] The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee
] said Tuesday he favors developing new
] technology to remotely destroy the computers of people
] who illegally download music from the Internet.

] "I'm interested," Hatch interrupted. He said damaging
] someone's computer "may be the only way you can teach
] somebody about copyrights."

] Kerr predicted it was "extremely unlikely" for Congress
] to approve a hacking exemption for copyright owners,
] partly because of risks of collateral damage when
] innocent users might be wrongly targeted.
]
] "It wouldn't work," Kerr said. "There's no way of
] limiting the damage."

Not too worried about this.. I can't see this happening. Not only for technical reasons, but straight out legal ones. The court system exists to mediate disputes between parties. Aggrieved parties are not allowed to take actions into their own hands, their only option is to take their dispute into the court system. If they do not, they are commiting a crime themselves. Its the basis of our legal system's existance. If congress passes a law allowing our media masters to destroy our computers, it would be admitting failure of the legal system to tackle these problems and set an extrememly dangerous precident. Granted, it is pretty shocking that this has been suggested as an option at all, by someone who heads the Senate Judiciary Committee.

And then there is the whole collateral damage angle. It does not have the signifigance of the above, but it will likely be the reason this idea gets aborted before it grows arms. It would give consumers what they need to bring the dispute back into the legal system, only with the upper hand and the ability to address the above in the courts, which the courts would most defintally agree with.

I'm not a lawyer, so my understanding of how the law works in this situation may be completely flawed.. But I am pretty sure that this is not something to worry about much.

Yahoo! News - Hatch Takes Aim at Illegal Downloading