also if you need information on this case, I suggest you try contacting EFFI ry in finland. (finnish EFF)

Finland is not even in scandinavia. but fennoscandia. Again, AFAIK, the story is that the daughter wanted to buy a record from an artist called Chisu, but since they cost a lot, she wanted to try first. Father said "google it and check it on the internet". Somehow the girl ended up torrenting it (plausible, torrent is apparently 4th result on google search) and got a copy which did not work. One year later they get a letter to pay 600 euro in _damages_ not a fine and an NDA, or it will go to police. When they refused, the police made a normal search. Which is very interesting legally , since this is a very borderline case. Search should only be possible for a "Tekijänoikeusrikos"(copyright crime) ,not "tekijänoikeusrikkomus"(copyright misdemeanor). The difference between these two is either profiting from the copyright violation OR causing "severe damage" to the right holder. Since they asked for 600 euro , I dont know if the damage is "severe". Also they seized the laptop although (AFAIK,IANAL) law apparently says that they should only seize the whole laptop if there is a pressing reason for it, they could just have seized or copied the data. IMO there cannot be a pressing reason if the case was filed 1 year after the fact.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stream_cipher apparently somebody has patented something related to stream ciphers in 1946 , so I assume there is prior art somewhere there..

The best way to do this is to have automation. That serves as atleast some kind of documentation, it makes stuff repeatable , it makes stuff easier to replicate etc. Preferred method would be to have the automation in version control and a build machine which checks if a tag changes, then pulls the automation, executes it, it will install whatever is tagged, tag it as installed and shut down. Preferably this system is built so that you can only "please install this" tag stuff that is properly staged and autotested.

Umm. Many cheat detection programs check the system clock and compare it to the server clock to see that they are runnign at the same speed etc. In linux there is/was a kernel bug related to the leap second. I wonder if that bug could cause the cheat detection to panic?

Yeah i know that about the IR missiles and their seekers.They mostly work for missiles with AM-sensitive seeker heads, which I think still includes most of the fielded missiles. Some newer MANPADS are not sensitive to this stuff, but even most older anti tank missile systems are. Some animals also have time-dependent issues like some mosquitos are very sensitive to fast flashes of light IIRC. If the IR seeker is slow, the wagging may either obscure the target or cause the IR seeker to mis-adapt. I think it is a targeting jam because the squirrels turn head-on to minimize their body heat signature and enlarge their tail signature. It is enough to confuse the poor snake to think that the center of mass of the whole squirrel is moving back and forth and he will miss his strike. Also are you familiar with the effect that if you try to aim at something and they keep on zig-zagging you never actually pull the trigger because you keep adjusting your aim? Until you figure out what the target is doing and aim at the middle of zig-zag? It might also be messing with that time interval between "aiming" and "now i will strike".

wikipedia: "The nerve fibers in the pit organ are constantly firing at a very low rate. Objects that are within a neutral temperature range do not change the rate of firing; the neutral range is determined by the average thermal radiation of all objects in the receptive field of the organ. The thermal radiation above a given threshold causes an increase in the temperature of the nerve fiber, resulting in stimulation of the nerve and subsequent firing, with increased temperature resulting in increased firing rate.[9] The sensitivity of the nerve fibers is estimated to be >0.001 C.[10]" So assuming I fill up your sight picture with a moving heat source which will cause the average temperature of the whole area to rise. Will that not mess up your contrast by making your signal show up less from the average? So by filling up the field of visiion with a heated moving tail, they are actually making their body show up less. So what the snake sees is a confusing , low contrast blob of heat.

(disclaimer:I don't know much about snake heat-sensor anatomy) It seems to me that (according to wikipedia) , the organs are adaptive and register relative temperature and calibrate themselves with a certain latency (50-150ms). So it might be that the squirrels are basically jamming the snake's heat detectors by moving the heat source at a certain hertz.

They should read up on heat seeking missile seeker heads and how to jam them. It seems to me Sidewinders have more commonalities with Sidewinders than previously thought. Basically it could be that the tail acts like a flare does or that it acts like an IRCM pulsing jammer does. ie. it either attracts the snake to strike at the center of the heat signature, which in this case is probably between the tail and body == air, or causes the snake to get confused about where to aim it's strike if the infrared sight is somehow messed up by the waving signal. Or it could be that is is confusing that the big part of the squirrel in visible light is the smaller part of the squirrel in infrared. Depends on if the snake is a single or dual band seeker. ;)

1.document everything
2.get legal consultation
3.tell them that you are innocent and blaablaa, whatever that one guy said about severance etc.
4.get info from the registrar _when_ it was registered and how it was paid
4.1 prove that you were with someone or somehow that you could have not registered it
4.2 or prove that you could have not paid it (reasonably, ie. it doesnt show on your credit card.)

You will not get your job back, but you might get a better severance, and besides you really dont want to work in that company anyways.