Megaupload neergehaald door de FBI #4 Kim Jing Ping Ping

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Op woensdag 30 mei 2012 19:57 schreef wolfrolf het volgende:
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Fantastisch nieuws. Fuck die corrupte door de film en muziek industrie omgekochte Amerikaanse overheid.

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Op woensdag 30 mei 2012 20:00 schreef PiRANiA het volgende:

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Denk dat het doel downtime was. Megaupload is praktisch om zeep gehoplen op deze manier. Dat is ze mooi gelukt.

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Megaupload has no rights? US broke its own rules by going after Internet giant

More than four months after federal agents shut-down the file-sharing service Megaupload and ordered a raid on the New Zealand mansion of its founder Kim Dotcom, attorneys are asking a US court to dismiss the case against the website.

Ira Rothken, the California-based attorney of both Megaupload.com and Dotcom, is calling for a US federal court in Virginia to dismiss the criminal case against the website. According to Rothken, the website’s Fifth Amendment rights were violated when the FBI ordered for Megaupload to be taken off the Internet earlier this year. As a result of the agency’s demands, Megaupload’s servers were seized and millions of files uploaded to the website — including those owned by paying subscribers — were made unavailable and are still inaccessible today. Now Rothken says that the prosecutors in the case failed to guarantee due process for his clients and is asking the court to dismiss the charges. Since Megaupload was hosted overseas, argues the site’s attorney, the Department of Justice has acted improperly in its attempts to prosecute.

“Both prongs of the procedural due process test are plainly met here. The Government has seized Megaupload’s property and domain name, ruined its reputation and destroyed its business pursuant to an indictment which is fatally flawed as a jurisdictional matter. Megaupload now finds itself in a state of abeyance, with no end in sight,” writes Rothken in a newly released statement.

“As a result of the Government’s inability to properly serve the summons on Megaupload, this Court lacks jurisdiction over the company. In the absence of effective service of process, criminal proceedings against Megaupload cannot commence, and as the Court has aptly noted, we ‘frankly don’t know that we are ever going to have a trial in this matter’.”

Indeed, those were the words US District Court Judge Liam O'Grady had for the case in April, when the proceedings against Megaupload were already three months old yet grossly underdeveloped. Rothken condemned the court system at the time for failing to properly play by the rules by opening a case against Megaupload and Dotcom over copyright infringement and other related crimes by seizing the website without first bringing charges against it. Last month Judge O’Grady even warned the FBI that the trial was in jeopardy because the Justice Department jumped the gun on the case.

In an interview with Radio New Zealand last week, Rothken added, "We're optimistic that the case against Megaupload will be dismissed” and called the entire federal witch-hunt “flawed.”

"Megaupload is a Hong Kong corporation, it does not have an office in the United States and we're just asking the US to play by the rules," said Rothken. "One would think that they'd have done more legal research before filing this type of indictment against a foreign corporation."

Speaking to AFP, Rothken added, "The rules in this instance didn't allow a foreign corporation to be served and indicted as it has not have a presence in the US. We believe the law is clear in that issue, and we're asking the court to dismiss the case."

Dotcom, a German national, is currently under house-arrest in New Zealand. American prosecutors are hoping to extradite him for charges relating to his involvement with Megaupload though have been unable to do as much so far. A court hearing scheduled for the matter is slated for this August. In the meantime, though, his attorney says that the shortcuts that the US government tried to take in the case might very well cost the court a victory.

"This case was flawed from the start, once this case gets dismissed it can't be fixed,” Rothken added to the radio network.

Dotcom previously told the website Torrent Freak that he predicts he will prevail over America’s attempt at prosecuting him but that the government has already made their point.

“We have already been served a death sentence without trial and even if we are found ‘not guilty’ which we will, the damage can never be repaired,” said Dotcom.

Rothken adds this week, “Megaupload is thus deprived of any procedure to clear its name or recoup its property, in clear violation of its due process rights.”

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Op dinsdag 5 juni 2012 18:29 schreef wolfrolf het volgende:
Hhahaha

En met de naamsbekendheid die MU nu heeft, als ze de toko weer online zouden zetten... whooaaaa

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FBI Did Not Steal Megaupload Evidence Because It’s “Digital”?

In New Zealand Dotcom’s legal team continues the battle over data that was seized from his home.

Dotcom’s lawyer Mr. Akel argues that the FBI illegally copied data from his computers, to send it to the U.S.

“The first [copies] were sent without the New Zealand Police having any say in it whatsoever,” he said quoted by Stuff.

“If [they] went offshore without the consent of the attorney-general, it was an illegal act.”

However, according to Crown’s lawyer, no harm was done because the evidence in question is “not physical” and therefore not covered by the relevant legislation.

“[Information] may be the most valuable thing we have, but it is not scooped up by the act,” he said. “Nothing of the physical items have gone overseas and that was our undertaking.”

A strange but interesting argument, since the entire case against Megaupload is built on evidence that’s not physical.

Whether Judge Winkelmann will agree with this argument has yet to be seen.

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Op zondag 10 juni 2012 10:36 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

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Zie je wel, kopiëren en delen is geen stelen.

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Feds Tell Megaupload Users to Forget About Their Data

Federal authorities say they may shut down cloud-storage services without having to assist innocent customers in retrieving data lost in the process.

The government is making that argument in the case of Megaupload, the file-sharing service that was shuttered in January following federal criminal copyright-infringement indictments targeting its operators.

The Obama administration is telling an Ohio man seeking the return of his company’s high school sports footage that he should instead be suing Megaupload — even though the government seized Megaupload’s assets in January.

