What has been called a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack against Web servers belonging to The SCO Group Inc. is under investigation by the U.S. Secret Service, an SCO spokesperson said late Friday. The action comes amid impassioned allegations from the open-source software community that SCO, owner of UNIX, is making an unsupportable bid to kill Linux by claiming the open-source operating system violates the company’s intellectual property rights.
The Linux kernel, or core code, is “open-source” software, meaning it is free to use with few restrictions. According to SCO’s estimates, Linux powers more than 2.5 million – or about 75 percent – of Web servers worldwide. The company has begun attempting to levy fees ranging from $199 to $699 per CPU against commercial users of the product, including corporate information technology departments and individual Webmasters. A company spokesperson said the licensing fees are expected to rise to $1,399 per CPU soon.
The attack on SCO’s servers, confirmed by the Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis, began about 3:20 a.m. Pacific Time Dec. 10 and ended the afternoon of Dec. 11. At its height it affected every aspect of SCO’s electronic communications, according to published reports, including the company’s Website, intranet, mail server, FTP server, and customer support systems.
“The problems were resolved around 5 p.m. Mountain Time on Thursday,” said SCO’s director of corporate communications, Blake Stowell. “The Secret Service is investigating. The FBI was contacted, and they turned it over to the Secret Service.”
Stowell also said it’s not a stretch to believe a Linux devotee was behind the hacking of the company’s electronic infrastructure, the third in six months. “Based on our previous experience, it could be [an open-source community member],” he said, noting that the individual who initiated a June attack bragged about it to Open Source Initiative president Eric Raymond. Stowell said Raymond urged the attacker to stop the assault, and SCO’s problem disappeared. “Clearly there have been battle lines drawn,” Stowell said. “Leaders in the open-source community have made it clear that they will do anything to stop SCO.”
Linux users are incensed by the suggestion. Fueled partly by suspicion engendered by an SCO press release about the most recent attack issued shortly after 3 p.m. on Wednesday and partly by growing animosity over SCO’s $1 billion lawsuit against IBM over what SCO claims were “misappropriation of trade secrets, tortious interference, unfair competition, and breach of contract” surrounding some of Big Blue's contributions to the Linux operating system, some open-source sympathizers began their own media campaign as soon as SCO’s side of the story hit the Associated Press wire.
“SCO has reported that they are experiencing an attack on their servers. Groklaw has been flooded with information that indicates their story doesn’t add up,” read a posting about the attack by the moderator of Groklaw.com, a community of technologists and legal professionals formed by a paralegal who specializes in research. The site “is pro-Linux in nature, but dedicated to documenting all aspects of the case and its little sideshows,” according to one member.
“The consensus of what I am hearing is that it is probably not an attack,” Groklaw.com moderator Pamela Jones went on to note. “[SCO’s] description of the ‘attack’ makes no sense. And ... if what they are saying were true, SCO would be admitting to gross negligence [because fixes for the security hole SCO described have existed for years].”
A systems consultant who asked to remain anonymous commented to AVN Online, “Normal companies do not issue press releases about falling prey to long-ago mitigated vulnerability attacks, especially when that same company four years prior helped lead the charge to close the vulnerability which they now claim to have fallen prey to.”
Self-described “Linux user and advocate since 1994” Mike Tuxford said the attack may have been very real, but he resents the suggestion that Linux vigilantes were behind it. “I know that if the person responsible for the attacks on SCO is a Linux user they will not be seen as any kind of hero or get any sympathy from the Linux community,” he said. “They will indeed be shunned for such actions, and [they] do not represent the Linux community in general any more than all the malicious Windows abusers represent the Windows programming community. However, SCO will continue to make accusations and cast aspersions upon the Linux and open-source software communities [in a public relations bid to win support for its cause]. The timing of the attacks was rather suspicious to the Linux community, since it diverted public attention away from a major court setback SCO had Friday, Dec. 5.”
On that date, according to court transcripts, the court ordered SCO within 30 days “to identify, with specificity, the source codes” it is claiming form the basis for its action against IBM. In the same transcript, SCO Attorney Kevin McBride is quoted as saying, “ ... IBM clearly did contribute a lot of the Unix-related information into Linux. We just don’t know what it is.”
SCO’s Stowell said Friday that among IBM’s contributions to Linux were the operating system’s Journal File System, NUMA code, and Malloc code, all of which are essential to the OS’s function.
Martin Klingensmith, a Linux supporter and Webmaster for the sites Information Archive and NNYTech.com sees a sinister motive in SCO’s rapid issuance of a press release about the situation and subsequent published suggestions that someone in the Linux community is behind the hacking. “The SCO Group is ‘after’ Linux users, and this is no conspiracy theory,” he wrote in an e-mail to AVN Online. “SCO has been sending out letters to the world’s largest corporations, telling them that they are breaking the law for using Linux because [SCO owns] part of the code. Is this not irresponsible? To this date there has yet to be any ruling that SCO has any rights to any portion of Linux, and [SCO is] unwilling to provide any evidence to anyone that they actually own part of the Linux kernel code. The only company to give any money to SCO thus far has been Microsoft, an understandably anti-Linux force.”
According to SCO’s Stowell, Microsoft, IBM, Silicon Graphics Inc., Sun Microsystems, and Hewlett-Packard Development Company LP.are among the companies that have licensed the company’s UNIX technology. All five of the companies have developed their own derivatives of UNIX, Stowell said, but only elements of IBM’s and SGI’s have made their way into the Linux kernel, as far as SCO is aware. “Other licensees have been very honorable in the derivatives they’ve created,” Stowell noted. “[Linux supporters] should be angry with IBM, not us. They’re the ones who spiked the punchbowl.” SGI and SCO are in talks now, Stowell said.
In the meantime, Linux users continue to berate SCO for releasing itself a version of the code it claims infringes on its intellectual property rights. Beginning in 1996, the company offered a commercial product called Caldera Open Linux. Caldera (established in 1994) bought the intellectual property rights to UNIX from Novell in 1995, changed its name to The SCO Group Inc. in 2002, and ceased distributing Open Linux in May 2003.
“Contributions of the UNIX code to the Linux kernel occurred in 2000 and 2001,” Stowell said, noting that Linux versions released prior to 1999 appear to be “clean.” “We began noticing them near the end of 2002.”
SCO’s Stowell admits the issues are complicated, but says his company “is trying to use the court system to right what we feel is a wrong. We’re not trying to kill Linux. We’re trying to protect our intellectual property rights and still allow people to use [Linux] for a fee. Sometimes you have to get tough.”
SCO’s suit against IBM is not expected to be adjudicated for at least 18 months. IBM has countersued SCO alleging patent violations, and Linux giant Red Hat Inc. has filed suit against the company “to hold SCO accountable for its unfair and deceptive actions.”
