http://www.boingboing.net/2010/04/15/big-c...ts-dystopi.html

really makes one wonder.

This would get shot down in US courts. If nothing else the Fifth amendment against self incrimination would cover this. I know for damn sure I would NEVER install any of that crap.

Hysterical.

Da comrade.

Papers?

Someone is missing the days of the Soviet Union and the workers paradise.

This reminds me of the World Recording Industry Army that Frank Trollman came up with.. they bust down your door and execute you, then put the execution trideo on the matrix as a warning...

No. You have to be under arrest to take the fifth, and you have to be smart enough to know when to shut up. When you "voluntarily" comply to the user terms of a piece of software via its clickwrap, you aren't under arrest, and if you want to "take the fifth", there's a "simple" option- don't install the software. If you do, its just like deciding not to shut up when the cops pull you over; it's you're own choice.
Microsoft basically already does this with their OSes, yah? AFAIK, it checks for illegal versions of MS office products and reports them...

See, that's why you get an illegal version of the OS with that bit stripped out.

Uhh, lovely

Then everyone downloads that trideo illegally.

Not necessarily. The trid could be outfitted with a mandatory registration and a trojan to find possible infringing material And they get a source for a new warning trid.

Didn't M$ profit from illegal proliferation of their older OSes?

Oh, but they want you to see it.