The filing (.pdf) comes as cloud-based storage services are becoming more and more popular — despite there being little clarity about what’s legal and what’s not — and who’s to blame if copyright infringement happens on a service. Even Apple announced enhancements Monday to its iCloud storage service.

Assisting former Megaupload customer Kyle Goodwin “would create a new and practically unlimited cause of action on behalf of any third party who can claim that the government’s execution of a search warrant adversely impacted a commercial relationship between the target of the search and the third party,” the authorities wrote the judge overseeing the prosecution.

As first reported by CNET, the government noted that Megaupload had 66.6 million users and that its seizure didn’t include the data O’Grady is seeking.

Though the authorities seized 25 petabytes of data, that was not all of Megaupload’s data. Megaupload rented more than 1,100 servers from hosting provider Carpathia — though the servers are of little use after the feds seized all of Megaupload’s domain names. The government says it doesn’t care what happens to the rest of the data, and has said Carpathia can erase it if it chooses.

“The government also does not oppose access by Kyle Goodwin to the 1,103 servers previously leased by Megaupload. But access is not the issue – if it was, Mr. Goodwin could simply hire a forensic expert to retrieve what he claims is his property and reimburse Carpathia for its associated costs,” the government wrote in a brief filing Friday. “The issue is that the process of identifying, copying, and returning Mr. Goodwin’s data will be inordinately expensive, and Mr. Goodwin wants the government, or Megaupload, or Carpathia, or anyone other than himself, to bear the cost.”

Goodwin is the owner of a startup called OhioSportsNet, which films and streams high school sports. He stored his copyrighted footage on the file-sharing network, and he has no backups as his hard drive crashed days before the government shuttered the site on Jan. 19. He is the only Megaupload customer to come forward in court seeking return of files.

But Goodwin’s lawyer, staff attorney Julie Samuels of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says the government’s methods of prosecution of online copyright infringement means there will be more Goodwins in the future.

“As more and more consumers move their data to the cloud, and as the government continues its campaign to seize whole websites without regard for third-party property residing on those sites, it’s clear that we need a better solution. We hope the court will help us get there,” said Samuels.

Megaupload allowed users to upload large files and share them with others, but the feds and Hollywood allege the service was used almost exclusively for sharing copyrighted material — which Megaupload denies.

The criminal prosecution of Megaupload targets seven individuals connected to the Hong Kong-based file-sharing site, including founder Kim Dotcom. They were indicted in January on a variety of charges, including criminal copyright infringement and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Five members of what the authorities called a 5-year-old “racketeering conspiracy,” including Dotcom, have been arrested in New Zealand and are pending possible extradition to the United States.

The government said the site, which generated hundreds of millions in user fees and advertising, facilitated copyright infringement of music, television programs, electronic books, business and entertainment software, and, perhaps most damningly, movies, often before their theatrical release. The government said Megaupload’s “estimated harm” to copyright holders was “well in excess of $500 million.”

Carpathia said it is spending $9,000 daily to retain the Megaupload data, and is demanding that Judge Liam O’Grady relieve it of that burden. Megaupload, meanwhile, wants the government to free up some of the millions in dollars of seized Megaupload assets to be released to pay Carpathia to retain the data for its defense and possibly to return data to its customers — a proposition which the government rejects.

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New site Megabox from Megaupload's Kim Dotcom

Megaupload owner Kim Dotcom has announced his plans to launch a new website, despite still being under arrest.

The 38-year-old tweeted an image of Megabox, a site he said would allow recording artists to sell music directly to fans.

It is not clear when the new website will be launched.

Mr Dotcom was arrested in January in New Zealand because, alleged the FBI, his site was being used for piracy.

Speaking about his new site, Mr Dotcom tweeted: "The major record labels thought Megabox is dead. Artists rejoice. It is coming and it will unchain you."

In an interview with bit torrent news site TorrentFreak.com last year, Mr Dotcom said the service would allow artists to keep 90% of earnings from their music.

Hearing set

Following his arrest, Mr Dotcom's assets were frozen and he has been placed under house arrest at his New Zealand mansion.

Prominent internet rights group the Electronic Frontiers Foundation (EFF) is taking the FBI to court over its handling of users' files, with a hearing set for 29 June.

It argues that users of the site have a right to access their files which were seized in raids prior to the arrest of Mr Dotcom and several of his team.

"We've asked the court to implement a procedure for all consumers, not just our client, to recover their data," the EFF told technology news site Ars Technica.

Among Mr Dotcom's tweets is a picture of himself with Steve Wozniak.

Mr Dotcom told TorrentFreak that the Apple co-founder was "totally supportive" of the efforts of the EFF.

The trial of Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom and the site's management team is due to start on 6 August.

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Op dinsdag 26 juni 2012 01:58 schreef capuchon_jongen het volgende:
20 – De FBI haalt de website Megaupload.com uit de lucht. Hackersgroep Anonymous reageert met een aanval op websites van Amerikaanse overheidinstellingen en de muziekindustrie.

Zalig gewoon hoe Anonymous de FBI terugpakt.

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Dotcom searches illegal: Judge

The High Court has ruled the police raid on internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom's Auckland mansion was illegal and the removal from New Zealand of cloned copies of hard drives seized was unlawful.

Justice Helen Winkelmann found the warrants used did not adequately describe the offences to which they were related.

"Indeed they fell well short of that. They were general warrants, and as such, are invalid.''

A spokesman for Dotcom's attorneys said Dotcom and his co-defendants were pleased.

"They are very happy with Justice Winkelmann's decision," wrote a representative for Simpson Grierson. "We are considering our clients' remedies as a result of the decision that the search warrants were unlawful and that the FBI sending the clones to the USA was also unlawful."

Police said they were considering the judgement and are in discussions with Crown Law to determine what further action might be required.

They would not make any comment until that process was complete.

