Malicious Compliance

19527 readers

4 users here now

People conforming to the letter, but not the spirit, of a request. For now, this includes text posts, images, videos and links. Please ensure that the “malicious compliance” aspect is apparent - if you’re making a text post, be sure to explain this part; if it’s an image/video/link, use the “Body” field to elaborate.

======

We ENCOURAGE posts about events that happened to you, or someone you know.
We ACCEPT (for now) reposts of good malicious compliance stories (from other platforms) which did not happen to you or someone you knew. Please use a [REPOST] tag in such situations.
We DO NOT ALLOW fiction, or posts that break site-wide rules.

======

Also check out the following communities:

!fakehistoryporn@lemmy.world !unethicallifeprotips@lemmy.world

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

894

Here's all the source code (lemmy.sdf.org)

submitted 1 year ago by ExtremeDullard@lemmy.sdf.org to c/maliciouscompliance@lemmy.world

88 comments fedilink hide all child comments

In 2000, I wrote a Linux device driver that "decrypted" the output of a certain device, and my company, which hosted open-source projects, agreed to host it.

The "encryption" was only a XOR, but that was enough for the maker of said device to sue my company under 17 U.S.C. § 1201 for hundreds of millions in damages.

The story got a lot of press back then because it highlighted how stupid the then-new DMCA was, and also because there was a David open-source enthusiasts vs. Goliath heartless corporation flavor to it.

Our lawyer decided to pick up the fight to generate free publicity for our fledgling company. For discovery, the maker of the device requested "a copy of any and all potentially infringing source code". They weren't specific and they didn't specify the medium.

So we printed the entire Linux kernel source code including my driver in 5-pt font and sent them the boxes of printouts. Legally they had been served, so there was nothing they could do about it.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] FeliXTV27@feddit.ch 42 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't think the font size matters too much in this, it's just the printing the whole source code, including a lot of not directly relevant things, and sending all of that over in a few boxes instead of sharing the project files with them that is very malicious.

[–] rumckle@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago

It's also very common in legal cases to share evidence printed out, instead of in digitally, to make sure it isn't easy for the other side.