DMCA Means You Can't Delete Files On Your PC? 511
DragonHawk writes "According to Wired, John Stottlemire found a way to print duplicate coupons from Coupons.com by deleting some files and registry entires on his PC. Now he's being sued for a DMCA violation. He says, 'All I did was erase files or registry keys.' Says a lawyer: '[The DMCA] may cover this. I think it does give companies a lot of leverage and a lot of power.' So now the copyright cartels are saying that not only can we not copy things on our computers, but we can't delete things on our computers? Time to buy stock in Seagate."
Wow (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Wouldn't there be easier ways to sue him? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wouldn't there be easier ways to sue him? (Score:5, Insightful)
There's diddley squat you can do about it -- if you make more copies, and it's not for fair use, library preservation or any other purpose specifically exempted by law, you can not legally make more copies than what I permit. Your agreement is not required.
Re:Wouldn't there be easier ways to sue him? (Score:5, Insightful)
Copyright is designed to protect artistic and scholarly works. Not coupons. A few generic phrases used in millions of similar forms would not be protected by copyright. Possibly if there was some elaborate artwork included in the background that might be copyright. But damages would be difficult to assess, if any.
I think it's an abuse of process. If he's guilty of anything, it's fraud, and they should try to make that stick instead of using a law that was never designed to apply in this situation.
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I suspect this is exactly the sort of thing the DMCA was meant to apply to. Let's check the list:
1) Is there a large organization?
2) Is there a customer of that organization?
3) Did the entity in 2) do something the entity in 1) didn't like?
Check, check, and check. DMCA violation.
Re:Wouldn't there be easier ways to sue him? (Score:5, Insightful)
1.) It is legal to make a personal backup copy of a DVD that you own.
2.) It is illegal to bypass copy protection on a DVD that you own for the purposes of #1.
It's basically a law that makes you guilty of "breaking and entering" into your own home. It's worse than redundant.
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.. and everyone who buys pseudoephedrine-containing products is just dying to build a meth lab in their garage, too. :p
Re:Wouldn't there be easier ways to sue him? (Score:5, Insightful)
God, what an awful law.
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So, basically, deleting cookies (which some people have done automatically when they close their browser window) is circumventing a technological measure.
What's next? Next thing you know, no more cleaning the /tmp on reboot; I bet something could be circumvented that way.
Re:Wouldn't there be easier ways to sue him? (Score:4, Insightful)
As a reducio-ad-absurdum example, one could almost argue that shipping a product with the power switch in the off position is an "effective technical protection method". Having the power switch in the off is indeed "effective" in prevent the copying of something, and you do indeed need to "apply some process or method" (i.e. switching the device on) to circumvent the technical protection method and copy something.
I for one am thrilled to see this particular case go forward. Thus far in the US no court has ever actually faced and upheld the DMCA in any criminal circumventuion case. I am thrilled to see a court have to actually directly fact just how insane the DMCA is, either to shoot down the DMCA entirely or to make some ruling inventing some "reasonable" retraction or limitation in the scope of the DMCA (and the DMCA is insanely broad exactly because virtually any limitation at all in the DMCA punches a hole so big you can drive a truck through it making the law worthless and meaningless), or to actually go ahead and get stuck making a blatantly insane ruling that this really is the insanity that the DMCA means... the sort of simple clear insane thing that you can say in under 30 seconds to a computer illiterate grandparent or a computer illiterate and brain-damaged legislator and have them understand and agree just how stupid and broken the DMCA is.
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* (a) Violations Regarding Circumvention of Technological Measures.
o (1)
+ (A) No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title. --DMCA
That's why it's illegal, because he's
Re:Wouldn't there be easier ways to sue him? (Score:4, Insightful)
Now, this idiot went and posted a program to do all this on the internet, and so he'll probably get nailed with distributing a circumvention mechanism, which is completely different than you personally deleting files, so the article is still pure troll.
Re:Wouldn't there be easier ways to sue him? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's an anti-circumvention clause...If there is no circumvention, then you haven't done any thing to violate it.
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Coupons Inc. accuses Stottlemire of creating and giving away a program that erases the unique identifier, allowing consumers to repeatedly download and print as many copies of a particular coupon as they want.
