Kim Dotcom Apparently Spied On For Longer Than Admitted

another random user writes "Kim Dotcom's internet connection was being diverted inside New Zealand weeks before the Government Communications Security Bureau says it started spying on him. The New Zealand Herald has obtained details showing Telecom engineers and staff at its technology services company Gen-I were investigating irregularities with his internet connection in November. The revelation has raised suspicion that Mr Dotcom was victim to earlier spying than the GCSB has admitted. It has brought fresh calls for an inquiry amid claims of the spy agency's role in the international 'Five Eyes' Echelon Network."

Comments

Very Poor Spookery

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently they can't manage to splice in an optical device that would be impossible to detect, except maybe for introducing a 3 microsecond additional delay.

Probably all the proper engineers have been borged by the Banksters. Only the Reject Still Working For Government. Reason to cheer or to be sad ?

Latency seems too high

[DeadBeef]

If the latency figures in the article are accurate then the traffic wasn't staying in the country at all. You can get from one end of the country to the other in 35ms round trip, so even the original 30ms seems rubbish unless the circuit was DSL. The way they were making out it was a high end connection that doesn't seem likely. 180ms will easily get you too Australia and all going well will get you to San Jose from New Zealand.

Re:Latency seems too high

[sjames]

If the spies were incompetent enough to have any of their hardware actually show up in a traceroute, they likely had a very poorly configured router somewhere in the loop as well.

Re:Latency seems too high

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, well, these guys seem to be using turn key solutions - black boxes that sit on the line and say user X did this that and the other, with the end users traffic being redirected using BGP. Even if you shunt the stuff through a non-ip network the additional latency will show up. If they were smart they'd just mirror the port, but I guess this is easier said than done on equipment dealing with millions of people sitting on the access network.

Re:Latency seems too high

[girlintraining]

If the latency figures in the article are accurate then the traffic wasn't staying in the country at all. You can get from one end of the country to the other in 35ms round trip, so even the original 30ms seems rubbish unless the circuit was DSL. The way they were making out it was a high end connection that doesn't seem likely. 180ms will easily get you too Australia and all going well will get you to San Jose from New Zealand.

Geographical separation only has a loose relation to wire length. You say 180ms will get from San Jose to New Zealand, but in the evenings, my cablemodem regularly hits 300ms times just to reach google. Oversubscription and massive buffering on a shared line are to blame; Not geographical or line distance.

We need to know more about the lines before we can say what the latency values mean, if they mean anything at all. I'm also not at all convinced that a wiretap would result in any latency: Hanging a packet sniffer off of a switch doesn't make the switch run slower in almost any scenario I can think of. Wiretapping is supposed to be something that doesn't broadcast to the target "Smile, you're on hidden camera!" If an elementary network tool can reveal a wiretap, somebody's doing something wrong. Very wrong.

Re:Latency seems too high

[Anonymous Coward]

The American government routinely breaks its own laws in the service of rich people. Its citizens do not hold it accountable for this. They must like it that way.

Re:Latency seems too high

[DeadBeef]

If I recall correctly ( cant remember where I read it ) Mr Dotcom had fibre from his place at Coatesville to sky tower. That is something in the order of 35km, which should be like 1 or 2ms. You would have to have a very home user grade circuit like cable or dsl to get exactly 30ms across Auckland.

Re:Latency seems too high

[Kalriath]

If he's dealing with Telecom or Gen-i, it's more likely he's connected by fibre to the exchange at Mayoral Drive rather than Sky Tower. A couple of milliseconds does sound about right from the traffic speeds we get on the WAN at work. As soon as you hit the internet though, all bets are off.200ms to get to the other side of the city isn't as unlikely as you think.

Re:Latency seems too high

[TapeCutter]

200~300ms ping across the Pacific is typical for a clean home PC in Melbourne (it's been in that range on most days for at least the last decade), you have to be very lucky to get below 200, above 350 is unplayable and occurs way too often for my liking. ;)

Re:Latency seems too high

[DeadBeef]

At the place I work, I would accept as a fault any report from a customer of latency of 200ms to anywhere physically in New Zealand ( aside from end customer tail latency ). Most ISP's in New Zealand peer at either WIX or APE or both and we pay extortionate rates for paid peering with Telecom and TelstraClear to handle the two exceptions to that rule.

The worst case for us is that we have an end customer in Christchurch that is talking to an end customer in Christchurch of an ISP that only peers with us in Auckland. Even that only means about 40ms worst case plus the latency of the tail circuits.

Re:Latency seems too high

[DeadBeef]

I get 24ms between a host in our network physically in Skytower in Auckland and a host in a Vocus datacenter in Sydney.

[ ~ ]$ ping ns03.vocus.net.au
PING ns03.vocus.net.au (203.92.28.98) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from isv02.syd01.nsw.VOCUS.net.au (203.92.28.98): icmp_seq=1 ttl=55 time=24.8 ms
64 bytes from isv02.syd01.nsw.VOCUS.net.au (203.92.28.98): icmp_seq=2 ttl=55 time=24.6 ms
64 bytes from isv02.syd01.nsw.VOCUS.net.au (203.92.28.98): icmp_seq=3 ttl=55 time=24.7 ms
^C
--- ns03.vocus.net.au ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 3 received, 0% packet loss, time 2003ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 24.698/24.761/24.872/0.150 ms

200 is totally awful! How much of that is made up by the last mile latency?

Re:Latency seems too high

[nzac]

You do realize the skytower is a major data center with a massive cable.
I would think you would be pretty close to testing the undersea cable latency between those two points.

Re:Latency seems too high

[DeadBeef]

I've got my own access card for Level 47 and 48 of Sky tower, I'm aware of exactly what it is and why we decided to buy co-location space up there.

Our connection from skytower has to go a way across town before it hits the southern cross landing station, so the best case latency across southern cross is a bit lower again.

My point earlier on was that you can get anywhere return trip in New Zealand on a fibre circuit in under 35ms. Add the 24ms to get across to Australia or the 120ms to get to San Jose and you still don't get to 180ms unless you are using ADSL2+ or cable. Our POP in Christchurch is 20ms from Skytower in Auckland.

