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Paul Ceglia: Facebook Is Doing the Forgery, Not Me
An anonymous reader writes "Last week, Facebook said it found the original 'authentic contract' between Mark Zuckerberg and Paul Ceglia, a man who claims he owns half of the company according to a 2003 contract. Now, Ceglia says the original 'authentic contract' Facebook claims to have found is really just a Photoshopped image the company planted on his computer."
"is really just a Photoshopped image the company planted on his computer." ....
yeah, the courts will buy that one. Didn't work for this guy.
"I was cheated out of half of Facebook" is going to be this century's "I was the fifth Beatle."
I mean, if I were Facebook that's exactly what I'd do.
I'd hack into some random guy's computer, and create a photoshopped image of a contract that says he owns half the company.
It is obvious that these major outlets continue to protect Mark and his "new image". He is an admitted forgerer, he was forced to admit it under oath, not because he feels compelled to tell the truth, like ever, but because he carelessly wrote as his home adress on the document he was forging an address that he didnt know about or move to until more than a year after the document was supposedly written! A rational person would think I need not say more, and that surely my arrest for mushrooms 14 years ago or the fact that I fell behind on wood pellet orders that have long since paid back is irrelevant compared to the more daming and far more on point evidence that Zuckerberg is an admitted forger and an admitted hacker, yet a read of the major media outlets shows what most people know already, that our “Free Press” slant the news to the big boss’s views. A luxury afforded the Billionaires of this world that clearly have their own agendas. Perhaps calling them out like this will force some two sided coverage of the story.
Ceglia gets hilariously specific about his past problems ... and hilariously unspecific about Zuckerberg's. I am in the very uncomfortable (and unfamiliar) position of defending Zuckerberg and pondering whence we begin ignoring this crackpot Ceglia.
If anyone is wondering why Ceglia has milled through four law firms, you need only read the letter he submitted to the press and (apparently) did not attach any NDAs to. I would guess this letter would be a defense attorney's wet dream (assuming Ceglia allows them to prove it came from him).
From the Arab Spring to the riots of London last week, I see that social networks are the peoples tools to not only talk about how bored we are today, or to worry about everyone seeing that last photo we put up, but also when users are oppressed somewhere and realize it, it obviously can be used to overthrow tyranny and outmanuever the forces that protect the establishment. It’s become the peoples voice and a powerful tool to unite the masses. It’s a tool that deserves to stay in the hands and control of the people.
You know what's really pathetic and disgusting to me? Watching someone try to abduct an entire set of social causes and violent radical movements for their own fucking he said/he said lawsuit that stands to benefit them to the tune of billions of dollars. Really, I don't see what that has to do with the legitimacy of your ownership of any part of Facebook. Justice shouldn't care what you do with what belongs to you, it should only be concerned with you having what belongs to you. Disgusting.
My work here is dung.
OK, on one hand some of this stuff is news-worthy. It's a huge company, and there are allegations flying around involving the ownership and origins of said company. Likewise, there's a bunch of stuff going around about falsified documents or supposed chat logs.
So yes, on one hand it IS news... and news for nerds at that since Facebook is such a huge presence online. And while I don't use it, I'm sure a fair percentage of /. readers us it.
But part of me just wants to throw my hands up in the air and say "enough already, just give me the final verdicts." I don't mean /. perse, just the general news I see everywhere about it. The whole situation is so complicated that even if final decisions on all matters are reached we'll never know what REALLY happened.
Meanwhile it's a lawyer pissing match. This document is real, no that's a fake THIS one is real. But he agreed to this, nuh-uh, ah-huh, nuh-uh, ah-ah, etc.
Unless somebody really fucked up in terms of the conditions under which computer forensics expert witnesses had access to the computer(and at least one forensics guy is willing to risk some serious smackdown, presumably for compensation that somebody else would be risking serious smackdown to provide him...) the "but they planted it on my computer!" defense seems unlikely to work well...
(Again, barring monumental incompetence on the part of at least one party in a hundreds-of-millions-of-dollars-on-the-line case) this just isn't the sort of situation where the computer in question would have been left in Sheriff Bubba's evidence locker/misc. supplies closet with a sticky note asking people not to touch it.
If the contract was from 2003-2004, why the hell did he wait 6-7 years to file suit?
Ceglia appears to be just another deranged attention whore who wants to steal someone else's money.
that he's put all of his eggs in this basket? If he comes out with nothing (which is likely), he'll have nothing to show for it and have such a infamous name no one will want to sign anything with him ever again. I think he jumped for a golden rope without looking down to see how far he'd fall if he missed.
In debates about Christianity, there are two groups: those looking for answers, and those looking to just ask questions.
I hate to say this, but facebook's already won this battle. They probably cheated but unless someone can prove it this guy needs to shut up.
Ceglia should have kept a watchful eye and documented the shit out of everything.
What's more, this lawsuit is ages old and he could have nipped this situation in the bud a long ass time ago.
If someone rips you off, you take care of it promptly. You don't just sit on your ass and let damages accrue.
I would dismiss his case with prejudice on grounds of either laches or statute of limitations or both. Besides, he already made a binding settlement in the form of what proved to be very lucrative stock options.
Unless he can show that Facebook somehow committed fraud *in that settlement* he has no standing to sue.
I'm all for fighting the good fight but once you've waved the white flag the game is over.
In a case like this, the computer doesn't EVER get touched by the opposition. It gets analyzed by a third party. So there would have to be a conspiracy encompassing the bribing and corruption of an otherwise unrelated party.
