[Cryptography] What is going on with TrueCrypt?

Dave Howe davehowe.pentesting at gmail.com
Tue Jun 3 04:42:11 EDT 2014


On 02/06/2014 19:11, Nemo wrote:
> (I am not a lawyer, so what follows is based on my non-expert
> understanding.)
>
> What would happen if someone just cut&pasted the TrueCrypt source
> wholesale and put his/her own name, copyright, and license on it?
>
> The only ones with legal standing to sue for infringement are the
> authors, who are anonymous. They (he?) would have to give up that
> anonymity just to initiate legal action. Not to mention engaging a bunch
> of lawyers for a settlement worth zero.
  Assuming it is in fact worth zero.  Clearly the source itself has
value, or we wouldn't be here discussing it :)

  If one of the bigger players (such as MS) adopted it, then it may be
worthwhile suing; possession of the signing key would be a rebuttable
"proof" of ownership, but doesn't need to be in the hands of the actual
programmer at the time, it would be worthwhile for a suitable lawyer to
take on the case, with a "john doe" client, knowing that the payout
should he get a judgement (and odds are good that MS would just settle
out of court and take a licence, given the theft was fairly clear) would
be considerable.




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