Re:Latency seems too high

[nzac]

Sorry did not see you wrote the GP to the post as well. That gives it some context. You are right, my home connection (in NZ) only adds 20ms to Sydney.

Still does not mean that going across Australia does not increase latency. Try pinging Perth.

Still don't think you do something that noticeable using NZ ips to bounce the connection to the US and back. It could just be shitty equipment (with ssl processing delay) and 2 to 3 hops off the main fiber.

Re:Latency seems too high

[DeadBeef]

To address the issue in the article, I expect that if Chorus / Telecom received a request to tap your connection you will never know that they have tapped it. The dark fibre circuits we have through them are provisioned on day one with an optical tap that is configured to direct a small percentage of the light to any gear that they might one day connect to it. The latency would be completely unaffected.

What makes more sense given the story is that Dotcom was on a fast fibre tail using a service that was actually in Sydney somewhere ( ~30ms away ) and for whatever reason this service switched to a node in the middle of the USA which could be 180ms away. Nothing there to do with taps or government conspiracies. They may well have been tapping his circuit as well, but the latency won't be anything to do with it. Even if they did have to divert his connection through some GCSB site, the latency would not be as high as 180ms.

As far as ping times to perth, from the same box in skytower:

[ ~ ]$ ping www.perthix.com
PING www.perthix.com (203.188.158.32) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 203.188.158.32: icmp_seq=1 ttl=120 time=81.3 ms
64 bytes from 203.188.158.32: icmp_seq=2 ttl=120 time=80.1 ms
64 bytes from 203.188.158.32: icmp_seq=3 ttl=120 time=81.2 ms
^C
--- www.perthix.com ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 3 received, 0% packet loss, time 2002ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 80.181/80.933/81.383/0.628 ms

Re:Latency seems too high

[nzac]

What makes more sense given the story is that Dotcom was on a fast fibre tail using a service that was actually in Sydney somewhere ( ~30ms away ) and for whatever reason this service switched to a node in the middle of the USA which could be 180ms away.

Where are you getting your info from? I realize the article is terrible but it clear the lag is from routing though NZ IPs, where are you getting Sydney from?
I assume he is tracerouting to the xbox servers, they are in Sydney?

Supposedly he has some technicians out to look at it? I guess it could be general incompetence from his provider.

Re:Latency seems too high

[DeadBeef]

I get Sydney because that is one of the only places that is approximately 30ms away. The details on what the traceroute's actually had in them are fuzzed away by the reporter, so you can't rely on them to say anything in particular.

Anycast nodes switching about could look a whole lot like the latency just going up to the uninitiated. Most internet providers don't actually have a huge say in which anycast node for a service gets chosen by their network unless they actually have a local node in their own network.

Re:Latency seems too high

[Anonymous Coward]

Your latency seems higher than mine, too.

# traceroute www.perthix.com
traceroute to www.perthix.com (203.188.158.32), 64 hops max, 40 byte packets
  1 vocus1.ape.net.nz (192.203.154.123) 0.317 ms 0.224 ms 0.283 ms
  2 ten-0-2-0-400.bdr01.akl01.akl.VOCUS.net.au (114.31.202.43) 72.981 ms 72.995 ms 73.117 ms
  3 ip-128.192.31.114.VOCUS.net.au (114.31.192.128) 73.120 ms 73.237 ms 73.111 ms
  4 ten-1-3-0.cor02.syd03.nsw.VOCUS.net.au (114.31.192.87) 73.409 ms 73.393 ms 73.417 ms
  5 ten-0-3-0-911.bdr02.per02.wa.VOCUS.net.au (114.31.206.127) 72.527 ms 72.627 ms 72.526 ms
  6 as9820.wa.VOCUS.net.au (114.31.207.134) 73.122 ms 73.516 ms 73.119 ms
  7 per-quadlv0-core01.perthix.net (203.188.144.243) 73.861 ms 74.311 ms 73.857 ms
  8 203.188.158.32 (203.188.158.32) 76.46 ms 74.88 ms 73.831 ms

I imagine your traffic path could be different? Routing can vary.

Really? That is proof of spying?

[Baloroth]

So his network started taking 5 steps to get out of country instead of 2, and that means he was being spied upon? I mean, sure, it's possible, but it doesn't even make sense. If they can re-direct his traffic, why not just copy it, either at one of the jumps or send a second copy to someone else? Unless you need to be able to cut off the communication (which you can't really do in 180ms anyways, unless it is automated, in which case you can do it without the jumps anyways), there isn't any reason to send it through a longer path.

Much much more likely is that it was a routing problem. You know, the kind of thing that happens all the time. But since it involves Dotcom, of course it must have been spying. Right.

Re:Really? That is proof of spying?

[fustakrakich]

Since it involves the government, there is little choice other than to assume it was spying. The authorities should have to prove their innocence, or they should lose their authority.

Re:Really? That is proof of spying?

[hyanakin]

For hardcore online gamer ping is one of the most important metrics to check up your internet connection - and hardcore gamers do everything to keep it as low as possible.

Kim even had own fiberoptics laid to his mansion - since he's a gamefreak...

So, when ping goes up considerable for some time it's not just a routing "issue".

That's why europeans, north americans and asians don't usually play outside their region - bigger ping.

Re:Really? That is proof of spying?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since it involves the government...

Apart from the little flaw of their being no evidence to suggest that it does in fact involve the government.

Re:Really? That is proof of spying?

[jklovanc]

The authorities should have to prove their innocence, or they should lose their authority.

Prove that you are not a serial killer. Prove you do not rape women. Prove you do not rob banks. A negative is almost impossible to prove. The government has the same "assumption of innocence" as a person. One needs to prove that something happens not prove that something didn't.

Re:Really? That is proof of spying?

[fustakrakich]

The government has the same "assumption of innocence" as a person.

Not while they have any authority... That's is price we must make them pay for it. And I'm not saying throw them in jail for abusing it, just that it must be taken away from them. A government should be made to use their authority transparently.

Re:Really? That is proof of spying?

