wjm@bellcore.bellcore.com (23384-mitchell) (02/21/90)
In an earlier posting, someone attempted to justify the reprehensible behavior of the author(s) of the AIDS Trojan Horse as a copy protection system. IMHO, I beg to differ - there is a key differences between the behavior of legitimate copy protection systems and the AIDS Trojan. It would be legitimate for a copy protection system to remove the protected program from the disk or otherwise render it unusable to unauthorized users, but it is NOT legitimate (at least in the USA) for the copy protection system to destroy, encrypt, or otherwise render unuseable programs or files that are totally unrelated to the protected program. An analogy: Under the laws of the USA, if I loan you the money to pay for an automobile, the standard loan contract that I will have you sign gives me the legal right to recover "repossess" the automobile if you fail to make the loan payments on time. However, it does NOT give me the right to confiscate your lawn mower, snow blower, wheelbarrow, and whatever else you happen to be keeping in your garage along with the said automobile. Removing any other personal property is considered to be THEFT and is strongly discouraged, to say the least, by the authorities. IMHO (this is only my opinion, however I am not an attorney, you should consult with legal counsel for legal advice) the poster who said that the magazines that published information about how to work around the problems caused by the Trojan Horse were liable for damages to the work of the Trojan Horse author(s) and his/their alleged company's reputation was totally off base. IMHO, these magazines performed a valuable service to the computing community and their behavior was totally consistent with recogized computing community codes of ethics (e.g. ACM, IEEE). We are not talking about legitimate copy protection here, rather I think the appropriate term is "Extortion," which seems to be the term used by the legal authorities in the UK who are bringing criminal charges in this matter. IMHO, swift prosecution followed by a stiff penalty, if convicted, is the best way to put an end to such incidents. While I certainly favor using the USENET as a forum for the free expression of ideas, IMHO postings calling outright extortion a valid form of copy protection do no one any good and give the net a bad name. Regards, Bill Mitchell Disclaimer: These are strictly my personal opinions and not necessarily those of my employer or any other person. I am not an attorney and am not providing any legal opinions or advice here. Consult with your attorney for legal advice.