I think this would set a bad precident. This would only give more weight to recent attempts to allow the RIAA to hack and disable machines that they think are distributing copyrighted files, or Microsoft to reach out and shut down PCs they think may be running pirated software. Pretty soon every hacking attack would be claimed to be a legal, vigilante response to a perceived threat. It also, paradoxically, might make the legal response even less forthcoming; sysadmins might run into a law enforcement attitude of, "Well, you can always take care of it yourself, right? Why are you bothering us?"


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