[fustakrakich]

I should also point out that it is a proven fact that authority will be abused if not carefully monitored. So no, the government is quite guilty of abusing its authority over and over again with no incentive to act otherwise.

Re:Really? That is proof of spying?

[jklovanc]

Blanket statements like "the government is quite guilty of abusing its authority over and over again with no incentive to act otherwise." fail at the lowest level. It seems that you assume "government" is one person who never changes. Government is millions people who have differing agendas. Just because a few people in one government agency abuse their authority does not mean all governments agencies everywhere automatically abuse their authority. "Government" is not homogeneous; It changes depending on country, who is in power, and who is employed.

As for incentive, there is a very powerful one; getting re-elected. Abuse of power has been instrumental in the defeat of many parties.

Re:Really? That is proof of spying?

[Anonymous Coward]

that time zone and language differences for gaming time / chats etc

Re:Really? That is proof of spying?

[jklovanc]

There is an interesting catch 22 here. If the government needs to gather information on someone through a properly authorized wiretap they must keep the wiretap secret. For the government to be transparent it must make public all wiretaps. See the problem. It is the same as raising the requirements for a search warrant; if one needs proof to get a search warrant it will never happen because one needs a search warrant to get the proof.

Secondly, if government has no authority then they can not govern as they do not have the authority to do so?

The issue is that it is not some nebulous concept called "government" that is the issue. It is the people that run the government. If power is abused then fire the people and get better ones. The government is given authority because it is needed to get work done.

Re:Really? That is proof of spying?

[fustakrakich]

If power is abused then fire the people and get better ones...

Precisely.. That's the only way we can force them to operate more transparently. But we don't do that, so we must assume the worse until it changes. History and current events back me up on this. Government is guilty of abusing its authority and it will continue to do so until we change it. There is no reason to facilitate these abuses, but collectively we do, with our vote. Therefore, guilty as charged until proven otherwise, and we are the accomplice.

Re:Really? That is proof of spying?

[jklovanc]

Try looking at this from a logical rather than emotional point of view.

Government is guilty of abusing its authority and it will continue to do so until we change it.

Government is not a single entity therefore blanket statements like this are patently false. If one replaces the word "government" with "some government agencies", some government personnel", "some elected officials", etc then you may have something. Labelling all governments as abusing authority is much too broad.

Transparency is not a panacea. No one has the time to know and understand everything every government agency does. Do you want every email to or from every government employee, every phone call recorded, every meeting videoed, every document on line? Do you realize how much information that is? There are also times when transparency is bad. Gathering information on a suspect for example. If it was known the suspect is being watched they would do no crimes but we can not watch suspects forever.

If you have an issue with specific actions of specific departments then say that and come up with a solution. It is very easy to use broad nebulous terms like "government" and "transparency" but much harder to come up with solutions to the issues. How would you plan to change government? Hint: More transparency is a goal not a plan.

Re:Really? That is proof of spying?

[fustakrakich]

I believe you need to study up a little on basic human/animal psychology. Every study ever made demonstrates very explicitly how authority is abused. It's a very natural tendency, even with the best of characters. It's a gimme.

As for incentive, there is a very powerful one; getting re-elected. Abuse of power has been instrumental in the defeat of many parties.

Not really, only individuals get voted out. They are expendable. The abusive party remains, and most people will be scared into going along. 9/11 is the best example we have today. Bush was extremely abusive with his power and easily won reelection despite all that. And even though that faction of the party was subsequently defeated afterwards, the abuse continues, and there remains little resistance. The abuse will definitely continue for some time to come. And don't get me started on the state's department of motor vehicles and similar bureaucracies (IRS?), that can keep you standing in line for hours at a time, only to send you home to dig up more paperwork that should be their obligation to fill out.

Sorry, even with the slightest hint of trouble like this with a government, you can bet somebody is abusing their power by selling it to the highest bidder, and you would win that bet, even in New Zealand. Most people are distracted by other issues to take this into account. And the government will grow even more abusive until the voters turn it around.

Re:Really? That is proof of spying?

[fustakrakich]

Do you want every email to or from every government employee, every phone call recorded, every meeting videoed, every document on line?

If we demand it, hell yes! They must be made to answer to the public. Our obligation is to make sure they do exactly that, instead of accepting their statements at face value. History shows over and over that we are acquiesce far too easily. Time to turn it around and vote out the corrupt parties that hide behind closed doors. Time to put them into a glass house.

Re:Really? That is proof of spying?

[jklovanc]

To paraphrase you post. When it comes to governments accusation = conviction. I don't buy it. Sure one can point to some abuse in every government agency. But that is not the point. Every agency has some people who let authority go to their head but that is not true for all employees of an agency. For example, some police officers have beaten and killed innocent people that does not mean that every officer is bad or that the whole department is bad. That is what I mean by broad statements.

Most people are distracted by other issues to take this into account. And the government will grow even more abusive until the voters turn it around.

That is an interesting statement taken with a previous statement.

Every study ever made demonstrates very explicitly how authority is abused. It's a very natural tendency, even with the best of characters. It's a gimme.

So if the voters put other people into power they will automatically be corrupted by the power and we will be right back where we started. How does that fix things?

Re:Really? That is proof of spying?

[gl4ss]

that time zone and language differences for gaming time / chats etc

most people in europe use english in game chats.. and hc gamers don't stick to normal schedule. it's all about the ping.

Re:Really? That is proof of spying?

[fustakrakich]

So if the voters put other people into power they will automatically be corrupted by the power and we will be right back where we started. How does that fix things?

We have to watch carefully. Hang the proverbial sword of Damocles over their heads. They won't be so abusive if they have a camera in their chambers, like they want on our street corners, or if we keep an eye on their correspondence, in the same fashion of the power they want to look at ours. This has to be a two way street. At the very least there must be parity. But those in power must obviously be watched very closely. They have proven to be untrustworthy. They are presently abusive because they think they can get away with it, and they are getting away with it now. Make it clear that they won't, and will be removed for said abuses, and we'll go a very long way to solving the problem. It's not difficult, but it does require some effort on our part.

