McOwen Case Settled

ewilts writes: "Back in July, you ran a story about David McOwen, a computer adminstrator at DeKalb Technical College in Georgia, who was being charged for installing SETI software on school computers. This case has now been settled. See also the EFF press release on McOwen's web site." Update: 01/18 16:11 GMT by M : It was software from distributed.net, not SETI.

Comments

michael and timothy...

[FortKnox]

Mike & Tim. You need to talk to one another on an hourly basis. You guys are the biggest offenders of repeat articles. This was covered in the slashback yesterday...

did i sleep ok last night?

[jeffy124]

coulda sworn I saw this already

Georgia a backwater?

[mmaddox]

Being a native Georgian (southwest Georgian for that matter...Albany - a REAL backwater), and a comparatively savvy technogeek, I am filled with horror. These idiot lawyers are going to do everything they can to make a name for themselves in whatever context they consider important, intelligence be damned. Of course, if in doing so, they drag the name of Georgia back into the yeehaw days (Gawrsh, Goober, that there computey-thang shor is makin' them nekkid wimmens look purty an' all. Gimme a chaw.), they don't care.

Georgia is full of intelligent, growing technologists - startups, academics, and all-around geeks. These barristers' motives are pure old-fashioned power plays, making a name for themselves and wielding power over those who don't respect them. Please don't consider all of us Georgians hicks; we geeks live in a meritocracy separate from these backwater jackasses we elect or appoint to office.

Rape also gets the book

[Telastyn]

Also note that in nearly every jurisdiction there are tons of other laws that could apply, and thus the rapist would get a similarly large number of counts.

California for example says that sodomy (defined as anal penetration) with someone unwilling or underage (2 counts if they are both unwilling *and* underage) is a seperate crime. There are other, similar, laws that make various differentiations between very similar acts, so usually a rapist can still end up with 10+ counts and probably well over 30 years

sorry to break it to ya (OT)

[CptnHarlock]

but most of the "normal" users, i.e. non-editors, prefer to mod down. It's some kind of sadist thing. I know the recomendations are to mod up rather than down, but is you look at how incredibly fast the firs posts (admitedly almost always irelevant) are moded down you'd get the idea.

There are to many CowboyModerators out there (no pun intended to CowboyNeal) who just shoot from the hip. I think that one major reason for this is the fact that many users think the mod system is broken.

I've always been opposed to the notions of "it was better before", "I miss the good old times" and so forth. But now finaly I am too getting there. I've been reading /. since 1998 and will probably continue, but I'm becoming more and more dissapointed.

I miss the time when you could yourself mark you post Offtopic by inserting an "(OT)" mark in the subject and the users mods understood that "Ok, it's marked offtopic" and let it be. If some users were interested they continued the thread, now what is wrong with that!? That was a perfectway to have spin-off discussions. I mean if you are discussing Transmetas Crusoe it's easy to start speaking of other processors and suddendly you are talking Z80-assembly!! What the hell is wrong with that!?

I hope this pos gets through and it will be interesting to see the moderations that will be done on this comment. Let me tell you that I'm NOT holding my breath... I'm starting to care less and less and kindof feeling a Golum-like transformation going on towards... dare I say it... trolling...

Propz to all downmodded Offtopicers...

Re:Powerful implications

[ypoint]

That is true! . . . (First Post - for me, anyway. No reason to mark me as a foe yet, my postings will improve!)

Rape doesn't get squat

[sessamoid]

Rape is rarely reported, and even more rarely prosecuted in this country. The actual time served for convicted rapists is astonishingly short. Why you may ask? Well, all those really dangerous marijuana users have mandatory minimum sentences thanks to the federal war on drugs. All others get their sentences shortened/let out early because the prisons just won't hold that many people.