Justice Winkelmann's judgement released a short time ago found the warrants were far too wide in terms of the scope of the search and the amount of items they gave police authority to seize.

"These categories of items were defined in such a way that they would inevitably capture within them both relevant and irrelevant material. The police acted on this authorisation. The warrants could not authorise seizure of irrelevant material, and are therefore invalid.''

The cloning of Dotcom's hard drives by the FBI, who took the copied disks back to the US was also ruled as invalid because Dotcom had never given consent.

The court ordered an independent lawyer to review everything seized in the raid to determine what is relevant to the investigation and what is not.

Relevant material is to be released to US authorities and everything else is be returned to Dotcom "forthwith''.

The decision followed a hearing at the High Court in Auckland last month.

Kim Dotcom cried in court as his lawyer spoke of how he was ``ripped from his family'' during a dawn raid by police at the request of US authorities.

Dotcom, who was arrested alongside three associates, had argued for copies of the data on 135 computers and hard drives seized when police raided his $30 million home in Coatesville.

His lawyer Paul Davison QC said his client's rights had been "subverted'' after cloned copies of the hard drives were taken overseas by the FBI without his lawyers knowing.

Mr Davison told the court he wrote to Crown lawyers in February to ask that none of the data from Dotcom's computers leave New Zealand.

Mr Davison said Crown lawyers responded, saying: "The evidence is required in its original form to be sent to the US. That has not happened and will not happen without prior warning.''

He said he was told the FBI had been in New Zealand and made clones of the data on the computers and one copy would be made available to him.

Mr Davison said he had yet to receive that copy and was only told today that copies had been sent to the US.

"There has been no approval for removal.''

Mr Davison also said there had been an "excess of authority''.

"Here is an example of what I would submit at the most moderate was high-handed and at the worst misleading.''

He said the process was "off the rails'' and his client's rights had been "subverted''.

Dotcom wiped tears from his eyes and left court as Mr Davison said his client had been "ripped from his family'' and was now before the court asking for the legitimacy of the police actions to be looked at.

Justice Helen Winkelmann said she wanted an affidavit from Crown lawyers that would clarify whether or not the Solicitor General gave police permission to allow copies of the data on Dotcom's computers to be taken to the US.

Crown lawyer Mike Ruffin said the original police search warrant, signed by a district court judge, made it clear that the computers and hard drives would be taken to the US.

He said a proposal by Dotcom to have a judicial review of the information was "not practical because of the volume of the data''.

Mr Ruffin said copies of Dotcom's computers and hard drives could not be handed over because investigators were not yet able to determine what is relevant to the case and what is not.

Dotcom faces an extradition hearing in August which will determine whether or not he is to fly to the US to face charges including copyright infringement and wire fraud relating to the file-sharing website Megaupload.

Prosecutors allege a "mega conspiracy''; Dotcom denies the charges and says his website was legitimate.

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Kim Dotcom declares: 'MEGA will return'

As Americans spent July 4 celebrating the anniversary of the United States’ independence from Britain, German-born Kim Dotcom was reveling in a re-birth. According to the founder of Megaupload, his file storage site will rise again.

In a tweet to his followers this week, the man behind the world’s most famous file-locker site — and one of the FBI’s biggest foes — hinted that Megaupload will be brought back to life.

“SOPA is dead. PIPA is dead. ACTA is dead. MEGA will return. Bigger. Better. Faster. Free of charge & shielded from attacks. Evolution!” reads a tweet from the official @KimDotcom Twitter account. Dotcom— born Kim Schmitz — is currently being targeted by international authorities over his role with the website, which American official say was the centerpiece in a vast online piracy conspiracy.

By masterminding the operations of Megaupload, the Federal Bureau of Investigations insists that Dotcom caused the American entertainment industry to lose $500 million in revenue. Law enforcement agents raided his home this past January in a highly publicized sting that has since been condemned by not just Dotcom and his supporters but even justices in New Zealand.

Commenting on the case last week, Justice Helen Winkelmann ruled that the warrants used during the January 20 raid were too vague and that authorities interpreted them so poorly that the future of the entire case is now uncertain. If Dotcom cannot be charged with a crime in New Zealand, the court could refuse an extradition to America, much to the chagrin of US authorities.

In addition to announcing plans to put Megaupload back online, Dotcom also commended the death of three Internet-linked bills that could have greatly crushed online freedoms around the world. In the five months since his home was raided, the Stop Online Piracy Act, the Protect IP Act and the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement have all encountered roadblocks that have rendered them dead.

“To all Megaupload users, let's all unite,” another message sent through his Twitter account on Friday reads. “It's time to fight back. Spread the tweet!”

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10 questions with Kim Dotcom

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I met Kim Dotcom at the taping of the final Media7 show at TVNZ. He answered one question, about whether he would stay in New Zealand in the event he won his extradition case ("It's too early to tell") and agreed to answer more by email - tweaking some of his responses after we spoke again yesterday (Friday). Kim was crook this week.

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Kim Dotcom staat uitlevering toe, mits hij bij zijn geld mag

De in Nieuw-Zeeland woonachtige internetondernemer Kim Dotcom wil best uitgeleverd worden aan de Verenigde Staten, mits hij weer kan beschikken over zijn banktegoeden. Ook wil hij de garantie op een eerlijk proces.

Dat zegt hij vandaag in de New Zealand Herald. Hij zegt er meteen bij dat hij niet denkt dat de Verenigde Staten akkoord gaan met zijn voorstel. 'Dat is omdat ze deze zaak niet kunnen winnen, en dat weten ze al.'

