This site is dedicated to exposing the great injustice that was being done to David McOwen.

It could happen to any of us!

Edit: This site is now re-dedicated to all of those around the world that saved my life from the tyranny of one State Government and to help prevent or stop something like this from ever happening again to anyone, anywhere in the world. Also to the cause of Distributed Computing Technology that has the possibility of doing many great things for all of mankind by the linking together of every Computer in the world.

This was the first News airing about the case:

Click here to see this case discussed on TechTV's Silicon Spin

Requires  

A Documentary story and interview was aired on TechTV Tuesday June 25th at 9 PM EST

http://www.techtv.com/cybercrime/viceonline/story/0,23008,3389528,00.html

Here is the show file digitized. Thanks Soni for Hosting the file

New 4-27-2004 Georgia Tech launches Distributing Computing Project!

Of all places, this originates in Georgia.

NETI@Home
Using NETI@home will make the Internet a better place! (and hopefully a little faster)
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Oh the Irony of this originating in Georgia. Roy Barnes and all the other School Cronies that went after me must be livid at Georgia Tech now:

4-27-2004 NETI@Home to Examine Net's Strengths

Georgia Tech researchers want you -- and your computer.

They want to figure out how to make the Internet faster and more reliable, but to do that they need to gather data from tens of thousands of personal computers around the world.

Currently, Internet performance research almost always uses data gathered from various router points along the Internet's backbone, the high-speed pipelines that keep data moving around the globe. But George Riley, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Georgia Tech, and graduate student Robby Simpson want to use data collected directly from Internet users.

To do this they've developed an open-source software application that gathers network performance statistics such as average response time, average round-trip time, connection times, download times and number of packets sent and received.

Now they just need truckloads of volunteers to download their NETI@home application, and allow the application to send network performance information from the volunteers' computers to a server at Georgia Tech, where it will be analyzed and made available to anyone else who wants to use it for their own Internet improvement projects.

Neti@home is named after the University of California at Berkeley's SETI@home project, which uses volunteer computing power to search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

"With NETI, we're searching for network intelligence -- intelligence about the way the Internet works so we can make it work better," said Simpson.

But the data that NETI will gather is far more personal than that gathered by SETI. Riley and Simpson know that people may be leery of having data on their network usage tracked and transmitted, but promise to protect volunteers' privacy.

"NETI is not spyware, and in no way compromises any of your private data," said Riley. "It is nearly painless from a performance point of view, and completely private if you opt to use our most restrictive privacy setting."

Simpson and Riley said they hope, however, that volunteers will not choose the most restrictive privacy setting. Less restrictive settings will allow them to gather more useful data from participating computers.

Systems administrators can also use NETI to monitor performance on their private networks. And since the NETI application is open-source, Simpson and Riley also hope the development community will come up with other interesting uses for the application.

Georgia Tech plans to keep the NETI project going "theoretically forever"
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4-27-2004 Georgia Tech Study to Gauge Internet Performance for Computer End-Users - Georgia Tech Seeks Research Volunteers for NETI@home: The Search for a Faster Internet

Atlanta - Ever notice your Internet connection seems slow? Ever wonder what’s causing the slow down? You are not alone. Millions of users bemoan sluggish downloads and slow email but rarely know the cause of the delays.

Researchers at Georgia Tech have developed a technology to find out the how the Internet is performing from the “regular” end-users’ perspectives. With this information, they can design and develop network solutions to relieve these bottlenecks. To do this, they need volunteers for the NETI@home project, which stands for “network intelligence.”

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We were at at Dragon*Con 2003 August 30 and 31 in Atlanta

Panel on the case and a Co-panel with Randal Swartz

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Labor Day Weekend 2003

Dragon*Con 2003 Atlanta Georgia

I don't know if the Star Wars Kid wasthere but I was there along with my now ex-wife Donna Saturday 8-30 in the Piedmont room at 2:30 pm

Also on Sunday evening at 7 PM same room.

The Forum panels that I spoke at were great. I only wish that I had finished the book I am still looking to finish and would've had on hand for those that attended the panels.

April 23, 2002

This is David McOwen. I would like to thank Craig (The PCMAN) for setting up this site during the ordeal where I was under the attack of the State of Georgia. Craig just turned over the site to me and I am now re-dedicating it as an educational and informational site so that it has a chance of preventing what happened to me from ever happening to anyone anywhere in the world ever again.

September 25, 2002 Announcement by Distributed.Net that RC5 project is completed and over.

Note: They started a new project RC5-72, No, I will not be running that project. How can anyone support a project where the President of that Company does not support the people supporting and running your project? This individual actually spoke out against me on numerous occasions as seen in the News articles listed here. Many people that were running that project and supporters of me then stopped running that project and switched to other Distributed Computing projects. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Dr. David Anderson the Director of the SETI@Home project. He spoke out against what the State of Georgia was doing as was going to testify on my behalf as well as on the behalf of the Distributed Computing Technology which was obviously under attack as well.

What's this all about?

The story began in 1999, when David McOwen worked on the computer systems at DeKalb Technical College in Georgia. Like many other geeks, David realized that most of the machines on campus sat idle most of the time - good computing power going to waste.

That very thought has led to the creation of several companies looking to tap into that power. The idea is to chop up large computer jobs into small portions, and shoot these bits of work to individual computers over the Internet. 

One such outfit, Distributed.net, has been testing the idea since 1997 by cracking encryption systems - products that scramble data so that unauthorized people can't read it. Interested techies can go to the Distributed.net Web site and download software that runs when their machines aren't doing something else. This software toils away at cracking a code, a task that would take millions of years for a single computer. But when chopped up and spread across tens of thousands of machines, the work should be finished in just a few years. 

To improve their odds of winning, people with access to lots of computers have installed the software on many systems. That's what David did at his college. 

The state of Georgia doesn't agree with this use of computers. Under state law, they considered it misuse of the state's computers - and in Georgia, that's a felony. In a cry for help published on the Web site Anandtech.com, David said the state wants $415,000 in compensation for lost computing and network capacity. And of course, there's always that possible prison sentence of 120 years to consider.

Original Online Petition set up by Nate Coffey, thanks Nate

 The following is David McOwen's original story and plea for help in his own words when he was first contacted in late June 2001 by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation told he was going to be charged with Felony Computer crimes.

This is David McOwen. I need everyone's help that possibly can. I worked at a school system 2 years ago that is part of the State of Georgia and was the configurator of the computers. They are now prosecuting me for Felony conviction with up to 120 yrs in prison and wanting $ 415,000. They are saying the Dnet client costs 59 cents per second for the Internet transmissions! If you or you know anyone that can help please contact webmaster@freemcowen.com. Beside my life and my family, the future of all that use the Internet and computers is at stake. Don't let them turn the good of computers into something so terrible. If it was so terrible it should be taken away from the world and not prosecuting one individual. People were panicking about rumors of the Govt tacking on a 5 cent surcharge to supplement the Postal service because E-mail is taking away from their business and now the State of Georgia is saying E-mail costs 59 cents per second and this is not a rumor! 

Also we need to know if anyone in the United States or the world has been prosecuted for this. We need to know for sure that they are setting this dangerous precedent, making me an example and everyone is next. They did not give me an opportunity to just turn the client off, they also said that there was no harm done after they turned it off. How can they call it a felony then and looking for nearly half a million dollars! Please help in any way that you can, whether by E-mails or any other support.

Sadly there are new Malicious Prosecutions case taking place now in 2005

Kutztown 13

13 students facing Felony convictions for changing the admin password on their school issued laptops

Free Chip Salzenburg !!!