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Johansen Trial Underway

Posted by michael on from the wheels-of-justice dept.

Info is trickling in about Jon Johansen's trial In Norway, where he is accused of violating Norwegian law. Aftenposten and VG Nett have stories, and there's at least one amateur account of the trial. The trial is supposed to last a week, and I'm sure Slashdot will keep up with it, so please submit only *new* stories about it, thanks.

5 of 227 comments (clear)

  1. Asinine by cioxx · · Score: 5, Insightful
    To Blockquoth the journal:
    Jon contacting Nomad, who'd written a decryptor but no front-end or keys; Jon blagging a copy of this and promissing not to circulate it; Jon writing a GUI for it [prosecutor asking what a GUI is - pardon ? - yes, really, the counsel didn't appear to know]

    Classy. This is the reason why he won't get a fair trial, regardless of the outcome. The prosecution, judges, etc. don't have a fucking clue about technology and yet they are presiding over it.

    Same thing goes on in the States. I don't buy the whole "technology is in it's infancy" bullshit. There are tons out out of work sysadmins. Give them books, let them take the bar exam and proceed to become a prosecutor. Everyone wins.
    1. Re:Asinine by poot_rootbeer · · Score: 5, Insightful


      No, the prosecutor is asking what a GUI is because he needs to ensure that everyone present in the courtroom is using the same terminology. It has to go into the transcript, or the first thing that will come up in appeal is "They were using a different definition of GUI than we were."

      If out-of-work sysadmins want to become prosecutors, they can go ahead and enroll at law school. It takes more to become a lawyer than reading a few books and taking an exam, though.

      To paraphrase someone, "the nerds, geeks, etc. don't have a fucking clue about the legal system and yet they are trying offer commentary about it.

  2. False dichotomy by Robin+Hood · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Huh. From an earlier Aftenposten article entitled "'DVD Jon' declares his innocence" (http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article.j html?articleID=452751), I found this quote:

    Some view Johansen as a hero, while others view him as the entertainment industry's worst nightmare.

    Um... What about both? Do they have a problem with that concept? :-)

    --
    The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
    "The Source will be with you... Always."
  3. So what... by Pedrito · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So he goes to jail for a couple of years. It'll probably teach him to be a better member of society and not to do such criminal things as try to view copyrighted material on open source operating systems.

    It occurs to me that having trials where the judge, prosecution, or defense are so technologically behind, how is one to get a fair trial?

    Is this something new to computers? Are there cases in the past (like 20+ years ago) where technology or something else causing a major lack of understanding, has caused difficulties in providing fair trials?

  4. Re:Making a case out of him using Linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The more you know (on anything), the more you realize how terrible the news media is. It's disturbing when you see how things are wrong/misreported/overblown on something you know, and then consider that the same thing is going on with the things you don't know as much about.