Re:Really? That is proof of spying?

[jklovanc]

Would you work under those conditions where you every move is recorded and stored. There isn't even enough hard drive space in the world to store a month of information that detailed. By the way, the corrupt parties have little to do with it. Bureaucracy is run by the bureaucrats and not the elected officials or their parties.

Re:Really? That is proof of spying?

[jklovanc]

Who would do the watching? Would they not have power over the people they watch and by the theory of automatic corruption would they not abuse that power? Who would watch the watchers? More watchers? More power? More corruption? It is never ending.

Re:Really? That is proof of spying?

[fustakrakich]

Yes, the bureaucracy is the true 'secret' government, but they are funded and appointed by elected officials. We have to watch what they do about a bad situation. And the NSA (in the US) built a nice big data center to store all our emails. They can cough up some space for this also. Look, it's way too lopsided the way things are now. We are too easy to accept unbridled authority. We have to remind people that the government serves us, not the other way around. We shouldn't let their position be turned into a career, with benefits none of us receive. We must turn it into community service.

Re:Really? That is proof of spying?

[Kalriath]

A routing problem that affects one customer, that even the ISP can't find an explanation for? And let's not forget that his ISP is one of the few that controls the backhaul all the way to the cable out of the country, and is the one that controls the connection to the United States by virtue of its 51% ownership of Southern Cross Cable. If they can't find a "routing problem" on their network, it's likely there is not one.

Re:Really? That is proof of spying?

[fustakrakich]

Who would do the watching?

We, the voters do.. We put 'em on unedited C-span. It's our job. When we fail, we get what we have. But you know what? This entire discussion will end up noting that majority rule is a failure, because it takes a corrupt, ignorant voter to elect a corrupt politician. In truth, I see them as a very accurate reflection of the voters themselves. People are trying to vote themselves either a tax cut or a government check, in the same way the politician votes himself a raise. So, the real solution is... what?

Re:Really? That is proof of spying?

[F.Ultra]

Do you want every email to or from every government employee, every phone call recorded, every meeting videoed, every document on line? Do you realize how much information that is?

Actually here in Sweden we do just that (except videoing every meeting but they have to be transcribed), if you work for the public then any person in Sweden has the right to get a copy of your emails, your snail mail correspondance etc. Unless the data for some reason has been classified but that is actually quite hard to do (one expection was however made in 2009 when the data transmissions from within the gouvernment for the time period of the 2004 tsunami in Asia).

Re:Really? That is proof of spying?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is an interesting catch 22 here. If the government needs to gather information on someone through a properly authorized wiretap they must keep the wiretap secret. For the government to be transparent it must make public all wiretaps.

Secrecy only matters during the investigation.
If you think the wiretaps from last year still have to remain secret, then you're an idiot.
By now its time to investigate the investigators.

Re:Really? That is proof of spying?

[jklovanc]

We, the voters do.. We put 'em on unedited C-span. It's our job. When we fail, we get what we have.

Sounds easy until you realize you would need millions of channels to watch the millions of politicians and public employees.

So, the real solution is... what?

As Winston Churchill said "Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried."

Re:Really? That is proof of spying?

[jklovanc]

And the NSA (in the US) built a nice big data center to store all our emails. They can cough up some space for this also.

I don't think you quite understand the scale of what you are asking. How would one follow and video a government official in such a way as not to infringe on the privacy of the people around him? The comparison to storing all emails is bogus on two point. Text is easy to compress video and voice is not. Video and voice recordings are very difficult to search; text is easy.

We have to remind people that the government serves us, not the other way around. We shouldn't let their position be turned into a career, with benefits none of us receive. We must turn it into community service.

Interesting goals; how would you implement this?

Re:Really? That is proof of spying?

[skegg]

The issue is that it is not some nebulous concept called "government" that is the issue. It is the people that run the government.

Not even that: it's that an overwhelming number people being governed are largely complacent and disinterested.

e.g. here in Australia we whale in anguish at the way injured people are treated in woefully underfunded public hospitals, while the government simultaneously wastes billions upon billions in bad decisions. Decisions that we do nothing to alter.

No: the fault lies squarely with us. You get the government you deserve.

Re:Really? That is proof of spying?

[Luckyo]

Sweden is the last place on earth after New Zealand to try to claim this. The officials have fewer problems then those in New Zealand playing obvious lapdogs for US. From Piratebay, which used to be legal in Sweden, to IPRED to spy on russian outbound internet traffic to the West, to case Assange which perverted justice and extradition rules in extremely obvious and very post-9/11 USA-way, transparency at high levels of government is absolutely the last thing that currently exists in Sweden for meaningful cases when foreign powers are involved.

There is some meaningful transparency on low level. There is little to none on high level, and that's frankly a Nordic problem in general. We're a bit too closed of a society with old boys clubs forming too easily. That's our kind of corruption, where no money changes hands, just favours.

Re:Really? That is proof of spying?

[Anonymous Coward]

The government has the same "assumption of innocence" as a person. One needs to prove that something happens not prove that something didn't.

I can prove that I have paid taxes. Now the government have to show what they did with them. If anyone in the government spend as much as a cent or a second on spying then I have the right to know. If they don't want to tell me what they do with my money then I want it back.
The government can not expect to have any right to privacy as long as it is tax funded. I should not have to rely on wikileaks to find out what my tax money is used for.

Re:Really? That is proof of spying?

[fustakrakich]

We have to do whatever it takes to keep government honest. And, going back, if we don't, we have to assume the worse of it. It's the only way to treat such a situation, given the scientifically proven fact that authority will be abused if not carefully watched. All authority must be held to a much higher standard. That is the minimum cost.

Churchill also said, "The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."

Re:Really? That is proof of spying?

[fustakrakich]

Interesting goals; how would you implement this?

We must nominate and elect, if not conscript better people for the job. It starts with us. If we don't make the effort, nothing will change, which leads me back to my original premise. You will continue to have nothing but the same corrupt carny hucksters in high office that we have today, making and breaking impossible promises, and operating in secret. That simply should not be allowed to happen. They are crooks, and we are responsible. The first step is to recognize the role we play. The second is our own desire to change. The solution is staring us in the face. Our implementation of majority rule is a failure now, but it doesn't have to remain that way. As long as it does, the burden of guilt shall remain.

