The Business Software Alliance’s latest wheeze in the UK to set up a hotline so that sneaks can call in and name companies that have unlicensed software – with the come-on of a reward of UKP2,500 for successful prosecutions not only smacks of the police states in China and the former German Democratic Republic, but is also an absolute gift to disaffected employees – even if they work for an outfit where every piece of software was legally acquired: the problem is that software leaves no fingerprints, so all the disgruntled employee has to do is to work late one night and use the time to create new partitions on everybody’s personal computer, load in copies of stolen software and blow the whistle on the hotline – and if it’s someone that really hates their employer, the reward will be but a minor consideration.
