright owners to control how they’re traded, and for how much. It’s about to go into beta.
“What’s interesting is they said their investigation shows we’re utilizing their patent,” Russo states scornfully. “Their investigators must not be very thorough because MashBoxx hasn’t launched yet so I don’t see how it’s possible for us to have infringed on their patent.
”Not only that, but if I’m not mistaken, I made a deal with Snocap to do my content identification, and then if I’m not mistaken, Snocap made a deal with Philips and is utilizing Philips’ identification technology so Hey! – they’re barking up the wrong tree.
“Frankly, I think it’s some kind of bullshit move to try to bolster their case against the RIAA. And I’m starting to think the RIAA isn’t taking it seriously at all. They’re certainly not afraid of it, and neither is Loudeye or anybody else.”
“They’re going to get serious blow-back on this,” adds Russo.
BearShare’s Louis Tatta thinks p2p vendors should pool their resources and have an IP attorney evaluate Altnet’s patent claims.
Altnet’s “lame duck” patent
In 2002, Altnet ceo Kevin Bermeister bragged that TrueNames Ron Lachman had been appointed Altnet’s chief scientist.
TrueNames, “claims invention of the old and trivial technique of using strong hashes as hashtable keys,” said InfoAnarchy. “A second patent spun out of the first … claims invention of the idea of requesting documents from network servers by unique identifier.”
“[…] the bottom line is that someone managed to persuade Altnet that the Truenames Patent was worth something (one imagines that this was right after Altnet’s successful purchase of London’s Tower Bridge and a large selection of invisible clothing),” said Freenet’s Ian Clarke.
“Assuming that those Altnet threatens with their lame duck patent put up even the slightest bit of resistence, the patent won’t stand, and Altnet will be left looking like the enemies of consumers, innovation, and competition, once again a pariah within a P2P community that should be working together against its common foes.”
As well as granting Altnet an exclusive license to the TrueNames patent, “Lachman will also provide strategic and technical guidance on Altnet’s distributed computing initiatives,” stated Bermeister in a puff release on Lachman’s appointment.
Lachman co-developed and patented TrueNames in 1994 and licensed it to Digital Island.
In 2002, a US federal judge granted Akamai Technologies its motion for a permanent injunction against Digital Island to stop it from running its Footprint content delivery service, “the latest twist in a legal battle that began nearly two years ago,” said NetworkWorldFusion at the time.
“Digital Island, now a wholly owned subsidiary of Cable & Wireless says the ruling issued late last week has no impact on the company or its customers since it is aimed at a defunct technology,” says the report, going on:
“ ‘The injunction is a legal technicality about a legacy part of the CDN that was abandoned some time ago,’ says Chris Albinson, chief strategy officer for Exodus, a Cable & Wireless Service, which is the name of the business unit formed by the integration of C&W acquisitions Exodus and Digital Island.”
LimeWire’s Greg Bildson told p2pnet, “One interesting thing about LimeWire code is that we explicitly don’t do searches by hash. We only do searches by keyword.
“We’ve been a proponent of not searching by hash in the Gnutella network due to efficiency issues. Further, we actually drop all searches by hash that try to go through our hosts.
“SHA1 searches (hash searches) are too specific for the Gnutella architecture. They’re a very bad mix with the dynamic querying algorithms that are responsible for the dramatic improvements in Gnutella over the past two years.”
In the meanwhile, could it be that, following the Sharman/Kazaa trial in Australia, in which BDE and Alnet are named, the unhappy trio’s financial resources have been seriously sapped by lawyerly fees and other expenses and they hope this will at least partially replenish their coffers?
Stay tuned.
NOTE: Go here for an update.
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See:-
bolster their case - Brilliant Digital sues the RIAA, p2pnet. September 9, 2004
trivial technique - Altnet joins bogus patent business, InfoAnarchy, December 13, 2004
worth something - Altnet’s lame-duck patent, p2pnet, November 15, 2003
permanent injunction - Akamai wins permanent injunction against Digital Island, NetworkWorldFusion, February 7, 2004
lawyerly fees - Kazaa under Big Music’s gun, p2pnet, November 27, 2004
January 10th, 2005 at 11:51 pm
I think it’s great that they’re trying to use this against anti P2P companies like MediaSentry, but going after P2P networks is low. They need to decide which side they’re on.
Drake
January 11th, 2005 at 11:03 am
Nay, they don’t need to. They are on their own side, and we should remember that.
Their patent is only dangerous, because it could be used against small startups to keep them from ever evolving into mature p2p-networks. Just oimagine you being a small programmer without much knack for patent-law and getting such a letter.
January 11th, 2005 at 3:17 pm
nothing about altnet is great, or bde
January 11th, 2005 at 6:17 pm
All I have to say isn’t a hash like cyclic redundancy check (CRC)?
I dont know but isn’t that a prior art to this idea.
http://www.japanprize.jp/e_1999(peterson).htm
January 12th, 2005 at 3:56 am
Sooo stupid patents!
