HS Charges Students with Felony for Changing Password on iBooks
In an astonishing display of technological ignorance, the administrators of Kurtztown High School in Pennsylvania filed charges in May against over a dozen students for "Computer Trespass" of the iBooks they were issued by the school board. Apparently, the sum of what these miscreants did was turning off the port blocking software on the laptops allowing them to freely install notoriously dangerous applications like iChat; and disabling Apple Remote Access, to prevent being spied on by the administration. By doing so, goes the claims, these students are felons. On May 31, the local PD sent around letters to the parents demanding they bring their kids-- aged 14 to 17-- in for fingerprinting and identification.
Already the story has raised the ire of the Internet, with a Web site going up in protest: CutUsABreak.Org
See: http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/internet/08/09/kutztown.hackers.ap
TigerDirect “sues” Apple for “Tiger” OS
In the category of misusing the legal system, online retailer Tiger Direct.com has apparently filed an injunction the day before Apple is to release its update to OS X -- because it's codenamed "Tiger." Gee, what marketing geniuses.
It's simple: Suing Apple generates "free" publicity. Any seemingly scandalous info relating to Apple gets immediate distribution by news sites, and hence makes people take notice of the controversy. Remember the recent "virus contest" which ended before it even started? Or the flack over Apple Stores pulling all books published by John Wiley & Sons in protest over the unauthorized bio of Jobs?
As proof, the initial news of this was actual via a press release from Tiger Direct.
Tiger Direct has no actual standing to sue, as they don't make any software package/OS which competes with Apple's offering. Furthermore, "Tiger" is a code-name, just as Microsoft's "Longhorn" is. It's properly 10.4. Thus, there's no competition nor trademark dilution between the Mac OS, codenamed "Tiger" and a retailer called TigerDirect. (Incidentally, my alma mater, The University of Texas actually holds the registered trademark to "Longhorns" as well as the logo of the horns -- shouldn't they be suing Microsoft?)
Look for Apple to file a "summary judgement" to dismiss the case -- which is scheduled for preliminary hearing on May 3, five days after Tiger's release-- but by then, Tiger Direct will have gotten what they want: attention.
