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
- Our service may suck, but our techs won't beat you up.

Free or not, hiding (or not mentioning it, or putting it in the .000001 point fine print, or burying it in a 100 page EULA - IOW: obscuring the truth) something that you know people will object to is deceptive, dishonest and wrong. You have to ask yourself, would people not install my "free" software if they knew what it was doing - if the answer is anywhere close to yes, you have a moral obligation to reveal the details.

This is part of the bargain - if you give away something for "free" and advertise it as "free", it needs to be "free" - as in not just that the costs are hidden. Otherwise, it really is a Trojan Horse.

Don't reap the goodwill of the public when you're secretly using them.

Didn't you see Bubba Hotep?

Elvis went to a West Texas nursing home with the president.

Let's think about this - is Amazon the kind of company that would intentionally incite a class-action lawsuit for the purpose of setting legal precedent against the type of actions it performed?

Call me a conspiracy theorist, but having this whole mess center around "1984" is a pretty big coincidence.

In any case - Release the hounds!

The example in the summary could be easily handled by disallowing the transfer of copyright ownership for academic materials - making the originator always the owner with the option of allowing others to use their work.

We have to remember the purpose of IP law - when it ceases to protect creators of intellectual works, it is no longer serving its purpose.

Make sure to factor in the time it takes to make the system available to the repairman. For me, that's more time than it usually takes to install a part. I can open up the case where it sits at 11:00pm and make the go/nogo decision.

To get one repaired, I have to disconnect the system and take it to the shop or avail myself, my computer and my home office to an onsite repairman during business hours.