Senator Hatch is credited with saying: "If we can find some way to do this without destroying their machines, we'd be interested in hearing about that. If that's the only way, then I'm all for destroying their machines. If you have a few hundred thousand of those, I think people would realize" just how serious the government is about protecting copyright.
Even if anyone other than Senator Hatch favored such a plan, which it seems nobody does at this time, it does not seem very technically feasible. How would they hope to track you to know when your first, second or third offense were?
On the one hand, most home users have IP addresses that change each time they connect to the Internet thanks to DHCP. If I sign on to my ISP and receive the IP address 192.168.50.21 (not a publicly accessible IP address I realize- just roll with me) and download some illegal MP3’s a couple times I will receive two warnings. After I shut my computer down someone else at my ISP logs in and receives IP address 192.168.50.21 and attempts to download an illegal MP3...ZAP! Their system is wiped out for its “third” offense.
What about computer systems at schools and libraries where multiple users come and go? What about junior using Dad’s computer and downloading illegal software without his parents’ knowledge? In the end making something illegal or making the laws surrounding it more draconian rarely serves to reduce the occurrence of the transgression.
Just like Prohibition didn’t stop the sale of liquor (and Washington D.C. was buying liquor from the underground as much as any other area), enacting draconian laws to prevent the downloading of MP3’s will just cause new peer-to-peer (P2P) networks to pop up further underground where they are harder to find and monitor. Users will find ways to spoof their connections or connect through other computers so that the wrong computer ends up victimized by the RIAA or the government.
