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Dotcom Drags NZ Spook Agency Into Court
New submitter d18c7db writes "Internet tycoon Kim Dotcom has won another court victory, today given the right to drag the secretive GCSB into the spotlight of a courtroom. Forcing the GCSB to be tied to the court action opens it up to court ordered discovery — meaning Dotcom's lawyers can go fishing for documents as they continue to fight extradition to the U.S. to face copyright charges. But the GCSB claimed any disclosure of what [was] intercepted would prejudice New Zealand's national security interests 'as it will tend to reveal intelligence gathering and sharing methods.' Dotcom and his fellow Mega Upload accused asked Chief High Court Judge Helen Winkelmann for the right to have the GCSB become part of the proceedings, amend their statement of claim, and for additional discovery. In a judgment issued today she gave that permission."
Poor widdle government agency lost its sovereign immunity when it started working for the wrong sovereign.
This is the point where the charges get dropped.
It's unfortunate that an utter slimeball like Dotcom is the one to drag these agencies and policies out into the sunshine.
What methods would it reveal? Surly they follow the law and have nothing to hide?
If the GCSB have nothing to hide, they have nothing to fear, right?
If they were using standard and allowed intelligence methods against this civilian, they have nothing to hide, and nothing to fear.
If however, they were breaking laws, then there may be other consequences too.
The defense only claims that it cannot be touched. Somehow, I think this is not a strong defense.
What we did was illegal by the laws of every country involved. And we knew this. AND did it anyway.
Now you want us to admit to breaking every law involved? NO!
We're going to fight this with every illegal or legal thing we can think of until you run out of money or give up.
Put them up aginst the wall. The lot of them. Improve the planet.
Has there always been this much Dotcom-hate on /., or is there the beginning of an astroturf campaign going on here?
Slashdot - News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters, in ISO-8859-1 Has just realised that beta makes this signature redundant
That could reveal that we illegally shared information with foreign nations!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If I told you how I came about it, you might think I stole it!
I don't really like Kimmie either, but for the first time in his miserable life he's doing something for the greater good. Even if only to save his own sorry ass.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Possibly because that's not a crime.
I didn't have a problem with him until I read his wikipedia page. Now I have a big problem with him. I suggest you do the same. If you're basing your opinion of him on the fact that you liked downloading things from megaupload and hate the MPAA, you're missing a lot of real info. He's a class A jackass. Anyone who changes their last name to something that stupid is right up there with Chad Ochocinco.
Why does a peaceful, isolated little country need an intelligence agency?
When I hear [read] the name Kim Dotcom, I thought he was Korean or something along those lines as that is the only place I know of where men can be named Kim. I guess I was wrong on that. Looking at the picture of Doctom in the article, I am reminded of Eric Cartman.
To make sure all of the intelligent people are accounted for.
To stay peaceful?
The UK isn't that much bigger (probably 5-6% larger) and you don't question us having several.
I'd say an intelligence agency of some sort was probably vital to any non-trivial country (i.e. one that you've heard of). You don't have to be invading foreign countries to be able to benefit from knowing when others are planning to do that to you.
Yes, because we should put people in jail based on wether we like them or not.
. The latest ruling is another milestone in Dotcom's bid to challenge extradition to the US on copyright infringement charges.
His lawyers have already proved that GCSB's surveillance of the mogul was illegal, and search warrants for the January raid were invalid.
Are we supposed to cheer for the judge for making a reasonable ruling, or are we supposed to cheer that the judge allowed for the review of possible criminal / illegal activities by the law enforcement officers of New Zealand? Any way you look at it, it's sad that it came to this: law enforcement in NZ breaking laws (possibly under the external request / direction of others) and using force to execute searches for evidence of copyright infringement.
66 Why does a peaceful, isolated little country need an intelligence agency? 99
Precisely because it is part of the Anglosphere, that's why. Furthermore, why hasn't Kim Dotcom been disappeared? That is ALWAYS an option, even in the Anglosphere. Is it that the great [racist] sharks don't like the water around NZ?
Arrogant douche or not, when your national spy agency is accused of giving too much information about a citizen to a foreign power so they can investigate the commercial interests of one of their own companies ... well, things might have gone a little too far.
