Observer
The great thing about software is that it's pure thought-stuff. Anyone can create it: all you need is a computer and some programming tools, many of which are freely available on the Net. After that, the only limits are those set by your own ingenuity. That's why teenagers such as Shawn Fanning, the guy who invented Napster, are capable of moving mountains.Some people have a gift for programming, in much the same way as Mozart had a gift for musical composition. They can hack out computer code which has the power to overturn industries - and distribute it over the Net before its hapless victims even know what's happening.
Hackers can also take things apart, with equally embarrassing results. Consider the case of Digital Convergence, a Texan company which has to date given away more than a million barcode scanners called CueCats to computer users across the US. The company plans to hand out 39 million more of the gizmos by this time next year. Given that they cost around $10 apiece this adds up to a lot of dosh. So why are Digital Convergence doing it? Answer: because the company plans to make money by selling information about the users' purchasing habits gathered by the scanners.
It works like this. Scanning the barcodes on a packet of breakfast cereal, say, will send the user's internet browser to the manufacturer's website. (Let us leave to one side the question of why anyone in their right mind would want to visit such a site.) Each CueCat comes with a unique serial number. When installing its software, the user is required to register personal details such as name, email address, age, sex and postcode. This data can then be correlated with information gleaned by the CueCat about the products scanned by the user. The hope is that if enough people use CueCats, the accumulated consumer information will eventually be worth far more than the $400 million it will take to get a critical mass of scanners out there.
Now to some people (there is no accounting for tastes) a barcode scanner is a desirable object, especially if it is free. And it seems that some hackers, passing by the CueCat display in electronics stores, were unable to resist the temptation. From a geek perspective, however, the CueCat had two undesirable features. First, its software runs under Microsoft Windows, which in these circles is regarded rather as the spawn of the devil. Second, the scanner was designed to send personal data back to corporate HQ. Heap bad karma.
You can guess what happened. Geeks took their Cue Cats home, got out their screwdrivers and opened the lids. Inside they found the usual circuit board, EepRoms (erasable, programmable, read-only memory) and related devices.
The first thing to do was to 'neuter' the CueCat by disabling its serial number. There were two ways of doing this: by physically disconnecting one pin of a programmable memory chip, or (more elegantly) by resetting the serial number to zero. Either method deprived the device of the power to link individuals to CueCats. Step two was to write software to enable Macintosh and Linux users to use their free (now unencumbered) scanners without their consumption patterns being reported to corporate databases in Dallas.
Needless to say, the Digital Convergence suits were not amused. Lawyers were consulted. Cease and desist letters were dispatched. Licences were invoked. Vague threats were made about infringement of intellectual property and the like. All of which have had as much effect as a sermon in a whorehouse - and detailed autopsies of CueCats flourish on the Net. There's a lesson there somewhere.