Gisteren werd bekend dat de behandeling van het uitleveringsverzoek door de Nieuw-Zeelandse rechter is verdaagd van augustus naar volgend jaar maart. De Verenigde Staten willen Dotcom en drie medeverdachten berechten vanwege onder meer internetpiraterij en het inbreuk maken op de copyrightwetgeving.

Dotcom is oprichter van de website Megaupload, waar gebruikers bestanden zoals films en muziek konden uitwisselen. De site werd in januari door de Amerikaanse federale dienst FBI op zwart gezet.

Dotcom beschuldigt de Amerikaanse overheid ervan hem door vertragingstactieken te willen uitputten. Omdat zijn tegoeden op last van justitie zijn bevroren, kan hij zijn advocatenrekeningen niet voldoen. Die lopen volgens hem intussen in de 'miljoenen dollars'.

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http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-18882756

The judge overseeing the Megaupload extradition case has stepped down after one of his comments caused his impartiality to be questioned.


Judge David Harvey described the US as the "enemy" while discussing copyright law, at a conference last week.

It attracted attention because he had been dealing with the US government's request that New Zealand hand over employees of the file-sharing site to face copyright and fraud charges.

The accused deny the allegations.

DVD row

Judge Harvey made the comment at the NetHui internet conference in Auckland on 12 July.

He had been taking part in a discussion about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) treaty - a proposed intellectual rights agreement involving the US and about a dozen other countries.

The judge had noted that at present it was legal for citizens in New Zealand to hack DVD region codes to watch disks designed to be restricted to other countries, adding that TPP would change this.

"Under TPP and the American Digital Millennium copyright provisions you will not be able to do that, that will be prohibited," he said.

"If you do you will be a criminal, that's what will happen.

"There are all sorts of ways this whole thing is being ramped up and if I could use Russell's tweet from earlier on - we have met the enemy and he is US."

The reference was a play on words adapting the quote "we have met the enemy and he is us".

News spreads

The news was reported by The National Business Review the same day, but only attracted controversy three days later when the New Zealand Herald published a report quoting local law professor Bill Hodge who said the comment could "be seen as probably an extra-judicial comment that isn't helpful".

The news was then picked up by other media including several US-based tech blogs.

The judge has ruled several times in Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom's favour, including restoring his internet access and ordering the US to hand over evidence gathered against the accused.

Judge Harvey's most recent involvement with the case was a week ago, when he delayed the extradition hearing from August until March next year to allow more time to resolve legal arguments.

A statement given by the chief district court judge of New Zealand, Jan-Marie Doogue, explained Judge Harvey's decision to remove himself from the case.

"He recognises that remarks made in the context of a paper he delivered on copyright law at a recent internet conference could reflect on his impartiality and that the appropriate response is for him to step down from the case," she said.

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Kim Dotcom's Letter to Hollywood

Dear Hollywood,

The Internet frightens you. But history has taught us that the greatest innovations were built on rejections. The VCR frightened you, but it ended up making billions of dollars in video sales.

You get so comfortable with your ways of doing business that any change is perceived as a threat. The problem is, we as a society don't have a choice: The law of human nature is to communicate more efficiently. And the economic benefits of high-speed Internet and unlimited cloud storage are so great that we need to plan for the day when the transfer of terabytes of data will be measured in seconds.

Businesses and individuals will keep looking for faster connectivity, more robust online storage and more privacy. Transferring large pieces of content over the Internet will become common -- not because global citizens are evil but because economic forces leading to "speed of light" data transfer and storage are so beneficial to societal growth.

Come on, guys, I am a computer nerd. I love Hollywood and movies. My whole life is like a movie.

I wouldn't be who I am if it wasn't for the mind-altering glimpse at the future in Star Wars. I am at the forefront of creating the cool stuff that will allow creative works to thrive in an Internet age. I have the solutions to your problems. I am not your enemy.

Providing "freemium" cloud storage to society is not a crime. What will Hollywood do when smartphones and tablets can wirelessly transfer a movie file within milliseconds?

The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. Instead of changing their views to fit the facts, they try to change the facts to fit their views. The fact remains that the benefits of Megaupload to society outweigh the burdens. But instead of adapting, you imported one of your action-conspiracy movie scripts into the real world. In my view, MPAA CEO and former Sen. Chris Dodd lobbied his friends in the White House to turn me into a villain who has to be destroyed. Due process? Rule of law? Eliminate me and my innovation and worry about the consequences later. Never mind that millions of Megaupload users lost access to cloud data like their wedding photos. Well done, Hollywood, everyone with similar innovations got the message. But wait … You did not read the end of the script.

The people of the Internet will unite. They will help me. And they are stronger than you. We will prevail in the war for Internet freedom and innovation that you have launched. We have logic, human nature and the invisible hand on our side.

As you should have known, our Mega services operated within the boundaries of the law. We had users that spanned from the military to Hollywood to lawyers and doctors. If you are unhappy with that, it is up to you to convince Congress to amend legislation. You tried with SOPA and you failed. As an alternative, you chose to lobby the Justice Department to ignore the law and stage a global show of force and destruction. The only parties a New Zealand court has found to have violated the law in this case are the local police and the FBI.

Regardless of the issues you have with new technologies, you can't just engage armed forces halfway around the world, rip a peaceful man from his family, throw him in jail, terminate his business without a trial, take everything he owns without a hearing, deprive him of a fair chance to defend himself and do all that while your propaganda machine is destroying him in the media. Is that who you want to be?

There can still be a happy ending. I am working on solutions. Just call me or my lawyers. You know where to find me. Unfortunately I can only do lunch in New Zealand.

This open letter is free of copyright. Use it freely.

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Op donderdag 19 juli 2012 20:15 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

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Op donderdag 19 juli 2012 20:15 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

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twitter:

KimDotcom twitterde op vrijdag 20-07-2012 om 09:20:28 Hi @BarackObama, here is a song for you #MrPresident. Regards, The Internet.