They went outside of their legal mandate so they could go after this guy. They broke the law.
Are you defending the rights of the state to go after people by any means necessary? This is as much about the fact that law enforcement needs to follow the law as anything Dotcom did now.
I don't give a rats ass about what he did or didn't do, but I do expect governments to reign in their security apparatus and make damned sure they're following the law. In this case, they didn't, and now they don't want the evidence of that peeked into.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
In short, yes, there's always been this much, but it's mixed with heavy doses of support from the "I want something for nothing", "Big Media is killing us" and "gub'mint is bad" crowds.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
I didn't have a problem with him until I read his wikipedia page. Now I have a big problem with him. I suggest you do the same. If you're basing your opinion of him on the fact that you liked downloading things from megaupload and hate the MPAA, you're missing a lot of real info.
I don't like what I heard about his personality, but it doesn't matter: If somebody is a douche or not has no bearing on whether the actions taken against him and his company are legal and befitting the alledged crime or not.
I didn't have a problem with him until I read his wikipedia page.
Complete jackasses still have a right to due process. And secret agencies that consider themselves above the law simply need to cease to exist.
Really, though, unless I missed something, his Wiki page has nothing all that damning. Some petty hacking, some (non-identity theft) carding, and a pump-and-dump on an already-dead company. Woo-hoo.
Except that he has a rare combination of tech savvy with business acumen, you'll find far, far more evil people going about their daily business of screwing the plebes in nearly every corporate boardroom in the world. Kim, at least, sounds like he just did it for kicks.
I think I'd guessed it wasn't his surname from birth before I read his wikipedia page. I'm not sure I see anything there that classes him as "class A jackass", either. Care to be more specific?
Slashdot - News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters, in ISO-8859-1 Has just realised that beta makes this signature redundant
Dotcom was done previously for fraud, though when I read about the case it didn't sound much different to what some bankers do day in day out for a living, so it seemed more like Dotcom, being rather young at the time, was just being naive about how you play the game the big boys play.
A poster here previously admitted he was one of Dotcom's "victims", and hence that I believe is probably why you see a campaign here, only I don't think it's much of a campaign, it's actually just one or two people posting lots of FUD in the same thread, presumably because they feel if they say the same thing 10 times instead of once then that somehow makes the FUD not actually FUD.
There's a lot of talk about Dotcom's "horrendous" past, but it's documented fairly well on Wikipedia, much of his supposedly horrendous past, whilst I'm not defending it, was from when he was much younger and seems to be more about naivety and stupidity than anything.
I never used Mega Video for anything, legit or infringing. I have no opinion of Kim Dotcom. But really, is Dotcom or Ochocinco really worse than "Miller" or "Johnson"? So someone in your history was a miller at some point, now all of his descendants are? Some guy's dad on your history was named John, yay! At least Dotcom and Ochocinco have real personal relevance to those gentlemen. Anyone with a stupid last name like "smith" should think about changing it to something modern. How many smithies are there in ten people, 0.2? 0.1? Retarded last name.
Is Kim Dotcom a "douche"? I don't know, I've never met him. Even if he was, though, he still doesn't deserve two government colluding and breaking laws to arrest him. I don't need a third-person written wikipedia article to determine that you, however, are a judgemental prick.
UK is much more crowded though; ~62.3 million citizens vs. ~4.4 million in NZ.
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New Zealand has been the location of terrorist attacks in the past.
In the '80s a terrorist group based in France called the DGSE blew up the Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbour, killing one of the crew.
NZ security personal were able to capture 2 of the culprits (alain Marfard amd Dominique Prieux , but the French Governemnt made us give them back,
Sure, but it would be very difficult to successfully prosecute given the vast level of competition for that title.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
If only we could find a federal judge in the court system that had any backbone to challenge the NSA's illegal wiretapping programs instead of giving them carte blanche with their immunity/state secrets privilege.
The "national interests" reply is getting worn more than a bit thin. The proper reposte is:
"Since national security is so important to you, you ought to take especial care not to violate any laws or commit torts. Then you won't need to worry about being before courts, or can get yourselves severed from actions."
