Hifn Restricts Crypto Docs, OpenBSD Opens Fire 304
Mhrmnhrm writes "After totally closing off public access to documentation for their chips roughly five years ago, Hifn is again offering them, but with an invasive registration requirement. Needless to say, Theo de Raadt and the rest of the OpenBSD team were not amused, and following a Hifn manager's missive, the gauntlet has been thrown. Either open the docs fully, or be removed from the system. This wouldn't be the first time... the same thing happened to both Adaptec and Intel following similar spats."
By my math... (Score:3, Insightful)
Is this worth throwing a hissy fit over? Once one person downloads the docs, they can distribute them.
Theo (Score:5, Insightful)
Oi, Theo! I agree with you 100%, but please, tone down the virtiol just a smidge! From TFA:
Calling their products "crummy" and threatening them with driver deletion if they don't stop "baiting" you is not a way to get what you want. Now it means some egomaniacal manager has to eat crow for the driver to go public. I was in 100% agreement with your post until I got to this point.
Sometimes, I wish someone would just slip some sort of tranquilizer in the water supply near Alberta...
Re:By my math... (Score:3, Insightful)
Implication: they are collecting the data in case they're asked to provide it. To the US Govt. Yeah, that's pretty hissy-worthy when you're trying to claim that you're opening up access. I have little doubt that registration will lead to some non-disclosure agreement or other, though I'm not prepared to try it myself.
Incidentally, how does the supplying information without charging for it constitute "export"? And by comparison, if I want to download a manual for something I bought second-hand, why can't I? Just a thought.
Re:By my math... (Score:5, Insightful)
>Is this worth throwing a hissy fit over?
And I count one (1) principle at stake.
Which is *always* worth throwing a fit over.
Well, theres a surprise. (Score:5, Insightful)
i) is basically right
ii) still manages to sound like spoiled whiny tosser in the process.
Re:Theo (Score:5, Insightful)
Some people just do not listen unless you threaten them like this. It must've been the last straw..
Export regulations? (Score:3, Insightful)
With a choice between "make Theo happy" and "violate export regulations" it doesn't seem like Hifn is exactly trying to "bait" Theo or OpenBSD.
Re:Theo (Score:3, Insightful)
How does this sort of exaggerated response help? (Score:5, Insightful)
If he objects to providing that information, he can say so, but this sort of easily-refuted hyperbole doesn't help.
Re:By my math... (Score:5, Insightful)
You have to sign an NDA to get the documents. So you would be violating the NDA to redistribute them.
There isn't a business advantage to this sort of secrecy because your competitors can easily obtain this same information through a blind. So it comes down to policy motivated by irrational fear & greed. Who needs to really deal with company with these qualities?
This topic is of primary interest to me because I am shopping for a crypto accelerator card right now, for use in the fall. Given the success and ease I have had using OpenBSD, and given the great support I have from the mailing lists, this is a reasonable criterion to use when purchasing hardware. In fact at some point of the decision making process for all of my hardware I have done a search on the OpenBSD mailing lists. This sort of information makes installation and maintenance a simple thing.
So it really does boil down to unless the OpenBSD group recommends a certain piece of hardware I won't buy it...
Re:Export regulations? (Score:3, Insightful)
Abusive much? (Score:4, Insightful)
Give it a rest, Theo. (Score:3, Insightful)
You know what, if you'd wanted this 15 years ago, you would have phoned them up, given them the EXACT SAME INFO THEY'RE ASKING FOR on their web site, and they would have mailed it to you.
And a sales-person might have called to see if you wanted to buy some chips.
Theo's "50 questions" is email, name, company name, title, address, phone number, and "what is your project? What is your role? When do you want to buy some chips?" How about a little reality here. Theo does some great stuff, but that doesn't mean he gets to bend how the world works to his will.
Just like the "I don't get any donations" rant from him a bit ago, he just doesn't seem to be well grounded in business realities. If you want donations, you need a tax-exempt foundation, not "make checks out to Theo." If you want data sheets, you might have to tell the company who you are and why you want them.
Re:Theo (Score:1, Insightful)
registration is better than no registration (Score:3, Insightful)
Some other vendors hide a restrictive license ("if you look at this, we own stuff you do with it") somewhere in the documentation or behind a "Read This License" link, but people who look at the documentation never notice.
Theo is right (Score:1, Insightful)
OpenBSD should delete the driver and move on. It would not take that much capital to devise you own crypto chip sets, write the drivers and then have the Chinese or Koreans build them for you. OpenBSD could sell the chips and the drivers and fund itself in the process.
Go OpenBSD!
Re:Theo (Score:2, Insightful)
but he is only further alienating people who are outside the project already.
There needs to be more of this kind of plain talk. I have great respect for
these types of character who speak straight and openly mock officious business
and legal nonsense. I have the greatest respect for the PirateBay practice
of posting the laughable legal notices they receive along with scathing
responses. We need more of this open hostility to bullshit.
