Legality of software restrictions

[Goofproof]

[quote="mhacker Anyone have luck combining data from several weeks into one report? Thank Jim for EPA or I would remove this program after I used it twice. [/quote]

I downlosd my data in 7 day blocks in Encore Pro. Then in report I save the dailies (Page 4-10) for 7 days.

I use Adobe Acrobat Pro, and combine them into monthly files, that I save and store. I also use a Excel file for a second record. Jim

[jennmary]

This whole forum is blowing my mind. Who cares if someone took less econ classes? What is the point of going after someone for simply ASKING if anti trust laws applied? Why the need to make them look undereducated and therefor not worthy of a simple discussion? Am I missing something. Don't want to start a fight, I am just curious if this is how things always are on this site. I am new to CPAP and desperately looking for every tiny bit of info I can get my hands on. I reckon I have may have more classes than many out there.....but I would never attempt to make someone else look like they were incapable of understanding something because they were slightly less educated. Must be nice up on top of that horse.....though I bet it will eventually become quite lonely.

[cwsanfor]

Jennmary,

The amount of noise on this board is typical for such boards. I could direct you to much worse ones. It typically is worse at some times. You may have stepped in at a cranky period. Just try to ignore all the flame war stuff: there's a lot of good wheat here under the chaff.

[Guest]

JennMary,

There's a lot of great info on this site. It's helped me a great deal in dealing with my sleep apnea and the local DME (LinCare). With everyone's help, comments and solutions, I got the knowledge and where-with-all to inform the good folks at my DME on most current apnea topics. So much so that they don't even question me when I request/ask for whatever I figure I need. Yeah, I return here daily to check the problems and solutions going on with everyone. Some situations apply while others do not; nevertheless, it's all good information.

[REMmaster]

Well, it's pretty tough to argue anti-trust when the limitations on the sale of the software are due to the fact that the software can modify a prescription setting on an fda regulated device. Patients are not the intended users of the software, so it's hard to argue that restricting its sale would impact any kind of market, especially when the software is provided free of charge to the intended users.

And believe it or not, there are actual reasons that it is a prescription setting. Overpressure can lead to barotrauma, cardiac effects or pneumothorax and most manufacturers do not want to be held liable for any problems as a result of the use of software that allows these changes to be made.

[blarg]

the software can modify a prescription setting on an fda regulated device.

Guess they should cut my fingers off too.

Patients are not the intended users of the software, so it's hard to argue that restricting its sale would impact any kind of market, especially when the software is provided free of charge to the intended users.

I bought Encore version 1.6i. I will not be able to buy futher versions of Encore. I would if they let me. Granted, not the hugest market, but it is money they aren't going to make that they would have otherwise.

And believe it or not, there are actual reasons that it is a prescription setting. Overpressure can lead to barotrauma, cardiac effects or pneumothorax and most manufacturers do not want to be held liable for any problems as a result of the use of software that allows these changes to be made.

Fair enough. Just sayin'.

[REMmaster]

Not saying I dont understand the desire for the software, just that it's not an anti-trust issue or a matter of the manufacturers wanting to hurt the users. Maybe one day Respironics will come out with a patient friendly version that does nothing but monitoring. I think that would be beneficial for all involved, but I do not know how high on the priority list that would be considering the small population of people that actually would purchase something like that. What is a high percentage somewhere like here is most likely a drop in the bucket in the big picture.

[jskinner]

All a guy has to do is slap on a scope and read what is coming off the buss. We know that the SmartCard contains memory, CPU and a real-time clock. I doubt the CPU is used for much of anything, we know the memory is used to hold the data from the machine, the real-time clock on the SmartCard used to assign the date/time stamp to the data as it comes off the buss.

The replacement system would also need to have a CPU to do the conversion of the data format coming off the bus to a format writable on the SD card. This would likely mean having an embedded OS on the CPU and some software do to the conversion/transfer.

Unless we have some hardware gurus in the group I think a more doable approach would be to use the existing smartcard/reader and try to connect into the API from the driver (I took a quick look and it seems to be using the Microsoft Smartcard API) The trick is if the encryption key is in the driver or Encore Pro. If its in the driver it might not be do bad if its in Encore Pro it might be harder and of debatable legality.

[jskinner]

If EPA understands how to read the SQL db, then the only real issue *is* as pointed out reading the data (and understanding the data structure) on the cards, which I doubt would be very hard. Since I see no encryption stuff in the Encore Pro UI, I doubt the cards themselves have encryption enabled.

To make EPA stand along would require the following:
1. Add a data store
2. API for Smartcard interface
3. Ability to decrypt the smartcard data (very likely encrypted)
4. Decode the smartcard data. There are likely various formats for different generations/machines

When I originally started EPA I thought about doing all this. After looking at the scope of the work, while it probably doable, I decided it was a lot of work. (If I could get better I would reconsider given the fact that Encore Pro is not easily avaliable)

[jskinner]

Getting the data off the card is the thing. EPA just reads the sql data base "after" EP has retrieved, converted and stored it.

Exactly.

[jskinner]

Has anyone taken a look at an Encore Pro SQL database with Enterprise Manager?

Yep, I used SQL Server Manager Studio to create EPA.

If one was to look at the Stored Procedures with Enterprise Manager, it may give some insight to how the data is coming off the card. I would bet it is in plain text at some point and the SQL engine parses it and loads it into the necessary tables.

I don't believe SQL is involved at all in reading the data off the card. EP reads the data off the card and stores it in the SQL db.

[jskinner]

This means that the system is probably proprietary, probably encrypted, which would render illegal under DMCA any cracking of the system.

Agreed. If we can determine where the key is then thats we would know better what are chances are. If its in the driver we might be ok since we can just ask the driver to do the decryption and we have broken no laws. If its in Encore Pro then we likely wouldn't be able to do it legally.

[jskinner]

put an ethernet port on the back and let it be network accessible like so many other consumer electronic items.

This would be so great.

Please Respironics hear our cry

Of course this makes to much sense ... it will never happen.

[blarg]

(I took a quick look and it seems to be using the Microsoft Smartcard API)

Yup, it is. I've dumped some USB traffic from the thing, but I'm not experienced at writing device drivers, so that was the end of that for me. If we don't create our own driver, then we're toast because the driver checks for an install of Encore before it will install, and I'm sure the EULA is pretty specific there.

Anyway, my research into the subject is here:
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