Posts by Mad Mike

@AC

"No, you really can tell if a site is dodgy or not by looking at it:

RBS something like 350 year old banking institution with a web site dedicated to banking and its customers. Regulated by the FSA and formerly the Bank of England, covered by the financial services compensation scheme. Not Dodgy.

Megaupload advertising downloads of clearly commercial software and cracks in exchange for money. Obviously dodgy.

It doesn't matter that one of the two failed and was bailed out and the other was closed down by police, the reason that RBS was bailed out was because they were legitimate and could be brought back to profit on the existing business model. The same cannot be said for Megaupload."

You're completely missing the point. I'm talking about dodgy not from a legal standpoint, but from you giving your business to them standpoint. RBS are not legally dodgy, but if the government hadn't rescued them, you could have lost thousands or more because of their business model. What's the difference between that and loosing files (in place of money) to MU because of their business model.....e.g.copyright violation. Either way, their business model could cost you a lot.

Looking back on it, doing business with RBS was at least as hazardous to your financial wellbeing as storing files on MU and therefore your point applies to both. I think you'll find your last statement that RBS 'could be brought back to profit on the existing business model' is wholesale wrong and that's why RBS is divesting itself of parts of the business and chaning its business model an awful lot.

Yes, it was regulated by the FSA and covered by the financial services compensation scheme (although this could never have covered all the losses if they'd failed), but look at what a good job they did. It was plainly in trouble for some time. There are plenty of people who think the executive are culpable as well. They certainly made some very dodgy statements to the markets.

David Wilson

"Though if a crime is committed in a squat or rented property, would the police have to pay to store all the contents of the building just in case someone might want to use something in their defence?"

Absolutely not. They would, however, have to sieze anything potentially relevant to the case and that could be quite a wide definition. That might include everything owned by the suspect and could extend to others if deemed appropriate. It is up to the investigating authorities to take everything relevant to the case regardless of whether it's for the prosecution or defence. The wording (and it might be a case of interpretation) suggests that in the case of MU, they have only copied selective MU data. In that case, all relevant evidence almost certainly hasn't been secured.

"Would they have to rent the building indefinitely to prevent the owners using it for something else?"

If the building itself is relevant and needs to be preserved for some reason (not often, but sometimes happens) and photos etc. are not good enough, then yes. The building, property whatever is relevant and therefore must be kept as is until the case is over. Obviously, in most cases, alternatives can be found.

I totally agree that sufficient assets should be unfrozen to pay to keep the data available for a period of time to give people a chance to remove their files. It needn't be for long and the money would in no way be of benefit to the (alleged) criminal. And on top of all that, the authorities would be regarded as acting reasonably and hopefully would get a much better image out of it. This would potentially even extend to the MPAA etc. who could reasonably say they were only going after the infringers. At the moment, they appear to be after legitimate users as well.

@AC

'With just one look at Megaupload you could see that it was a dodgy site'.

There are two issues with this.

Firstly, does the RBS bank website look 'dodgy' to you? Well, include HBOS as well and both of these could have taken a lot of people down if the government hadn't stepped in. Would you have been happy to loose thousands to them? The point is you can't tell if a site is 'dodgy' or not simply by looking at it. It takes a whole lot more than that. Very professional looking and acting sites are used for all sorts of dodgy purposes as well. MU is far from the only site used for copyright infringement. Others like Rapidshare, Hotfile etc.etc. have just as much. If these get closed down, it'll simply move elsewhere.

Secondly. Even if you accept the people were silly to put their files there, the action is completely unnecessary. There is absolutely no reason why the money in MUs bank accounts can't be used to keep the site up for say a month and allow people to download their files. Maybe they were silly in your eyes or not, but there's no need to deliberately hit them. This action suggests they are grouping all MU users together as copyright infringers and therefore punishing them all. Strangely, that is actually explicitly banned in US law!!

@David Wilson

I don't disagree. The deletion of the data would seem to render any court case immediately biased if only the prosecution have had the opportunity to take what they want. In terms of costs................according to reports and the prosecution themselves, there is plenty of money in accounts that are now frozen. So, why not use that? I suspect the answer is that the prosecutors/people they're acting for consider that their money now?