Prior art anyone?
Didn’t like windows 3.1 come in archives that tested integrity?
And, isn’t the whole url concept a “Uniform Resource Locator” which is named to reflect the content of the document?
In Canada we don’t have software patents.
And this case amply illustrate why we should not have them.
Lame duck patents indeed.
If this case is as ludicrous as it looks, this might be a job for the EFF.
January 12th, 2005 at 10:08 am
I could be horribly wrong but I think the patent is on identifying a file using its hash. So, for example, a URL may point to a file, say, called ’song.ogg’ using its hash, producing a URL like this: http://www.fakeserver.com/fh3748y3yn4f2n8hv2357fh2
That hash is just a random string. If it matches anything, not my fault ;).
I’m not sure how much prior art there is on this, but I’d think there was something. If anyone can find any prior art on this, please let us know.
Higgy.
January 12th, 2005 at 10:47 am
Isn’t an bar code on good the same thing. Well the bar code for good dosn’t have any connection to what the item is. But if know what bar code number is and what goods use that bar code well you know what it is. In other words 555-555 could magazine ie Wired, or can of coke.
January 12th, 2005 at 12:28 pm
If anyone wants to see the patents, you can do so here:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=5978791.WKU.&OS=PN/5978791&RS=PN/5978791#top
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/search-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=ptxt&s1=6415280.WKU.&OS=PN/6415280&RS=PN/6415280#top
Higgy.
January 12th, 2005 at 3:07 pm
What we have to do is see if there are any patents which they could be in breach with IBM.
Hopefuly 1 of those 500 the have breached and counter suit can be issued.
January 12th, 2005 at 3:19 pm
Patents for software are 90% old idea’s re-hashed with idea of an software view. Think out of the box and where has this all been done before but not in software.
Has such thing been do science for years, in mathermatic’s, in nature and has been made public.
One thought DNA in nature, DNA has been know about for about 20 years. They have know each and everyone has DNA code and I will not have same DNA as you the reader (or something with odd’s of 1:1000000xxxx’s). Then find out when the first DNA database was built (ie police) and there you have it. DNA is now software.
Get the idea. Software patents are as darft as a bush.
January 13th, 2005 at 4:05 am
A Hash as unique identifier was the whole idea behind hashing algorithms. Earliest example I can recall was the Hash sorting technique. In essence IBM’s punch card sorting machines (pre WWII) are an early example of hash sorting. In the punch card machine the hash was simply a nibble from a specific character column that is used to steer the card to a specific bin. This hash is only perfect in the since that all cards having the same character in the selected column will be steered to the same bin. To sort on a wider field, you simply start with the least significant column of the sort field; run the cards, re-stack first bin on top of second bin, and so on, repeating for each column in the field.
In data communications the CRC is a hash guaranteed to be unique over a specific number of bits. A CRC-16 is unique for files up to 2^16 bits in length, CRC-32 for up to 2^32 bits. Different CRC algorithms use different bits to generate the feedback used to digest the data into a hash. (early 1970’s?) CRC’s were first used to detect data errors over serial data links. Early example: IBM mainframe to terminal equipment communications using SNA and SDLC protocols. TCP/IP protocol uses a CRC-32 to detect packet errors. (Mid 19080’s)
The field of cryptography, specifically public key cryptography, needed secure hashing algorithms. (Only secure in the sense that the estimated length of time to brute force content that will generate a specific hash value will take a very long time on the order of many CPU years. RSA patented various Message Digest functions (in the 1970’s, several RSA patents recently expired and are now public domain). Most of us are familiar with the MD5 algorithm in which several P2P applications use to generate file Hash values. The whole Idea of using a Message Digest function in cryptography was to generate a hash on a plain text document (file) such that it could be used to detect if that document changes in any way. If any character in the document (file) is different then the hash will be different. These hashes are used when digitally signing a document, to verify that a document is the exact same (uniquely identified) document you viewed before signing. To prevent someone from changing the hash, it is encrypted using your private key so that others can verify using your public key. The results of processing the document using the MD function should exactly match the hash decoded using your public key.
Databases have used such hashing algorithms to generate unique keys for locating data in a database. Software has a good example in the C++ language standard template library in the implementation of the std map object. The map object stores a key, the key can be plain text, but is usually a hash to minimize the number of characters that need to be compared when dealing with long strings. The key is used in a binary search to locate the mapped data. This technique was introduced in the STL library in the mid 1980’s when C++ first appeared, but the general technique in software originates in Data structure text books well before that. Earliest reference I can cite from the top of my head is in Donald Knuth’s “the art of computer programming” from the early 1970’s.
Exo
January 13th, 2005 at 11:03 am
Very true, I just thought isn’t DNA URL a hash, ie lets say p2pnet.net is usless unless you do search for it for it IP number 80.66.80.144.
By just using the name with out using DNS search for the IP and you are going no where. Also TCP issue comes in to play as send CRC with it data as transmitted to vailed it.
Sounds so much like lame ar#s painted already!