Kenneth Michaels 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: LeaseWeb Deletes Megaupload's Servers Without Warning, Destroying Key Evidence

    Kenneth Michaels ( profile ), 19 Jun, 2013 @ 09:22am

    The DOJ wants to lose this extradition case

    The DOJ does not want their criminal-law theory to be tested in US court, so they want to lose the extradition case in NZ. That way they can continue to use the wrong theory of criminal law to prosecute other providers.

    The idea from the beginning was to seize Kim's assets to prevent him from defending himself - and he would plea out (again not testing the legal theory in court). Once Kim was able to defend himself, they had to sabotage the case, again to prevent the theory from being tested in court.

  • On the post: Kim Dotcom Threatens To Sue Google, Facebook And Twitter Over 2-Factor Authentication Patent If They Don't Help Him

    Kenneth Michaels ( profile ), 23 May, 2013 @ 08:32am

    Dotcom Can't sue

    Well, Dotcom can sue, but the moment a defendant is ordered to pay, the DOJ would step in and order seizure of the proceeds. All Dotcom can do is sell full interest in the patent to a bona fide buyer at arms length - and in a foreign country.

    That is why Dotcom has asked for anyone who is interested in buying the patents to contact him.

  • On the post: Somewhere Everywhere, Big Brother Is Smiling: Congress Sells Your Privacy For A Cool $84 Million

    Kenneth Michaels ( profile ), 22 Apr, 2013 @ 10:01am

    White House or Congress?

    The author stated: "two hundred IBM executives visited the White House". I think the author intended to say that IBM executives visited the "Capitol Building" or "Congress", not the White House.

  • On the post: It's Finally Over: 8 Years Of Mattel vs. Bratz And No One's Getting Paid But The Lawyers

    Kenneth Michaels ( profile ), 29 Jan, 2013 @ 04:58am

    Lawyers don't get the money

    The lawyers already got paid by their client. The attorney fee "reward" goes to MGA to reimburse it for the reasonable legal fees it already paid. It restores MGA to the position it should be in, as though the frivolous suit had never been filed. Lawyers don't get paid twice.

  • On the post: Aaron Swartz Unlikely To Face Jail Or Conviction… Until Feds Decided To 'Send A Message'

    Kenneth Michaels ( profile ), 26 Jan, 2013 @ 01:36pm

    IMPORTANT

    Because the prosecution of Swartz was discretionary, it is important to send a message to the prosecutors. That is why the White House petition actually MATTERS in this case. The prosecutors won't be so crazy in the future if they think they will piss off the internet. SIGN THIS PETITION:

    https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/fire-assistant-us-attorney-steve-heymann/RJKSY2nb

    Although the petition to fire Ortiz has passed the threshold, the petition to fire Heymann has 14.5k signatures to go. Come on!

  • On the post: Retired Federal Judge Criticizes Carmen Ortiz's Handling Of Aaron Swartz Case

    Kenneth Michaels ( profile ), 23 Jan, 2013 @ 05:48pm

    Re: Three Felonies a Day

    Prosecutorial discretion. You know those White House petitions? Well, they actually make a difference because no prosecutor wants to make a decision that will put him or her on a petition to be fired. That is why it is important to sign this White House petition to fire Steve Heymann:

    https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/fire-assistant-us-attorney-steve-heymann/RJKSY2nb

    This petition has stalled and we need your help. Please spread the word. If it doesn't get to the 25k mark (the older threshold), then we will send the wrong sign to the prosecutors.

  • On the post: Mega's Security Appears To Be Surprisingly Bad

    Kenneth Michaels ( profile ), 23 Jan, 2013 @ 12:29pm

    Re: Google Driving Piracy

    So, Mega.co.nz only works with Google's Chrome browser. Once again, we see that Google is driving piracy. Google is the parasitic piracy leader, stealing copyrighted works and serving them to the world against their ads.

  • On the post: Mega's Security Appears To Be Surprisingly Bad

    Kenneth Michaels ( profile ), 23 Jan, 2013 @ 12:23pm

    Not really, according to the DMCA

    This would be a clever use of the encryption, but it doesn't jive with the law.