Kim Dotcom - Mr President

reageer retweet

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Government: we can freeze Mega assets even if case is dismissed

The United States government said today that even if the indictment of the Megaupload corporation is dismissed, it can continue its indefinite freeze on the corporation's assets while it awaits the extradition of founder Kim Dotcom and his associates.

Judge Liam O'Grady is weighing a request to dismiss the indictment against Megaupload because (in Megaupload's view) the federal rules of criminal procedure provide no way to serve notice on corporations with no US address. At a hearing in Alexandria, VA, he grilled both attorneys in the case but did not issue a ruling.

O'Grady speculated, with evident sarcasm, that Congress intended to allow foreign corporations like Megaupload to "be able to violate our laws indiscriminately from an island in the South Pacific."

But Megaupload's attorney insisted that this may not be too far from the truth. Megaupload, they said, is a Hong Kong corporation with no presence in the United States. He argued it was perfectly reasonable for Megaupload to be subject to the criminal laws of Hong Kong, but not the United States.

"It's never had a US address"

For its part, the government suggested that it could sidestep the mailing requirement in one of several ways. For example, it could wait for Kim Dotcom to be extradited to the United States and then mail notice to him, as Megaupload's representative, at his address in prison. Or, they suggested, the government could send notice of the indictment to Carpathia Hosting, a Virginia company that has leased hundreds of servers to the locker site.

The government also mentioned the possibility that it could use the provisions of a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty to send notice to Megaupload's Hong Kong address.

But Judge O'Grady seemed skeptical of these argument. He noted that the "plain language" of the law required sending notice to the company's address in the United States. "You don't have a location in the United States to mail it to," he said. "It's never had an address" in the United States.

And Megaupload pointed out that the government hadn't produced a single example in which the government had satisfied the rules of criminal procedure using one of the methods it was suggesting in this case. Most of the precedents the government has produced were in civil cases, which have different rules. And most involved serving a corporate parent via its subsidiary. That's a very different relationship than, for example, the vendor-customer relationship between Megaupload and Carpathia.

The government brought up one new example during the hearing: an instance in which a judge allowed notice to be sent via e-mail to the Columbian guerilla group FARC. But Megaupload's attorneys dismissed this example as well, pointing out that FARC was not a corporation and that the propriety of that service was never tested in court.

The government also argued that it could keep Megaupload in legal limbo indefinitely. "None of the cases impose a time limit on service," the government's attorney told the judge. Therefore, the government believes it can leave the indictment hanging over the company's head, and keep its assets frozen, indefinitely.

Not only that, but the government believes it can continue to freeze Megaupload's assets and paralyze its operations even if the judge grants the motion to dismiss. That's because in the government's view, the assets are the proceeds of criminal activity and the prosecution against founder Kim Dotcom will still be pending. The fact that the assets are in the name of Megaupload rather than its founder is of no consequence, the government claimed.

Hollywood, at least, seems nervous that Judge O'Grady might buy Megaupload's argument. In a conference call held Wednesday in advance of today's hearing, a senior vice president at the Motion Picture Association of America argued that the dismissal of the case against Megaupload would have little practical impact, since the company's principals would still be facing indictment. And he rejected Kim Dotcom's efforts to frame the case as a test of Internet freedom, describing Dotcom as a "career criminal" who had grown wealthy stealing the work of others.

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Op woensdag 8 augustus 2012 18:18 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:
Video van Kim Dotcom inval

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FIGHT TO KEEP POLICE SECRETS

The Crown has lodged an urgent appeal to ensure details about New Zealand's elite police team are kept secret.

Part of the heavy suppression surrounding the movements of the Special Tactics Group was lifted by Justice Winkelmann at the hearing yesterday.

Winkelmann ruled documents, including the police checklist used to determine if Dotcom was a dangerous subject, could be made public.

However, the Crown announced this morning it would appeal this decision.

The Crown has said police believe that making details public would compromise their operational capability.

It was also revealed that part of the suppression was breached last night.

A promo for TV3's Campbell Live show included STG call signs, which were not allowed to be broadcast.

Justice Winkelmann said the suppression breach will be referred to the Solicitor-General.

An appeal hearing will be held in the next day or two.

US authorities claim Dotcom and his three co-accused - Mathias Ortmann, Fin Batato and Bram van der Kolk - used the Megaupload website and its affiliated sites to knowingly make money from pirated movies and games.

They are facing copyright infringement and money laundering charges, and extradition from New Zealand.

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Op vrijdag 10 augustus 2012 02:03 schreef Piet_Piraat het volgende:
En wanneer komt de rechtzaak? Is er al een officiele aanklacht?

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Politie: Kim Dotcom gebruikte zijn buik als wapen

De Nieuw-Zeelandse politie geeft een wel heel bijzondere reden voor de inzet van antiterrorisme-eenheden bij de inval op het landgoed van internettycoon Kim Dotcom, afgelopen januari. Volgens de politie was hun aanwezigheid gewenst omdat de 165 kilo wegende Dotcom kort tevoren een oud-medewerker had mishandeld 'met zijn buik'.

De New Zealand Herald meldt dat de klacht afkomstig is van een video-editor die voor Dotcom had gewerkt en tegenover de politie verklaarde dat Dotcom hem 'met zijn buik tegen de linkerschouder' te lijf was gegaan. Dat gebeurde twee weken voordat de inval plaatsvond.

Tegen Dotcom loopt een uitleveringsverzoek van de Verenigde Staten, die hem en drie medewerkers van de op zwart gezette website Megaupload willen berechten vanwege onder meer internetpiraterij, het inbreuk maken op de copyrightwetgeving en het witwassen van geld.

