Virginia sentences man to MS Windows

[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!

[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.

[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?

[insomnia]

Wow...
I like the US, but honestly, your legal system just sucks.
Isn't the the dead penalty cruel enough?

[Void Main]

I guess it could have been worse. They could have sentenced him to WindowsME. :)

[JoeDude]

Isn't the the dead penalty cruel enough?

Did you actually mean "not used enough" :-0

[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)

[JoeDude]

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!