You say that Hifn made no insult, but that is for Theo to infer not for you
to deduce. Perhaps he takes an authoratarian expectation to comply with arbitary
hoop jumping as an insult, I can see that too.
Your definition of professionalism is quite personal. For example, someone who
bases their choice of software on the personality of the coders rather than
the quality of the product could be taken as churlish and unprofessional too.
Re:Whinge whinge whinge.. (Score:3, Insightful)
I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of their customers were BSD users. It's quite a common OS in the sort of application this chip is designed for.
If you don't believe me, we'll, the only reason NVIDIA's Linux support is miles ahead of ATI is due to the demand from Hollywood setups to use high-end-5000%-margin professional cards on Linux, not geeks on Slashdot playing Tuxracer.
PowerVR released a linux driver for the Kyro 2. The only people who would have had any interest in that were the geeks playing TuxRacer.
What makes you think the Linux geek market is so small? A lot of Linux nerds are early adopters, and are quite likely to choose one high end graphics card over another simply because it will run on their Linux partition. Half a million slashdot readers may not be the bulk of their market, but it's probably worth something.
Re:Theo (Score:1, Insightful)
You do realize your behavior is equivalent? "I don't like the way one person who does open source acts, so I won't bother with any open source. I'll just take my marbles and go home!"
So long, open source won't miss ya!
Re:Personal Info == Legal Tender (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, it would appear that a condition of obtaining an export licence for their products is that they be able to identify their customers.
This is entirely beside the point. The driver writers are not customers.
Documentation of a product is not restricted by export licenses pertaining to that product...only the product itself is restricted.
Re:Personal Info == Legal Tender (Score:3, Insightful)
Theo isn't asking for a product. He is asking for documentation (data sheets). Further, as the email points out, he isn't looking for documentation regarding unreleased products, etc. but for documentation that was *freely* available eight years ago. Additionally he points out that other *crypto* companies provide information that is more available. What is unclear to me though is whether or not those companies he vaguely mentions are US companies.
Sign up (Score:2, Insightful)
I have signed up, the confirmation arrived within seconds and on the welcome is a message it may take several hours for a sysadmin to allow access - but no, I'm downloading PDF's straight away so it must be automated.
It's just marketing; but Theo is right about that not being completely free, as in free speech.
The article mentions "liberalisation", it seems that they're leaning to the left, but they're not actually left in their ideas and business model. Dump the driver.
Re:Export regulations? (Score:4, Insightful)
AFAIK (and IANAL), detailed hardware documentation is considered the same as the product under the export license laws.
Please post links supporting this contention, or withdraw it.
Cryptographic technology actually falls under an even more restrictive license class - munitions.
Whle this is true, the source code can still be legally exported in written format, since it falls under Free Speech.
From this article [goingware.com]:
Given that, as you stated, crypto falls under the even more restrictive license class of 'munitions', if you can export PGP source code without violating U.S. export restrictions, I'm betting you can export data sheets too.
My point is that the HIFN's explanation of their requirement for personal info to satisfy their U.S. export license is pure codswallop, your nonsensical comments about HIFN 'fighting the man' notwithstanding.
Re:Theo (Score:3, Insightful)
Adults are children with breeding rights.
Re:By my math... (Score:2, Insightful)
Can hifn comply with OpenBSD's demands? (Score:5, Insightful)
The real question that should be answered is whether hifn are indeed required by law to ask personal information of the people downloading documentation, as hifn claims they are.
If they are, than hifn simply cannot comply with OpenBSD's demands without breaking U.S. law.
Bad vendor policy = bad devices drivers (Score:3, Insightful)
Be sure that - whatever the OS you use, being Linux, OpenBSD or FreeBSD -, when a vendor behaves that bad and is so reluctant in providing open access to documentation, you won't have a good driver nor a good support.
Those vendors behaviours are usually symptoms of a "closed" attitude, secrecy centerd, so even when we accept NDA, we can't expect them to disclose the whole needed informations (like, say, all firmwares versions bugs that needs a workaround in drivers level, know bad behaviour of their chipsets etc). This attitude will also discourage some knowledgeable developers to help to improve the driver, to fix bugs etc. Requiring NDA will prevent OSS kernel developers to share sensitive informations regarding their experience with the device (between OS, and even sometime inside the same kernel dev team).
So for now, if you need a stable encryption accelerator device, consider choosing an other vendor. Look out for Via C3, or SafeNet (and even some Broadcom) chipsets: those vendors plays the game well, don't seat on their customers (we) and the developers needs. They don't even hide behind a "U.S. export laws restrictions" argument, and didn't faced trials, proving the hypocrisy of HiFn assertions.
