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Megaupload programmer goes to prison for one year

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Re: Megaupload programmer goes to prison for one year

#101

Post by BlueAndroid »

kamjam wrote: post #84
BlueAndroid wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in Law Enforcement, so feel to disregard my opinion as biased , however, 75% of my work relates to child exploitation material, and an enormous amount of child abuse material disappeared from easy access when mega-upload went down. I used to find computers with lists and lists of megaupload urls. When that method died out a little beacon of happy shone for me. Now I understand that free movies trumps removing…

Whilst CP is a horrible thing, and we all thank you for the amazing work you are doing (genuinely, no sarcasm intended), your view does seem extremely biased. If the intention was to go after CP then if that was stated as the reason for closing MU then no one would have batted an eyed and everyone would have got a pat on the back. Of course, Hollywood really doesn't give a sh*t about CP, and the CP is just a side eff…

I know the intention was not to go for CEM. If it was they wouldn't have told anyone, they would have just snaffled the servers and brought the hammer down on the admin and slurped IP/user details for a couple of days. For examples see darknet sites that have been put in the hands of law enforcement recently.

Yeh, they should sort the business model. I'm not in favor of actions that perpetuate ignoring the rule of law. If a rule is bad, change it, don't just ignore it being broken. It breeds corruption on both sides. See prostitution and most forms of prohibition

Think about it this way- would you prefer street racers did their thing and broke laws (yes I have a bit of OCD like a lot of folks in tech- mine includes the Criminal Code) in public where the law is..flouted.. or had to go out of their way, to somewhere only those who want to engage in that activity go.

The biggest issue I see is that legitimate tools for protest are being subverted, perhaps by a majority, based on traffic analysis of TOR by Standford.

Re: Megaupload programmer goes to prison for one year

#102

Post by blowski »

tomp wrote: post #100
rtpg wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Megaupload was not your plausible deniability-sort of file upload service. There is loads of evidence of the Megaupload team getting a bunch of copyrighted content and putting it up there. The team themselves. Can't really hide behind safe harbor with that. If I were handing out burned DVDs of movies to people, I'd probably get arrested too (even if selling DVD burning equipment would be fine).

That has nothing to do with my post. I just said that the damage Madoff did was an order of magnitude worse than what Mega did.

And Madoff received a prison sentence that was greater by an order of magnitude. Nomm got 1 year, Madoff got 150.

Re: Megaupload programmer goes to prison for one year

#103

Post by guard-of-terra »

tzs wrote: post #77
guard-of-terra wrote: post #58

That's Iran-grade justice. "Let's persecute a random programmer that touched thing we really dislike".

He was Megaupload's head of software development, which is a bit more than just "a random programmer that touched thing".

This is another way of saying "he was a naughty boy". Yes he was, and no, you can't imprison someone for that.

He downloaded some illegal files, he was a head of development and not just a developer, he saw some scare banners on content - all that facts help you sell a story to newspaper reader but for court it's all tangential.

Re: Megaupload programmer goes to prison for one year

#104

Post by stingraycharles »

draugadrotten wrote: post #39
chii wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why would anyone waive the hearing (presumably, where you would argue that you shouldn't be extradited)?

Plea bargains. A promise of 1 year in low sec prison vs the risk of getting a life sentence in solitary. It's similar to what was done to witches in medieval times: "Confess, and we will kill you gently, or be sentenced and be burned alive."

I would like to go a little off-topic and explain a common misconception about the medieval times: it was usually "confess and you will get a light punishment, or otherwise we will do something really bad to you, and if you're innocent the lord will save you". This is actually a fairly interesting game theory: people that truely believed they were innocent, believed the lord would save them.

As such, it was usually only the innocent people that went through the trial-by-god process, and very often the priest conducting the trial rigged the process, and very few people were actually killed in the process.

Re: Megaupload programmer goes to prison for one year

#105

Post by Coding_Cat »

fafner wrote: post #99
jepper wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The United States can request an extradition for crimes committed by an individual(as argued under the US law). However this does not mean that the Netherlands has to comply. If a Dutch person committed a crime in the Netherlands according to the US, but its legal here, he/she will NOT be extradited. The same is true if the punishment is unreasonably severe according to Dutch law (death penalty.). For the latter ther…

The Netherlands doesn't has to comply and she might offer special protection to her citizens. But as soon as the person leaves the Netherlands the protection is gone. E.g., making a shopping trip to Belgium or Germany and suddenly getting arrested there.

Not completely. For example, the Dutch government will often bargain for the freedom/extradition of their citizens if they are arrested in a foreign country for breaking their law, and the punishment is considered excessive/immoral. E.g. the Death penalty for drug trafficking.

Of course, they won't send in the fleet to come and free you, so their bargaining power is limited but it has had its successes in the past.

