I don't know what country you are from, and /. does have readers from many countries, but in my country there are 3 sections of government that presumably operate in a "checks and balances" configuration. The cops are not the lowest on the ladder - they are the Executive branch, whose check on the Legislative branch is to say: "No, I won't enforce that ridiculous law". The remaining branch is the Judicial, whose check on the Executive is to say: "there was no law broken here - leave that man alone".

When people refer to "activist judges", they may be referring to the Judicial branch covering for the Executive's (forgive the pun) cop-out at using their check against the legislature.

Sure, if a sufficiently arrogant and ignorant attorney brings a case against you.....

Don't underestimate the arrogance of an attorney, or the ability of people to be swayed by theatrics over substance.

It's not about what's fair, it's about what one can get away with.

What you don't see is the truckloads of snakes that are being brought in through the back door. That's where the oil is likely going to come from.

Call me a skeptic, but when someone starts talking about $10/barrel oil made from trash, well let's just say we have a saying here in Missouri: "Show me".

Seriously, what does it do for me to have a knowledge of science? Playing with science is a fast track to trouble with the law in many respects:
bio = drugs or terrorist
encryption = terrorist
decryption = pirate
non-medicinal chemistry = terrorist
electricity = safety hazard (building/fire codes, etc.)
I'm sure the list can go on and on and on.

Those with the desire to pursue science are no longer satisfied by using baking soda and vinegar to shoot a cork out of a glass bottle. The old tricks are just that - old. In order for science to progress, we need new things to try that aren't copyrighted, patented or outlawed. Prohibitions are not all bad, but they need to be worth their cost.

In order to be "cool" science must be accessible to everyone and they must be free to create new uses. We are in a state of over-regulation where anything "new" is considered too dangerous to put into the hands of common man. I somewhat understand this given what I've seen of "average" people. However, the people who would be drawn to this stuff are being held out due to fears of losing what little freedom they have left. How many of us made our own fireworks when we were young? - Ok, they really were just small bombs - but you can be sure there are risks associated with playing with science, and there comes a point where you just need to stand back and let Darwin do his job.

Science will never be "cool" as long as it's considered a tool limited to those with connections to wealth, corporations or the government.

*joke*

I'm always right and I'm a big jerk, and yet nobody wants to listen to me until after the trainwreck. - I end up cleaning up the messes made by the "nice" people.

But seriously, cleaning up the messes made by anyone, nice or jerk, tends to make one into a jerk. Nice, competent people often become less competent jerks when they are used as a "fix all" for everyone else's screw-ups.

What about his right to reasonable bail? I know it's commonplace to outright deny someone their 8th amendment rights, but I think we've slid down the slippery slope on that one quite a ways. My understanding of the case law that allows someone to be held without bail was for violent offenders that will continue until they are physically stopped. Anymore, it seems, any crime that makes it into the news has either no bail or a bail equal to 10x or more of the defendant's net worth.

This is why you don't wait until an offense becomes egregious before you speak up.

He's a danger to their network only if no one has yet changed the passwords on the routers and other equipment.

Or if he had previously planted a trojan he could remotely trigger.....

Don't get me wrong, I think this whole thing is out of control - I just think that the argument presented doesn't prove what it was intended to prove.

Is Lockheed going to be selling their stuff to Pakistan?
Just in case that wasn't sarcasm:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PAF_F-16A_Lahore.jpg

Which could get him in deeper trouble since a copy of Office is tied to a machine. If that license is on the contested machine and he claims that he created the work on another machine, he has admitted to pirating Office, correct?

Or get a USB stick, or an external hard drive. A lot of this depends on your company's IT policies. It sounds like you work for a small company, so I would guess that you don't have much in the way of a computing security or config management department. If you're at one of those companies where you go to the "computer guy" , get an IP for your machine and away you go, they probably won't know/care if you have external storage for your machine.

But for heaven's sake, if you insist on keeping your stuff on the C: drive, put a self-destruct program on it that securely wipes your "Great American Novel" should your machine be seized by your corporate overlords.

Just make sure you have a ton of the nastiest (but keep it legal) pr0n on it when they do their initial checkout. That way it makes it harder for them to claim that you were surfing for that stuff at work. (You: "It was already there when the machine became a company asset")

As the creator of the Melissa virus can attest, Office tags its documents with an ID that can be used as a tracer. The OP's "Great American Novel" would, I imagine, be written in Word.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melissa_virus

Still, it would be a real scumbag thing to do. Especially if the correct agreements are vague or nonexistent, not to mention if the OP's work is not related whatsoever to the product in question.

But really, what could possibly happen in the legal world that would surprise any of us?

From the article: "He said he had not used the Goldman code at his new job or distributed it to anyone else, and the criminal complaint offers no evidence that he has." Not to mention that 2.6% of a program (the amount he was quoted to have, including the OSS that is not proprietary) is a bit weak in my opinion.

Apparently I'm not alone (again, from the article): Harvey A. Silverglate, a criminal defense lawyer in Boston not involved in the case, said he was troubled that the F.B.I. had arrested Mr. Aleynikov so quickly, without evidence that he had made any effort to use or sell the code. Such disputes are generally resolved civilly rather than criminally, Mr. Silverglate said.

Possession of proprietary data happens every time one of these guys leaves a company - they have it between their ears. Using it is where they get nailed. The reason I'm so surprised at the FBI is that I know they're smart enough to not spring the trap before they have the guy dead-to-rights. Failing to do that is how perps walk and I expect more from our country's premier law enforcement agency.

The stamping out part is about Citadel, not GS and certainly not the FBI. (You may want to read the article - it's a pretty quick read)

Citadel and GS are either going off half-cocked or we don't have all the pieces.

No evidence of wrongdoing has really been presented. The article (I did RTFA) seemed to say that because some files went out, the company immediately began legal proceedings without even knowing what they were. It seems like PHBs are declaring what the "valuable" files are. I'm also shocked the way the FBI has handled this - there has to be more than we're seeing.

Having said all of that - it does look like (at least the article makes it look this way) the established firms are manipulating the legal system to prevent new competitors from getting on their feet. Slap suits used to be civil only - I would think that attempting criminal slap suits would have some legal consequences for the one filing the false (or should have known they were false) charges.

Wasn't there also a story a while back about robots fueled by biomass? This was twisted to mean "human eating" and we all laughed.

Combine that with what you said and we could have a certified evil, lying and flesh eating robot - What could possibly go wrong indeed.....

The previous post was brought to you by AT&T
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