4 ms·

Andrew Tridgell never downloaded or used the BitKeeper client program; he was never party to the BitKeeper license terms.

ghusbands 4y ago
It would still fall afoul of the CFAA (for which there is no exception for reverse engineering) and equivalent laws outside the US - the server he was connecting to was owned by BitMover (as far as I see) and he wasn't authorised to use it in that fashion. And the person through whom he might have authorisation (Linus) had explicitly disallowed reverse engineering. So nobody who could authorise it had done so. People have been arrested and lost court cases for less. In good news, the supreme court clarified/limited the CFAA in June 2021 [1], so it's now seemingly legal to access a server however you like as long as you're not accessing information you wouldn't otherwise have access to. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/5/22491859/supreme-court-van-buren-cfaa-hacking-law-scope-narrowed https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/5/22491859/supreme-court-van...
- LukeShu 4y ago
  > the server he was connecting to was owned by BitMover (as far as I see) That would be surprising to me. Being a DCVS, lots of folks in the community would be running their own servers and sharing the URLs to them; that is were Andrew would have noticed URLs like bk://thunk.org:5000. For instance, here's one such URL being shared on the LKML where Andrew hung out: https://www.cs.helsinki.fi/linux/linux-kernel/2003-12/1108.html https://www.cs.helsinki.fi/linux/linux-kernel/2003-12/1108.h... It is my assumption that bk.arm.linux.org.ku was not owned BitMover. Perhaps that means that whoever was running the server than Andrew connected to was in violation of their license by "authorizing" Andrew's access.
  - ghusbands 4y ago
    Thank you, that elucidates a little. I thought odd the wide claims that the metadata was stored on BitMover's servers and that they might own that IP. Note that the CFAA is a criminal law, so it was possible for Andrew to be prosecuted for breaking it, given a report to the police, if he hadn't been given direct permission to access that server in that way, whether or not the server owner minded.

ghusbands 4y ago

It would still fall afoul of the CFAA (for which there is no exception for reverse engineering) and equivalent laws outside the US - the server he was connecting to was owned by BitMover (as far as I see) and he wasn't authorised to use it in that fashion. And the person through whom he might have authorisation (Linus) had explicitly disallowed reverse engineering. So nobody who could authorise it had done so. People have been arrested and lost court cases for less. In good news, the supreme court clarified/limited the CFAA in June 2021 [1], so it's now seemingly legal to access a server however you like as long as you're not accessing information you wouldn't otherwise have access to. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/5/22491859/supreme-court-van-buren-cfaa-hacking-law-scope-narrowed https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/5/22491859/supreme-court-van...

LukeShu 4y ago
> the server he was connecting to was owned by BitMover (as far as I see) That would be surprising to me. Being a DCVS, lots of folks in the community would be running their own servers and sharing the URLs to them; that is were Andrew would have noticed URLs like bk://thunk.org:5000. For instance, here's one such URL being shared on the LKML where Andrew hung out: https://www.cs.helsinki.fi/linux/linux-kernel/2003-12/1108.html https://www.cs.helsinki.fi/linux/linux-kernel/2003-12/1108.h... It is my assumption that bk.arm.linux.org.ku was not owned BitMover. Perhaps that means that whoever was running the server than Andrew connected to was in violation of their license by "authorizing" Andrew's access.
- ghusbands 4y ago
  Thank you, that elucidates a little. I thought odd the wide claims that the metadata was stored on BitMover's servers and that they might own that IP. Note that the CFAA is a criminal law, so it was possible for Andrew to be prosecuted for breaking it, given a report to the police, if he hadn't been given direct permission to access that server in that way, whether or not the server owner minded.