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Pirate Banned From Using Linux
dsinc writes "A guy who uploaded the latest Star Wars movie got arrested, pleaded guilty to 'conspiracy to commit copyright infringement' and 'criminal copyright infringement' and got jail and home confinement. As part of his home confinement, he agreed to install some tracking software on his computer. The problem is He's an Ubuntu Linux user and the gov't doesn't have any tracking software for Linux. So he's been told that he must use Windows for the term of his confinement. Looks like a case of cruel and unusual punishment to me"
He could always use VMWare.
United States Magistrate Judge Carla Woehrle: After pleading guilty, you are hereby sentenced to confinement at your house ... ... and to serve up to 6 months jail time ... ... and to install government monitoring software on your computer ... ... that only runs on Windows.
Marc Hoaglin: No change in lifestyle there.
Judge Carla Woehrle:
Marc Hoaglin: Sure, why not? I'll get a chance to lift some weights.
Judge Carla Woehrle:
Marc Hoaglin: I guess that's only fair.
Judge Carla Woehrle:
Marc Hoaglin: DO NOT WANT!!!
My work here is dung.
This is clearly a Ninja plot.
Take it in context...
They probably offered him a deal to spend home time versus all jail time if he agreed to certain terms. They are not FORCING him to use windows, they are saying that if he wants the easy path of punishment, he has to abide by certain rules.
Also the requirement would only be for if he uses a computer at all. He's perfectly welcome to simply not use one at all.
All in all, he got off easy and just has to fullow the very simple rules in order to get the easy version of punishment.
Why? Because he's a convict still serving his sentence (that's why he's under home confinement). If he doesn't like the terms of home confinement, he can always go back in the slammer and have even more restricted access.
One presumes that he has been required to surrender his hardware (all of it) to the authorities for the installation of the tracking software which phones home to indicate what he's doing (at whatever level of granularity it tracks such things).
He could probably get away with VMWare or the like running Linux under Windows, but that would just run the risk of landing him in jail.
His best bet is Cygwin, the suite of open source tools for Windows that includes everything you need to essentially subvert a Windows desktop and make it think it's a Unix-like OS. It's not 100% perfect, but it's a far cry better than pure Windows. I regularly use a Windows laptop with X running under it, ssh to my office with X-forwarding and several gnome-terminals running on my work desktop.
Other than that, the only native Windows apps I use are Firefox and Thunderbird, so it's often hard to tell what OS it actually is.
I read comments on here about video cameras in the UK and why don't we stick up for our rights. Here is a case of someone being sent to to jail for pirating a movie. This is not an offence worthy of jail time at tax payers' expense. When are you guys going to say enough of this bullshit?
In this world nothing is certain but death, taxes and flawed car analogies.
The problem is He's an Ubuntu Linux user
And here I was hoping God used Mac OS X (yes, I'm sure there's a "daemon" joke in there, but I'll leave it at one bad joke per post).
You will install MS Vista and install tracking software; you will also pay $300.00 licence fee to MS. You will also install MSOffice2007 _and_ also pay the licence fee. Once this is done, you will ALWAYS vote yes for ooxml.
People have made this comment on every single thread on this topic everywhere (Slashdot is the third site I've seen this story on), and it's still wrong and (frankly) nonsensical.
The requirement is that they run software that can monitor his computer activities. The complication is that the software is Windows-only so it won't run on his Linux system. Your suggestion accomplishes neither party's goal: It wouldn't let them monitor his computer activity, and it wouldn't let him run Linux as the OS on his machine (he'd have to run Windows, and then screw around, and then maybe run some Linux apps in a VM while still paying for a Windows license and dealing with Windows crap).
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
See, if I was the judge, I'd say he wasn't allowed to use a computer, period, for the duration of whatever sentence is being carried out.
Sounds like the latest "Catch a Hacker" episode of Dateline NBC. Ace investigative reporter Michelle Madigan uncovers a new operating system used by hackers, pirates and cybercriminals to go on an internet crime spree. What is Ubuntu and why is the government helpless to stop it?
"Linux: The only operating system the NSA doesn't 0wn."
--
Toro
In jail for 5 months and he thinks changing Operating System needs more of a life restructuring.
Perhaps, this sentence will give him the perfect opportunity to finally find a life outside of his linux box.
Or are they going to buy a legit copy for him?
Sure, but he's done the jail time, and he's not complaining about the probation term at all.
Just because someone has committed a crime does not mean that the government gets to impose arbitrary terms on them without an explicit court ruling. It especially doesn't mean that the government should be mandating specific non-optimal technical choices that interfere the livelyhood of an expert in a technical field.