The rights and wrongs of the case and whether they are guilty or not don't come into the administration of justice. For justice to be done, it has to be seen to be done. The actions of the prosecution here would seem to prohibit that and if anything, will probably cause more people to file share. Not because they necessarily agree with it per se, but because of the lack of clear and transparent justice.

@TeeCee

Mmmmmm. So, presumably you don't own a bank account? All these very exemplary banks that would have gone bankrupt if governments hadn't stepped in. It you lost all your money due to picking the wrong high street bank, would you say the same. In the UK, anyone with money in RBS or HBOS (LLoyds only got dodgy when it was forced to take HBOS over) would have lost the lot. However, the government stepped in and if not, the banking compensation scheme would have covered at least some of the money.

The point here, is that it's unnecessary. They could easily shut the service down for a week, take full backups etc. for the court case and then make it available again for people to download anything they need. They could even monitor what people are downloading and if they are breaking copyright, prosecute them. But no......they take the nuclear option and hit the innocent as well as the guilty. Epic fail and totally unnecessary.

@Mike Smith

I don't disagree with your statement, but the growth area in cloud is not around storage so much as function. Moving your apps etc. into the cloud. If you do that, you're not going to be able to keep copies of constantly changing data. So, if you use the cloud for email services, how do you keep a copy someone else that's 'safe'?

All in all, the answer is simply, don't use the cloud.

@httpss

What the Americans need to understand, is that if you p**s off enough people, you can have the largest military in the world by a country mile, but it won't save you. The USA have for decades been trying to upset whole swathes of the planet. You can list them all......Vietnam, Somalia, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan etc.etc. And how many of these wars have they won? They'd like to say all or most, but the reality is none. In Iraq they got whipped by people barely out of the stone age. Same in Afghanistan. In Somalia, they had to leave in humiliation......defeated by people with AK47s and RPGs.

Over the years, the USA has become more and more of a terrorist target and they can't see the correlation. A large part of it relates to their complete contempt for civilians during their actions. They'll kill dozens of innocents to get a few guilty. How many times has this happened in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Now, with this action, they are doing exactly the same, but on computers. Yes, they're getting some people (decide on how many you think) who have broken the law, but they're hitting huge numbers in collateral. Are they making friends by doing it? If you've lost data in this debacle, are you saying it was all worth it to catch the pirates? No. You're probably more inclined to become a pirate now!!

Everything the USA does simply turns more and more people against them. Then they wonder why whole swathes of the world hate them and they're terrorist target number 1!!

For god sake; wake up and realise the correlation and try to understand this action is likely to increase the number of pirates, not decrease it. Just like in all your other wars. And in all cases, quite often the average Joe in the USA doesn't actually agree with it. The anti-piracy law is being brought and paid for by big business in much the same way may of their other wars are. Plenty of people making a lot of money out of them, many being current politicians or people close to them.

@Steve Knox

Could I clarify one of your points.

2. It does not say the US Government only copied data relevant to the case. It says they copied selective information. Who's to say that was everything to do with MU? How did they make the decision of what is 'relevant'? Perhaps relevant to the prosecution only?

The incompetence here is not of the data owner. If a site offers secure and safe storage and that's part of the contract, you're entitled to expect this. BT has a cloud storage product for sale in this country. If some use this for illegal purposes, should everyone loose their data? Do you not trust BT to hold your data securely?

Obviously, in an ideal world, everyone should keep two copies, but there are a variety of reasons why people might not be able to. As mentioned earlier, this also spells the deathknell of cloud services. What this is proving, is that unless the data is stored on your servers under your control, it can disappear at any time.

It's quite simple really. By deciding what will be kept and what will be deleted, they are effectively preventing a fair trial. The prosecution is hardly likely to keep anything the defence could use!! If the website is the evidence (as in this case), the whole website, including content, must be kept for both the prosecution and defence to use. Allowing the prosecution to pick and choose what they want and then ensuring everything is deleted, the defence is hardly being given a fair chance.

Mind you, the USA hardly want a fair trial. The media companies, through their intermediates have paid for the White House and the various departments of government to hang, draw and quarter some people to try and stop the pirating. They hardly want a small matter of evidence or a fair trial to stand in the way.

