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Virginia sentences man to MS Windows

Posted:
Fri Aug 24, 2007 5:59 am
by Calum
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/24 ... print.html
He's been convicted of movie piracy and as part of his punishment the authorities want to force him to buy and use only microsoft windows and associated software! bizarre!

Posted:
Fri Aug 24, 2007 7:52 am
by Void Main
The whole thing is just bizarre and shows what a sad state our judicial system is in. First of all, why would you install software on the person's computer to track where they are going? If you want to track where someone goes on the Internet you don't want the tracker on their computer. You want to do it at the ISP level (even then you could get around it by using the neighbor's open wireless connection, etc). I mean who doesn't have a cable/dsl router/switch these days and couldn't just hook a second machine up to it and use it instead of the machine with the stupid software installed on it? It's not rocket science. The Windows machine with the tracking software on it would have no clue there was another machine in the house surfing the net. They have to "trust" that the guy would not do that. If they are going to "trust" him to not surf using a second machine they might just as well "trust" that he isn't going to go to places they don't want him to go to. It's a complete waste of resources in my opinion.

Posted:
Fri Aug 24, 2007 8:30 am
by JoeDude
Did the judge get paid?
Wouldn't it be the governments responsibility to develop the software for many platforms anyway? Without it, wouldn't there be a violation of fair commerce, and inadvertantly, that government would be endorsing windows, an unethical parctice.I am guessing the courts stand on this is since the software is windows, then he either uses windows or doesn't use a computer at all?

Posted:
Fri Aug 24, 2007 9:26 am
by insomnia
Wow...
I like the US, but honestly, your legal system just sucks.
Isn't the the dead penalty cruel enough?

Posted:
Fri Aug 24, 2007 9:56 am
by Void Main
I guess it could have been worse. They could have sentenced him to WindowsME. :)

Posted:
Sat Aug 25, 2007 3:54 am
by JoeDude
insomnia wrote:Isn't the the dead penalty cruel enough?
Did you actually mean "not used enough" :-0

Posted:
Mon Aug 27, 2007 10:21 am
by Calum
yes, sentence software "pirates" to death! them and the muslims! kill 'em all and let a gun totin' red necked ten gallon hat wearing jehovah sort 'em out!
(sorry, got a bit carried away there, a bit like the US legal system in this case, in fact)

Posted:
Tue Aug 28, 2007 4:08 am
by JoeDude
Calum wrote:yes, sentence software "pirates" to death! them and the muslims! kill 'em all and let a gun totin' red necked ten gallon hat wearing jehovah sort 'em out!
That is the best idea I have heard in a long time!