Re:Really? That is proof of spying?

[jklovanc]

We must nominate and elect

We do that now.

if not conscript better people for the job.

Who is the arbiter of who the "better people" are? Are these arbiters corruptible?

if not conscript better people for the job.

The goals are staring us in the face; the plan to reach those goals is much more elusive.

This is circular logic.
1. People in government are corrupt
2.We need to put good people in government.
3.Government had power and power corrupts.
4.The good put in government will be corrupted by the power.
5. Goto 1
How do we break the cycle?

Sorry but watching every government official 24/7 is not a realistic option.

Re:Really? That is proof of spying?

[jklovanc]

And how do we do that. It is easy to point out a problem but much harder to find a plan that leads to a solution. "All authority must be held to a much higher standard" is a goal not a plan.

Re:Really? That is proof of spying?

[fustakrakich]

Combining both replies in one post:

"All authority must be held to a much higher standard" is a goal not a plan.

The plan is to actually do it. Start with looking for people that will live up to the standard. And to vote them out if/when they fail.

How do we break the cycle?

By voting conscientiously instead of for the guy with the flashiest suit.

Sorry but watching every government official 24/7 is not a realistic option.

But letting them know they can no longer hide behind the flag, or their badge is realistic, and is doable. But we have to do it. It won't happen by itself. They have to know they can no longer make their deals in secret. That will go a very long way to mitigate the corruption. We're not even trying now, mostly because the average voter wants a piece of it. They don't see it as corrupt, but it is. I will stand by my position until I see the government open up the books.

Re:Really? That is proof of spying?

[jklovanc]

"Do it" is not a plan. How does one actually hold someone to a higher standard? Tougher laws? More surveillance? What is your plan to actuall "do it"? How do we know the "people that will live up to the standard" now will not change when voted in?

They have to know they can no longer make their deals in secret

How do we ensure that? I don't think telling them something they already know will make a difference. Bribery and conflict of interest are already illegal or grounds for dismissal.

They don't see it as corrupt, but it is.

They are not that stupid. The corrupt officials know they are corrupt but do it anyway.

Still no plan; only goals.

Re:Really? That is proof of spying?

[fustakrakich]

More surveillance?

Yes

How do we know the "people that will live up to the standard" now will not change when voted in?

See previous question and answer.

How do we ensure that?

See first question and answer...

The corrupt officials know they are corrupt but do it anyway.

Because they know nobody's watching. So you apply more surveillance

This is at least the second time I've explained how. If you don't get it by now, I can no longer be of any assistance. You don't seem too interested in reading and comprehending my previous posts. So, I'm off..

Re:Really? That is proof of spying?

[jklovanc]

How will the surveillance data be collected. If it is not 24/7 then it is useless because there will always be time when someone is not watching when they can do corrupt things. There are also not enough people in the world to watch every official 24/7.

You miss the main point; surveillance requires people and people are corruptible. Also the "no one is watching" is BS. There are a huge number of NGO watchdog groups out there looking for corruption or are they corrupt too?

You have not explained anything. All you have done is set out goals but no plan to achieve them. Setting goals is the easy part.

Re:Really? That is proof of spying?

[jklovanc]

Considering that there are several well known spy agencies in the US such as the NSA and CIA I would say that there is a lot of money spent on spying.. I doubt a single person could even read all the government yearly budget reports. There is no way individuals are going to be able to micromanage the government.

The government can not expect to have any right to privacy as long as it is tax funded.

It is not a right to privacy issue; it is a data volume issue. Do you really think that your couple of hundred dollar tax contribution to a multi billion dollar budget can be tracked? Your taxes go unto a huge pot and get spent.

Then there are security issues. Do you really think it smart to make public that the US government paid a specific Iranian citizen for information about Iranian nuclear technology? Do you want valuable intelligence assets killed? When it comes to spying you are not going to get transparency. There is a reason it is called "cloak and dagger".

Re:Really? That is proof of spying?

[F.Ultra]

The two issues are not connected, transparancy and the gouvernment doing bad things are two completely different things. And you must forget also that there is political majority in favor of these things at the moment (pirate bay and assange) so actually it just means that things are working as it should even though I'm personally not in favor of these things.

Re:Really? That is proof of spying?

[F.Ultra]

One more thing, if you have a connection with Sweden then you might have heard of the Thomas Quick travesty, Consider that Expressen and DN (two newspapers) requested and god the complete e-mail correspondence from one of the members of the Supreme Court Göran Lambertz in which it was proved that he conspired with the old prosecutor and police inspector in the case (for example he wrote "since I'm supposed to be non biased can you write your own defence but put in some negatives as well and then I will publish it under my name ). That is quite high level if you ask me.

NZ Prime Minister is in Hollywood right now.

[Anonymous Coward]

Prime Minister John Key is schmoozing with studio bosses, hoping they'll keep the promises they made to him in this NZ election year.

And yet already they're letting him down, eve after he agreed to use the NZ GCSB and police against Dotcom on their behalf.

Those US studio bosses promised big rewards to John Key and "for New Zealand" in return, such as movie and TV production deals.

Only, once Dotcom was nuked, and everyone started glowing in the dark from the fallout, the studios then told the PM that they wanted NZ's existing foreign production subsidy upped to 30% from 16%, and postponed 'Avatar 2' which was to have begun shooting in NZ in 2013.

You see, PM John Key? See what happens when you get into bed with the Big Players in the hope you'll get yourself reelected?

On the other hand, I have no doubt they'll reward you with some juicy little seat on a board or three when you retire from politics, so it's not all bad... Unless you're just a NZ citizen-taxpayer, in which case, yes, it's all bad..

Re:NZ Prime Minister is in Hollywood right now.

[jklovanc]

Could the delay in production be related to an impossible filming schedule on a film that has not even been written yet?
Could the request to raise the subsidy be in response to Australia's increase in their subsidies?
Excellent FUD and conspiracy theories? When one hears hoof beats think horses not zebras. There is usuall a much simpler explanation to things that do not incluse conspiracies.