This case is just like the way America runs any war. If you have a few terrorists in a building amongst a load of civilians, they simply carpet bomb the lot. That's exactly what's happening here. You've got some pirates alongside innocents and they're carpet bombing the lot. For those Americans listening........it didn't work in Vietnam, it hasn't worked in Iraq, it isn't working in Afghanistan and you're still the number 1 terrorist target in the world. Have you got the message yet?

@Ben Tasker

This is pretty preposterous really. If rather than gain entry, Gary had simply informed them of the issue, what would they have done? By your logic, they should have shutdown the systems. The shutdown was not Garys fault, but a natural consequence of their complete incompetence. If they'd done their jobs properly in the first place, it wouldn't have happened and if pointed out (without criminal action to find it), they should have done the same. Your argument is like saying someone who finds a fault with a car is responsible for the entire recall program to correct it. Absolutely preposterous.

Whilst he should undoubtedly face the consequences of his action, there is no doubt he is being roundly abused for simply showing someone elses incompetence. That has no place in justice.

The USA keep changing the rules all the time to suit their needs. They have been shown to condone torture, yet lecture others on it. They have shown that the offence occurs at the location of the keyboard, in this case in the UK. He can be prosecuted here, but as the punishment is not harsh enough to appease them, they choose to extradite him. That's like looking around the world and finding the country with the harshest penalty for a crime and then extraditing them there. Pathetic. They expect extradition to be a one way process, where they get who they want, but anyone politically sensitive from their perspective (shall we say IRA terrorists), is immune.

I'm generally a great supporter of the USA and believe their position is very difficult, being both the 'great satan' and also the country everyone expects to police the world. They are always the country looked to when someone needs sorting out. However, if they continue to behave in such a high handed, one sided way, are they really surprised when they get attacked? Even if you polled their population, I would be amazed if they supported this extradition.

Fail icon, because its an epic fail.

@AC

"Denial is not an effective legal defense, nor is stupidity so these boys are headed for the Iron Bar Hotel."

Errr. No. The basis of the legal system is innocent until proven guilty. Therefore, denial is a completely effective legal defence unless the prosecution can prove your guilt. Otherwise, anyone who ever pleads innocent to a crime and is found not guilty is, according to you, guilty or your statement is wrong......

@AC

"30 years plus $10K per copy should do the trick nicely. It should send a clear message to other criminals."

What a balanced comment!! So, copyright infringement should be seen as a more serious crime than murder now? Talk about a lack of perspective. They are being accused (as far as I know) of money crimes only. Not crimes against the person. The day when money crimes attract higher sentencing than crimes against the person, you really know society is doomed. People need to get their priorities straight. How can relieving someone, even illegally, of some money ever be seen as worse than relieving them of their life?

If these guys are fairly prosecuted and proved to have done wrong, then they should receive a just sentence. The reason the law is in such disrepute these days is partially because of the stupid sentencing which has absolutely no relation to the scale or impact of the crime.

@Tom 13

But where is he going to flee to? America will simply bully them into extraditing him. I bet it's actually some idiot politician in the US who has clock his name as Kim xxxxxxx and assumes he's found a relative of the leader of North Korea. Not that they know where North Korea is mind. Or, anything outside the borders of the US.

@David Wilson

David. We certainly haven't agreed in the past, but this posting is complete sense. All he needed was a minimal sentence of some sort and his computers confiscated. It's all been blown out of all proportion. The US went in too hard, too fast. UK politicians couldn't kiss arse fast enough and between them, they backed themselves into a corner. Anything less than a harsh and disproportionate sentence would then do.

Perhaps it's time for a politician, say David Cameron, to show he's different and actually do this. After all, the USA have ignored treaties etc. when it suits them. Extraditing IRA suspects is a perfect case in point. So, why doesn't he start getting some real respect in this country by refusing this extradition request, repealing the law and putting something more sensible in it's place. Maybe, from this small start, he could move onto doing the same in other areas.

@AC

Mmmmm....where to start.

Adding additional time for using his rights and the legal system to the full extent? Sounds like anyone accused should automatically say yes, I did it. Otherwise, according to you, anyone who pleads not guilty and is found guilty has committed delaying tactics etc.

He has never denied accountability and has never refused to stand trial. He's simply asked for the trial to take place in this country. So, he has never attempted to escape accountability as you claim.

Finally, it's ASPERGERS syndome, not Ausbergers disease. Really, people who can't even spell it or know if it's a disease or a syndrome should not comment.