Een Nieuw-Zeelandse rechter beoordeelt op dit moment de rechtmatigheid van de inval van justitie op het landgoed van Dotcom. Vorige week verklaarde Dotcom dat hij tijdens de inval door politieagenten werd geschopt en geslagen.

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Op dinsdag 14 augustus 2012 16:34 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

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Megaupload-chef krijgt excuses Nieuw-Zeeland

Nieuw-Zeeland heeft donderdag excuses aangeboden aan de oprichter van downloadsite Megaupload, de geboren Duitser Kim Dotcom. Hij was in januari opgepakt, omdat zijn site illegale bestanden zou aanbieden. Voor de arrestatie bespioneerden de inlichtingendiensten zijn woning, maar dat mochten ze niet doen.

Iedereen in Nieuw-Zeeland heeft recht op bescherming van de wet, zei premier John Key tegen Nieuw-Zeelandse media.

Eerder bepaalden Nieuw-Zeelandse rechters al dat de huiszoeking in de villa van Dotcom illegaal was. In het huiszoekingsbevel van de politie stond niet waar Dotcom van werd verdacht en waar agenten naar zochten.

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Senior figures knew about Kim Dotcom spying - Shearer

Labour leader David Shearer claims senior Government figures knew about the illegal spying of internet tycoon Kim Dotcom, but says only a full independent inquiry will reveal the truth.

So far there are three investigations into the saga, after it was revealed last week that the Government Communications Security Bureau, which is only supposed to spy on foreign nationals, had been snooping on New Zealand resident Dotcom ahead of a raid on his Coatesville mansion in January.

Shearer told TV ONE's Breakfast that the inquiries that have been announced so far will not provide the "right" answers.

"We're targeting the little guys at the bottom and not looking at the accountability in our intelligence agencies that should be in place and that goes right to the top, to Bill English and John Key," he said.

"(There) are a series of people who should have been responsible, who should have known, and I think they did know. But we're not going to find that out necessarily until we have an (independent) inquiry."

Since the issue was brought up last week three separate investigations have been looking into the matter.

Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Paul Neazor's report established the facts of the case, while Secretary of the Cabinet Rebecca Kitteridge has been seconded to the GCSB for an initial period of three months to see if its systems need updating.

Yesterday the police also said they will be looking into the case to see if any criminal charges should be laid.

But Shearer said the police were "conflicted" because they asked the GCSB to spy on Dotcom in the first place. He said an independent figure with authority needs to be in charge of an inquiry.

"If we had someone like a former ombudsman or judge, I'm thinking of Anand Satyanand for example the former Governor General, someone of that sort of standing looking at this and leading an inquiry it will give us the confidence that the issues that are of concern to New Zealanders are looked into properly.

"People in New Zealand have a right to know that their spy agencies are working properly."

ONE News Deputy Political Editor Jessica Mutch said the call for an independent inquiry was gaining traction, and may be in the Government's best interests.

"We've had a number of weeks of talking about Kim Dotcom, I'm sure the PM is tiring of talking about it, and maybe the answer is to do this big broader wider inquiry," she told Breakfast.

Key said yesterday that police are welcome to investigate the GCSB's role in the Dotcom case if "that is going to satisfy someone".

"Police have a responsibility to take complaints seriously and so if they go and decide to have someone look at the matter well I welcome that but at the end of the day it should be seen for what it is - a political stunt," he said.

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Dotcom attorney attacks Hollywood and the ‘draconian’ downing of Megaupload

The attorney for Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom has lashed out at the US and New Zealand authorities involved in his client’s case, calling their witch-hunt the work of Hollywood’s “copyright militia” and a nail in the coffin for online innovation.

Ira Rothken, the California-based attorney representing Kim Dotcom in a highly-publicized international copyright infringement case, unleashed on his client’s opponents during a rare interview this week, condemning their tactics and calling them out for illegal practices being paid for by high-powered cohorts in the entertainment industry.

Dotcom, born Kim Schmitz, was arrested on January 20 after his New Zealand estate was stormed in a high-profile raid by local authorities working in cooperation with the US government. The United States says Dotcom operated a vast criminal conspiracy by running the Megaupload.com file-storage site, and will attempt to extrude him to America next year to face charges. In the months since a slew of armed agents descended on his home in helicopters and arrested Dotcom at gunpoint, though, the arguments offered by both the US and Kiwi prosecutors has been put through the gauntlet endlessly and has all but deteriorated.

Despite failing to advance their case against Dotcom past a mere indictment thus far, the US Justice Department has recently remarked that their efforts against Mega are among the Obama administration’s top successes in thwarting intellectual property crime. Overseas, however, New Zealand Prime Minister John Key has had to publically apologize to Dotcom for a case that is seemingly falling apart with each and every day.

Speaking to The Inquirer in an interview published to the Web on Monday, Mr. Rothken says the case “demonstrates the tension between the Hollywood copyright militia and the policy issues of copyright balance that are needed for Internet innovation.”

Mr. Rothken remarks that the efforts to eliminate file-sharing sites online are being masterminded by high-powered entertainment industry shot-callers who are ordering Washington to ramp up their case. If it somehow ends up as a win for the Obama administration, though, Dotcom’s attorney says the effects will significantly stifle innovation and general advancements for the Internet.

“Ruling in favor of Hollywood will reduce the availability of cloud storage sites and cause problems for small businesses and individuals who are in the greatest need for competition in the marketplace,” the attorney said.

"The circumstantial evidence demonstrates Hollywood has great influence on this case," Rothken added. "Given what we perceive as the influence of Hollywood on the current administration in [Washington,] DC, we think that the totality of circumstances show that it is likely he would not have a fair procedural landscape here in the US at this time."

