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Path: utzoo!watmath!watnot!watdcsu!rsellens
From: rsellens@watdcsu.UUCP (Rick Sellens - Mech. Eng.)
Newsgroups: net.micro
Subject: Re: Re : Re: Microsoft Access trashes disk
Message-ID: <1757@watdcsu.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 15-Oct-85 10:14:28 EDT
Article-I.D.: watdcsu.1757
Posted: Tue Oct 15 10:14:28 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 16-Oct-85 04:59:11 EDT
References: <2027@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Reply-To: rsellens@watdcsu.UUCP (Rick Sellens - Mech. Eng.)
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 45
Summary: 

In article <2027@brl-tgr.ARPA> bro@RICE.ARPA (Doug Monk) writes:
>In response to the suggestion that Microsoft's protection scheme that oh-so
>cleverly prints:
>
>>			Internal Security Violation
>>		    The tree of evil bears bitter fruit
>>			     Crime does not pay
>>			      The Shadow knows
>>
>>     And finally the punchline: "Trashing Program Disk." 
>
.
.
>***FLAME ON***
>DON'T BUY DISKS THAT ARE PROTECTED IN THIS "RETRIBUTIVE" FASHION!!!
>***FLAME OFF***

Agree Fully!!!!!!!!!  (But how do you know?)

>Of course, REAL pirates deserve what happens to them, but we are talking
>about valid users of paid software.

I suspect disk trashing is both morally and legally equivalent to
setting a "man trap" against tresspassers. If you maliciously set
a trap to damage others, you will (under common law) be liable for
those damages, even if they were tresspassing when the damage was
done. (Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, and may not be correct)

It seems to me that the position of common law is that even REAL
pirates don't deserve this sort of trap. And then, what about the 
guy who takes a copy of a piece of software to try it out? 
I personally don't feel this is wrong (as opposed to legal/illegal),
but that guy might unwittingly wind up with his hard disk trashed.

The use of a disk trasher is at best a grossly irresponsible act
and at worst criminally negligent. It is upsetting to see such
action, even if only a threat, from a large, presumably respectable
corporation like Microsoft.


Rick Sellens
UUCP:     watmath!watdcsu!rsellens
CSNET:    rsellens%watdcsu@waterloo.csnet
ARPA:     rsellens%watdcsu%waterloo.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa
Physical: 372A Churchill Court, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada  N2L 6B4