Re: Megaupload programmer goes to prison for one year

#106

Post by ptaipale »

fafner wrote: post #99
jepper wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The United States can request an extradition for crimes committed by an individual(as argued under the US law). However this does not mean that the Netherlands has to comply. If a Dutch person committed a crime in the Netherlands according to the US, but its legal here, he/she will NOT be extradited. The same is true if the punishment is unreasonably severe according to Dutch law (death penalty.). For the latter ther…

The Netherlands doesn't has to comply and she might offer special protection to her citizens. But as soon as the person leaves the Netherlands the protection is gone. E.g., making a shopping trip to Belgium or Germany and suddenly getting arrested there.

However, Belgium and Germany offer similar protection, not just to their own citizens but also to those visiting from Netherlands (and from other EU/EEA countries). As do other EU/EEA countries.

I think this protection may even go too far, as in the case of Roman Polanski who continues to evade a quite reasonable-looking extradition request on a child rape conviction.

Re: Megaupload programmer goes to prison for one year

#107

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

BlueAndroid wrote: post #95
fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your gross simplification of the issue to "free movies vs raping children" is a straw-man. That kind of patronizing condescension may work on morons, but there are those who have given careful consideration to the issue and decided that despite the negative aspects of free speech and the rule of law, that free speech is in fact more important than catching file-sharers of any kind, and that your ends-justifies-the-me…

The depressing reality is that I'm confronting the reality of the hands on abuse on a day to day basis. That's my world. If your's doesn't have that, lucky you. I don't feel good about it in the slightest. But thanks for letting me vent that :) I'm not sure why free speech IS file sharing in your argument. Maybe freedom of intellectual property? You're also making assumptions about the law I operate under. I'm not in…

>The depressing reality is that I'm confronting the reality of the hands on abuse on a day to day basis. That's my world. If your's doesn't have that, lucky you.

Yeah, I get it, you're a dedicated do-gooder and people don't stroke your ego often enough. You're a legend in your own mind.

>I'm not sure why free speech IS file sharing in your argument.

"file sharing" or 'freeloaders watching movies without paying' is a minor consequence of free speech on the internet.

>You're also making assumptions about the law I operate under.

Your rhetoric falls within what I would classify as typical American scaremongering. TBH, if you're going to make these kinds of posts in a thread about the US DOJ's crowing about their success defending private industry's profit goals; I don't think it matters much.

Re: Megaupload programmer goes to prison for one year

#108

Post by BlueAndroid »

kaoD wrote: post #82
tzs wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Uh, oh. Lets hope that programmers at Google and Dropbox don't find themselves in prison for knowingly developing web applications that people are using for infringing content. This is ridiculous. Neither Google nor Dropbox was set up with the intent of aiding copyright infringement. Neither Google nor Dropbox based their business model on aiding copyright infringement. The comparison is invalid. > As a developer t…

To be fair, Megaupload didn't explicitly condone copyright infringement, and if I recall correctly infringing files were removed. Are my memories flawed and Megaupload ignored the copyright infringement notices, or is Megaupload the fall guy to scare everyone else?

I've never done a copyright case in my life and intend to keep it that way but Mega had a rewards program where you got money for uploading content that people downloaded. A bounty program for fresh, new, just-released-at-the-box-office movies. Let's not rose tint the past. They had internal emails discussing how to get more movies closer to the release dates. It was pretty blatant. The compliance with take-down didn't even remove things from the server, just the link the copyright owner noticed..

Maybe I should call the copyright owner something else that fits HN, induces more sympathy... Intellectual Property Doyen? Post Marketing Profit Retrieval Specialist? VP of Marketshare and Ongoing Growth? Capital Return Scout? Nah can't keep a straight face, "Dude with the Creatives on a leash"

Re: Megaupload programmer goes to prison for one year

#109

Post by andrewksl »

coldtea wrote: post #64
andrewksl wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are situations in which it is right to send people to prison without them posing an active and dangerous threat Do these situations exist only when we consider punishment a valid reason for imprisonment? Don't get me wrong; Bernie Madoff being free and enjoying life wouldn't sit right with me, but you have to wonder if locking people away as retribution really benefits tax-paying, law-abiding citizens.

> but you have to wonder if locking people away as retribution really benefits tax-paying, law-abiding citizens Well, we should also consider if it's benefiting or humane to the people we lock away. It's not like "tax-paying, law-abiding citizens" are more human than those that end up in jail.

Without a doubt, unless we're making the argument that punishment benefits the punished somehow. I should probably have made mention of rehabilitation to contrast.

Re: Megaupload programmer goes to prison for one year

#110

Post by innguest »

aw3c2 wrote: post #62
easytiger wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also imprisoning people who are not a danger to society in any way shape or form is very modern American. And socially destructive.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-imprisoners-dilemma/ has this creepy chart https://espnfivethirtyeight.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/roed...

It started to go up right after the dollar being unpegged from gold. Crime going up could be related, in this case, to jobs being lost as the currency goes haywire everywhere. See this very convincing chart for instance, where it is clear job reallocation was going on full-force: http://www.edmundconway.com/2015/02/the-worst-goods-trade-ba...
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