Some people know when to stop digging the hole they're in.
Other people, at that moment, take out the blasting caps and dynamite.
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass
Via the PaulsCase wiki, Ceglia is trying to open source his lawsuit. His current lawyer is on an interim basis and Ceglia is looking for a more “collaborative” law firm to work with him.
The guy's clearly going down in flames and he still won't give up. Amazing.
If it was Photoshoped there are methods for it to be determined if it was.
Zuckerberg is a piece of sleaze, and I wouldn't put any trust facebook as a corporation, since their entire business model is built around exploiting people.
I wouldn't be surprised if this guy actually did fund the first handful of servers. Zuckerberg surely didn't do anything himself, merely took credit after the fact.
The awesome thing is that Ceglia's version of the contract just looks wrong. Indentation is screwed up with handwritten stuff pasted in.
The 'recovered version' looks like a properly drawn contract, formatted properly, etc, with that same handwritten line in a much more appropriate place lower on the page.
You would expect a manipulation of an image of a contract page to screw up the formatting in order to leave a lot of stuff in place. Also, in Ceglia's version the dollar amounts appear manipulated in their terms to match the original total dollar amount while apportioning them in a strange and incomplete manner. The original contract terms look relatively simple, appropriate, and complete.
So either Ceglia did a hack job, or Facebook was able to buy off an independent forensics team and produce a really fine looking forgery based on a really screwed-up looking original.
Gee, I wonder what makes more sense.
Which shady scumbag am I supposed to trust here?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
How does one even afford to open a somewhat baseless lawsuit (e.g. in terms of evidence and he-said-they-said arguments) against one of the biggest companies in the U.S. and not be poor bastard after a handful of months paying ridiculous amounts of hourly lawyer wages? I could care less of the outcome, but as far as his lawyer, it's a big risk if he/she is basing their profit off a 'win' in the courtroom I would think.
I hope both of these douches exhaust all their available resources fighting each other. Obviously, Zuckerberg will barely flinch from this, but one can hope otherwise.
I can see it now:
"Ladies and gentlemen of the alleged jury, my client, Mr. Ceglia, has told me that he can see the pixels in the contract thus proving it's a forgery."
Ah, you mean GIMPed.
He shouldn't get half of Facebook given his investment. Other people invested real time and money into the company to make it what it is. From employees who got shares for their work to investors who provided millions of dollars for marketing and salaries. It is unreasonable to allow a submarine investment of $1000 trump all that effort. If he were a good investor he would have stayed in contact with the company in the early days. He would have paid attention and shown up for share holder meetings and made his claim in 2004. By forgetting about his investment he effectivelly abbandaned it.
I don't believe his claim is legit. But if it was he still shouldn't get half. He abbandoned his investement by not disclosing it earlier
^ Zuckerberg hasn't admitted that he forged this contract
Do any of these documents bear digital signatures?
Seems like a poster case for why that would be a good idea.
So we are here already? the name hacker has ben demonized, so if you admit you are a hacker, is like admiting you have commit crimes?
Society, I am dissapointed.
-Woof woof woof!
Threaten to cut Facebook in half.
Whoever refuses to allow this to happen is the true father of Facebook.
It's what this has degraded to. And usually in these cases, the courts side with whoever has the most money. Guess who that is?
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If this will fly in court, it will be nice to see if all the pedos will line up afterwards and use the same excuse with this precedent.
I guess only time will tell if the pockets are deep enough to buy off the judge.
I love to see some drama .. but it sounds like Ceglia doesn't have the case that Larry Sanger has/had with Wikipedia. Hmm.. at least Zuckerberg angered the Ayn Rand cult.
Atlas Shrugged : Thematic Story
Was this contract found right next to George Bush's National Guard docs?
Where does the signature go?
there's "rich" and RICH.
This is BS. The richer you are the more friends you're supposed to get.
Your company is selling off their sales division? The division that literally brings in money and new customers? Quick find another job your company is about to go under!
So it looks like the contract was an attachment to an email he sent to his lawyer in 2004. The law firm also has a copy of the email and attachment. Accourding to the emails Zuckerburg released the StreetFax work went sour and Ceglia owed him money. I think they are going to allege that Ceglia sent the contract to his lawyer when he sought legal advice over the additional money Zuckerberg was demanding. It make sense now why Ceglia had marked the emails confidential. They were communications between him and a lawyer. But since the StreetFax payment dispute has nothing to do with this case, the Judge allowed the emails in. Ceglia likely had no idea that attachement existed.
When faced with a battle between two questionable characters, I side with the one who is better at covering his tracks. I call this one for Zuckerberg.
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
To even try to suggest that a digital copy of the contract has as much validity as an actual paper contract that has been forensically tested is just nonsense.why when it is well known of Zuckerberg's forgery past and well known self depiction as hacker do all these media outlets just act as if we should just believe him? once again the media takes the side of power against the smaller fish ! this is what gets to me the media and power only protect their interests which is the reason for taking the side of Facebook side on this issue , Just look at the difference in the Wikileaks case ! both Wikileaks and Facebook are big on-line sites with huge amount of public and government interest but you dont see the establishment taking the side of Wikileaks why ? because unlike Facebook Julian Assange and Wikileaks work for the people interest not the establishments so the establishment goes against it. Paul Ceglia is a man with a legitimate cause ! his evidence and banking transactions proves Zuckerberg is trying to fraud someone