So probably the more important paragraph to this case is this [copyright.gov]:
(2) No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that -
Re:Wouldn't there be easier ways to sue him? (Score:5, Insightful)
I would say yes there is fraud going on here. When using this program you are intentionally misrepresenting yourself to the suppliers of the coupons after already agreeing to their terms for receiving them. The DMCA part comes in because he wrote a program that allows you to defraud the providers by bypassing their technology that allows them to control access to the coupons. Not because deleting things are illegal. You could delete the stuff and not use the program to get coupons again and never run into this DMCA problem.
Note, this isn't an endorsement of the DMCA. It just isn't the problem in how the story represents it.
Re:Wouldn't there be easier ways to sue him? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, but an anti-circumvention argument is a stretch.
Now, is a technological measure that can be defeated by merely deleting files or removing registry keys "effective"?
I think not. The real gem is why companies would prefer to use the DMCA: fraud is a civil matter requiring them to pursue the case on their own dime. Conversely, the DMCA allows for criminal prosecution. Whether or not the government is likely to play ball, the threat of such action improves the likelihood of "fear-for-your-life" settlement from the defendant.
Re:Wouldn't there be easier ways to sue him? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wouldn't there be easier ways to sue him? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Wouldn't there be easier ways to sue him? (Score:4, Informative)
If a plastic ribbon saying "STOP - POLICE LINE - DO NOT ENTER" in effect causes people to turn away, it's "effectively" stopping people, even if it's not "effective" in the sense of actually stopping someone.
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Imagine you sit on a platform. That's legal. I have scissors, of the paper kind, not with sharp edges. That's legal. I've placed the scissors around the rope that holds the platform, I'm trying to measure something. That's legal.
Now an accidental twitch, I close the scissors and cut the rope. You tell, how could possibly an involuntary tw
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The technological equivalent of turning a piece of paper the other way round so you have to read it upside down would count as being effective as long as I said it was. It's completely and utterly idiotic, but that's what the laws tend to state in most relevant countries, including the US and the UK.
this is not a dmca violation (Score:5, Insightful)
Mere files and registry entries don't represent an effective encryption algorithm.
So he didn't bypass any 'security measures'.
What else comes next?
They write passwords plaintext in dont_read_me.txt ???
Re:this is not a dmca violation (Score:5, Informative)
More than that, a coupon is not copyrightable. You can say that a duplicate copy of a coupon is not to be accepted by stores, and you can refuse to honor it if a store ignores that rule, but you can't prevent people from making a million copies, as it would not qualify as a creative work by any stretch of the imagination, IMHO. You can only really prevent people from using them by specifying an "originals only" policy on the face of the coupon.
In this case, the company can be accused of gross negligence, which pretty much gets this guy off the hook because of contributory negligence, I suspect. All the company needed to do was make their software send a unique identifier---maybe hash the computer's hard drive ID, the CPU ID, hard drive size, other things unlikely to change---to the server and keep track of it on the server side. That's very basic, trivial security to implement, and the fact that they did not do this means that not only could somebody fool it this way, but also could simply reinstall windows and get the same effect. Yeah, that's like killing a fly with a hand grenade or even a nuclear warhead, but the point is that they didn't really try at all to prevent you from getting more than one coupon.
At worst, this person is in breach of the user agreement of the software, and thus could probably get some civil liability, maybe criminal if they stole a huge amount of money with these coupons... but probably just a civil suit for the coupon value plus penalties for violating the user agreement... assuming the company even has a record of all of the violations. Otherwise, it's probably just whatever damages they can squeeze out of this person for violating the user agreement....
IANALBIPOOSD.
Re:this is not a dmca violation (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. Since he would be in breach of the EULA, at least they could cancel his licence to use the software, which would require him to uninstall it (which would presumably delete any files and registry keys that the software used...)
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Re:this is not a dmca violation (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Wouldn't there be easier ways to sue him? (Score:4, Insightful)
Lousy excuse (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Lousy excuse (Score:5, Insightful)
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Write all instructions as part of fictional stories, never describe anything as a how-to, and where appropriate, tell people the details of a process but not in a manner encouraging them to do it.
One may buy all sorts of books on murder, both fiction and non-fiction. They are not considered tutorials.
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Yeah, why don't we try this with encryption?
"Hey, *I* didn't encrypt my data. I just performed a reversible transformation on it. It's not *my* fault if you're a fuckin' slowpoke at factoring semiprimes."
(Yay! I got it right this time!)
The purpose is to create criminals (Score:2, Insightful)
Rearden: "You seem to be pleased about it."
Bureaucrat Ferris: "Don't I have good reason to be?"
Rearden: "But, after all, I did break one of your laws."
