In case someone didn't think there were enough reasons to fight the DMCA, here's a new one..

Brought to you by The Register.

Hewlett Packard has threatened to use computer crime laws and the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act to muzzle a group of security researchers who unearthed a flaw in its Tru64 operating system.

The threat comes in a letter to SnoSoft from HP Veep Kent Ferson warning that the security researchers "could be fined up to $500,000 and imprisoned for up to five years" for its role in publishing code that demonstrated the vulnerability, CNET's Declan McCullagh reports.

Why do software companies seem to think that their customers ought not have the knowledge of dangerous exploits? Who is that protecting? Certainly not the customers.... Image is not *that* important.. just look at Microsoft..

I suppose if HP's intent is to alienate the technical community[0], congratulations, mission accomplished.

Makes me ill to think I used to recommend people buy HP printers..

More info on BugTraq

HP is just being plain stupid..

[0] - ugh, what kind of stupid term is that anyway.