Re:

> There are several ex-used equipment resellers sitting
> in the U.S. prison system because they had illegally obtained a copy of
> SS_CONFIG and were using it.

That's over simplifying things...
they're in prison for doing illegal things like selling HP 9000
hardware as HP 3000 hardware (and providing pirated copies of MPE for them),
and (in some cases) selling illegally obtained HP hardware.

You're free to change any bits you want on hardware you own (unless you
gave up those rights at purchase time).  However, when you then sell that
hardware as being something else, you step over the line.

There are some kinds of hardware where certain kinds of modifications are
illegal because of state or U.S. federal law ... (e.g., cars & removing smog
controls) ... but I don't think computers fall into that category.

Stan Sieler                                           [log in to unmask]
www.allegro.com/sieler/wanted/index.html          www.allegro.com/sieler