Wed, 07 May 2003 14:44:17 GMT

Overpeer and Media Defender are two of about a dozen tech companies developing software that would “sabotage the computers and Internet connections of people who download pirated music”, according to the New York Times. Programs, developed for record companies, include 'silence', which searches for and deletes music files from hard drives, 'freeze' which locks up a computer for 'minutes or hours', Trojan Horses and viruses. A Wired News article identifies Overpeer as appearing to be the leading generator of 'spoof' music files. If this wasn't in the New York Times, I would have considered it apocryphal hacker community jive… [www.gulker.com - words and pictures from Silicon Valley]

mmmm, yes, always nice to see that there are companies out there that are orienting themselves to harm people and people's possessions