Pirate Banned From Using Linux 698
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"
So? Can't he use a Windows box to route? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:So? Can't he use a Windows box to route? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So? Can't he use a Windows box to route? (Score:5, Funny)
This sentence is a joke (Score:3, Insightful)
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if the Government cant run applications on Linux Whats the chance of them recognizing a VPN?
~Dan
A better solution (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:A better solution (Score:5, Funny)
Re:A better solution (Score:5, Funny)
Demonstration of intent (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:So? Can't he use a Windows box to route? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So? Can't he use a Windows box to route? (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [cygwin.com], 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.
Re:So? Can't he use a Windows box to route? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So? Can't he use a Windows box to route? (Score:5, Funny)
Um, They can really punish him by making him * try* to run windows ME.
Re:So? Can't he use a Windows box to route? (Score:5, Funny)
"how do you run windows me?"
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I don't see what the big deal about ME was. It worked as well as anything for the tasks it was intended.
Re:So? Can't he use a Windows box to route? (Score:5, Funny)
but wait, there's more . . . (Score:4, Funny)
hawk
Re:but wait, there's more . . . (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:So? Can't he use a Windows box to route? (Score:4, Funny)
How about Vista? According to the Apple ads it comes bundled with a security guy to decide what you can and can't do, though I don't know whether to take that at face value
Re:So? Can't he use a Windows box to route? (Score:4, Funny)
This is assuming Win3.x still runs on relatively recent hardware... but IIRC, the Win3.11 installer crashed on my P3 last time I tried it just for the heck of it.
Obligatory... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So? Can't he use a Windows box to route? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:So? Can't he use a Windows box to route? (Score:4, Informative)
Main site (in Danish):
http://www.prosa.dk/om_prosa/polippix.shtml [prosa.dk]
Review (in English):
http://www.madpenguin.org/cms/?m=show&id=7822 [madpenguin.org]
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This appears to be not a key logger but an Internet traffic monitor. As such, it may be able to capture anything of intrest such as logging into email regardless of whatever you did to defeat a key logger. Booting a live CD and not loading anything from the hard drive will work against this mandatory software. The risk is if he got busted for being online and th
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I doubt it. The court order would have be very specific. Running Linux in Ubuntu is a perfectly valid application of Windows use.
C//
Re:So? Can't he use a Windows box to route? (Score:5, Informative)
There. I fixed that for you.
The same law really does apply to people who use Macintoshes, no matter what you may think.
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You must be new here. "Fixed it for you" is a common /. joke similar to "you mispelled ...." in which someone "hacks up" (to use your terminology) a statement - usually in a funny way, but often making a point. It's almost satire. Ok, maybe that's a stretch.
For example, you could reply to this post with:
Re:So? Can't he use a Windows box to route? (Score:5, Funny)
There, fixed it for ya.
Re:So? Can't he use a Windows box to route? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Even so, when the state drunk drivers attend AA, they don't force them to go to a gay and lesbian AA clubhouse. That is a better analogy.
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Actually, that's often exactly what they do (never mind the gay/lesbian specific), it's not like you get to pick any alcohol or drug treatment program you like--there's a limited list of diversions. Now, usually you agree to a diversion to avoid a sentence like a fine or jail term; but try, for example, to find a non-smoking AA group (if that's important to you). I'd say
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If, indeed, it was not even quantified does not mean that there wasn't one (and, conversely, conviction doesn't exactly mean that there was).
I guess that I'm in the mood to mince the hairs of the hair-mincers today.
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Don't play games with your parole officer (Score:3, Insightful)
Brilliant. Your advice to this guy is turn a lightly supervised probation into a spanking-new charge of parole violation - playing against the two felony convictions already on his record?
Go directly to jail, do not pass Go, do not collect $200.
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Or did you forget to post AC?
Why... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Why... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, take it in context, he pirated a bunch of movies - clearly not something that should be jailtime. At most maybe a steep fine, but jailtime is to keep the freakazoids out of society until we can get them (hopefully) rehabilitated to work properly in said society - it shouldn't really be looked at as punishment.
Frankly, I don't believe punishing a wrong works all that well -- you have to psychologically change the person to prevent them from doing it again. Of course, my opinion is my own, largely untrained, based upon a relatively quick judgement =P
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The man committed a crime for which there are punishments. It's called THE LAW. In doing so he essentially forked over some of his rights to the government, things like the ability to and do whatever he wants. The government in this case was kind enough to say "Normally this is a jailable offence, however we don't think you really need to go to the pen. Instead we're going to confine you to your house and monitor you computer to ensure that yo
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But that would be "pirating" the CDs...aaaarrhh...and she could go to jail. Whereas, what was done to her was only theft of CDs, a far less serious crime (as it falls into the class of crimes with human--not corporate--victims) that the police would doubtless not even bother to record.
Umm...actually I meant to write something funny...uhh...nevermind
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Re:Why... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Why... (Score:5, Insightful)
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2. It is not definitely less than what a murderer would serve. There have been TONS of cases where rapists, child molesters and murderers get out to do it all again, repeatedly, and frequently in less than a year. It has been shown over and over that crimes against citizens a
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So annoying many people makes a crime worse? Better hope that Gilbert Gottfried, Fran Drescher, or Simon Cowell never get picked up for shoplifting, or they'll get the chair!
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Send him to a supermax so he can see what is truly cruel and unusual punishment. No human contact, in the cell 23 hours a day, no tv, n
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Re:Why... (Score:4, Interesting)
No, the taxpayers cant be bothered to pay for more coding software. Hell, considering his crimes it just be better to not allow him computer use during probabtion, if he doesnt like that he cant spend those 5 months in prison. I know what I'd pick. Incredible how we coddle our criminals. Whats next a personal butler and compensation for jail time spent? Hot chocolate?
