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Megaupload User Data Could Be Destroyed Soon
New submitter advid.net writes "According to the Associated Press, user data from the recently-closed file-hosting site Megaupload could be destroyed as soon as Thursday. Apparently Megaupload paid another company to actually store the data. 'But Megaupload attorney Ira Rothken said Sunday that the government has frozen its money. A letter filed in the case Friday by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia said storage companies Carpathia Hosting Inc. and Cogent Communications Group Inc. may begin deleting data Thursday. ... The letter said the government copied some data from the servers but did not physically take them. It said that now that it has executed its search warrants, it has no right to access the data. The servers are controlled by Carpathia and Cogent and issues about the future of the data must be resolved with them, prosecutors said."
There's also been talk of a lawsuit against the FBI over users' lost files.
No, it's like the FBI impounding all the units in a storage facility because some of them hold illegal contraband.
And this is why you should never trust anything you can't afford to lose to the cloud. You lose control and have no idea what is really going on with your data under the hood.
"That's the sort of blinkered, philistine pig ignorance I've come to expect from you non-creative garbage."-Monty Python
The short answer is no. "They" (by which I assume you mean the US govt) cannot delete the data. What they *can* do is take steps which will almost certainly result in the data being deleted by the third parties hosting it.
The result is something like an extrajudicial execution. They've ensured Megaupload will die, even if the company is exonerated in the courts.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Welcome to the cloud. If your data is more valuable than the storage space it's written to, then keep your own copy. In this case, it was the government that precipitated the shutdown of a service provider, so everybody's looking to blame them. Who are you going to blame when market dynamics cause a company to just go bankrupt? This reminds me of the outcry that happened when they finally put a bullet in (I believe it was) GeoCities.
By unlawful you mean by lawful methods you disagree with.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
No, it's like the FBI showing up with the CEO's of walmart in tow, prying the lock off a couple of the storage units and the CO's pointing at random objects and yelling "They stole that, and that, and that..." meanwhile the renters of the storage locker are in China, and the owner of the storage company says "Well they could have gotten that at Target you know... also, how do you know they stole this and didn't actually pay for it? Have you even asked them?" The FBI then arrests the Owner of the storage unit, who now can't pay its utility bills... water, sewer and power are cut off... the buildings catch fire and the FBI tells the fire department "no need to put that out... we have the truth, let the lies burn."
When they come to take your rights away, they start with the people that clearly don't deserve them. When they come for yours, well... it's a little too late then isn't it?
The downloaders that downloaded copyright infringing material can re-download somewhere else.
Customers that downloaded original stuff are screwed if they can't find a copy.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
Imagine if this was done to YouTube. YouTube has at least one infringing clip, but it also has a lot of original content that would be lost.
Believe you me, if YouTube hadn't been bought by Google, this would have happened to them. The various Copyright Cartels would still love to do this to them, but can't because Google is too big.