Powerful Senator Endorses Destroying Computers of Illegal Downloaders (Orrin Hatch)

AP ^ | 6/17/03 | Ted Bridis

[dts32041]

He is still po'ed that word perfect went to Canada. And nobody has put his album into MP3 Format.

[RetiredArmy]

Like, this is a joke? Correct? He can't be serious? You just destroy a thousands of dollars computer for downloading a stupid song? Right. Sure.

[groanup]

These guys are trying to stop a freight train by putting a glass jar on the track. It won't work. Somebody will just figure out a way to bypass the bad files.

[Buckwheats]

He's a fruitcake. What a disgrace to intelligence.

[Orangedog]

"If that's the only way, then I'm all for destroying their machines. If you have a few hundred thousand of those, I think people would realize" the seriousness of their actions, he said.

And it will be hard to drum up any sympathy for the republicans when they lose control of the senate again. Between crap like this and the $400 welfare checks to non-taxpayers they had to push through, they won't be running things for long.

[aruanan]

He is still po'ed that word perfect went to Canada. And nobody has put his album into MP3 Format.

That's because it's already in the BMPeePee3 format.

[frithguild]

Well, that's one was to spur high tech capex. No wonder why the Seagate stock chart looks so bullish.

[lelio]

I say more power to him. Let him blow up a couple of computers out there, and then the world will migrate away from crappy pop music put out by the label cabal towards MP3.
Orrin is MP3's best friend here. Just like Microsoft clamping down on licensing helps linux when people get fed up with the current situation.

[jpl]

I would love to know how one goes about remotely "destroying a computer". Are they going to send a super-high voltage charge along the power lines directly into someone's home?

[oldironsides]

Could that lead to car squashing for speeders? This could be a big thing for car sales. Use a car to break the law and the police send it to the special yard for vehicles that offend. Hatch could be helping the economy a lot by wanting computers demolished for downloading music. ;>)

[Arkie2]

Sometimes I read something a Republican says and I wonder why I vote for them. This is a truly stupid statement. What a jackass.

[El Gato]

The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said Tuesday he favors developing new technology to remotely destroy the computers of people who illegally download music from the Internet.

Does the good senator, and Clinton apologist, think that computers explode or at least shoot out sparks and smoke, when something bad happens in the software? If so, he's been watching too much cinematic sci-fi.

The very most that could happen is that the hard drive could be wiped. (i.e. somehow execute a DOS commnad FORMAT C:\. Be a bother, but if the music pirate had merely backed up his hard drive to some external media, he'd not be "hurt" at all. I would think the sale of external hard drives, which could be disconnected when not being used to backup the regular drive, would skyrocket. Of course you'd have to run a malicious virus scan just before doing the backup. :)

Then they'd probably make possession of an external hard drive in conjunction with a high capacity virus checker a federal felony.

[Tench_Coxe]

""If that's the only way, then I'm all for destroying their machines. If you have a few hundred thousand of those, I think people would realize" the seriousness of their actions, he said. "

Even better, track down the offenders and have them summarily executed. People would then really realize the serious of the actions.

or.....

Load them all on a ship and send them to Australia, for no crime could be more heinous than downloading a file, including perjury before a grand jury or selling military secrets to the Chinese for campaign donations. ( Just a reference for you folks, 'criminals'were sent to Oz for things such as stealing a loaf of bread or a book )

[Poohbah]

I would love to know how one goes about remotely "destroying a computer".

There was a Mac virus that changed the monitor refresh rate...pumped it up so high that the monitor caught fire if the machine was running long enough.

[Myrddin]

Just wait until they destroy a computer and the owner takes them to court to PROVE the copyright violation. If the computer is destroyed, there may not be evidence to prove the violation. There will be liability for damage to the equipment and damage to the business interests of the party who owned the damaged computer. I hope the jerks have real deep pockets. My typical computer has a hardware worth arount $4,000 and software in the range of $3,000 to $5,000. The billable labor for software development time lost (at $175/hour) and loss of business opportunities due to missed delivery dates could add up to a real big pile of money. Far in excess of the fine for a single alleged copyright violation.

[Normal4me]

Doesn't matter what format it is in, copyright is copyright. Pictures, text, software, video is all available for downloading from file sharing programs.

That being said, Hatch is clueless as far as this matter goes and is giving a knee-jerk solution.

[OpusatFR]

Is he bonkers? Remote destruction of a PC?

What is going on with this government anymore?

[CyberAnt]

"WordPerfect"

So am I! WordPerfect is by far a better WORDPROCESSING software than Word - and I'm talking about the DOS version. That version can do things with text Word only dreamed of.