Mandating Windows to a computer expert so they can be tracked for piracy is like mandating a Chrysler mini-van to a farmer because he beat his wife. Sure, you can carry produce to market in a mini-van, but making the farmer buy a new Chrysler mini-van to replace his perfectly functional Toyota pickup truck is absurd.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
Or he could have offered them to port the tracking tool to Linux. :-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
By `indirect' I mean things like not being able to get a good job, being shunned/tormented/killed by people merely because you're a registered sex offender, etc.
By `direct' I mean going to jail, paying fines, probation, even having to register as a sex offender.
Yeah, damn dirty rapist murdering prick...oh wait...he uploaded the new Star Wars. Well, I guess this is the joy of treating copyright infringement as a criminal offense. Unless of course the infringement wasn't the offense, and that subjecting that many people to the latest Star Wars is considered a crime against humanity.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
They can really punish him by making him run windows ME.
"They can really punish him by making him run windows ME."
Um, They can really punish him by making him * try* to run windows ME.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
installing software is the wrong way to go about this anyway. The gvt. should have an appliance that they stick between his router and the ISP connection. Have that box run whatever it is they want for monitoring and reporting. It'd be easy to make sure it isn't tampered with, and is always running that way too.
Hmm...I wonder how lucrative starting such a business to provide these things to authorities would be, seems like a fun project.
So he decides to break down and install Windows. After he's finished, he calls up the FBI and says "OK, I've installed Windows. How do I install the monitoring software?" and the operators says "OK. Here's what you've got to do..." and gives a loooong list of instructions. So the guy says "Holy crap! I've got to do all that?!" and the FBI operator says, "I'm just kidding. It came with the OS. Have a nice day."
NT phone home...
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
The Windows cracking community often creates thin shims that convincingly emulate the Windows runtime environment and change its behaviour. For example, a relatively little-known framework called 'VXmon'. This is the basis of a lot of the 'loader' style cracks, that mess with API calls and responses, to fool a shareware program into thinking the trial period lasts forever, or disabling nag screens and other trialware behaviour.
It shouldn't be too hard to put together a 'loader' for this monitoring program to make it turn a blind eye to certain classes of network access. That is, if such a loader hasn't already been written. But if not, that'd be a good assignment for the various 1337 cR4ck1ng Cr3\/\/z out there.
Of course, the shim would need to heavily disguise its own existence. If the guy got caught using it, he'd better order a healthy supply of KY Gel ready for a holiday in Club Fed.
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
Some laws are grounded in reality while others are just on the books... If they are on the books they should be enforced.
This is where I lose you. You think that the Alabama police should be arresting people for sodomy or (until a few years ago) marrying someone of a different race?
There are many checks on dumb laws. The first is the intelligence of legislators. Since that often fails, we have other checks: the people can just not obey them, and if they don't, the police can choose to not enforce them, the judges can choose to not sentence for them... you might have heard of the Scopes trials?
This power, to selectively enforce the law, is used more often than you might think.
There. I fixed that for you.
The same law really does apply to people who use Macintoshes, no matter what you may think.
Careful now... Windows gateways, virtual machines, ... ? This is voodoo for an average gov't worker. It's technologies that can be used for terrorist activities too!
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
We want to torture the man, not break his spirit and destroy his soul!
Me failed English...
FreeBSD over Linux. If my comments seem odd, this may explain...
He could probably get away with VMWare or the like running Linux under Windows, but that would just run the risk of landing him in jail.
A live CD also works wonders, but without the hard evidence of virtualization. Again, if they had a way to monitor his traffic from the upstream, it would be bad. If they rely on the monitoring software as the only monitor, than use a live CD for checking e-mail and other places where you don't want to compromise your online passwords. Monitoring online activity is one thing. Harvesting his login info for his online accounts is another. That over-reaches monitoring online activity and opens doors to stuff beyond the current monitoring.
I I had mandatory online monitoring, I would not log in to any online account. I would not accidentally give that info to them.
The truth shall set you free!
I thought it was like one of those Buddhist Zen "Koan" things... like "What is the sound of one hand clapping?"
"how do you run windows me?"
Happiness does not come from having much, but from being attached to little.
"Then again I've worked for several newspapers as a writer, copy editor, and layout editor and I've had my sense of humor beat out of me."
There, fixed it for ya.
There are only 6,863,795,529 types of people in the world.
No, because [Continue][Cancel]unlike Windows[Continue][Cancel] Me, Windows [Cancel][Allow]Vista actually [Continue][Cancel]works.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50