Bureaucrat Ferris: "Well, what do you think they're there for?" Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed? We want them broken. You'd better get it strai
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Bureaucrat Ferris: "Well, what do you think they're there for?" Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed? We want them broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against . . . We're after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you'd better get wise to it. There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them."
There goes the villain, monologuing again. That's when you gotta make your escape!
Re:The purpose is to create criminals (Score:5, Insightful)
Open container laws are a public safety matter. You don't want drivers to be drinking in the car and the same goes for their passengers.
Highway speed limits were originally set at 55 mph as a fuel conservation measure. Later they were raised to 65, but not higher because of public safety concerns.
Federal highway funds were linked with both of those issues to gaurantee that States would enact those two laws.
Neither of those examples really backs up the point you're trying to make (because they're arguably about public safety), nor do they have anything to do with the topic at hand... the DMCA.
Quoting from Ayn Rand doth not automatically make a post insightful. Especially when you follow it up with a poorly supported argument.
OT Re:The purpose is to create criminals (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh please. Open container laws have nothing to do with public safety.
You don't want the drivers to be drinking? That's what DUI laws are for.
You don't want the passengers drinking? Why? WTF does that have to do with public safety?
I am absolutely against driving under the influence, but open container laws are all about giving the police an excuse to search a vehicle
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Yes. Not using the seatbelt only endangers myself. As an adult, I insist on deciding for myself what risks I take.
Unfortunately, many politicians seem to think otherwise. I disagree with that and the result is that I'm not voting for the big parties anymore (SPD and CDU in Germany, increasingly similar to US Democrats and
Re:The purpose is to create criminals (Score:4, Informative)
If i'm sat in the front of a car, i damn well do want people behind me wearing their seatbelts to reduce the risk of them killing me. I dont really care if they choose to kill themselves.
Intentionally misleading (Score:5, Interesting)
However, this was merely one step in copying coupons and intentionally violating the terms of the site. I'm not sure the DCMA applies to coupons, and the DCMA can be over-reaching, but I don't really have much sympathy for this guy. If you're trying to make a case against the DCMA, this seems like a poor example to choose. Surely there are better ones?
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If you have a Mac, you save anything to be printed to file as a PDF document. After that you can do whatever, print it as often as wanted, e-mail it etc. Is that illegal now? Will some enterprising lawyer sue Apple for making that possible?
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If you then go telling the world that you did this then, yeah, expect the copyright holder to use the power the law has given him.
I don't know why you're trying to make an incredulous argument.. copyright is by nature nonsensical.
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If the license on the work says that you can only print it once and you print it twice then, yes, it is copyright infringement.
Since when is a coupon copyrightable?
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If you have a Mac, you save anything to be printed to file as a PDF document.
I know this is offtopic, but Windows supports "print-to-file", which causes Windows to write a file that can later be manually copied over to a parallel-port printer (by using "copy /b file.prn lpt1" in the command prompt). Does anyone know the procedure for doing this to USB printers?
This is just in case I find I need to print out something when not currently connected to my printer. It could be a drawing I made, or some exercise training program that is permitted to be printed (explicitly, or forced by
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-Mike
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The major difference is in the serial numbers. The method you describe equals photocopying, this was in TFA also mentioned as being an issue for coupons.com's business.
However with the software trick, the user would be able to download completely new coupons with new, unique serial numbers - and this would supposedly be untraceable. He is really giving instructions to circumvent a copy protection mechanism, and it has been argued on /. before (sorry too lazy to dig for links) that a trick as simple as ROT1
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And still, if I do it myself, knowing a little more about computers than say the average coupons.com visitor, am I guilty of copyright violations because I delete something out of my registry? Say I do it and never use the program to print more than two
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Yes, they do, and they have all the rights on their side too. If I give you rights to make exactly two copies of a picture that I hold the copyrights to, and you make three, you have broken my copyrights, and I can take you to court. That's what copyright protection under law means. (In exch
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Re:Intentionally misleading (Score:5, Insightful)
It appears that you missed the whole part about intent.
Yes, you can delete whatever you like on your computer, but if you delete it with the intent of and for the purpose of breaking the law, you break the law. You can delete the same parts for other intents and purposes, but once it's in order to break the law, you can't use your ownership as a successful defense. I have a feeling that metaphors and similes from the tangible world are lost on you, but I'll try again with another example: You're allowed to throw away (delete) the battery from your smoke detector and empty the fire extinguisher, but if the reason you did so was to burn down the house and cash out on the insurance, that action in itself becomes illegal (even if you never got around to burning down the house). Or how about another computer example: If you delete all your tax files from your computer because you suspect you'll get audited, you're also breaking the law.
