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You fiddle, the Net burns

Microsoft's Fiddler2 is a Web Debugging Proxy utility that lets you "fiddle" with incoming or outgoing HTTP data. It logs all HTTP traffic between your PC and the Internet. You can use it to inspect two-way HTTP activity, set breakpoints, and more.

Fiddler2 is one of Microsoft's nifty Power Toys, a class of plain but useful system tools and other small utilities that greatly expand users' control over the Windows environment as well as their PC's software and hardware. Fiddler2's interface is typical of the type, businesslike and efficient but lacking the stylish elements … Read more

Worthy testing tool

Play like a hacker with the all too easy to use Denial of Service testing tool. DoSHTTP's pull-down menus and button interface takes only a few seconds to understand. Even those who only slightly understand Denial of Service floods can operate this tool. In other words, though it may be designed for professionals to test performance and protection software it can be used for the wrong reasons. That's probably why the demo is severely limited to four tests and a maximum of 5,000 DoS requests per session.

Warning aside, this is a dead simple tool for professionals. … Read more

Is an unsecured FTP server publicly accessible?

Unlike other areas of the law where doing something in public can land you in a lawsuit (or at least a courtroom with a nice, slightly used orange jumpsuit), sometimes in patent law doing things in public can get you out of a lawsuit.

When a company finds itself in court defending against a patent lawsuit, it will usually assert two major defenses. First, the company will say "I don't practice (or produce) what is claimed in this patent." Second, a defendant in a patent lawsuit will also attempt to "invalidate" the claims of the patent by showing that "prior art" described the claims in the patent prior to the application date of the patent. While this defense can take multiple forms (see, for example, 35 U.S.C. ? 102 ), a defendant must often show that the prior art relied upon was in fact publicly known or publicly used. So now its time for a pop quiz--which one of three options would you consider not being "publicly accessible" for the purposes of United States patent law:

A: The use of a centrifuge in a secure laboratory at the National Institute for Health;

B: The posting of a paper on an unsecured FTP server; or

C: Indexing a dissertation in a paper file and placing it on a shelf...in Germany.