Slashdot Mirror
Cryptome in Hot Water Again
garg0yle writes to tell us that Cryptome appears to have stepped in it again with a recent leaked document concerning Microsoft's "Global Criminal Compliance Handbook." "Microsoft has demanded that Cryptome take down the guide — on the grounds that it constitutes a 'copyrighted [work] published by Microsoft.' Yesterday, at 5pm, Cryptome editor John Young received a notice from his site’s host, Network Solutions, bearing a stiff ultimatum: citing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), Network Solutions told him that unless he takes the 'copyrighted material' down, they will 'disable [his] website' on Thursday, February 25, 2010. So far, Young refuses to budge." In a gesture of goodwill, Wikileaks has offered to host Cryptome via their twitter feed.
Looks like DNS has already gone...
For Wikileaks to offer to host Cryptome - especially with thei recent troubles.
Really, what we need here is a torrent feed with all the latest stuff.
I call it 'The Aristocrats'
Wikileaks may not be mirroring Cryptome.org in its entirety yet, but they are hosting the "offending" material. Download and redistribute!
http://cryptomeorg.siteprotect.net/
$25 will get you 2 DVDs with 54,000+ articles, spanning June 1996 to February 2010, mailed anywhere in the world.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Yeah Network Solutions took them down after Young's counter-response. Wikileaks is hosting it now.
Basically the issue is that Microsoft has a handguide to do some pretty questionable stuff (IP Extraction is mentioned). They can keep it protected from being publicly viewable by putting a copyright on it. Young says that Copyright was not meant for hiding secrets. I agree.
A mirror of the site is now up, with partial content available and the rest being transferred.
I wonder what this says about the degree of power different entities have when they choose to resist DMCA requests. Would Google's upstream provider(s) ever dare to take Google offline should Google decide not to comply with a particular DMCA request like Cryptome's provider has done? I suspect not. There must be an advantage to being a big player on the Internet, and a clear disadvantage under the DMCA to being as small as Cryptome. It's easier to be bullied when you're Cryptome, which somehow makes the DMCA seem even worse than I once thought it was.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
Whatever is in that document, thank you Microsoft for 100% confirming it is what you said. Now, http has heads. You *can* cut them off. Where there is a disconnect between morality and law however is called corruption and that needs to be measured in each case: anyone care to measure here? So, you can cut off all the http heads. What good will that do you? You think Cryptome doesn't have contacts? Doesn't have people who are in the know and know what they are looking for? Microsoft just gave them some free advertising that they have it. Everyone who wants it already does have it by now. And in a shortish while after some corrupt wrangling the http head will come back up and start serving again until the next grand advertisement occurs. But always, occuring in parallel to all this are the things without heads: it will take a great deal more corruption in law to silence those.
Shh.
That's nice of them, but honestly I'd like it if they started hosting their own site again, too.
Wikileaks has offered to host Cryptome via their twitter feed.
This Twitter stuff is getting out of control. First it starts as 140 character messages, now they're hosting entire websites with it.
... and then they built the supercollider.
Wikileaks has offered to host Cryptome via their twitter feed.
Hosting 140 characters at a time?
I just want to make sure I fully understand the situation. This is something written by MS and being hosted in its entirety by someone else without permission, right? So their claim is legally correct and everything, isn't it? I'm not saying I like Microsoft but I just want to be clear on the details which seem to imply that whether or not this is a *nice* thing to do it at least fits the standards for a DMCA notice. Please correct me if I've misunderstood.
Having just skimmed the doc, I don't see why anyone would care. The information available to law enforcement is actually less than I had expected.
Actually, I suspect that Microsoft are flat-out lying. There was a murder case in Toronto, Canada where a teenage girl persuaded her boyfriend to murder another girl:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2009/03/13/rengel-trial.html
http://www.thestar.com/article/596268
Much of the evidence was in MSN chat logs between the girl and her boyfriend. This Microsoft document claims on page 13 that "Microsoft does not log the content of communications between users".
So if it isn't logged, where did all this evidence come from?
Local logs on their machines? MSN may not log at the main server, but many clients certainly log locally.
Its appalling, and an abuse of the DCMA takedown notices in every aspect. The takedown procedures are in place to provide a legal safe harbor for the company hosting the content.. The takedown notice is to allow the contested content to be removed to minimize any damage. The takedown period in which the the content is removed it allow time for the copyright to get to court to get a temporary restraining order to keep the content offline. The Counter-Notice allows the person who put up the content to get it back online if they believe they are in the right.
Network Solutions is NOT the hosting company. It's merely a DNS registrar. NetSol has no legal liability what soever. They went WAY beyond what is legally required. The DCMA required only the contested content be removed in any case. Network Solutions removing access to entire web site is very troubling. And it may even have opened them up to a lawsuit themselves.
I just read the document and it's really kinda reassuring. They lay out exactly what they require in order to disclose exactly what information, and they don't say anything without a subpoena (gets you name/address/email older than 180 days). Anything more interesting than that requires a court order (for address book/friend list/email to-from) or a search warrant (new email).
Plus, they detail exactly what they do and don't keep - for example, they don't have messenger logs.
Frankly, I thought they had more info than that. They really keep very little info aside from what they need to actually deliver the service.
YMMV due to the Patriot act, etc - but I don't see why MSFT would lie in a confidential document
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
If you read the article, you would know that they did file a counter-notice.
Network Solutions not only took their site down, but locked the domain to prevent it from coming up somewhere else. This is an extremely aggressive move and one I suspect violates their own terms and conditions and may be actionable under the law.
The provider must take down the content within a certain time of receiving a notice. After they receive a counter-notice, the content stays down for 10-14 days, during which the original notifier must file a lawsuit. If they don't, the content goes back up.
Before taking anything down Network Solutions suggested that Cryptome file a counter notice, and pointed out to them how to do it. They pointed out that if Cryptome took down the one file for the 10-14 days, they would not have to take down the rest of the site. Cryptome sent a counter notice which specifically indicated they would not be taking down the file. Upon receipt, Network Solutions took down the site, as they clearly explained they would be required to by law.
I'm not much of a fan of Network Solutions generally, but in this situation, they are not the bad guy. They are impartially following the law. Their letter even goes so far as to helpfully lay out Cryptomes choices. Cryptome made their choice to stand on principle and force the system to shut the whole site down. I assume Cryptome figured the resulting publicity would do more for their fight than taking down the file and keeping their site up, and I also assume they are right.