If the intent is malicious, the action is malicious, no matter whether the same action can also be done legally.
In this case, the intent was crystal clear. The user deleted the very specific parts that would prevent the user from printing out more copies than the copyright holder allowed, and nothing else. Please explain how this could possibly not be with bad intent.
The DMCA probably also comes into play because it would be hard to identify just which parts to delete without unauthorised reverse engineering.
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When you click a mouse you are NOT agreeing to anything, no matter how many lawyers of these companies are trying to make you believe that. First of all, there is NO way to prove who clicked what or how the program got on any particular computer. If someone wanted to break the law, they could make an entire virtualized file of Windows available on the net with all programs.
To enter into a binding contract or agreement, both parties a
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And the coupons, if I'm guessing, have other copyrighted imagery from the company authorizi
Re:Intentionally misleading - MORAL HAZARD (Score:2, Interesting)
No, this is an excellent case to show why the DMCA is flawed. It rewards companies for using pathetic security measures. The policy rationale for the DMCA is that content providers will be unwilling to create or sell digital stuff without some type of legal protection because digital technology allows for such easy reproduction. Therefore, to create an incentive, the law allows creator
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And there is plenty of legal precedent to allow for backing up data you own legally so long as you don't distribute it, but there are people like the RIAA who would like to take away that right.
Re:Intentionally misleading (Score:5, Insightful)
If I were a programmer, I'd hide crazy stuff in the EULA just to see if people catch it.
"On the third Thursday of August, if you happen to be sleeping with your significant other, you must satisfy them no less than 2 times, and no more than 4 times, each time making them call out my name. If you are not engaging in such activities on that date, you may substitute a fan-fiction of no less than 1,500 words which must be posted to 3 separate social networking sites and USENET."
"Technical assistance will only be provided after we finger [wikipedia.org] each other online.
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Misleading subject, sensationalism. (Score:5, Informative)
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Seriously, governments/lawyers/whomever should be shot for pushing through such retarded laws. Society is crumbling as we introduce counter-productive legislation that destroys peoples rights to their property.
DM-Copyright-A (Score:5, Funny)
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I used to have hope, but lately I've realized that a vast majority of Americans don't care about freedom at all. Not for themselves, and not for the workers in the Chinese factories that make their toys.
Freedom is dead. Thank you for the sad reminder.
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(1) He's running afoul of the DMCA for deleting some files; and
(2) also running afoul of the DMCA for telling other people how to delete some files; and
(3) also running afoul of the DMCA writing/distributing software that could be used to delete some files.
The argument here is that the act of deleting a file is criminal under the DMCA, AND that telling people how to delete a file is criminal under the DMCA, AND that distributing s
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But the Republicans did fail to stop Katrina, and poor folks did lose houses, lives and entertainment units.
I don't think we can understate the significance of TFA which, while I haven't bothered to read it, is clearly about an innocent kid who had to print out his coupons an extra couple of thousand times cause his dog ate the first batches.
And now, just because he shared his experience on the interwe
Less random bashing please (Score:5, Insightful)
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If I remove DRM from a file on my computer such as a MP3 I'm also breaching the DMCA, this isn't very different. Can we have less knee jerk reactions from slashdot over anything that remotely looks like we can complain about the DMCA? Articles like this just make us look bad and uninformed.
Firstly, I hate coupons, almost as much as I hate rebates. The bother and effort required to get the coupons, clip them, and deal with people with them is insane. This being said, at one point in my history I hit the online supermarket website to print off milk coupons. As I use alot of milk, and milk was always on sale in one way or another, it was worth it. I was the only one who used the web coupon, and eventually added a better version of the bar code in Photoshop for a speedy checkout. No coupon
Criminal Intent (Score:2)
That said, the mere erasure of files, etc is likely not illegal by itself.
However . . .
The manipulation of computer info to cheat the system is also mere manipulation of numbers, etc. This is not banning or regulating the use of arithmetic or mathematics. These are merely means to an end. It is a strawman argument.
