5 ms·

Sadly, I simply cannot agree. I absolutely understand Marco's desire to focus on developing Instapaper, but there's quite a bit more at stake here, and his will

by Gorbzel 15y ago

Sadly, I simply cannot agree. I absolutely understand Marco's desire to focus on developing Instapaper, but there's quite a bit more at stake here, and his willingness to move on without even a bit of protest is concerning. He claims that there's nothing that can be done, but there are definitely legal actions one can take in this scenario. Sure, they might not ever fully compensate him, nor convince the skeptics, but it will at least reveal the details behind the seizure, and it will send a message to both the FBI and to others like DigitalOne that could prevent further "seize first and ask questions later" style operations.

statictype 15y ago
So for a one-man software shop, given the choice between: a) Spend money and time on legal action against the FBI for holding onto his servers for a couple of days while in the process of an investigation, in order to hopefully try and make a larger point. and b) Spending his time and no money by actually improving his bottom line by enhancing the features of his software, you expect any rational person to choose (a) ?
- guelo 15y ago
  The attitude might make sense for marco but we should all be thankful for the irrational stubborn assholes that say screw it and fight and effect change and make things better for the rest of us. The martyr game is usually a long thankless ordeal. You need to be an idealist dreamer, have your heart 110% in it and be prepared for the long slog after the initial passion cools off. Even someone like geohot who had the passion, the financial resources, tons of support and nothing to lose, eventually got cold feet once he saw the daunting task ahead.
- protomyth 15y ago
  This would seem the perfect situation for the EFF. At some point someone needs to choose (a) or else it will keep happening.
  - statictype 15y ago
    Perhaps. But a one-man team probably shouldn't be the one choosing that option.
- _delirium 15y ago
  Depends on the market you're in. I'd say overall, Steve Jackson Games gained enough publicity to make it worth their lawsuit in a different illegal-search-and-seizure case, especially when you add the $300k they got ($500k in today's money) from winning it. They had a stronger case, though, since the raid was directly targeted at them, and fairly carelessly executed.
- rickmb 15y ago
  Sorry, but the suggestion that fighting for justice is somehow the thing only "irrational people" would choose totally pisses me off. I totally understand someone making a rational decision in favor of other priorities. It's what most people would do. But thank god for people who take the road less traveled. It's to them we owe the rights and freedom the rest of us take for granted. There's nothing "irrational" about that.
  - statictype 15y ago
    A major thrust of what I'm saying is in the fact that Marco is a single indie developer. Not a large company with more resources. Fighting against the federal government over this seems like picking the wrong battle. He got is server back in a couple of days. Obviously its likely that the feds have already cloned it but its not like they kept it indefinitely or wiped it clean. Does it suck? Yes. Is this something he should be fighting over? Not in my book.
  - amorphid 15y ago
    The road less traveled is starting and running Instapaper. Chasing the FBI is a waste of time. If you really care about the problem, start a "company" meant to provoke the FBI into accidentally procuring its servers.
idlewords 15y ago
I was more severely affected than marco and I'm certainly going to pursue this matter to find out what happened. I imagine the Curbed team might share my curiosity.
- gommm 15y ago
  Great to hear that! As a customer from pinboard I really appreciated your communication during this.
- slowernet 15y ago
  We were significantly harder hit than either you or Marco, looks like. Our entire stack of 3 servers - app server and db master/slave - disappeared and remains offline to this point. I'm curious about what happened, but ultimately I put this down to an unfortunate side effect of using blades.
deleted 15y ago
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by Gorbzel 15y ago

statictype 15y ago

So for a one-man software shop, given the choice between: a) Spend money and time on legal action against the FBI for holding onto his servers for a couple of days while in the process of an investigation, in order to hopefully try and make a larger point. and b) Spending his time and no money by actually improving his bottom line by enhancing the features of his software, you expect any rational person to choose (a) ?

guelo 15y ago
The attitude might make sense for marco but we should all be thankful for the irrational stubborn assholes that say screw it and fight and effect change and make things better for the rest of us. The martyr game is usually a long thankless ordeal. You need to be an idealist dreamer, have your heart 110% in it and be prepared for the long slog after the initial passion cools off. Even someone like geohot who had the passion, the financial resources, tons of support and nothing to lose, eventually got cold feet once he saw the daunting task ahead.
protomyth 15y ago
This would seem the perfect situation for the EFF. At some point someone needs to choose (a) or else it will keep happening.
- statictype 15y ago
  Perhaps. But a one-man team probably shouldn't be the one choosing that option.
_delirium 15y ago
Depends on the market you're in. I'd say overall, Steve Jackson Games gained enough publicity to make it worth their lawsuit in a different illegal-search-and-seizure case, especially when you add the $300k they got ($500k in today's money) from winning it. They had a stronger case, though, since the raid was directly targeted at them, and fairly carelessly executed.
rickmb 15y ago
Sorry, but the suggestion that fighting for justice is somehow the thing only "irrational people" would choose totally pisses me off. I totally understand someone making a rational decision in favor of other priorities. It's what most people would do. But thank god for people who take the road less traveled. It's to them we owe the rights and freedom the rest of us take for granted. There's nothing "irrational" about that.
- statictype 15y ago
  A major thrust of what I'm saying is in the fact that Marco is a single indie developer. Not a large company with more resources. Fighting against the federal government over this seems like picking the wrong battle. He got is server back in a couple of days. Obviously its likely that the feds have already cloned it but its not like they kept it indefinitely or wiped it clean. Does it suck? Yes. Is this something he should be fighting over? Not in my book.
- amorphid 15y ago
  The road less traveled is starting and running Instapaper. Chasing the FBI is a waste of time. If you really care about the problem, start a "company" meant to provoke the FBI into accidentally procuring its servers.

idlewords 15y ago

I was more severely affected than marco and I'm certainly going to pursue this matter to find out what happened. I imagine the Curbed team might share my curiosity.

gommm 15y ago
Great to hear that! As a customer from pinboard I really appreciated your communication during this.
slowernet 15y ago
We were significantly harder hit than either you or Marco, looks like. Our entire stack of 3 servers - app server and db master/slave - disappeared and remains offline to this point. I'm curious about what happened, but ultimately I put this down to an unfortunate side effect of using blades.

deleted 15y ago

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