Re:NZ Prime Minister is in Hollywood right now.

[Anonymous Coward]

1. PM facing a tough reelection

2. Rich US corporate interests promising enticements if the PM does them a favour

3. PM does them the favour, but US corporate interests now want more in return, knowing PM has little choice but to comply.

4. Profit!!!!

They know they own the guy now. Just in case he thinks of trying to renege on them, the studios threaten to delay or deny the enticements (BIG budget movie or movies) and also demand that the NZ Prime minister cravenly gift them bigger tax breaks and subsidies the way the desperate-to-be-Americans Aussies did.

Just because you don't want to see a conspiracy doesn't mean there isn't one.

crime?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can anyone remind me, again what his crime was?
Wasn't he just running a cloud backup service, same as countless nonarrested others?

Re:crime?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can anyone remind me, again what his crime was?
Wasn't he just running a cloud backup service, same as countless nonarrested others?

He was going to launch the Megabox service. Thus, his crime was the most serious crime any citizen of the United States of Earth can commit: Felony interference with an outdated business model. It's still rather surprising that the MPAAocrat administration didn't send over a predator drone or two to level his house and be done with it.

Re:crime?

[Anonymous Coward]

Evidence of this?

Even if though the US eliminates liability for copyright infringement provided certain conditions are met. If take down requests were honored there shouldn't have been a problem with this business model. What would be a problem is if there is evidence of discussion or there was some statement to encourage pirates (in particular) to upload material.

Simply paying for content that a user is suppose to have the rights to or permissions of before uploading and paying them for the resulting traffic is not illegal. Particularly in the United States. Now in order to be protected under this provision in the United States you do have to have the bigger guns. Google for instance gets away with it because Google has bigger guns. Megaupload might have been getting to that point although it hadn't achieved it.

Re:crime?

[ThatsMyNick]

That in itself is not a crime. I think the claim is that he knew (or noticed) specific files that were infringing and still continued to host them. The employees even mentioned some file name and repeated infringes. One mentioned that the all "downloads" counted towards a payout were from infringing content, and mentioned that he is approving the payment this time, but would approve it the next time.
 
The other hosters make it very clear that they have zero tolerance towards anything they identify/notice as infringing. Megaupload was sort of a bit tolerant, and it is now biting them in the ass.

Re:crime?

[sjames]

Alleged but never proven.

Re:crime?

[Anonymous Coward]

That in itself is not a crime.

John Banks, a very sleazy crony of the PM of New Zealand, was recently caught with his hand in the political funding cookie jar, yet again. When the PM was asked if he was going to stand by him, as he's done on previous occasions when Banks was busted for this kind of shit, John Key said he would, because technically the guy had not broken any law. The fact that the guy had broken just about every moral and ethical standard imaginable counted for nothing, apparently, because no law had been broken. Technically.

Re:crime?

[Frosty Piss]

That in itself is not a crime.

I'm not saying this, but the issue is "facilitating" this "piracy".

Re:crime?

[stephanruby]

Didn't he "pay out" for files that brought a lot of traffic? With "pirated" content bringing the most traffic?

Suspicious behavior, yes.

An actual crime, no (at least not in the US at the time, or not unless they can actually get more evidence, than what is already publicly known).

Re:crime?

[ThatsMyNick]

Knowingly facilitating piracy is a crime. This is why rapidshare is not being prosecuted. The moment they come know a file they have has been reported as pirated, they take it down. If any of their employees comes across one, they take it down.

Re:crime?

[nurb432]

His crime was pissing off the industry.

Re:crime?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand why. If I rip one of my DVDs and put a copy in the cloud it's perfectly legal where I live.

If 'somebody' leaks the link and/or my password that's a crime against me, no?

Re:crime?

[gl4ss]

Can anyone remind me, again what his crime was?
Wasn't he just running a cloud backup service, same as countless nonarrested others?

"conspiracy".
just copyright infringement wasn't enough for extradition, so they invented that the company was a conspiracy.

Re:crime?

[Kalriath]

To be honest, I'm not convinced they like Google either, and if Google were smaller I expect that Eric Schmidt, Larry Page, and Sergey Brin would already be in federal prison. Kim was just an easier target because he is in a US friendly country.

You know, it didn't used to be like this. There was a time when the US and NZ would snarl at each other upon entering a room. Something to do with not permitting your ships into our waters because you can "neither confirm nor deny whether this ship is carrying a nuclear payload".

Re:crime?

[Kalriath]

In most countries, merely ripping the DVD is illegal in itself. Go check your format shifting provisions - the MPA(*) pays big money to prevent format shifting of video content being legalised. However, even if that doesn't work, coming soon to a legislature near you: TPM circumvention controls. Brought to you by the United States Government.

Re:crime?

[Kalriath]

Money laundering actually. That's the kicker. By claiming that his company was involved in copyright infringement on a massive scale (but insufficient under the extradition treaty to apply to have him relocated) they could then claim that all the money the company gained was illegal, and therefore money laundering (which does carry a penalty sufficient for extradition).

If his lawyers can tank the copyright infringement charge, the money laundering charge collapses too, and the FBI have nothing.

Re:crime?

[X.25]

The other hosters make it very clear that they have zero tolerance towards anything they identify/notice as infringing. Megaupload was sort of a bit tolerant, and it is now biting them in the ass.

I presume "other hosters" would you YouTube, and "zero tolerance" would be the content of internal YouTube emails revealed at Viacom trial, right?

Is that the 'zero tolerance' you are talking about, or we are talking some other 'zero tolerance' here?

Re:crime?

[X.25]

Knowingly facilitating piracy is a crime. This is why rapidshare is not being prosecuted. The moment they come know a file they have has been reported as pirated, they take it down. If any of their employees comes across one, they take it down.

And this is a great example of why people who don't know anything about the topic they are talking about should actually, you know, talk about it.

At least in time before Internet dumb people were not advertising it to everyone.

Re:crime?

