What is Digg?93 Comments
- fezzen, on 10/10/2007, -1/+31Their security scheme is laughable and I'm surprised they would drag their faulty practices through public legal documents like this. Clearly they think they can win.
They've already lost in a more important way, though, by comparing the guy to DVD Jon. The code he wrote is being sold on ***** T-shirts. Do they really want such a "harmful" hack to be publicly available to everyone? - Scyth3, on 10/10/2007, -3/+23I love the corporate world. Let's release software we know is very easily hacked. Then, if someone with half a braincell figures out what exactly the software does and breaks it, we'll sue them for a dollar amount with lots of zero's attached to the end of it.
If your system is using publicly accessible client-side variables for security and print control, then you might be the dumbest application developer ever. - Error601, on 10/10/2007, -5/+22They need to fix their damn system instead if it's even fixable. It sounds more like a bad business model.
- oniTony, on 10/10/2007, -5/+19Apparently Coupons Inc. does not want Linux users to buy their soap...
Jokes aside, this is about the equivalent of "googlebot does not save cookies so it hacked into my website" suite. Saving something in the registry if a weak DRM scheme. They embed and scan for "unique serial code"s anyways, why not just sprinkle that with the same registry key? - Arctirus, on 10/10/2007, -0/+111) vmware save state
2) print coupon
3) restore state
4) profit!
Did I just violate the DMCA? - V1ncent, on 10/10/2007, -1/+11Someone give him a Get Out of Jail free coupon
- raynar, on 10/10/2007, -1/+11"Apparently Coupons Inc. does not want Linux users to buy their soap..."
Linux users use soap? I always imagined fat virgins smelling like cheetos... - outhouseinput, on 10/10/2007, -0/+9If a company is stupid enough to use a few registry keys as DRM, the stockholders should sell off their shares right now. A company that uses poorly implemented DRM is worse than one that does. A false sense of security with products like these just ruins their whole business plan.
- shadowspawn, on 10/10/2007, -0/+8wait, so coupons.com's EULA gives them total rights to our registry? Since when has a software (not operating system) EULA given another company total rights to the actual OS?
Shouldn't coupons.com be suing microsoft or something?
This actually IS murky waters, at best. Basically coupons.com is stating that they own that part/subpart of the OS and you can't modify it. I didn't know that those we elected put that in the DCMA.
Screw it, Linux is the only answer. - adz999, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8FTA: "and is seeking damages from the coder that could amount to hundreds of thousands -- or even millions -- of dollars. And it's not offering him 10 percent off." classic!
- nogami, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6How about just installing the thing on a virtual machine inside VirtualPC or something? As long as you have the "undo" option enabled, you just print your coupons, then close it and undo all of the changes to the virtual HD. Then restart and print again!
Or could you just print to an Adobe Acrobat file, then print that out over and over? - DocHoliday22, on 10/10/2007, -3/+9***** feel sorry for the guy... We should boycott coupons.com
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -1/+6I have been for 29 years
- fkr3, on 10/10/2007, -7/+12Why is it always a "bad business model" if digg users don't like something? It's like you guys hear of something that involves the transfer of money for goods or services, and BAM it's a bad business model unless you're free to exploit it to receive something for nothing or as little as possible!!
Coupons Inc are paid to release X numbers of coupons via online methods. I'm sure the digg transformation of this into a "good business model" would be releasing an unlimited-quantity, never-expiring coupon you can use for anything you want, but sooner or later you need to let reality be a factor. - adz999, on 10/10/2007, -1/+6Well he might of deleted some registry keys to find the hack, but then had a coder repackage the software without those keys, that is where things get ugly
- Pentoast, on 10/10/2007, -2/+6So you're really going to insult me for no apparent reason at all? I'll digg you up for that.
- chicoer2001, on 10/10/2007, -4/+8If it's true all he did was delete some register keys, it seems like the company is *****. They're embarassed that they system is flawed, and they're getting back at him.
- munkyxtc, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4They just recently updated the code so I can't just select save print jobs in the printer settings allowing me to print whenever I felt like it...since that worked I figured their "DRM" was written by a retarded 6 year old...
- raynar, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5Does Alt-Print Screen not work on the coupon?
- gclef, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Read a little more carefully. He didn't re-package their software. We wrote his own, that just erases their reg key:
In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, California, last month, Coupons Inc. accuses Stottlemire of creating and giving away a program that erases the unique identifier, allowing consumers to repeatedly download and print as many copies of a particular coupon as they want. - mstar, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Has anyone tried the program - or knows where it is?
