This is quite obviously illegal under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

Title 18, Part 1, Chapter 47, Section 1030(a)(2).

It's a crime if someone:

"intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access, and thereby obtains ... information from any protected computer."

Given the scale of their activities, it's almost certainly a felony too.

At my school, we're required to use Exam4 software, which doesn't run on Linux, for ALL of our exams (unless we want to handwrite them.) Questions to the registrar and IT people about Linux support elicit a response, essentially, of "tough shit." So, I care. It's a pain in the ass to have to borrow a laptop or purchase Windows for the privilege of typing a final exam. I'm fine with the school not promoting Linux, but it shouldn't be actively hostile towards it.

After poking around on the internet a little more, I think you're probably right. I must have just been lucky with my IP for whatever reason. Since I'm only in Europe for the summer, I didn't realize this was an existing issue; given the sudden change, I thought something (more than just my ip address being recognized) had happened.

Searching a car without a warrant isn't unconstitutional either. It's practically a police right.

If they have probable cause, they can search anywhere in the car.

If they arrest you, they can search incident to the arrest in the passenger area.*

If they impound the car, they can do an inventory search of the entire car.

If they see evidence or some sort of clear violation thru a window, for example, they can get into your car.

In some cases, just stopping you is enough to do a cursory search of the interior to make sure there are no weapons.

None of these require a warrant. You have essentially 0 privacy interest in your car.



*(Though this was modified slightly by a Supreme Court decision a few weeks ago.)

Only if it's going to incriminate you. Otherwise, they can haul you in front of a grand jury and force you to answer anything they want.

Except that's not how the court treats it. Look at Schmerber v. California, for example. They draw a clear line between testimonial evidence of the sort that would include forced verbal statements, and any sort of physical evidence, which likely includes tracking your movements. (In Schmerber, forcing him to give blood to test for alcohol % didn't violate his 5th amendment rights!)

Actually, the fact that they'd be tricking you makes it even less likely that it'd be a 5th amendment violation. Anytime the police use deception or fraud, and you therefore don't know that you're dealing with the cops, it makes it even less likely there will be a 5th amendment violation. It's all about making sure that the coercive power of the state isn't used to break you down. If you do something voluntary and the police hear it / see it / track it - you're SOL.

Why is this post modded interesting? It's wrong on so many levels...

First of all, it's the 14th Amendment that you'd be concerned with, not the 5th. The 5th Amendment relates to action undertaken by the federal government. The 14th amendment extends due process to the states.

Procedural due process relates to procedure - like a trial. This case seems to have been decided on the basis of whether or not a search took place, not the admissibility of the evidence. Procedural due process has no relevance. You can say that the decision was wrong, but as is - you're missing the mark.

"Substantive due process" doesn't mean much without some context. How exactly does this violate SDP? What is it about this that so fundamentally offends the concept of ordered liberty?

Most importantly, though, where the hell is your argument about "using his property for a public purpose" coming from? Got any sort of backing for that?

For one, cars have almost no privacy interest to begin with. Police can stop you while driving and search your car based on probable cause alone. (Chambers) Until only a few weeks ago, once arrested while driving, they could put you in the back of the squad car and then go and search the passenger compartment to ensure the officer's safety, (even though he's clearly already safe...) as a matter of routine. (Stunningly, the court made a sensible decision and reversed this in the Gant case.) They can also search your car for "inventory" purposes when it's impounded. (Opperman)

Virtually nothing having to do with cars requires a warrant.

The court held that "tracking" your car is the equivalent of visually tracking it. How does it matter that they're using your property to track YOU? Who else's car would they track? Beside, as Katz pretty well settled 40 years ago, the 4th amendment (the only one that's relevant to this question,) protects people, not places (or things!) It's all about what you should expect when you're driving in your car.

Really, this seems like its already a well-settled question. US v Knotts and US v Karo already established that the police can use "beepers" placed on a car to track them. This decision is just updating the decision slightly to keep up with the times. Based on Kyllo, the prevalence of GPS nowadays, and the complete disregard for privacy in cars, I can't believe this makes the news...

I don't see why everyone is so up in arms about a luxury tax. No one blinks when you have to pay extra for that new GulfStream jet. Taxing computer users in Mississippi is the same sort of thing...

Actually, given the recent holding of MDY v. Blizzard, if you violate the terms of the EULA, you are making an unauthorized copy when a program is copied into RAM.

Thus, when you violate the EULA, (according to the ridiculousness that is our current IP law,) you are violating the Copyright Act. Minimum statutory damages of $750. There's your statute.

thankfully, this decision is from a low level court and hinged largely on the classification of WoW as a license system and not a sale... still - the case law is out there.

The thing is, "hacking" the protections covered by the DMCA for your own personal fair-use is already legal. Unfortunately, this really only helps the .0001% of the population technologically proficient enough to whip up encryption breaking schemes on their own.

Even if circumvention of DMCA protections would be fair use if you did it on your own, if anyone "manufactures, imports, offers to the public, provides, or otherwise traffics" that technology to anyone else, its a violation.

Thus, if I discover a way to rip a copy-protected CD to my iPod, in a way that is perfectly legal and covered by fair-use, its not a problem.

If I give the program to someone else, I'm screwed... How's that for messed up application of the law?