Re:Theo (Score:3, Insightful)
That's far more acceptable than being rude to someone who was being extremely patient.
Please. You have no idea what was said in private emails and such. If you read the mailing list post, you'd see the message posted by the Hifn employee talks about keeping the source code proprietary. That has nothing to do with the issue at hand. Theo doesn't want code, he wants specs. The whole message completely dodges the issues Theo is having. I'd be pretty frustrated too, if I were him.
We all get it. It's pretty obvious from your other 5 posts on this article that you don't like Theo. Good for you. However, some people do admire him and the work that he's done.
Simple solution to a stupid problem. (Score:4, Insightful)
Just give bogus information.
Everybody does! [brandrepublic.com]
Re:Export regulations? (Score:4, Insightful)
The applicable categories are obvious.
If they're so obvious, why didn't you post links to those categories, or better yet, applicable excerpts?
Don't forget to read interpretations
Fair enough...I read through Part 770 - Interpretations [gpo.gov], but strangely enough, the word 'documentation' is only used once in the entire document. I've posted the relevant passage for clarity:
Please explain how the above supports your contention that 'detailed hardware documentation is considered the same as the product under the export license laws'.
and supplement 2.
Which supplement 2? The Supplement No. 2 to Part 764 - Denied Persons List [gpo.gov], or the Supplement No. 2 to Part 774 - General Technology and Software Notes [gpo.gov]? (HINT: Neither supplement contains anything to support your contention that 'detailed hardware documentation is considered the same as the product under the export license laws'.)
In short, it looks like you thought you could try to justify your argument by pointing me to a ridiculously large government document, and then hoping I wouldn't bother to actually read it. You thought wrong.
I'm not going to respond to the rest of your rant,
Translation: I can't refute it, so I'll shut my eyes and pretend it's not there.
other than to suggest you get legal advice somewhere other than mailing lists and agitprop web sites.
And this from the person who qualified their original contention with 'AFAIK' and "IANAL'. Pot, meet kettle.
Theo should never talk (Score:4, Insightful)
He is right in principal in many cases, however he has absolutely no talent when it comes to voicing that principal. OpenBSD seriously need a PR person that knows how to deal with actual people, you know with a hint of tact, cause he doesnt have any whatsoever.
Thanks, but no. (Score:5, Insightful)
Fair enough, Hank. But I reserve the right to not use proprietary crypto code in sensitive applications - which are the only ones that I'd actually buy hardware acceleration for in the first place.
Let's get this straight: there's a world of difference between closed video card drivers and closed crypto drivers. Many of us are squeamish about about the former, so why would you think we'd cheerfully accept the latter? A closed source video driver could potentially crash my non-networked game machine. A closed source encryption accelerator cold potentially open my VPN server to the whole world.
I hope you can appreciate the community's position here, but whether you agree with it or not is immaterial. Should you change your opinion to better mesh with that of your would-be customers, please let us know. Many of us would like to buy your products if they become usable for our applications.
Re:Theo's behavior doesn't help the cause... (Score:5, Insightful)
If I have the choice, I run OpenBSD on servers because when it fits, it fits like a glove. If Theo acts like everyone else and just rolls over when a suit tells him no, OpenBSD would be just like every other Linux/BSD distro. This sort of attention to details (in both software and licenses) makes OpenBSD distictive. In marketing-speak, this is called 'developing a niche'. Within its niche, OpenBSD has no equal. If it looses its niche, then it will loose its market share. So I think the best thing Theo can do is to be Theo.
Kudos to theo (Score:2, Insightful)
I say to Theo: "kick **more** ass"
and to hell with detractors, most of whom surely have never installed OpenBSD, let alone taken the extra step to purchase it.
You read it wrong... (Score:3, Insightful)
You missed one IMPORTANT detail in this- the documentation to drive the chip is NOT covered under Export Regulations.
Only the drivers their OEMS bundle WITH the cards, any technical documentation talking to algos, AND the chip itself
are covered by Export Regulations. They don't have a need to restrict the SDK info for that reason.
Once you understand that, this becomes more of a businessman trying to "protect" purported IP type thing.
stat-of-the-art registration form? NOT! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Gotta be some restrictions even on book format (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Abusive much? (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't mean this as a joke. Often the *only* way to get vendors to do what you want is -- minimally -- to verbally abuse them, and often to threaten them. And if they're real wankers, to threaten them with bad publicity. And if they're super-wankers (which so many of them are), to actually start talking about them publically.
Sure, doing it this way is a gamble -- he may piss them off so much that they stop communicating. Some vendors (the rational ones) deal better with public humiliation than others. But it seems from his message that he'd been in communication with them for some time. This was probably a last resort. I say more power to him.
Re:Theo should never talk (Score:1, Insightful)
Tact in this case is for PHB and Lie-through-their-teeth marketing droids.