Better be careful where he goes

Has anyone told him? Stay away from woods, copses and any group of more than 10 trees. Should be fairly easy to spot though. The government would have to get the same bent pathologist to do the autopsy.

The David Kelly affair is a shameful stain on the UK and how it has never been persued more by the papers, I don't know. Presumably, they were paid or threatended to let it go. Another case of getting your revenge in. Kelly made the government look like a bunch of liars, creating false evidence to try and justify their actions. So, either it was revenge, or he knew something even more explosive. A shocking thought. What could be worse than wholesale corruption and dishonesty at the top of government.

PyLETS

Interesting that you should highlight this sort of 'imbalance'. Being that they're American, I assume they haven't actually read their constitution and the bit about 'cruel and unusual punishments'. Funny, as the last decade could very reasonably be applied to the extradition process and he hasn't even been found guilty yet!! Not that there's anything in question about that!! He's effectively admitted the crime and the Americans wouldn't permit a not guilty result even if he hadn't.

As other people on here have said; this is simply about revenge. He made NASA, the American government and America in general look completely stupid for not implementing the most basic security. No greater crime exists in America than making an important person (or persons) look stupid and worst of all, humiliating America the Great!!

@Agellos

Nobody is defending this man because of who he is. I would pretty much guess he's a 'greedy gimp' or similar as you've pointed out, but that is not the point at issue.

I've said several times that if he's broken the law in NZ, them prosecute him in NZ. One issue here is that the USA seems to think it's laws apply across the world and has the ability to drive this through force as the only superpower. Another issue is that copyright holders and governments are choosing when to enforce copyright rather than enforce it all the time. Copying music to a MP3 player.......we'll turn a blind eye to that as we manufacture, sell and make a tidy profit on the MP3 player. However, copy for another reason and you're prosecuted? Why? Both are copyright violations and therefore should be treated the same. If you can't sell your MP3 player as the law makes it's use illegal, get the law changed.

Finally, there is the issue of morality here. Yes, copying copyright material is morally wrong. However, dropping a rootkit on the PCs of a large part of the world is equally wrong, known as hacking and illegal in most countries. Individual who violates copyright get's prosecuted, fined etc.etc. Hacker (I'll call them Sony) gets away with it!! How does that work? Which is the greater crime?

Unless the legal system is seem to treat everyone the same, it becomes morally bankrupt in its own right. That's where the USA is at the moment and other countries (including the UK) are following rapidly behind.

@Mectron

All this is going to do, is establish the principle that whether something is illegal in your country of residence or not, anybody around the world can apply for your extradition if it's illegal in their country. In other words, local laws are now irrelevant. Obviously, the willingness of local enforcement and judiciary to do this is directly related to their subservience to the requestor for whetever reason. They might have a financial interest or whatever. In the case of the USA, they simply threaten them and as the only superpower, will be obeyed by all but the foolhardy.

Bang goes justice. If he's committed a crime in NZ, charge him there and prosecute. Should we start extraditing anyone who offends Island or Allah to Iran now? Oh, of course, we don't like them!!

@Anonymous Coward

'This nonsense about fair pricing and a decent online experience CRAP is well CRAP.'

Well, the bit about a decent online experience is maybe crap in that the experience is driven by competition and normal business processes. e.g. give a crap experience, nobody buys your product, you (hopefully) go out of business.

However, the bit about fair pricing is most definitely not crap, at least in the UK. It is actually legal and enshrined in UK law.

@David Wilson

It is amazing how you are willing to defend organisations that have acted illegally so many times before. If you want to be specific about the FBI, let's try the communist witchhunts of the past and J Edgar Hoover. As has been coming out for sometime now, Hoover ordered many illegal acts personally as part of these witchhunts. A very large number of American citizens were wrongly accused during that time and effectively had their lives ruined on complete rubbish evidence, the testimony of others under duress and illegal wiretaps etc.etc.

So, now we've established that the FBI cares nothing of the law (except when it suits them), a large part of your argument disappears. I can pretty much guess your next attempt to justify Americas laughable action will be to claim the communist witchhunts were years ago and everything is different now etc.etc. The irony of this is quite good though, as many in Hollywood were on the receiving end that time.....

