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Kim Dotcom's extradition to the U.S. given green light by New Zealand

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Re: Kim Dotcom's extradition to the U.S. given green light by New Zealand

#841

Post by mjt91 »

shafyy wrote: post #830
preaching5271 wrote: post #24

I appreciate Kim Dotcom for running MegaUpload and later Mega, in a time when the internet was younger and wilder. Also for his pirate spirit and "stick it to the man" attitude. But everything has a limit, specifically his resistance against the law, even if he hid it behind virtues. I think it's clear for everybody that one cannot get away with this kind of stuff, once governments get involved. Isn't it wiser to sto…

I don't know, Kim Dotcom's Wikipedia page reads like the one of sociopath criminal that masquerades as a fighter of the people against "the man". But the dude has done some real illegal shit, beyond "just" illegal file sharing. Some examples, but go read his Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Dotcom > Schmitz was arrested in March 1994 for selling stolen phone numbers and held in custody for a month. H…

>In 2001, Schmitz bought €375,000 worth of shares of the nearly bankrupt company Letsbuyit.com and subsequently announced his intention to invest €50 million in the company.The announcement caused the share value of Letsbuyit.com to jump,resulting in a €1.5 million profit for Schmitz.

This is just _dumb money_. Also I dont see how this is different to many crypto marketeers today.

Re: Kim Dotcom's extradition to the U.S. given green light by New Zealand

#842

Post by Blot2882 »

harperlee wrote: post #722
sergiogjr wrote: post #715

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that can be applied consistently. Would you say the same about heads of drug cartels or human trafficking rings (not equating these to Kim, as I'm sure you understand)?

I think you should build your argument a little bit more. I’d say, why not say that also for drug cartels? The only reasonable argument that comes to my mind is that some big cartel head might have local government influence, but that does not apply to Kim and New Zealand, right? Another possible argument would be that the damage has been done elsewhere. But in the case of the dtug cartel, if there are victims in 20…

> if there are victims in 20 countries that why would any third party have priority for enforcing their law

That's not really relevant. No one is arguing priority. "Priority" implies there's 20 countries fighting to prosecute someone and we need to resolve it. In this case, it was a cooperation between multiple countries who agreed someone needed to be prosecuted, regardless of which country did it.

Re: Kim Dotcom's extradition to the U.S. given green light by New Zealand

#843

Post by x-yl »

philistine wrote: post #785
oceanplexian wrote: post #732

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't it wiser to stop at some point, and find other stuff to do, even if all your nerves say otherwise? The problem is that government doesn’t have a line, that line is defined by the resistance it faces. Today it might be people sharing MP3s, tomorrow they will come after you for hosting a parody of mickey mouse. 10 years from now they’ll be busting down doors for sharing illegal memes (Seems to already be the ca…

> (Seems to already be the case in the UK) [Citation needed]

I take it it's in reference to the convictions of those inciting violence on social media following the recent far-right riots in England.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/aug/09/two...

I suppose in a way advocating for arson and hate crimes is an "illegal meme"..

Re: Kim Dotcom's extradition to the U.S. given green light by New Zealand

#844

Post by HeadlessChild »

_the_inflator wrote: post #12

This Kim dude. Neverending story. Amiga (never heard of him during my scene time), then his alleged mobile ISDN service, MEGA. He seemed like the shady poster child for every trend who got stopped before jumping once more publicly on Crypto.

He were at the top of the leader boards in Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 too.

[0] https://venturebeat.com/games/kim-dotcom-modern-warfare-3/

Re: Kim Dotcom's extradition to the U.S. given green light by New Zealand

#846

Post by bulbosaur123 »

preaching5271 wrote: post #24

I appreciate Kim Dotcom for running MegaUpload and later Mega, in a time when the internet was younger and wilder. Also for his pirate spirit and "stick it to the man" attitude. But everything has a limit, specifically his resistance against the law, even if he hid it behind virtues. I think it's clear for everybody that one cannot get away with this kind of stuff, once governments get involved. Isn't it wiser to sto…

> I think it's clear for everybody that one cannot get away with this kind of stuff, once governments get involved.

Russia or China wouldn't have extradited him.

Also, he'd probably live a peaceful, wonderful life had he not flexed and talked shit on Twitter so much.

Re: Kim Dotcom's extradition to the U.S. given green light by New Zealand

#847

Post by andai »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #295
andai wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Mega (sorry: MEGA), not Megaupload, in this specific case. (the opposite to the case this article is about)

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.

Re: Kim Dotcom's extradition to the U.S. given green light by New Zealand

#848

Post by TomWhitwell »

rustcleaner wrote: post #797
oceanplexian wrote: post #732

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't it wiser to stop at some point, and find other stuff to do, even if all your nerves say otherwise? The problem is that government doesn’t have a line, that line is defined by the resistance it faces. Today it might be people sharing MP3s, tomorrow they will come after you for hosting a parody of mickey mouse. 10 years from now they’ll be busting down doors for sharing illegal memes (Seems to already be the ca…

To add: you know with the stable-diffusion function, there are ranges of vectors whereby technically just conjuring them is 15 years federal and possessing them is 5 each. That is 20-25% of a lifetime in one, 7.5% in the other! You know how nuts that sounds to me as a mathematician?!

Same thing happens in chemistry: some compounds are legal, some aren't. If you come up with a clever way to synthesise the illegal thing, it's still illegal, or will be made illegal eventually.

Re: Kim Dotcom's extradition to the U.S. given green light by New Zealand

#849

Post by djur »

mjt91 wrote: post #841
shafyy wrote: post #830

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, Kim Dotcom's Wikipedia page reads like the one of sociopath criminal that masquerades as a fighter of the people against "the man". But the dude has done some real illegal shit, beyond "just" illegal file sharing. Some examples, but go read his Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Dotcom > Schmitz was arrested in March 1994 for selling stolen phone numbers and held in custody for a month. H…

>In 2001, Schmitz bought €375,000 worth of shares of the nearly bankrupt company Letsbuyit.com and subsequently announced his intention to invest €50 million in the company.The announcement caused the share value of Letsbuyit.com to jump,resulting in a €1.5 million profit for Schmitz. This is just _dumb money_. Also I dont see how this is different to many crypto marketeers today.

It's insider trading. I'm not sure if you're trying to defend him by comparing him to other con artists?

Re: Kim Dotcom's extradition to the U.S. given green light by New Zealand

#850

Post by akoboldfrying »

jfyi wrote: post #693
akoboldfrying wrote: post #683

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Comparing X to Y feels gross [therefore don't do it]" is a gross argument. This type of argument never yields insight, and only serves to draw attention away from the interesting and relevant question being asked, which in this case is: The top-level poster appears to be proposing a general rule for how people should behave. But how suitable is it really? The way to explore that is to test it out by trying other inp…

To be fair, the person you are replying to didn't use the argument you are describing. They stated it felt gross and then went into detail of the actual argument: > He was a commercial opportunist, not a real activist or whistleblower. That is noticeably different than stating, "it feels gross so don't do it".

What you're calling their "actual argument" is also a bad argument. The original proposed rule (which amounts to "Don't do stuff if someone powerful can likely punish you for it") doesn't distinguish between commercial opportunists and real activists or whistleblowers, so their "actual argument" is spurious.

It also seems designed to shut down criticism of the original proposed rule -- or at least that's the only interpretation I can ascribe to it. This is bad because that original proposed rule is bad (in my opinion) and deserves criticism. Ihe best kind of criticism of any rule is "Let's try this other input, and see if you still agree with the conclusion".

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