"There's a chance that after four years Megaupload users may be reunited with their lost files. U.S. District Court Judge Liam O'Grady has asked several stakeholders to chime in on the possible return of the Megaupload servers, which also holds crucial evidence for Kim Dotcom's defense."
Nearly four years have passed since Megaupload's servers were raided by U.S. authorities. Since then very little progress has been made in the criminal case.
Kim Dotcom and his Megaupload colleagues are currently awaiting the result of their extradition hearing in New Zealand and have yet to formally appear in a U.S. court.
Meanwhile, more than 1,000 Megaupload servers from Carpathia Hosting remain in storage in Virginia, some of which contain crucial evidence as well as valuable files uploaded by users. The question is, for how long.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by TrumpetPower! on Sunday November 08 2015, @04:48PM
So, imagine you go to your local you-store-it low-cost storage rental facility and dump a bunch of boxes there that've been taking up room in your closet that you should probably get rid of but can't quite bring yourself to let go of. Maybe you've got a bunch of photo albums of family vacations, love letters between your great grandparents, that sort of thing. You put the stuff in the stall, lock the door with your own padlock, go home and mostly forget about the stuff.
The next week, you read the news to discover that there's been a drug raid on the facility and the cops have seized everything on the lot and put it in their own impound. The cops claim it was run by the Mafia and therefore no legitimate business could possibly have been conducted there.
...but all you knew about the place was that it was somewhere offering to keep your stuff safe for a while until you figured out what to do with it.
That the police can even think about running an operation like that is simply inexcusable and unconscionable. That they can get away with it for years? And not suffer any ill consequences for doing so?
Where's the justice, the due process...the rule of law?
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Nerdfest on Sunday November 08 2015, @05:42PM
In the US? It's pretty much a police state now, run by a variety or large multi-national corporations.
(Score: 2) by Mr Big in the Pants on Sunday November 08 2015, @07:37PM
"Where's the justice, the due process...the rule of law?"
Ask Edward Snowden et al.
Justice is just a word for a vague artificial concept we invented. Interpretations vary wildly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 08 2015, @08:19PM
Couldn't agree more. What these fuckers should at most be debating is whether they have a right to retain a copy of the data....
Thousands upon thousands of law abiding people got separated from their valuable data! Infuckingexcusable.
(Score: 3, Informative) by choose another one on Monday November 09 2015, @11:48AM
The police in London did an operation exactly as you describe on safety deposit boxes - http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/operation-rize-the-inside-story-on-the-mets-biggest-ever-sting-6390281.html [standard.co.uk]
The justice due process and rule of law is buried in various legislation which means that, at your own non-refundable legal cost, you have to prove the stuff in your safety deposit box is yours, otherwise it is _assumed_ to be proceeds of crime and is seized. The police can then claim that 90% of box contents were from criminal activity, despite not actually charging (let alone convicting) 90% of owners with a crime.
See, so often we think the online world is so very different, and "they wouldn't do that in the real world", but it turns out it's exactly the same, and they would, and have.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by looorg on Sunday November 08 2015, @04:59PM
Great News! Soon we'll have access to all that, weird, porn from four years ago and all them .rar files for the almost latest warez someone shared or those almost eradicated virus and keyloggers we thought was a thing of the past. It will almost be like opening in a time capsule to 2011.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 08 2015, @04:59PM
Perhaps it's the tinfoil in my DNA but I wouldn't ever trust files that had been seized by the government. I certainly wouldn't trust the server hosting them. Is the government going to scrub everything to remove infringing material? If they don't -- and return "stolen" content -- then what precedent does that set?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tibman on Sunday November 08 2015, @06:23PM
Kim probably doesn't need lessons in paranoia : )
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Sunday November 08 2015, @09:04PM
That's one reason why you should keep a list of checksums for all your important files and then keep the list separate from the files. Yes, it's possible to replace files maliciously with some checksums, but if you choose an appropriate one it gets to be rather unlikely for anybody to succeed at that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 08 2015, @11:54PM
It would set a precedent that we don't value stealing people's real property to protect monopolies over ideas to the point where even non-infringing data is held hostage.
Why the fuck would *anyone* care if infringing data is returned?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 09 2015, @12:59AM
If some portion of the files are indeed pirated and the government returns them, that would be like the cops returning contraband to someone. It simply makes no sense...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 09 2015, @02:35AM
Part of the reason Megaupload got into trouble was deduplication.
Megapuload has now way of knowing what copies are infringing. That is why they did not actually delete tyhe content when hit with a DMCA take-down request. For example, the original copyright owner may be using Meagupload to store their work. Or, people may be keeping a copy on megaupload for personal study: considered fair dealing under Canadian law.
The implication is that the police similarly have no way of knowing which copies are actually infringing or not. That is probably one reason the prosecution has gone nowhere.