Whether a company is paying them to do it directly or through politicians is irrelevant. Many politicians and companies have made a fortune out of the Iraq and Afghan wars........companies such as Blackwater. Construction companies are making a fortune as well. If you really believe American (and UK and other) politicians aren't owned by big business you really are stupid. If you really believe they aren't making money out of everything politicians do, the same applies. They don't give politicians jobs after they finish in politics for nothing you know.

This action is a great over reaction to a problem they will never defeat (which makes it pointless, whether morally right or wrong) and simply brings American into more disrepute in the world. If these people have committed crimes, have them prosecuted in the countries they reside in. If they have broken NZ laws, fine. However, applying a law from one country to another and then trying to enforce it makes a mockery of international law.

Why don't we simply enact a law in this country making it illegal to have ginger hair. Pop over to America, find a ginger and try to extradite them. Any luck? Thought not. I'm sure Iran has laws against people defaming Mohammed and Islam. I'm sure they could find plenty of people in America (and elsewhere) to extradite. Any luck.....thought not. It's a complete one way street, where America gets everything it wants as it's the most powerful. End of story.

Most people around the world consider America (and rapidly other countries) as hypocritcal and bully boys. They wonder why they get attacked all the time. Perhaps it's time to keep their noses out of other peoples business. By wanting everything on their terms and bullying everyone to do it, they make the whole world hate them. This is just a another example, where there is a problem and they use the legal equivalent of a nuclear weapon to deal with it when a small precision weapon would have done. Their military have been doing it for years. Look at the Gulf wars, Vietnam etc. Just bomb everything flat, opposing military, civilians the lot. Who care. Then, they wonder why everyone hates them!!

Americans (and I assume you are one) need to grow up.

Legality has nothing to do with it

As various organisations around the American legal system have shown in the past, whether they can legally do it, is not always relevant. Maybe not the FBI, but American state organisations have previously carried out extreme rendition, kidnapping (in Italy), torture (both within their definition of torture and outside), illegal arms shipments (Iran Contra) etc.etc. So, I'm not sure that legality has an awful lot to do with it. If the political masters are paid enough by someone to want to do it, they simply order it done and deal with the minor issue of legality later.

@David Wilson

If we consdier the business model for a repository site like this (and BTs own), you have to look where the revenue is coming from. If copyright infringement is so widespread and common on these sites, then it stands to reason a large part of your revenue is coming from people infringing copyright. Therefore, if your site is in anyway successful, you are in the same position. Is BTs site successful? Probably (take your own view here), in which case there revenue must largely be coming from copyright infringement. The owners may take removing the content more or less seriously, but the argument is always that these site survive on copyright infringement, so you must either close them all or none.

The other stupidity around this is that there's another alternative. According to industry representatives in the UK (media companies etc.), your IP address is enough to prove you're infringing copyright and therefore get all sorts of comeback, whether speed restrictions or removing your connection altogether. Hence, lots of court cases etc. here. So, simply require these sites to keep the IP address of the uploader!! Simples. Find a copyright infringing upload, take the IP address, find connection, use existing law. Shutting the whole site is overkill and hits perfectly legal users.

Of course, whether you believe an IP address by itself is enough is open to debate and person opinion.

Either way, the American 'justice' organisations are fighting battle on behalf of a small subset of society and a battle they cannot win. No matter what they do and no matter how many sites are taken down, others will simply pop up or other methods get created. In the meantime, loads of innocents will be hurt, including all the jobs and business that will leach out of American to other countries.

Everyone knows you should never fight a battle you cannot win. Talk to the people and find another way around it. This has been proven many times in both American and other countries histories...........drugs, alcohol (prohibition), Iraq (anyone who thinks that was won is living in a dreamworld), Afghanistan (ditto), copyright theft........

Doesn't matter

The reality of whether Megaupload has a business model based around copyright infringement or not is irrelevant. The whole point of this sort of repository is that people pay some money and get a chunk of storage to put something. There are a lot of people who will have put non-illegal stuff up there who have now lost it. Doing this will simply result in all repository sites becoming potentially unreliable and therefore not of use to anyone. What's the point of that?

Even BT in this country has this sort of facility. Is there any copyright infringing material on there........almost certainly. Should they be shutdown as well? Why not? They're doing essentially the same thing.