is what I usually say

....by referring to the "Missionary Church of Kopimism" as "a religion steeped in file sharing as a philosophical concept" -- instead of what it really is: "a group formed to attempt to invoke the protection of religious-freedom laws as a supposedly clever way of avoiding liability for violations of copyright law"

Manning also released over 500,000 classified army reports.

Then you will have wasted your money when our new technology becomes the standard! (Seriously, though, I like optical discs.)

They allegedly caused hundreds of of millions of dollars of theft and damages, including $300 million in theft/damages by just three of the corporate victims. They stole 160 million credit card numbers. They stole freaking Diners Club cards. So it is difficult to make any sense whatsoever of your suggestion that the "punishment" does not "fit the crime" given a possible 30+ year sentence.

Perhaps you are missing the point that such attacks can cause many times more $$$ damages than the crime rings take in profits, and that even if the responsible parties or some fraction thereof are somehow identified and brought to justice, often there will be nothing to "confiscate", the assets having been effectively laundered or simply spent already on things that can't be seized and sold. Altogether it's immensely destructive of real people's money and livelihoods, and it's not as if the victims can be somehow made whole just by "confiscating profits".

You seem to be under the illusion that since it was done via computer the crime wasn't "real"; perhaps this is misplaced pushback towards the idea of seeing theft of entertainment media as a crime. To remind you: that's not what was going on here. We're talking about people stealing money in extremely large quantities. That is one of the very essences of illegality that we punish people for.

At any rate, sentence are chosen only upon conviction and based on the facts as developed at trial, so there is no way to know without quite a bit of further analysis whether any of them could actually see such a sentence. Federal criminal sentencing is intended to serve a variety of purposes, including punishing the wrongful act and deterring its future commission, providing a sense of justice to the victims of crime, and impressing upon the defendant (and society) the seriousness of the crimes committed.

Ask yourself whether a man who has stolen 160 million credit cards is really going to be "reformed" after 5 years in prison, or whether that's just a quick trip back to Moscow with some sweet new tattoos and a new network of Russian American mafia/criminal friends with which to further his underworld career.

And then please, for the love of God, question your motives.

...that computer programming skills often do not go hand-in-hand with critical thinking skills, perspective, or even the most basic grounding in the real world.

They *are* written into the law. Enjoy ignorance, friend.

a bunch of twerps who understand neither business nor justice nor the law make complain bitterly about something that makes perfect sense because it does not fit their idiotic, narrow-minded /. worldview -- which can be summed up "everybody owes me everything I want, and I don't owe anyone anything".

As a lawyer and avid techie who's been reading /. since its inception, I'm always pleased to find a Slashdotter with a low UID who expresses at least some faith in the idea that sometimes people must be arrested for stuff.

It "must always be legal to circumvent DRM"? And copyright terms should be slashed by 70%? No thx.

I wonder if the comparatively weak global demand for any entertainment media coming out of the EU helps explain the hostility to American IP principles? :)

this is terrible

Unsurprisingly, this does not seem to have raised any eyebrows among perceptive slashdot readers :)

Seriously, are there any redeeming qualities or are people just lining up to buy a pile of crap?

They've been stored for two decades in a carefully climate-controlled environment.

(The climate is controlled by God, and is generally referred to as "Florida".)

I logged in just to write that subject line.