[xenobyte]

Knowingly facilitating piracy is a crime. This is why rapidshare is not being prosecuted. The moment they come know a file they have has been reported as pirated, they take it down. If any of their employees comes across one, they take it down.

MegaUpload also had this feature, reportedly one of the best in the filelocker community. Fully automated. A rights owner just needed to log in and report the file and it was gone from all the server farms.

Oh, and Rapidshare was hit with an attempted prosecution but they're Switzerland-based and thus extremely hard to hit. So nothing came out of it and Rapidshare is humming along, just like always.

Re:crime?

[ThatsMyNick]

That is their DMCA page, and yes they respected DMCA (and every file locker does). But they payed people who violated DMCA. Other file lockers, will ban and close the account if one repeatedly violated copyright, and would definitely not count the downloads of copyrighted material towards their payouts. The FBI believes this amounts to paying pirates and encouraging pirates.

Re:crime?

[Anonymous Coward]

go ahead and explain this.
-Megaupload made it easy for anyone to take down a file.
BUT
-they also made uploads easy by checksumming. If the new file was the same as an old file it uploaded instantly. Hence wilfully creating a whack-a-mole game for content owners.

Another possibility

[betterunixthanunix]

Given what I have seen of law enforcement and how they think about civil rights, they may have been preparing an investigation and thus installed some equipment without activating it. You know, the standard CALEA excuse: we are not spying on you, we have not hit the "start spying" button to actually collect information; those wiretapping machines are just so that we do not have to move our equipment there later!

the real reason

[slashmydots]

Hey, the New Zealand intelligence infrastructure takes cheating at Modern Warfare 3 very seriously! (see Kim's wikipedia page)

"Five Eyes Echelon Network."

[John Hasler]

The Groaci are involved? We know who to call for that...

Re:"Five Eyes Echelon Network."

[Mathinker]

Alas, if only we had a world where Retief was totally in charge of global IP policy....

You forgot to mention something.

[Anonymous Coward]

From whom was John Banks getting that political funding?

Why, none other than KIM DOTCOM.

John Key worked very hard to ensure that John Banks won the Epsom seat, as it could only be a significant boost for Key's National Party.

A big chunk of the campaign finance for that election bid was supplied by Kim Dotcom, since Banks -- for a very juicy fee, of course -- had supported Dotcom's NZ residency application.

And then John Key used the NZ security services like a bunch of mob hitmen to bring Dotcom down in order to curry favour with American *AA interests.

When Dotcom appealed to John Banks for assistance -- well, he had just bought and paid for John Banks, after all -- Banks went all Sergeant Shultz on his ass.

But it may be that Dotcom will get the last laugh, because all this shit is chomping very hard on the asses of the two Johnnies right now.

Re:You forgot to mention something.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing will happen. Key will smile in the next photograph taken of him, and we will all know that Everything is Alright. That's how it's been for the last few years, and that's how it will continue: Key is smiling, We Are Alright.

NZ gives millions to the US movie industry

[NewtonsLaw]

The NZ Prime Minister John Key is *so* in-bed with the US movie industry that it is not funny.

Right now, he's in the USA schmoozing with the members of the MPAA and offering them hundreds of millions of (taxpayer) dollars in inducements to come film their products here.

Meanwhile... the same government ignores pleas from the science and technology sectors here to give them even a small break with respect to their R&D activities. Even when they do have a brain-fart and decide to invest taxpayers' money in some research or development activity they totally screw up and blow almost $1m on a stupid pie-in-the-sky delusion like the Martin Jetpack.

No, it seems that the government is more interested in selling-out (at all levels) to the USA than in helping to actually create some really valuable intellectual property that would be *owned* by NZers.

Kim Dotcom can't win -- because he's fighting the people who make (and break with impunity) the rules.

How long before the citizens of the world wake up to the way in which their governments are colluding with certain big business interests to disadvantage the majority of people?

Surely, in this age of technology, we can do more than simply voice our disgust on forums like this?

What is the next step?

Re:NZ gives millions to the US movie industry

[shadowofwind]

How long before the citizens of the world wake up to the way in which their governments are colluding with certain big business interests to disadvantage the majority of people?

As I see it, the problem is that the overwhelming majority of people are as selfish and inclined to abuse power as those who currently have power. They can't successfully resist the abuse because they're quick to sell each other out and grab rewards for themselves as soon as they get enough power to do anything. Or they just don't bother to follow through, because they're not actually willing to risk their own position and advantage in order to do anything, notwithstanding their talk and posturing.

Surely, in this age of technology, we can do more than simply voice our disgust on forums like this?

I don't think we can. To create a more moral political and economic order, people would have to start by being honest about their own behavior, and I don't see that happening any time soon.

Re:NZ gives millions to the US movie industry

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes this government's decision making abilities is questionable at best but New Zealand wouldn't have a film industry if those who view American companies making films in New Zealand as "selling out to the USA" had their way.

Re:NZ gives millions to the US movie industry

[Anonymous Coward]

... people are as selfish and inclined to abuse power ...

That's not as destructive as it sounds. That means everyone is fighting every other person for the same slice of cake. That means majority rule rises to the top, which is not always better but that is another issue. This dog-fight can be eliminated by a power structure: Either weapons or wealth, and occasionally by the unwashed masses. But an organised structure can pour its resources into fighting one idea or opponent, frequently by taxing a few pennies of every other person's resources. This results in the distracted multitude fighting the church/government/plutonomy. We saw this in the 'occupy' movement. And we see it when an industry guild or association drafts the laws they're willing to obey.

Re:NZ gives millions to the US movie industry

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the next step?

First we need proof.

Same thing to a friend

[Anonymous Coward]

Same thing happened to a friend of mine upon submission of a SF-86 for a a 3 letter organization, full poly the works. 2 years of the same ping to our favorite server only 20 miles from his/my house(Reston, VA), both of us on the same service (fios), 2 blocks away, his ping took a 35ms jump(5-8 to 40-43). Hated it for the entire BI process, and it lasted for 3 months after passing. Also was interesting was the hop count and how that got manipulated.....

