4 ms·

The US seems to have this knack of sliding itself into this narrow gap between individuals they're idealistically pursuing and something worse. "If I could just

The US seems to have this knack of sliding itself into this narrow gap between individuals they're idealistically pursuing and something worse. "If I could just slip in there, ooh, that's tight, yes, thank you, aah comfy, this feels like where I belong". In their desperate attempt to not lose a fight that's been going on for, what, 10 years? 15 years? They're increasingly looking like a child that cannot move on from a primary school sleight. The US look like an ass because the law they're seemingly-autistically pursuing, is an ass. Pragmatism has no place here, it would seem. Also, downloading from Mega will get you a (partial at least) red flag from intelligence / law enforcement.

andai 2y ago
>Mega will get you a (partial at least) red flag from intelligence / law enforcement. I think this would flag my entire generation, at least back in the 2000s.
- BLKNSLVR 2y ago
  Mega (sorry: MEGA), not Megaupload, in this specific case. (the opposite to the case this article is about)
  - andai 2y ago
    Ah, so it's not because of the piracy but because of the privacy? I remember a quote (from close to 20 years ago?) that anyone who uses GPG lights up on NSA's radar "like Christmas lights". This seems to be the same thing.
Der_Einzige 2y ago
Source for the final claim? Is this still the case? Shit Man I distributed a dataset via megaupload for a paper awhile ago. Am I now a target of the glowies?
- BLKNSLVR 2y ago
  See reply to antai below. MEGA, not Megaupload. Re: source. Hopefully I'm consistent, you can go back through my comment history. I was raided by the police a bit over two years ago. When I got my stuff back (8 months later, no charges) the lead detective said that there was evidence I'd downloaded things from Mega, and that this was "suspicious", amongst a couple of other things. I got the feeling she thought I was still guilty and had somehow managed to get away with the distribution of which I was suspected (or it was some kind of retro justification for gross violation of my rights and she was taking a front foot stance to minimise the chances I'd see what legal avenues are available in such situations - turns out very few to none). She specifically mentioned as suspicious: - history of downloading from MEGA - using virtual machines - having "tor" installed. Interesting combination of cluelessness (wait until they're introduced to containers!). MEGA somewhat stands out in that bunch, in that there are lots of similar services as far as I know. Makes me wonder if it's a honeypot (but maybe not, because then they'd know the only thing I downloaded from MEGA was android ROMs). Other than being outspoken on certain topics online, my browsing history is as boring as the next guy's. So I really think they put some weight behind MEGA activity.
  - 19h 2y ago
    As someone working in comint I can assure you that there's nothing special about MEGA compared to others in terms of flagging.
    - BLKNSLVR 2y ago
      That's what someone in comint would say ;) Does that mean usage of all file lockers are equally flagged as suspicious? My memory gets a bit patchy here, but I'm pretty sure the detective said something along the lines of "MEGA is only ever used for <thing I was accused of>". Which struck me as blatantly false and indicative of either an agenda or incompetence. And I tend to subscribe to Hanlon's razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
      - 2y ago
duped 2y ago
You're looking at this through too narrow a lens, I think. The Government has a duty to protect domestic industry from foreign threats, and throughout history, that isn't reserved to state actors. Megaupload was a severe threat(*) to major American industries, and Kim Dotcom flagrantly ignored pressure from America to stop what it was doing. When that happens the Government gets to pick which of its heavy hammers to drop, and KDC is lucky it was just lawyers. You have to look at this through the eyes of the government and how it conducts foreign policy, often over long spans of time, with the goals of expanding and defending American interests - which includes protecting industries. (* was it? we'll never really know)
- ahmeneeroe-v2 2y ago
  Completely agree. For the GP: part of (any) gov's power is what you refer to as "autistically" pursuing a case. A large org will never be nimble or fast enough to catch criminals in the act or immediately afterwards. It balances that slowness by inexorably pursuing criminals, sometimes at greater expense than the cost of the original crime. Would be criminals should believe that they might execute a heist successfully, but that they will need to always keep running because the gov is doggedly pursuing. None of what I am saying is specific to Kim Dotcom, just trying to highlight to GP how governments execute business.
- lll-o-lll 2y ago
  I think this is a good take. Much of the commentary here has been on the morality or otherwise of copyright infringement, proportional legal response and extraterritorial reach. All topics of interest, certainly, but clouding the real story here. This is foreign policy, and the US has pursued control of copyright distribution, globally, for a very long time. Being from Australia, I remember the sense of disquiet as our copyright laws were modified as part of trade deals with the US. Many other nations (perhaps most?) have done the same (whether the law changes were pushed via the US directly or through UN related bodies is largely irrelevant). You combine that with the extremely tight coupling of large corporate bodies and the US government, and US foreign policy looks like authoritarianism. So I agree that what we see with these extreme examples of “Kim dotcom” and “Assange” extraditions are part of a broader foreign policy strategy. Where I disagree with your post is the statement “American interests”. To me, the interests served are the conglomerate of political and corporate powers, which may be at odds with the average US citizen.
dangus 2y ago
Here's a thought experiment for you: if you were raped, would you want the government to give up prosecuting your rapist just because 10 or 15 years passed before they could locate them? I'm not saying that this crime is on the same level, but Megaupload was at one time responsible for 4% of the entire Internet's piracy activity. And it wasn't a non-profit peer-to-peer file sharing community like The Pirate Bay or anything like that, it was a for-profit corporation directly profiting from stolen IP. Kim built himself a gigantic mansion off of other people's work. And he certainly had the means and ability to consult with lawyers who almost certainly told him that what he was doing was incredibly risky.

andai 2y ago

>Mega will get you a (partial at least) red flag from intelligence / law enforcement. I think this would flag my entire generation, at least back in the 2000s.

