From anandtech: "Being prosecuted by State of Georgia for RC5!"

[CHHAS]

Originally posted by Assimilator1
Chaas
The way the law has been applied it could apply to virtually any use & any program that ius installed on a work PC without direct permission.
Its all in the main thread .
Anyway ,don't you think that sentence is a little harsh?!

No doubt the punishment is way to harsh, but the state will of course try for the maximum penalty.
I would think it could apply to any program installed on multiple machines without written permission.
But this is a special case, it's not just a program that is installed, it actually runs, almost all the time.

I certainly don't hope that he gets jail time for this, but he should have known better.

[rocketmanx]

I agree CHHAS. It's too late to change the sentence now (for him anyway) and the point still remains that he was RUNNING a program without permission on machines that were not his. You're right CHHAS- he SHOULD have known better and I'm sure he DID that's why I don't feel to sorry for him.
Pete

[Assimilator1]

rocketmanx
You are assuming he did install it without permission ,remember I said he might of had some sort of permission.I also made a point that I was making an assumption he had no permission.

IF he didn't have permission then yes he should of known better & it was very silly ,but still hanging that kind of sentence over this is ridiculous

Thanks for signing btw

[CHHAS]

If he had permission there would be no case.

[Technoid]

Number:1106.

[box]

I must back up CHHAS and rocketmanx on this.

Either he had permission, and then there simply is no case.

Or he didn't, so he shouldn't have done it, because with the US legal system as it is, he was just inviting someone to sue him IMO.

I would probably be just as mad, if someone did something like this on my machine-park (I'm a sysadmin); But ofcourse I would only slap his wrist, and delete it again. (and maybe lock him out of the system )

But each to their measure...

[Assimilator1]

err ,no that's not neccasarily the case guys,he may of had verbal permission from some one which was latter denied.
But anyway ,we're speculating now ,something I wasn't gonna do

Thanks Technoid

[CHHAS]

Yes, but settling for a verbal permission, with the US legal system being what it is, is not very smart IMHO.

But you're right, no need to speculate, the punishment should fit the crime (not saying he's guilty) and 15 years in prison and half a million dollars is way too harsh.

[Assimilator1]

I wonder how many people in both our teams have written permission to run a DC project?..................

[rocketmanx]

I have wondered that myself. I have permission as I own all my machines including my network here at my (families) business. But I don't run G@H on any machines (@ work) except my own laptop which I'm on now and a comp (a p2450 -woohoo) I use for training programs which isn't used very often. I definitely don't run it on our server (a dual 1gig p3 1gig ram w/5!! Cheetah15k's ) during the week but I do on the weekends occasionaly when box is kickin' my butt I think this question would be good for a whole new thread.
Pete

[Assimilator1]

More signitures against the proposed punishment would be greatly appriecated

[Guru]

http://www.anandtech.com/news/shownews.html?i=14448&t=an

[breezer]

Interesting reading, the guy was really doing no harm to any network.

I wonder how much time and effort are going into finding the people whe launched the latest viruses (codered etc) which stopped a lot of m$ servers and pinched a lot of internet bandwidth in the process.And those who are constantly running port scans, distributing junk email, trojans etc.. All of these have serious impacts on pcs, networks and the internet, some may also be potentially illegal in Georgia, other states and the rest of the world.

In my oponion the legislators and the law enforcers have got their priorities a little wrong here as allegidly the software in question did not impact on the overall efficiency of local pc, the local net and the internet as a whole.
I'm afraid thoo say that Mr McOwen is a soft target. He was using his resources for good and those who use similar resources for bad are sitting at home laughing.

breezer

[Zyn]

Number 10770 here.

[Assimilator1]

Thanks Zyn

Btw his situation has gone from bad to worse ,he's since been jailed ,I dunno if he's been bailed yet (not kept up with latest news!)