Interactive and me - An open letter to ISC.

[John G. DeArmond]

brown at vidiot.UUCP (Vidiot) writes:

><Particularly this new innovation of ISC's called Copy Protection (or
><serialization, if you like.)   I discovered this new feature this week as I 
><opened the box on 62 lbs of ISC Unix 2.2.x - everything they make,

>What-a-minute!!!  What copy protection, what serialization?  Please
>explain what ISC has done.

Easy.  You open the "read me first" package and you find this card with
a serial number and a cypher key printed on it.  You boot from the 
install boot floppy and the first thing it asks for is that serial
number and the key.  Get either wrong and it won't install.  Same
thing with many addon packages.  The 2-user-to-unlimited upgrade
is another example.

I've had a chance to poke around for a few minutes and I see that the
program that does the authentication is /etc/.auth  It apparently
writes the serial somewhere in the kernal after the authentication
is complete.  I don't know yet what else it does but I do know that 
much.

This is merely a hassle for a hobby/news system.  Imagine, though a 
customer with more than one box.  Now imagine several boxes.
Now image a thousand boxes, all maintained remotely.  Can you imagine
the accounting nightmare this would be?  I won't even consider such
a system.  I've seen too many VMS systems knocked down by DEC's
license manager to risk my reputation and my client's money with such 
tripe.

>Sounds like I don't want 2.2 either.

Yeah, me either.  I heard through the grapevine that the fecal matter
is hitting the air handler at ISC over this.  So if anyone else on
the net feels as I do about copy protection, now would be an opportune 
time to call ISC and make your feelings known.  Help stamp out 
copy protection in your lifetime.

John

-- 
John De Armond, WD4OQC  | We can no more blame our loss of freedom on congress
Radiation Systems, Inc. | than we can prostitution on pimps.  Both simply
Atlanta, Ga             | provide broker services for their customers.
{emory,uunet}!rsiatl!jgd|  - Dr. W Williams |                **I am the NRA**