MegaUpload fiasco devolves further into chaos & entropy

[Vito]

Kim Dotcom: Petabytes of MegaUpload users' data has been destroyed

I won't make any judgment as to Mr. Dotcom's guilt or innocence in the ongoing Federal action against his company (...although I suspect that a great number of political strings have been pulled in making him a target). But if it's true that the web hosting company (the Netherlands-based LeaseWeb) to which his users' data was entrusted destroyed that data without any warning, it's an utterly reprehensible act of outright vandalism.

LeaseWeb's position is a vacuum; so far they haven't responded to requests for their side of the story...although the article linked above says...

Dotcom also says that after the 2012 seizure LeaseWeb never returned his calls, but that now they're telling him that "We informed Megaupload about our plans to start using the servers again but no reply from them." His response: "Who believes this crap?"

If the destroyed data was indeed evidence that Mr. Dotcom intended to use in his defense, it would seem that LeaseWeb is guilty of destroying evidence. I guess they fact that they're not a U.S. company exempts them from prosecution, but sheesh...what a train wreck of a case the whole MegaUpload thang has been, and it just got worse. :x

:joker:

 

[Anonymous]

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[Andy Lowry]

He'd stopped paying for the storage, so what else were they supposed to do?

 

[Anonymous]

He'd stopped paying for the storage, so what else were they supposed to do?

Seems a simplistic view, Andy.  Funds were seized and not returned.  The court's view was that it was an illegal seizure.  The U.S. government isn't cooperating with the NZ court's order.  It is a real mess that our government is very involved in.  If you looked at the video, it seems pretty clear what special interests are being served.

 

[Vito]

He'd stopped paying for the storage, so what else were they supposed to do?

...er, for starters, Andy, how about providing him with confirmed notification that they were about to eradicate data they did not own, and giving him a chance to arrange for alternative storage?

LeaseWeb claims they notified him. He claims they didn't. He has responded to inquiries since the disclosure that the data base was deleted. They haven't. Do you know what the truth is? I don't, but I'm not prejudiced enough to presume Mr. Dotcom is guilty before he has his day in court. I'm not saying you are either, but your apparent presumption that LeaseWeb had no other alternative doesn't seem like the most reasonable place to come down.

We're talking about an extremely controversial case wherein the accused claims not to have done the harm he's alleged to have done, and has consistently asserted that a full revelation of all the facts will demonstrate his innocence. Whether or not he's telling the truth, there can never be a full revelation of the facts now that LeaseWeb has summarily destroyed part of the evidence.

And that's another part of this whole deal that stinks. The Feds have frozen all of Mr. Dotcom’s assets, and according to the video posted by JKenP, they will not allow him to use any of those assets to pay for his legal defense. That extends to his ability to pay for storage of data that has been forced into a similar limbo.

If LeaseWeb did not provide Mr. Dotcom with proper notification, I can’t respect their action. You ask , "...so what else were they supposed to do?" I've given you one answer, but I would pose the same question to you about Mr. Dotcom's position. He has no ability to pay for the storage—a condition that has been imposed upon him via legalized coercion. What was he supposed to do? What would you do if you were in his position?

You may consider those rhetorical questions…or at least moot ones, at this point. We'll certainly never get the chance to find out what Mr. Dotcom would have done. LeaseWeb's unilateral destruction of the data seems to have pretty well taken care of that.

I am utterly opposed to piracy. I create ideas for a living, and I know exactly what it's like to have assclowns with no self-esteem, no intellectual honesty, and no integrity value my work enough to steal it but not enough to pay for it. No matter how you cut it, it’s theft, and they’re thieves. I don't steal other people's ideas, and I don't respect anyone who does, nor do I approve of anyone who acts as a middleman for the trafficking of such contraband. I don’t know whether Kim Dotcom is guilty or innocent of the allegations against him. But the more I learn about the case, the more inclined I am to suspect that he has been railroaded by an incompetent and ill-conceived attempt to make a political example of him, not to serve anything like actual justice.

:joker:

 

[Andy Lowry]

If I stop paying for my storage unit, regardless of whether my assets have been seized, I will lose what is in that storage unit. If my hard drive fails and I don't have a backup, that's not Seagate's fault. That's my fault. Mr. D has been in tech businesses for a long time-- he's never heard of offsite backups and mirroring?

That said, I have no illusions about how much bullying behavior my government engages in on the behest of its corporate sponsors.