Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Computer abuse in copy-protection rootkit software

Ed Felten in Freedom to Tinker finally brings up what's been missing in the debate about aggressive copy-protection schemes, namely, that they are violating computer abuse laws left and right, and the companies should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, and penalized just as hard as the "computer hackers" are--putting the CEO of Sony, SunnComm/Mediamax, or First4Internet in jail for four years would show 1. Computer abuse, either by individual or corporation, is not tolerated and 2. Corporations, if they argue they deserve rights just like people, should get the punishments delivered to them as well. Computer abuse applies not only to the crazy copy-protection rootkits but to most spyware as well.

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