BLKNSLVR 2y ago
Mega (sorry: MEGA), not Megaupload, in this specific case. (the opposite to the case this article is about)
- andai 2y ago
  Ah, so it's not because of the piracy but because of the privacy? I remember a quote (from close to 20 years ago?) that anyone who uses GPG lights up on NSA's radar "like Christmas lights". This seems to be the same thing.

Der_Einzige 2y ago

Source for the final claim? Is this still the case? Shit Man I distributed a dataset via megaupload for a paper awhile ago. Am I now a target of the glowies?

BLKNSLVR 2y ago
See reply to antai below. MEGA, not Megaupload. Re: source. Hopefully I'm consistent, you can go back through my comment history. I was raided by the police a bit over two years ago. When I got my stuff back (8 months later, no charges) the lead detective said that there was evidence I'd downloaded things from Mega, and that this was "suspicious", amongst a couple of other things. I got the feeling she thought I was still guilty and had somehow managed to get away with the distribution of which I was suspected (or it was some kind of retro justification for gross violation of my rights and she was taking a front foot stance to minimise the chances I'd see what legal avenues are available in such situations - turns out very few to none). She specifically mentioned as suspicious: - history of downloading from MEGA - using virtual machines - having "tor" installed. Interesting combination of cluelessness (wait until they're introduced to containers!). MEGA somewhat stands out in that bunch, in that there are lots of similar services as far as I know. Makes me wonder if it's a honeypot (but maybe not, because then they'd know the only thing I downloaded from MEGA was android ROMs). Other than being outspoken on certain topics online, my browsing history is as boring as the next guy's. So I really think they put some weight behind MEGA activity.
- 19h 2y ago
  As someone working in comint I can assure you that there's nothing special about MEGA compared to others in terms of flagging.
  - BLKNSLVR 2y ago
    That's what someone in comint would say ;) Does that mean usage of all file lockers are equally flagged as suspicious? My memory gets a bit patchy here, but I'm pretty sure the detective said something along the lines of "MEGA is only ever used for <thing I was accused of>". Which struck me as blatantly false and indicative of either an agenda or incompetence. And I tend to subscribe to Hanlon's razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
    - 2y ago

duped 2y ago

You're looking at this through too narrow a lens, I think. The Government has a duty to protect domestic industry from foreign threats, and throughout history, that isn't reserved to state actors. Megaupload was a severe threat(*) to major American industries, and Kim Dotcom flagrantly ignored pressure from America to stop what it was doing. When that happens the Government gets to pick which of its heavy hammers to drop, and KDC is lucky it was just lawyers. You have to look at this through the eyes of the government and how it conducts foreign policy, often over long spans of time, with the goals of expanding and defending American interests - which includes protecting industries. (* was it? we'll never really know)

ahmeneeroe-v2 2y ago
Completely agree. For the GP: part of (any) gov's power is what you refer to as "autistically" pursuing a case. A large org will never be nimble or fast enough to catch criminals in the act or immediately afterwards. It balances that slowness by inexorably pursuing criminals, sometimes at greater expense than the cost of the original crime. Would be criminals should believe that they might execute a heist successfully, but that they will need to always keep running because the gov is doggedly pursuing. None of what I am saying is specific to Kim Dotcom, just trying to highlight to GP how governments execute business.
lll-o-lll 2y ago
I think this is a good take. Much of the commentary here has been on the morality or otherwise of copyright infringement, proportional legal response and extraterritorial reach. All topics of interest, certainly, but clouding the real story here. This is foreign policy, and the US has pursued control of copyright distribution, globally, for a very long time. Being from Australia, I remember the sense of disquiet as our copyright laws were modified as part of trade deals with the US. Many other nations (perhaps most?) have done the same (whether the law changes were pushed via the US directly or through UN related bodies is largely irrelevant). You combine that with the extremely tight coupling of large corporate bodies and the US government, and US foreign policy looks like authoritarianism. So I agree that what we see with these extreme examples of “Kim dotcom” and “Assange” extraditions are part of a broader foreign policy strategy. Where I disagree with your post is the statement “American interests”. To me, the interests served are the conglomerate of political and corporate powers, which may be at odds with the average US citizen.

dangus 2y ago

Here's a thought experiment for you: if you were raped, would you want the government to give up prosecuting your rapist just because 10 or 15 years passed before they could locate them? I'm not saying that this crime is on the same level, but Megaupload was at one time responsible for 4% of the entire Internet's piracy activity. And it wasn't a non-profit peer-to-peer file sharing community like The Pirate Bay or anything like that, it was a for-profit corporation directly profiting from stolen IP. Kim built himself a gigantic mansion off of other people's work. And he certainly had the means and ability to consult with lawyers who almost certainly told him that what he was doing was incredibly risky.