Re:Why... (Score:5, Interesting)
Hmm...I wonder how lucrative starting such a business to provide these things to authorities would be, seems like a fun project.
Don't do the crime if you can't do the time. (Score:2)
Re:Don't do the crime if you can't do the time. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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These terms are hardly arbitrary... He committed a crime with his computer and now he is going to have his computer activities monitored. This is the same as having ignition interlocks on automobiles in response to a DUI. When you are a "ward of the state" which you are while you are under probation, you do not have freedom, at that point you have actually had your freedom revoked. Probation is a
Re:Don't do the crime if you can't do the time. (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Don't do the crime if you can't do the time. (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe the parent was suggesting that it might be good to move towards a concept called equality before the law. If laws had to be enforced equally, the legislators would have to get rid of the plethora silly minor offences on the statute books that criminalise stuff that everyone does (including those same legislators). Then the police might have to spend their time going after real criminals as opposed to selectively enforcing such statutes against people they don't like the look of. I can see how that would be a terrifying dystopia..uhhh...wait
Re:Don't do the crime if you can't do the time. (Score:4, Interesting)
Virtual machine (Score:2)
Re:Virtual machine (Score:5, Insightful)
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).
Wow (Score:4, Funny)
Transcript from Court Case (Score:5, Funny)
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!!!
Re:Transcript from Court Case (Score:5, Funny)
Damn them! (Score:5, Funny)
Jail for movie piracy? WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Jail for movie piracy? WTF? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Jail for movie piracy? WTF? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Jail for movie piracy? WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, jail time is appropriate for some economic crimes. Maybe not in this case, no, but your blanket statement just doesn't work in all blanket cases.
And on the seventh day, he recompiled from source (Score:5, Funny)
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).
Good to know (Score:5, Funny)
The utlimate penalty (Score:4, Funny)
Why can he use a computer at all? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why can he use a computer at all? (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean nowdays Internet access is *essential*. It is like having a phone or a car. Imagine you have a job and do DUI. You will be only allowed to use car like 8-9am and 4-5pm (so you can go to work). Without your car you wouldn't be able to work and thus you will loose your job and become a citizen that parasites on others. I don't think that law system is built to punish citizens this way that they loose their jobs and became parasites on others. That would be stupid.
So with that in mind the judge allowed the man to use Internet (maybe for working from home - quite usual) but he wishes to monitor his activity.
I don't see anything wrong here.
But I don't know why don't they force him (if he wishes to use the Internet) to just use a special broadband service for convicts which is monitored server-side. Such setup would not require any client side software.
Feisty Fawn not so innocent (Score:5, Funny)
Best reason of all to swtich (Score:5, Funny)
"Linux: The only operating system the NSA doesn't 0wn."
--
Toro
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"Linux: The only operating system the NSA doesn't 0wn."
Clever, but who do you think developed SELinux [wikipedia.org], included in the 2.6 kernel source tree?
pwned.
Not that the NSA really cares about some movie pirate who got busted, and just because they wrote something useful for Linux and had it included in the kernel, that doesn't mean they're going to go write monitoring software for you too.
I have an idea... (Score:2, Funny)
Quick, someone call Sony, maybe they can help!
Linux is my life man (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
So can he use a pirated version of Windows? (Score:5, Funny)
geez (Score:2)
BRILLIANT!!!
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Parole violation (Score:4, Informative)
Ie: You are not allowed to use a computer if we cant see what you are doing with it.
The point is not that he cannot do it. The point is he is not allowed to do it. He is probably not allowed to get a linux shell somewhere else either.
When the parole officer inspect his computer and see his VMware installation with a linux VM, they would probably put him back in jail.
But hey it could be worse, they could forbid him to use any computer. He probably should anyway, and try something else.
Can't get to TFA (Score:2)
(Office firewall doesn't like the site)
What I really wonder . . . how is this conspiracy and *criminal* copyright infringement . . . aren't these usually civil cases? What's different here?
i'm so tired (Score:2)
(note how i resisted the urge to point out the wine-whine pun. wait...dammit!)
The happy ending (Score:4, Funny)
Whatever happened to 'never trust the client'? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's not the having to use windows (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Why not? (Score:3, Insightful)
I also understand that automotive analogies are lame.
However, supposing he was allowed to leave the house, would they restrict him to one brand of car?
I think what this shows, more than anything, is how stupidly incompatible software is. Java had the right idea (but a poor implementation). Software should be platform-agnostic -- perhaps enough so that the FBI could force him to run their own OS, and
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I think (and I expect most libertarians would agree) that the government should never have the power to force a citizen to do business with any corporation, especially when that corporation is an unregulated abusive monopoly.
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Forcing somebody to pay money to a third party (ie somebody completely unaffiliated with the victim of the crime) sure seems like an unusual punishment to me. It also seems unjustified (unless you count "government laziness" as adequate justification).
I think (and I expect most libertarians would agree) that the government should never have the power to force a citizen to do business with any corporation, especially when that corporation is an unregulated abusive monopoly.
Defendant isn't being FORCED to PERFORM any activity. If defendant wishes to purchase a product, that is voluntary. As a condition of parole defendant is barred from ENGAGING in CERTAIN activity--the use of Linux software. Where did parent get the idea I said anything about unusual? My post asked for an explanation as to how this punishment meets the 8th Amendment definition of cruel.