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Kim Dotcom Megaupload case falters over sharing Canadian data
- vsobol 12y agoWhy do they need humans looking at files? Can't a program be created that scans disk contents and classifies them in whatever way they need it analyzed?
- josefresco 12y agoI think that's what the "humans" would be doing - using software tools to scan, analyze and report on the data contained.
- DrStalker 12y agoIf they use a program they have to deal with Kim's legal team objecting and forcing the prosecution to convince a judge that they have a way to sift information with a 100% guarantee of not mistakenly taking anything it is not legal for them to take. Easier to just hire a bunch of interns to do the work.
- wongarsu 12y agoHiring one Canadian is prohibitively expensive, so instead they fight a legal battle to be able to send a team of Americans? That seems like a red flag to me. Even computer forensic professionals can't be that much more expensive than police officers and lawyers.
- fweespeech 12y agoYeah, it is pretty clear they intend to bend/break rules the Canadians would hold them too and say "Oops".
- mckoss 12y agoNote the journalistic bias - describing Kim Dotcom as "notorious".
- Dylan16807 12y agoThat sounds like a fair description to me, and I want him to win this case.
- josefresco 12y agoNotorious implies he did something bad. In this case, the definition of bad means different things to different people.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- res0nat0r 12y agoHe's already been previously convicted of doing bad things, so the description is just fine.
- josefresco 12y ago"youthful foolishness".
- res0nat0r 12y agoHardly.
- DyslexicAtheist 12y agoI've interviewed with him once for a job in his Munich based company DataProtect back in 2000 when his name was still Kim Schmitz. Back then it was unclear where his money came from (insider trading and before that credit card fraud) and the engineering community thought he was just that much of a successful and technically knowledgeable guy. I don't hold a grudge for not getting the job as a security engineer because the personal impression I got was more than shady and the following years proved that it good that I didn't. So "notorious" sounded right to me too.
- joshstrange 12y ago> On Jan. 18, 2012, an Ontario judge granted a search warrant to seize 32 servers in Canada — equivalent to the amount of data stored on 100 laptops, according to Megaupload lawyers. Wait what??? Neither servers nor laptops have any sort of "average HD size". This comparison seems quite stupid. It's not only apples and oranges to compare the two but provides no meaningful data at all....
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- joshstrange 12y ago> both servers and alptops obviously do have an average HD size Ok what are those numbers? And how long are they valid for? I've got 35TB on one of my servers, and 20GB on 2 other ones. My Laptop is 256GB but my last one was 1TB... These numbers mean nothing at all. It's a stupid comparison. I doubt the averages would last for ever a year without changing pretty drastically. Edit: deleted parent comment: > both servers and alptops obviously do have an average HD size, so the average may not be all that meaningful -- for servefs especially. But i suspect they used the actual size of the servers, not an average, though implicitly they used something like an average for laptops.
- asdfdsafueu33 12y agoOh stop being pedantic/dense.. it's really not that cryptic. Average consumer laptop has about 250-500GB of HDD space.
- joshstrange 12y agoOk, how large is an average HD space on a server? Are we assuming servers have an average of 750GB - 1.5TB? That is not correct either. I'm not being dense, both servers and desktops have WILDLY different HD sizes.
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- digitalneal 12y agoIts before my morning coffee so maybe I am missing the reason but why can't it be indexed by Canadians? Is it because its an American case and they are only permitted to hold potential evidence, not assist in the investigation?
- MrBoomixer 12y agoI'd also like to know more on this.
- hydrogen18 12y agoI don't think you'll find many Canadians that will gratuitously invade the privacy of others for the benefit for the US government.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- frandroid 12y agoDon't worry, we're just as crooked as Americans.
- phire 12y agoThe US government is willing to pay for the US clean team (maybe they are already on the payroll). They aren't willing to pay for Canadian experts.
- rmc 12y agoMaybe they want to grab more data than they are allowed.
- RankingMember 12y agoCustoms won't clear the large quantity of Tim Horton's products required to do the job. :P
- trevelyan 12y agoMore to the point, why didn't the original warrant specify what data they were looking for? Finding out what files exist on a server is technically easy. If the authorities don't know what constitutes incriminating evidence it raises serious questions about why the warrant was issued in the first place.
- danuker 12y agoAnd in the meantime, Megaupload is caught in regulatory limbo, shut down in favor of its competitors' exponential growth. Guilty until proven innocent. That's why many companies try to avoid getting there, by lobbying for OPPOSING major parties, for instance.
- anon4 12y agohttps://mega.co.nz/ https://mega.co.nz/ seems to be perfectly fine.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- mikelat 12y agoJust imagine all the tax dollars wasted ruining this guy's business.
- SoftwareMaven 12y agoAll those tax dollars, bought for around $100M/year[1]. I wonder if they are seeing exponential returns on their lobbying investment, and that's why it went from $25M to $100M in less than a decade, or if it is an attempt to staunch the losses brought about by file sharing. I'm guessing the latter. 1. https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/indusclient.php?id=B02 https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/indusclient.php?id=B02
- forrestthewoods 12y agoHis "business" that made about $200,000,000 off obviously copyright infringing material. Kim Dotcom is as sleazy as they come. I think he deserves to sit in a prison cell. Other folk may disagree with me, and that's fine, but he very much deserves to face a jury so that they can decide.
- mullen 12y agoPersonally, I agree with you but how Dotcom gets there is very important. We cannot tolerate methods that are not only illegal but violate the basic of principals of our legal code and society. Kim Dotcom is as sleazy as it comes but he does have rights and if he loses his, we will lose ours.
- ersii 12y agoI know plenty of people who host non-infringing copyright items at Megaupload. What I mean is that they share personal files, which themselves have the copyright to. So I'm pretty sure not all of that money comes from hosting Big Corporates copyrighted material. I don't understand why you put "business" within quotation marks, as a business is a business if it generates money - regardless of the legality of the business.
- upofadown 12y agoThe site is shut down so the people involved have achieved their goal. I doubt that the defence is claiming that there was no copyrighted material in the users data stores. The case is really about refusal to pursue copyright enforcement. All the prosecution needs to do is drag this out to win. So if you don't toe the line all your equipment gets seized. If you ever get it back it will be obsolete. You will also be tied up with legal stuff for a long time. That is the real message being sent here. The facts of the case don't matter.