On his part, Dotcom has previously offered to fly to the United States and stand trial, as long as the Justice Department agrees to pay for his expenses and offer him a fair trial.

"They will never agree to this and that is because they can't win this case and they know that already,” he told the New Zealand Herald earlier this year.

Commenting on the case this week, Mr. Rothken also blow the lid off America’s illegitimate attempts at prosecuting his client, saying the US has “implemented draconian procedures to take down the Megaupload cloud storage site at any cost.”

"Now that these procedures are coming under scrutiny they appear to have violated the law at nearly every part of the process,” Rothken told the website. “From an illegal search warrant to what we believe is an illegal military style raid, to illegal data sharing with the US, illegal spying and ultimately what we believe is an overbroad takedown of the entire Megaupload enterprise."

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Megaupload Is Dead. Long Live Mega!

They’ve been indicted by the U.S. government for conspiracy and briefly thrown in jail, but Kim Dotcom and his partners in the digital storage locker Megaupload have no intention of quitting the online marketplace.

Instead the co-defendants plan to introduce a much-anticipated new technology later this year that will allow users to once again upload, store, and share large data files, albeit by different rules. They revealed details of the new service exclusively to Wired.

They call it Mega and describe it as a unique tool that will solve the liability problems faced by cloud storage services, enhance the privacy rights of internet users, and provide themselves with a simple new business. Meanwhile, critics fear that Mega is simply a revamped version of Megaupload, cleverly designed to skirt the old business’s legal issues without addressing the concerns of Internet piracy.

(Dotcom and three of his partners remain in New Zealand, where they were arrested in January 2012. They face extradition to the U.S. on charges of “engaging in a racketeering conspiracy, conspiring to commit copyright infringement, conspiring to commit money laundering, and two substantive counts of criminal copyright infringement,” according to the Department of Justice.)

What Mega and Megaupload do have in common is that they are both one-click, subscriber-based cloud platforms that allow customers to upload, store, access, and share large files. Dotcom, and his Mega partner Mathias Ortmann say the difference is that now those files will first be one-click-encrypted right in a client’s browser, using the so-called Advanced Encryption Standard algorithm. The user is then provided with a second unique key for that file’s decryption.

It will be up to users, and third-party app developers, to control access to any given uploaded file, be it a song, movie, videogame, book, or simple text document. Internet libertarians will surely embrace this new capability.

And because the decryption key is not stored with Mega, the company would have no means to view the uploaded file on its server. It would, Ortmann explains, be impossible for Mega to know, or be responsible for, its users’ uploaded content — a state of affairs engineered to create an ironclad “safe harbor” from liability for Mega, and added piece of mind for the user.

“If servers are lost, if the government comes into a data center and rapes it, if someone hacks the server or steals it, it would give him nothing,” Dotcom explains. “Whatever is uploaded to the site, it is going to be remain closed and private without the key.”

Dotcom’s belief is that even the broad interpretation of internet law that brought down Megaupload would be insufficient to thwart the new Mega, because what users share, how they share it, and how many people they share it with will be their responsibility and under their control, not Mega’s.

Dotcom says that according to his legal experts, the only way to stop such a service from existing is to make encryption itself illegal. “And according to the U.N. Charter for Human Rights, privacy is a basic human right,” Dotcom explains. “You have the right to protect your private information and communication against spying.”

Dotcom says that the new Mega will be an attractive product for anyone concerned about the state of online security. And to address the concerns about data loss of the sort that affected Megaupload customers whose files were seized by the FBI, Mega will store all data on two sets of redundant servers, located in two different countries.

“So, even if one country decides to go completely berserk from a legal perspective and freeze all servers, for example — which we don’t expect, because we’ve fully complied with all the laws of the countries we place servers in — or if a natural disaster happens, there’s still another location where all the files are available,” Ortmann says. “This way, it’s impossible to be subjected to the kind of abuse that we’ve had in the U.S.”

Ultimately, Dotcom envisions a network hosted by thousands of different entities with thousands of different servers, in countries all over the world.

“We’re creating a system where any host in the world — from the $2,000 garage operation to the largest online host — can connect their own servers to this network,” Dotcom says. “We can work with anybody, because the hosts themselves cannot see what’s on the servers.”

One of the more unique wrinkles of the new service may come from Mega’s decision not to deploy so-called de-duplication on its servers, meaning that if a user decides to upload the same copyright-infringing file 100 times, it would result in 100 different files and 100 distinct decryption keys. Removing them would require 100 takedown notices of the type typically sent by rights holders like movie studios and record companies.

While Mega is adamant that this is not the point of their technology, others fear the service may atomize the piracy problem, turning internet policing into an even more elaborate game of Wack-a-Mole. “As we learned from the first iteration of Megaupload, how it describes itself and how it really operates can be two very distinct things,” says one industry spokesman who asked not to be named. “We’d rather not wade in here until we can see the thing with our own eyes.”

Julie Samuels, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says that while the new Mega may present an interesting development for internet users, it doesn’t answer the issues raised by the unique and, by her lights, questionable interpretation of Internet law used in the case against Megaupload. “It’s likely to change the cat-and-mouse game that goes on in terms of this issue on the Internet,” Samuels says. “But it’s still a cat-and-mouse game.”

Samuels says that the technology may affect how easy or difficult it is for rights holders or law enforcement to determine exactly what kind of files are being shared. “But there are still some fundamental questions that need to be answered. At this point, it’s not technology but the courts which need to address them.”

