UPDATE: The Standard: Slashdot Skirts Microsoft’s Kerberos Rule

“Slammed in a court brief for the proprietary way it implements
the Kerberos Web security standard in Windows 2000, Microsoft
(MSFT) has moved to reassure customers and disarm critics by
publishing the formerly secret details of its version of Kerberos –
just one day before the brief was filed.”

“Better late than never? Perhaps, but Microsoft has attached
licensing restrictions to the site where the details are published,
essentially locking down the information as a confidential “trade
secret.”

“In other words, the information can be reviewed, but no
competitor can exploit the published details in order to write code
that could make use of it.” Predictably, contributors to
Slashdot.org, a Linux/Open Source news and community Web site, have
already posted the information online, and Microsoft’s legal
department has sent Slashdot a demand that the information be
removed from its servers.”

“In a paper filed in the antitrust trial on April 28, expert
witness Rebecca Henderson, an MIT professor who supported the
government’s proposed remedy of splitting Microsoft in two,
concluded that because Microsoft hadn’t published those extensions,
“no non-Microsoft server can utilize the security features of the
PC operating system.”

Complete
Story