Latest Techdirt Comments

Re:

Anonymous Coward — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 08:25:05 PDT

Which can, funnily enough, also be laid at the feet of the DoJ. This is hilarious to watch, from a "comedy of errors" point of view.

DOJ's response

Anonymous Coward — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 08:25:05 PDT

Shake magic 8-ball to figure out which response to use:

1) Those files needed to be deleted for national security.
2) There was nothing important on those servers.
3) They had nothing to do with this case and no evidence was harmed.
4) We didn't do it. LeaseWeb did.

Course then follow that up with the classic:
You need to trust us cause we're the DOJ. Just extradite Dotcom already so we can hold our kangaroo court.

I'm still putting my bet on more charges magically showing up if he is extradited to the US.

Definition

Zeissmann — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 08:24:18 PDT

I just love that "definition". If you haven't understood what it means, let me disentangle it for you. It basically says that informal economy is the thing that lies on the lower end of the scale of an economic property called "formality", which is defined as "non-informality".

Re:

Nathaniel Bonini — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 08:23:34 PDT

Nothing gets done about it because there is a never ending line of people who will do these jobs for less and less compensation. The unions are the only thing standing in the way of the studios to stop paying for labor and residuals.

Lowestofthekeys — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 08:22:11 PDT

I might need some more details but this is from Leaseweb's TOS:

"
25.2 Upon expiration or termination of the Agreement:
25.2.1 LeaseWeb shall cease to provide all Services;
25.2.2 LeaseWeb shall be entitled to erase and delete any and all data of Customer -and any
and all data of Customer

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: @"PaulT", compulsive yapper.

Anonymous Coward — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 08:19:44 PDT

Really? What do you get paid?

Re: Oh, I doubt the mythical exculpatory evidence!

Anonymous Coward — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 08:19:36 PDT

A judge may very well find in Kim's favor because of the destruction of evidence. The dog may be presumed innocent, the government wouldn't be granted that same leeway.

Anonymous Coward — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 08:18:54 PDT

Were the DOJ thinking that they would never get Kim to trial, and so they set out to do as much damage as possible to Megaupload. Letting the servers be wiped certainly makes restarting the business more difficult and discourages use of similar services for legal content distribution.

Re:

jackn — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 08:18:34 PDT

from the gov (not for)

Re: Re: That's nice, but WE live in terminally predatory capitalism.

Anonymous Coward — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 08:18:28 PDT

This is a common theme in many corners of the internet, capitalism has been co-opted to mean crony capitalism. Then it's used to argue against things that would reduce some of the cronyism. It's maddening.

Re: Oh, I doubt the mythical exculpatory evidence!

Anonymous Coward — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 08:17:25 PDT

"If Dotcom is so darned eager to prove his innocence"

He doesn't have to. The DOJ needs to prove his guilt.

Failed basic civics, did you?

jackn — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 08:17:23 PDT

You're correct, the DOJ probably wont get away with the dog at my homework.

Actually, dotcom will come out of this pretty well. Ill bet he get a few million for the US gov before this is over.

Generally, its up to the gov to prove guilt. They aint doing so well in that regard.

Re: Oh, I doubt the mythical exculpatory evidence!

Anonymous Coward — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 08:17:14 PDT

Losing the extradition trial would be a huge blow to the US case even if he DID come here.

Secondly, it doesnt matter, due process, following the law properly requires that evidence NOT be destroyed. Innocent people have gone to jail because they thought if they destroyed things they thought were evidence they wouldn't be found guilty.

Evidence was in DOJs hands and now it's destroyed.

You can't have a trial based on that kind of thing.

Re: Oh, I doubt the mythical exculpatory evidence!

Anonymous Coward — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 08:16:58 PDT

You mean "fair", right?

Oh, I doubt the mythical exculpatory evidence!

out_of_the_blue — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 08:13:16 PDT

In any case, you can't rely on "dog ate my homework".

But so long as keeps Mike's hope alive that Dotcom won't be prosecuted for OBVIOUS crimes, it makes Techdirt fare.

If Dotcom is so darned eager to prove his innocence, he can hop on a plane for the US and get it over with.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: @"PaulT", compulsive yapper.

Dark Helmet — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 08:13:12 PDT

"Judging by his other comments in this thread, I assume he's talking about you guys who write the articles for the site."

Well, then he isn't just an idiot, he's absolutely factually incorrect as well....

Re: Re: Re: @"PaulT", compulsive yapper.

Leigh Beadon — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 08:10:56 PDT

And since Mike is clearly a huge hypocrite on this topic, thinks laws against unpaid interns are silly while HE blithely exploits the minions

Well, for one thing, that's not true -- but, er, even if it were, how would that be hypocritical? Wouldn't it, in fact, be perfectly consistent?

Re: Re: Re: Nothing to see here

Anonymous Coward — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 08:07:24 PDT

Ooo look. Tecdirt is kerned…

monospaced type

Classification is outdated

Kevin L — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 08:05:19 PDT

One commonality between Snowden and Manning was they both had access to IT infrastructure where classified material was sent in the open. If the DoD were serious about secrets, they would develop their own Linux variant with strong, default end-to-end encryption using the already-existing PKI that covers almost every government employee. That would make it much harder for system admins to see documents they have no "need to know." It might also reduce their reliance on extraordinarily expensive encryption hardware, which of course might not be palatable to those defense contractors.

Re: Question

Anonymous Coward — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 08:05:15 PDT

That is just the environment that the rich and famous wish to have photography banned, this is where they indulge in questionable behavior in their own home that they do not want plastered over the press.