    Pirates could decrypt/crack the content without violating the anti-circumvention portion of the DMCA. The DMCA defines ?effectively control[ing] access to a work? to be controlling access to a work with the authority of the copyright owner. So, the encryption added to a copyrighted work (not owned by Mega or the user) would not be with the authority of the copyright owner.

    On the other hand, the copyright owner can also decrpyt his own work without violating the anti-circumvention part of the DMCA. Also, the DMCA defines to ?circumvent a technological measure? to be to circumvent without the authority of the copyright owner. So, the copyright owner can always circumvent any DRM on his own work.

  • On the post: WikiLeaks Reveals Aaron Swartz May Have Been A Source: Wise Move?

    Kenneth Michaels ( profile ), 23 Jan, 2013 @ 11:02am

    Re: Down and further down

    Hear! Hear!

  • On the post: Aaron Swartz's Death Leads To Public Attention Towards Prosecutorial Overreach

    Kenneth Michaels ( profile ), 22 Jan, 2013 @ 12:19pm

    Petition to Fire U.S. Attorney Steve Heymann

    The petition to remove Steve Heymann still needs 15k signatures (the older 25k signature threshold applies to this petition). Please sign the petition here:

    https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/fire-assistant-us-attorney-steve-heymann/RJKSY2nb

    The petition to remove Ortiz already reached the 25k threshold.

  • On the post: WikiLeaks Reveals Aaron Swartz May Have Been A Source: Wise Move?

    Kenneth Michaels ( profile ), 22 Jan, 2013 @ 05:07pm

    Swartz, Assange & House & Harassment by Feds

    What I find interesting is that (1) Swartz was FOIAing information about Manning and by doing so mentioned David House; (2) David House has been harassed by the feds (because of his association with Manning's support network) at the border and currently has a federal action against the feds.

    So, if the Feds harassed House as much as they could, it only makes sense that they would also harass Swartz.

    Swartz's FOIA request: http://truth-out.org/news/item/13945
    David House's case: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120329/11143218297/court-suggests-politically-motivated-border-searches-may-be-unconstitutional.shtml

    The Feds harassed Swartz because of Manning and Assange

  • On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

    Kenneth Michaels ( profile ), 21 Jan, 2013 @ 06:13pm

    Re: Re: Mr. Applegate

    Mr. Applegate - thanks again for responding. I think we have actually reached agreement, but from a different side of the burden of the showing with respect to the superseding indictment. And the answer is that you and I don't know for sure how IP addresses are handed out at MIT. :-)

    The prosecution has the burden to show that Mr. Swartz broke the law with facts alleged in the indictment (whether they turn out to be true or not depends, but we assume they are all true for now). It appears that the "sidestepping" allegation was added for the basis for counts 3 and 8 - which carry lots of years in jail. If changing your IP address is automatic and par for the course at MIT, and it would happen automatically via DHCP, then it adds fuel to the fire that he was overcharged and bullied. If changing your IP address is not typical (as with your home router), then one could argue that he was a witch trying to circumvent the block.

    But the point is that the prosecution was in a position to know and figure out these details (you and I, not so much). Since they ADDED the allegation, was something new revealed in the investigation? Or did some attorney rewrite it so that it sounded worse and they could pile on? Comparing the original indictment with the superseding indictment, it sounds like an attorney rewrote it so they could allege more counts, without any real thought or new facts (bullying).

    Also, if Mr. Swartz changed his wireless MAC address on September 26, then the prosecution likely would have alleged that, but they didn't. So, although he changed is wireless MAC address some other day (I think in October, can't remember), he did not appear to have changed it on the 26th. (And, of course his wired MAC address is different than his wireless MAC address.)

    And, I have word from a good source that if you move from one building to another building at MIT on wireless your IP address will change. So, they at least allocate different blocks of addresses to different buildings.

  • On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

    Kenneth Michaels ( profile ), 21 Jan, 2013 @ 12:48pm

    MIT vs. JSTOR

    Just to avoid any other confusion, the IP address was blocked by JSTOR, but NOT MIT. MIT would later block the wireless MAC address to prevent an IP address from being assigned. JSTOR and MIT are two different entities with their own networks and networks staff.