The people that really matter (the ones who would actually pick and buy crypto hardware) appreciate Theo and his in-your-face attitude in defending his principles,
It's refreshing compared to the double plus good, imitation-naugahyde, mission accomplished banter we get from people that know and use tact.
Re:Theo (Score:4, Insightful)
"If you don't ask, you don't get." -Mahatma Gandhi [wikiquote.org]
Re:Give it a rest, Theo. (Score:3, Insightful)
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -George Bernard Shaw.
You're right—not much surprise on /. (Score:3, Insightful)
No, he doesn't. /. readers probably have so little practice speaking truth to power that they don't recognize what it looks like when it's laid out before them. The only non-surprise here is that another /. poster is finding a way to criticize those who defend our freedom to share and modify by speaking up and acting out. It's much like the overrated comments on the recent RMS in France thread [slashdot.org] where RMS was denied an audience with Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin; some posters in that thread chose to focus on RMS' dress, even implicltly supporting RMS' lack of a suit as a valid reason for dismissal rather than point out far more salient (possibly financial) relationships between de Villepin and Bill Gates (or other heads of state who do business with Microsoft and Bill Gates). de Raadt's strident message [theaimsgroup.com] in this OpenBSD thread is on-topic, on-target, clearly written, precise, and perfectly appropriate. We need more such language in the pursuit of software freedom. I would have hoped that /. readers, being overwhelmingly computer users who probably receive very little respect in their own work regardless of how they dress, would be more inclined to weigh someone's message, not their appearance.
Re:By my math... (Score:3, Insightful)
Pray tell why Theo says he can get the same information from other us crypto chip makers without this same problem?
He called them on it and they don't want to admit that the only reason they have registrations is for marketing purposes. Everything else is a smokescreen.
Re:Is it just me... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not baiting you. I'm just stating that if someone does more than the average person is willing or able to do he can go crow about it a bit.
As in... If a scientist cured AIDs or cancer tomorrow, he can kick a puppy or two and we should be able to look past that.
This is of course relative to your position on absolute and relative morality, but if someone does something for me out of his own free will and effor (and it benefits me greatly), he can be as a big of an immature ass as he wants and I'll gladly ignore it and enjoy his product.
However, if you haven't done anything to improve our well being and just complain about others being improper and immature brats... I'm sort of hard pressed to agree with you if that immature brat has done work that has helped many of us as a whole.
Personally, I would like mature, polite, and altruistic people making software for me (and does it out of the kindness of their heart and not a bullshit sales talk to take my money) over an immature one, but sometimes we have to deal with the fact those people don't exist as often as we would like...
I'd like to be proven wrong because that would we live in a better world than I think we do.
Re:Rogue video drivers on non-networked machines (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, we all have our limits. Some people worry, and justifiably so, that their BIOS isn't open. I'm somewhere in the middle in that I use the proprietary NVidia drivers, even though I don't like it. I'd think that everyone, though, would agree that the crypto engine is the absolute last thing you want to cede control of.
I don't know if Theo reads Slashdot... (Score:3, Insightful)
I do agree with Theo that if the information is not free, then vendors should not expect OS writers to bend their principles to include it. On the flip-side, I don't want OpenBSD (or any other free OS) to be impacted by stupidity on the part of vendors if there's anything I can do to help.
My only question of Theo and the OpenBSD folks is: Is there anything that those of us who reject Hifn's arguments as absurd and contrary to accepted practices can do to help? (Well, besides not supporting Hifn in any way.)
This is clearly a case where differences in any other opinion should be irrelevent. Theo deserves support on this. Open Source in general deserves support on this.
Re:This doesn't hurt Hifn much at all (Score:3, Insightful)
You may also have noticed how many people point out that when you are dealing with cryptography or security, you deal with OpenBSD. Hifn's cards are used in several places, but notably in the security field, where OpenBSD lives. OpenBSD users are the target demographic for crypto acceleration cards.
Theo isn't the idiot here, as Hifn obviously cares, they cared enough to talk to the misc@ mailing list and try to get people on their side.
I admit I would rather someone of Theo's importance use a little more diplomatic speach, but I don't bother myself, so why should I hold him to a higher standard than I hold myself?
Time... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Is it just me... (Score:4, Insightful)
Not in the kernel tree, but there is a third-party driver available. My understanding from associates who work with the Linux version is it isn't as feature-rich as the OpenBSD driver, and those who develop on it are also frustrated by Hifn's new policies.
What percentage of their customers rely on OpenBSD support? Who are they more loyal to, Hifn for the hardware or OpenBSD for the OS?
As someone who works for a place that uses crypto cards, I can tell you: we are more bound to the OS than the crypto hardware. There's a lot of different crypto hardware on the market, but if you want to do any kind of hardcore embedded systems development using a POSIX API, there aren't a lot of choices out there.
You know... (Score:2, Insightful)