Latency

[Anonymous Coward]

The most likely explanation for the high ping is that the traffic was directing through the US to Australia through the filter having it's own outbound route which had worse routing. The latency sounds about right for going via the US to Australia for forward traffic, while the reverse traffic from Australia was going directly back to New Zealand.

Routing to Australia and Singapore can be a bit hit and miss, with latency often increasing by as much as 180 msec if going via the US.

Generally speaking latency from Auckland to Los Angeles or San Jose is around 65 msec, and from San Jose or Los Angeles to Australia is around 80 msec, on top of that traffic from Auckland to Sydney is around 25 msec. If you add up 25 + 65 + 85 you end up with 175 msec. If you add 5 msec for the latency of the connection itself you get 180 msec from Auckland to Sydney via the US. And 30 msec direct to Sydney.

Although the minimal latency is slightly lower. For one, Sky Tower isn't actually nearby to the international links. Whereas he is much closer. Router overhead can vary quite a bit for within the same city, but best case scenario from the Sky Tower seems to be around 124 to 125 msec to the US, and 24 to 25 msec to Sydney, but transitting networks like Telstra and Global Gateway can add an extra msec compared to networks connected to Equinix or Vocus. This may be reduced slightly by being a direct customer of TelstraClear or GlobalGateway. For Australia peering to the US Telstra Endeavour is meant to have roundtrip times of around 155 msec, but a significant amount of Australian traffic flows through Guam, and some of it goes via Japan increasing latency even further. Although ISP's may consider sending outbound traffic which is lower in volume over the more expensive Telstra Endeavour cable, a lot of providers are going for price, and it's the incoming direction that matters in this, so are more likely to use Southern Cross or PPC-1, where Southern Cross is only slightly higher latency PPC-1 is significantly higher, but again, cheaper.

I'm not sure about the location of these game servers, but if you do a traceroute from the US you should be able to see what path it takes.

Like from Los Angeles to www.pipenetworks.com:

  7 te0-1-0-3.ccr21.sjc03.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.6.82) 13.369 ms 154.54.86.98 (154.54.86.98) 13.360 ms te0-1-0-6.ccr22.sjc03.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.6.110) 13.307 ms
  8 te4-2.mag01.sjc03.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.82.94) 207.482 ms te4-1.mag01.sjc03.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.82.90) 207.209 ms te4-2.mag01.sjc03.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.82.94) 207.167 ms
  9 38.104.138.90 (38.104.138.90) 15.875 ms 17.089 ms 17.996 ms
10 ve2124.rn-400harris-cer-01.pipenetworks.com (121.101.138.12) 217.348 ms 218.391 ms 218.425 ms

And then from Los Angeles to www.telstra.net.au:

  6 i-0-6-1-0.1wlt-core01.bi.telstraglobal.net (202.40.149.141) 0.829 ms i-0-2-1-0.1wlt-core01.bi.telstraglobal.net (202.84.251.186) 1.307 ms i-0-1-0-0.1wlt-core01.bi.telstraglobal.net (202.84.251.190) 1.169 ms
  7 i-0-2-2-0.sydp-core01.bx.telstraglobal.net (202.84.140.186) 150.100 ms 150.078 ms 150.031 ms

(it seems i was off by about 5 msec for Telstra Endeavour latency, and it seems that Los Angeles is extra bad through PPC-1)

Vocus have similar issue of sub-par routing from Los Angeles, but using Southern Cross gives at least reasonable latency:

  6 vocus.10gigabitethernet8-3.core1.sjc2.he.net (184.105.224.246) 9.554 ms 9.202 ms 9.195 ms
  7 ip-184.199.31.114.VOCUS.net.au (114.31.199.184) 164.784 ms 164.773 ms 164.713 ms

Whereas New Zealand is significantly lower:
  7 ae0-3.labr5.global-gateway.net.nz (203.96.120.85) 0.873 ms 0.864 ms 1.143 ms
  8 ae2-3.tkbr9.global-gateway.net.nz (203.96.120.141) 125.280 ms 129.244 ms 129.138 ms

Watchdog

[jklovanc]

Can you link the current feed of what the Stockholm police chief is doing right now? Who he is talking to? What unofficial emails he is sending on his personal account? If it goes through a government server or occurs on an official meeting it is probably accessible but that is only a small portion of what goes on. Is every telephone call recorded and transcribed? Do you record and transcribe every time two or more people stop in the hall or washroom and talk? Is every office bugged and transcribed every day? There are plenty of other ways to communicate that can be use by corrupt official and never officially recorded.

Re:Watchdog

[F.Ultra]

Of course, but that doesn't mean that transparancey is a bad thing or that it doesn't work. Actually this transparance has brought to life many a scandal so it actually seam to work for the most part but just like any other law there is technical loopholes.

Re:Watchdog

[F.Ultra]

Btw about the Police Chief, if you want to be sent all his email, snailmail correspondance as well as phone records then yes you can do that if you like. Since we are taliing about the police then some of it will probably be classified but all you have to do is to talk to the people at the reception on the Police Headquariters, they may even send it to you if you phone or mail them. Hell even the Security Police has this service at registrator@sakerhetspolisen.se

Re:Watchdog

[jklovanc]

I did not say anything about transparency being bad; it was more a statement that complete transparency is impossible. The point is to publish what one can but do not rely on it to be a complete picture.

Re:Watchdog

[jklovanc]

You are missing the point completely. There are many other ways to communicate than official snail mail, email and phone calls. A corrupt official will not us official channels to be corrupt. If all possible channels are not monitored then it is still possible to conduct corrupt business without anything being recorded.

Re:Watchdog

[F.Ultra]

Of course, I'm not trying to paint a rosy picture here. However the level of transparency that we have here makes it that much harder for corruption, and lobbyists have a very hard time. But as you say it doesn't make it impossible, there is probably no 100% cure, however since we often come on top of the non-curropted countries list year after year it probably has some effect, and if you are accustomed to the closed politics of the US it might be somewhat difficult to imagine how transparent it is over here? Either that or I'm completely gullible :)

I laughed.

[Anonymous Coward]

I liked the part where it said, Mr. Dotcom was a victim.