Senator Hatch Wants Your P2p Machine Blown To Bits

[clocker]

I think Hatch is miffed because nobody is ripping his music.
I'm amazed that he made 18k in royalties last year.

[tyberius]

Originally posted by number6@19 June 2003 - 14:34
I don't think it will happen, because it flies in the face of the whole "innocent until proven guilty" ideal that is so central to the constitution of the UK and US.

That is right. This idea, if implemented into law, would be a flagrant violation of the “due process clause” of the 14th amendment to the Constitution.

[Paul_NFFC]

sum1 would make somthing to block them out anyway even if the main antivirus companys refused..it'll never happen anyway

[Switeck]

All this has to do is knock out 1 computer in a public school/university or 1 government computer, and a certain senator+law will be out the door...

Attacking 'critical infrastructure' is considered a terrorist act... and computer hacking of that 'critical infrastructure' (ie: government computers) can ALREADY (potentially) get a life sentence without possibility of parole.

[Mercurius]

Poetic justice :

http://slashdot.org/articles/03/06/20/0046237.shtml

Senator Orrin Hatch a Pirate?

Posted on Thursday June 19, @09:37PM

.. "Remember a few days ago when Senator Orrin Hatch decided that software piracy was punishable by destruction of computers? Well a bored and unemployed Sys. Admin in Houston smelled a rat when he was rooting through Hatch's website source. As it turns out Sen. Hatch is a common software pirate himself."


http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/06/17/220228

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http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,...3,59305,00.html

Orrin Hatch: Software Pirate?

By Leander Kahney
11:56 AM Jun. 19, 2003 PT

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) suggested Tuesday that people who download copyright materials from the Internet should have their computers automatically destroyed.

But Hatch himself is using unlicensed software on his official website, which presumably would qualify his computer to be smoked by the system he proposes.

The senator's site makes extensive use of a JavaScript menu system developed by Milonic Solutions, a software company based in the United Kingdom. The copyright-protected code has not been licensed for use on Hatch's website.
http://www.senate.gov/~hatch/
http://www.milonic.co.uk/

"It's an unlicensed copy," said Andy Woolley, who runs Milonic. "It's very unfortunate for him because of those comments he made."

Hatch on Tuesday surprised a Senate hearing on copyright issues with the suggestion that technology should be developed to remotely destroy the computers of people who illegally download music from the Net.

Hatch said damaging someone's computer "may be the only way you can teach somebody about copyrights," the Associated Press reported. He then suggested the technology would twice warn a computer user about illegal online behavior, "then destroy their computer."

Any such technology would be in violation of federal antihacking laws. The senator, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, suggested Congress would have to make copyright holders exempt from current laws for them to legally destroy people's computers.

On Wednesday, Hatch clarified his comments, but stuck by the original idea. "I do not favor extreme remedies -- unless no moderate remedies can be found," he said in a statement. "I asked the interested industries to help us find those moderate remedies."
http://www.senate.gov/~hatch/index.cfm?Fus...lease_id=205147

Just as well. Because if Hatch's terminator system embraced software as well as music, his servers would be targeted for destruction.

Milonic Solutions' JavaScript code used on Hatch's website costs $900 for a site-wide license. It is free for personal or nonprofit use, which the senator likely qualifies for.

However, the software's license stipulates that the user must register the software to receive a licensing code, and provide a link in the source code to Milonic's website.
http://216.239.39.100/search?q=cache:ccQow...&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

On Wednesday, the senator's site met none of Milonic's licensing terms. The site's source code (which can be seen by selecting Source under the View menu in Internet Explorer) had neither a link to Milonic's site nor a registration code.

However, by Thursday afternoon Hatch's site had been updated to contain some of the requisite copyright information. An old version of the page can be seen by viewing Google's cache of the site.

"They're using our code," Woolley said Wednesday. "We've had no contact with them. They are in breach of our licensing terms."

When contacted Thursday, Woolley said the company that maintains the senator's site had e-mailed Milonic to begin the registration process. Woolley said the code added to Hatch's site after the issue came to light met some -- but not all -- of Milonic's licensing requirements.

Before the site was updated, the source code on Hatch's site contained the line: "t i am the license for the menu (duh) t"

Woolley said he had no idea where the line came from -- it has nothing to do with him, and he hadn't seen it on other websites that use his menu system.

"It looks like it's trying to cover something up, as though they got a license," he said.

A spokesman in Hatch's office on Wednesday responded, "That's ironic" before declining to put Wired News in contact with the site's webmaster. He deferred comment on the senator's statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which did not return calls.

The apparent violation was discovered by Laurence Simon, an unemployed system administrator from Houston, who was poking around Hatch's site after becoming outraged by his comments.
http://amish.blogmosis.com/archives/012511.html#012511

Milonic's Woolley said the senator's unlicensed use of his software was just "the tip of the iceberg." He said he knows of at least two other senators using unlicensed copies of his software, and many big companies.

Continental Airlines, for example, one of the largest airlines in the United States, uses Woolley's system throughout its Continental.com website. Woolley said the airline has not paid for the software. Worse, the copyright notices in the source code have been removed.

"That really pisses me off," he said.

A spokesman for Continental said the airline would look into the matter.

Woolley makes his living from his software. Like a lot of independent programmers, he struggles to get people to conform to his licensing terms, let alone pay for his software.

"We don't want blood," he said. "We just want payment for the hard work we do. We work very, very hard. If they're not prepared to pay, they're software pirates."
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Mercurius

[Fatal Error]

Why am I NOT surprised? These politicians are ALWAYS trying to enact laws that effect everyone EXCEPT them. Hope he uses an alias when he tries to register for a k-lite account.. after his silly ass gets tossed out the senate.