- greganalytic, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4If you're curious about how regular coupons work, I wrote a coupon barcode decoder here: http://www.utilitymill.com/utility/Coupon_Decoder
There's also an interesting article here:
http://www.glondon.com/coupon.html - dingleberry, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4I didn't see that info in the article, got a link?
- atmicrat, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Ok went to coupons.com and they are for all worthlesss items.
- McTendo, on 10/10/2007, -4/+7Why bother? It's not like you would comprehend it.
- Pentoast, on 10/10/2007, -4/+7show me the hack or it didn't happen.
- MrTeQ, on 10/10/2007, -2/+5But we paid a lot of money to India for this secure algorityhmzs!!
- TroubleInMind, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3The traffic he'll get due to his "we're DMCA butthurt" publicity more than offsets any losses due to his fake DRM.
- stoneyq2, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Unreal. If i was this guy I'd file a lawsuit back at em for pursuing a frivilous lawsuit. Can't erase stuff in MY OWN registry w/o getting sued?... HAH
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3is this even hacking? Sounds more like he's moving files.
hacking involves some expertise - shawnz, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2And what did he steal exactly? an ID? I don't think you can own IDs.
- sleepless, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Here is a hack: install the coupon software in a vmware system that has its disks configured in nonpersistent mode. Tada!!!!!! Download, powerdown, repeat. p0wned.
- johni, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Even easier:
1. Turn off your printer
2. Print coupon
3. Copy raw file from spooler.
4. Turn on printer.
5. Print as many copies you want of the copied spool file
6. Profit!
I know this works for Linux/cups serving windows via samba. You can probably do it directly on windows as well. - TitoBob, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3So you like to imagine fat virgins smelling like junk food? Wow, some people have weird fetishes...
- generalnewbie, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Where is this software? i wanna look at it.
- sq377, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3It wasn't a file, was a registry key.
- dkla, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2I agree. Even though I'm siding with the hacker (of course) it's a sticky issue. While it may be illegal to enter someone's house even if the door is unlocked, is it legal to tell someone else "hey, their door is unlocked... go take a look"?
- bepo, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Contacting the companies who they post coupons for and expressing our concerns should clear this up rather quickly.
- PaperMonkey, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2He's not getting sued for erasing something from his registry, he's getting sued for providing code and instructions for other people to remove things from their registries. This (in essence) is no different than someone being sued for writing a keygen for a software package. You are providing a service for people to get something for nothing and that's not how capitalism works.
- bravo369, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2I'm with him on this one. He's being sued because he's deleting something off his computer? This shouldn't even be counted as a hack. Instead of going after him, the company should be firing their programmers who probably got paid good money to come up with this garbage program.
- nairanvac, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Yes. You just violated Super Secret Rule Number 213. It's a little-known rule that says they can prosecute for anything they don't like.
- shawnz, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1If he's allowed to uninstall the whole thing, why not just a specific component (registry key) of it?
- ramsinks.com, on 03/09/2009, -0/+1It doesn't work in VM.
- setec, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1oops on the reply here. digg down.
- ldkronos, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Its even easier than that. My understanding (from what I got out of the article) is that the coupons all have the same barcode, but they have an additional serial number on it that is used on the backend to track the coupons. If that serial number were to "disappear", the coupon would still be valid but they'd have no idea where it came from. Two ways I can think to accomplish this.
1) Whiteout + photocopier (the article even alluded to this method)
2) print to an image file, edit the image, and then print the edited image. - 404UserNotFound, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1"This is not a case about erasing some registry keys (I often delete mine as well, I'm sure I'm not breaking the law). This is about stealing - pretty simple actually."
Actually it isn't. Stealing is the act of taking something from someone else and is a part of criminal law. If I told everyone that they could disable auto-run based copy protection by holding down their shift key - that does not make me an accessory to theft. (This was done before - the guy was sued over the Shift key.)
Your company has an equally retarded base for enforcing coupon limits. Pointing out how to circumvent it without touching your actual program doesn't seem like a DMCA violation in any sense of the law, much less stealing. Bottom line - your company does not own the Windows Registry and should find a better way to enforce download limits. - sdubois92, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2FREE JOHN!
- ldkronos, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1A certain very popular office suite comes with a print driver that prints to a file, and even includes an application to graphically edit said file.
- dingleberry, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1A keygen would entail breaking the encryption of the key, hence breaking the DMCA. Deleting a reg entry is quite a bit different than that. Wasn't the main component of the DMCA that it was illegal to circumvent/break someones encryption? Would their "scheme" even be considered encryption?
- dingleberry, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2So hacking code = deleting registry entries and deleting files?
Brilliant, in that case I am a code hacker too. -
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