  • On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

    Kenneth Michaels ( profile ), 21 Jan, 2013 @ 12:41pm

    Blocking Wired IP addresses

    JSTOR did not block the IP address of the wired network because at that point MIT decided that they wanted to catch the person who put the laptop in the closet.

  • On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

    Kenneth Michaels ( profile ), 21 Jan, 2013 @ 12:37pm

    Mr. Applegate

    Ah, Mr. Applegate, thank you for taking a look again at my posts. I didn't mean to indicate that your technical understanding was wrong, just that the facts in this case appear to be different than what you were assuming, and the analysis may be different. [I have some experience in this technical field too, by the way :-) but nobody is perfect.]

    From the expert's comments and the indictment, there was no NAT going on - even in the wireless network. NO NAT. The DHCP server assigned publicly routable, visible IP addresses to the wireless nodes. This is very unusual, yes, but that is what was going on.

    Thus, JSTOR (a remote network from MIT) could see Mr. Swartz's IP address (publicly routable), but not his wireless MAC address. JSTOR blocked Swartz's IP address on September 25, 2010, but could not block his MAC address because they simply didn't know it. The MAC address block didn't happen until September 27, 2010, presumably after JSTOR reported the IP addresses to MIT and MIT associated the IP addresses with a MAC address from their logs.

    But before the MAC address block, on September 26, 2010, Swartz is accused of "establishing" a new IP address to "sidestep" the IP address block by JSTOR. But this very likely would have happened automatically as a result of him simply reconnecting his laptop to the wireless network and being assigned a different IP address. (Given that the lease times of these publicly routable, IP addresses were likely short, he would have been given a different IP address.)

    Therefore, Swartz's "establishing" a new IP address had nothing to do with MAC address spoofing.

    Now, this is crazy, but it is especially crazy because this was a NEW COUNT and a NEW ALLEGATION in the superseding indictment to BULLY Swartz with 50 YEARS of PRISON. So, the US Attorney was basically making up bogus charges, with the indication that this was somehow circumventing a "code-based restriction" (legal term).

    You may have other comments, so I will post this and look for others.

  • On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

    Kenneth Michaels ( profile ), 21 Jan, 2013 @ 11:22am

    Mr. Applegate

    Please see my posts above.

  • On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

    Kenneth Michaels ( profile ), 21 Jan, 2013 @ 11:16am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: DHCP - the real criminal

    Ahhhhhh! Very frustrated that Mr. Applegate took the air out of my argument without understanding the way the MIT network was set up.

  • On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

    Kenneth Michaels ( profile ), 21 Jan, 2013 @ 11:13am

    Re: DHCP - the real criminal

    Please note the unusual setup of MIT's network. The DHCP network at MIT was issuing public IPv4 addresses. This is very unusual. This means that JSTOR's remote database computers could see Mr. Swartz's IP address, but NOT his MAC address. So, JSTOR blocked the IP address, not the MAC address

    Mr. Swartz then "reestablished" a new IP address, but this likely happened automatically because it was the NEXT day. After the new IP address was "caught," then they reported this to MIT who blocked the MAC address.

  • On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

    Kenneth Michaels ( profile ), 21 Jan, 2013 @ 11:05am

    Re: Re: Re: DHCP - the real criminal

    Mr. Applegate - see my post above. You got the alleged facts wrong. JSTOR blocked the IP address from downloading, it is not that the DHCP server was not assigning that IP address anymore.

    I really think I'm right on this one, as the facts are alleged in the indictment. Please read that.

  • On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

    Kenneth Michaels ( profile ), 21 Jan, 2013 @ 10:58am

    Re: Re: DHCP - the real criminal

    No, no, you have what happened wrong. The IP address was blocked by JSTOR, NOT MIT's DHCP server. MIT's DHCP server was issuing public IPv4 addresses that could be seen by JSTOR. JSTOR, on the other hand, could NOT see the MAC address (as it would have been dropped by the wireless router).

    MIT would later go to the logs (presumably) and associate the MAC address with the blocked IP address as reported by JSTOR. THEN MIT would block the MAC address.

    Read the superseding indictment.

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