Dotcom insists that Mega is not “a giant middle finger to Hollywood and the DoJ,” or a relaunch of Megaupload. And Ortmann points out that if users choose to violate copyright with the new technology, there are already rules in place to address it. “If the copyright holder finds publicly posted links and decryption keys and verifies that the file is an infringement of their copyright, they can send a DMCA takedown notice to have that file removed, just like before,” he says.

As with Megaupload, Ortmann says, Mega will also grant direct access to their servers for entities such as film studios, allowing them to remove copyright-infringing material themselves. “But this time, if they want to use that tool, they’ll have to accept, prior to getting access, that they’re not going to sue us or hold us accountable for the actions of our users,” Dotcom says.

In any event, the Mega team believes that a government takedown of their new service is extremely improbable. “Unless our legal team tells us that the DoJ is likely to go berserk again,” Ortmann explains. “But in my view, they can’t pull off this stunt a second time.”

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Inside the Mansion—and Mind— of Kim Dotcom, the Most Wanted Man on the Net

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His bed of choice is a remarkable piece of custom Swedish craftsmanship made by a company called Hästens. Each one takes some 160 hours to produce and is signed by a master bed-maker who lays out the most perfect matrix of horsehair, cotton, flax, and wool. Price after custom framing: $103,000. Kim has three such beds in his New Zealand mansion, one of which faces a series of monitors and hard drives and piles of wires and is flanked on either side by lamps that look like, and may well be, chromed AK-47s. This is Kim’s “work bed” and serves as his office. It was here that he returned in the early morning of January 20, 2012, after a long night spent on his music album, one of his many side projects.

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Police got Dotcom's bank details

Personal details of internet boss and staff handed over without a search warrant

Police got personal banking details of Kim Dotcom and his staff without getting a search warrant in a move that has implications for bank customers.

Banks, including the ANZ, BNZ and Westpac, turned the information over after deciding there was no Privacy Act reason not to.

The police request referred the banks to a Privacy Act principle which allowed them to release information to "avoid prejudice to the maintenance of the law by any public sector agency including the prevention, detection, investigation, prosecution, and punishment of offences".

The mechanism led to banks releasing - without a legal warrant - the name of the account holder, the account number and home address.

The information was sought in October last year by Ofcanz - the same policing unit heavily criticised this week for its tactics during an investigation of the Red Devils gang. Police headquarters will not comment directly on either case.

The banking industry last night said customer privacy was taken "very seriously" but offered no information about the level of proof needed to turn information over to government agencies.

The Dotcom extradition court file at the North Shore District Court shows Ofcanz Detective Sergeant Nigel McMorran got information on Dotcom and Megaupload staff through the police Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU).

The request to banks for information on October 10 last year came after the FBI accessed email accounts through US-based search warrants.

At that stage, police assistance to the FBI was limited to basic co-operation. The formal request for assistance, which elevates the case's seriousness and powers police can use, was made on November 28.

Mr McMorran said the FBI passed on information and asked the police to find out more about account numbers and staff identified in emails.

An analyst at the FIU emailed a string of banks on October 10 and received information back the same day from the BNZ showing names of account holders, account numbers and home address details. The other banks replied the next day.

Other documents filed with the North Shore District Court show a later request by the same analyst.

The request matched those which bank staff say they got in October in which police referred to money laundering and asked for personal details to be released to assist the "maintenance of the law".

The email in the later case offered no additional information to support the police claim and there is no record showing the banks asked for any.

Dotcom was charged with money-laundering when arrested - the only charge he faces on which he can be extradited. Criminal copyright violation charges are not serious enough for extradition. If they are dismissed, then the money laundering charge also collapses.

Assistant Privacy Commissioner Katrine Evans said it was up to agencies asked for information to form a "reasonable belief".

"They need to make their own judgment calls but simply because the request comes from the police isn't necessarily enough."

She said police needed to specify a reason - and general descriptions of "money laundering" could be enough.

Lawyer Steve Rollo, who represented the Red Devils, said a wider inquiry was needed into police practices. He said information was frequently withheld by police in court cases, leaving a veil of "secrecy" which could mask skulduggery.

Assistant Commissioner Mike Bush said yesterday police were reviewing all aspects of handling organised crime under a new strategy called "Prevention First".

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KimDotcom twitterde op donderdag 01-11-2012 om 01:12:37 Servers overloaded. Adding capacity. Stop reloading :-) reageer retweet

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KimDotcom twitterde op donderdag 01-11-2012 om 02:13:38 ANNOUNCEMENT: The new #Mega domain is http://t.co/WahyM7DE - Check it out. RT!! reageer retweet

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Me.ga Hackers: We’re Real Pirates & We’ll Sell Dotcom’s Domain To Universal

A Gabon government minister has said that his country will not be used as a base for committing copyright infringement and has announced that his country will seize the new Me.Ga domain. But while Dotcom blames the United States and entertainment company Vivendi, a group of hackers say they have taken over the domain. Speaking with TorrentFreak the group say that they are the true pirates and that Dotcom is a megalomaniac. “He himself is an industry, only here to pollute,” they say.

On January 20, 2013 Kim Dotcom is set to launch the successor to Megaupload, along with a promise for it to be bigger and better than before.

In anticipation of opposition, Dotcom previously revealed that the site would use encryption to boost the site’s safe harbor protections. Furthermore, it would not use a .com domain as these are easily seized by the United States government.

But, after announcing less than a week ago that the site would use the Me.ga domain, already the plan has run into trouble from not one but apparently two different directions.

First, and just hours ago, came news that the Communications Minister of Gabon, the African country where .ga domains are based, would be suspending the Me.ga domain.

“I have instructed my departments to immediately suspend the site www.me.ga,” announced Communication Minister Blaise Louembe.

“Gabon cannot serve as a platform or screen for committing acts aimed at violating copyrights, nor be used by unscrupulous people,” the minister said.