Which brings us to a much more valuable question
Was the cheating of the system an honest and ethical act? or was the original coupon a crime of such a nature that stealing from crimi
Devil's Advocate (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Devil's Advocate (Score:4, Insightful)
I can purchase a gun; say, a Glock 19. I can purchase ammunition to fire from that gun, say, Winchester 115 grain 9mm Luger JHPs. The thing is, I can also make my own ammunition for that gun. I can buy the raw materials and load my own cartridges and create my own ~115 grain 9mm JHP bullets. And if I happen to do that, Winchester (or Federal, or anyone else who sells 9mm JHP cartridges) can't do a damned thing about it. Because there's nothing special or innovative about putting X amount of Y ingredient into Z container, and the Courts have recognized this.
(Re)loading is a common activity here in the US-and-A, and although they do stand to lose some money, none of the well-known ammunition manufacturers would dare challenge the right of the individual gun owner to load his own. Most gun owners are going to buy new manufactured ammo. Those of us who dare load our own are of no consequence to the ammo pushers, just as those of us who block ads are of no consequence to the "Firefox lets people block my ads" camp.
The DMCA is an entirely different beast, especially in cases like this. Here, it's as if BATF is raiding your home and saying "sorry, you can't throw away those bullets you made, even though you crafted them legally... They might be defective!" I can't delete files from my own PC? The fuck I can't, go to hell. If your method of "protecting" your assets is to determine whether or not I have a cookie set in my browser, you need to update your business model past 1999.
Ladies and gentlemen, wake up. Have you read a news article today that referred to you as a "consumer," instead of as a "person," or an "individual," or a goddamn "human being?" Companies are continuing to attempt to limit your ability to use your own personal computer. No matter what you want to use it for. "Intellectual property" is a parasite that's going to fuck all of us but the patent trolls. And when that day comes, I hope most of us own guns and know how to load our own cartridges...
Copyright violation??? (Score:2)
You can argue that printing funny money with serial numbers different from that of any note in circulation is still a crime, even if you didn't copy the money exactly - and you are right. But he did not print funny money, he printed genuine real money on the one an
"Time to buy stock in Seagate." (Score:2)
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pretty sure (Score:2)
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This brings up a good point (Score:5, Insightful)
What if they had to format the filesystem?
Or for that matter, what if he had bought a new computer? Can we now not buy things because it circumvents copyright, albeit inefficiently and in an extremely costly manner?
And yes, I realize he actually got busted for posting instructions for circumvention, even providing software that does it, but they probably are charging him with the greatest charge they believe they can get a conviction for, or possibly planning to settle out of court, cause this does sound at least a little bit invasive even for the DMCA.
In fact, lets take this a step further and make it more like what the guy did. I know I'll probably get troll flagged for this, but this is a matter of morals now.
Anyone wanting free unlimited coupons from Coupons.Com can do so by buying a new computer for every set of coupons they create.
There, I just told you how to circumvent it. Thereby violating the DMCA, for all of slashdot (that reads this far down) to see. Don't like it? Then sue me.
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All in all, the ways and means are not illegal, except when intent is shown. IANAL
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wired, you're a whore (Score:4, Funny)
"All i did was apply a little ink to some of my paper, is that a crime now too?" says some jackass. Clearly the book companies need a lesson on copyright violation.
What if I just reinstall the OS from scratch? (Score:4, Insightful)
Is _THAT_ suddenly a DMCA violation as well?
Then wouldn't it also be illegal to sell any tool that enables one to do such? Like Windows itself?
Just wondering. with VMWare.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Propretiary software/registry edits? Malware? (Score:2, Insightful)
Story distortion is getting old on Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
MS System Restore also guilty? (Score:2)
Oh, Please (Score:4, Insightful)
I expect to see that kind of amateur, fact evading, OMYGOD hair-on-fire hysteria from WIRED. I don't just not expect to see it on
STOP IT. Use some sense and have a little editorial integrity, will you? If this is the result of lack of submissions, consider whether perhaps having fewer stories is not less damaging to your reputation than having this sort of asinine crap. I hope the reason this article was used was that you knew it'd result in a lot of sparks and smoke in the discussion, because the alternative is too depressing to contemplate. If it is, it's still not good enough.
We really, really need the ability to mod parent articles.
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What about a re-install? (Score:2, Insightful)
What happens if you use Vmware? (Score:3, Insightful)
This technology is monumentally stupid, and there's no way that he'll be "convicted", assuming he has the funding (EFF?) to go to court.
Otherwise, he just has to settle to try and save his finances.
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Forgot to read the article? It covers the serial numbered coupons, photocopying, and being banned for multiple coupons with the same serial number.
This guy's hack was to re-auth with the server to get a new set of serial numbers from the coupon vendor exceeding his permitted number of serial numbered coupons.