But No. The real problem is that at least some government officals believe themselves to be above the law. The same belief as held by common criminals. These officals believe that their "mission" is more important than obeying the law. Never mind that most of them are breaking some laws to enforce other laws. The irony escapes them -- must have thick heads. And please understand, obeying the law isn't tough -- there are lots of tame judges who will give out warrents. The rogues just don't want to submit, and can get away with it. Power trip.
I wonder why large numbers of office-holders aren't charged with treason as they wilfully violate their oath of office to uphold the US Constitution. But then, we live in a praetorian culture, much worse since 2001.
The lesson to be learned is to keep investigative branches separate; do not have the same body responsible for investigations into issues of national security and investigations into trivial copyright infringement.
His asshole of a personality is going to benefit him, actually. He's got those psychopathic traits to succeed because he's willing to trample anyone who gets in his way. The fortunate thing for us is that the crummy FBI and the MPAA are the ones in his way.
Maybe the GCSB will say their methods are secret and can't be disclosed in open court, and the court will dismiss the charges against Dotcom, giving the government a way out. It's happened in the US a few times.
I queston it. Half the reason these agencies are needed is because if the trouble they cause, with most of the remainder being fixable by decent practices like not hiking up electrical grid controls to the internet.
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I get the argument that some state secrets need to be kept to prevent aiding enemies from circumventing intelligence gathering activities. However, if that privilege is invoked, then the coutrs should simply give a default judgement as if the opposing side's claims are proven by the evidence provided. In other words, keep the secrets and be quiet and lose the case, or defend against it with the requested information - possibly provided under seal and only seen by the judge and a security-cleared lawyer for both sides.
Just like the DVD Jon bullshit it's blatantly obvious that the locals were just there to serve a warrant for an investigation run elsewhere. There's nothing to keep secret apart from embarrassment that they were working for another country, which has got to have been authorised by somebody in politics that wants to pretend otherwise. So the real secret is whose arse is being covered.
New Zealand is a sovereign nation right? (or were b4 you sold out to big media) How can France force you to give them back?
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
There has always been this much Dotcom-dislike on /. There isn't really any ill-will, just a general dislike of his character; "arrogant douche" sums it up nicely.
With that said, we still want him to win, because there are so many things wrong with the whole affair, such as shutting down a multi-million dollar business without a trial.
I know full well he's slime but a pile of international paramilitary bullshit is overkill for suspected copyright violation when a court order does the job, with a cop or two to bring him in if he's a flight risk.
They've had trouble with an intelligence agency from another country blowing up a ship and killing a photographer for one thing. The story about how they caught the agents is very cool and involved using a laser in a new technique to detect fingerprints on cloth.
Unfortunately they were only jailed for a year before a deal was made where they were supposed to have been transferred to a jail in their home country, but they were released immediately instead. That episode has left NZ with some distrust of other nations intelligence services.
Actually, I just read through most of his wikipedia page and it's a whole lot of "wow!" Dotcom is amazing. As a criminal, you simply have to admire his drive, guts and ability. Of course he's a criminal scum-bucket and deserves to be removed from society to better protect society's interests. But that said, it does not and cannot excuse misbehavior by our governments. If they expect us to respect and live by the rule of law, they should do the same. And if they are willing to break the law "to get a bad guy" then I have to wonder why we even bother with courts and due process at all. Also, who will be considered a "bad guy" tomorrow? Will we even get to know who it might be?
Without sanity, openness and accountability in government, we cannot hope to protect anyone and definitely not you.
If those methods are so important for fighting terrorism than perhaps they shouldn't have wasted them on a commercial copyright case?
Whoever made the decision to use them here is the one that burned those methods and info and should be the one help liable; but they should be released.
To remain peaceful and isolated, duh.
DotCom rocks the boat and conservatives don't like that. Not for any reason. Most people don't. Rock the boat even to stop people from drowning and the very people who are drowning will complain the loudest about being saved. People want a quiet life. They REALLY don't like someone who makes them think or do anything. Not even if they agree. Oh you might THINK you are left or right wing but as soon as someone starts hinting you actually do something about it, you start to resent that person. It happens to all of us to a greater or lesser degree. We LOVE pragmatist and hate idealist where pragmatist stands for: what you are doing goes against everything you believe but hey, it is the easy way out so as long as you don't feel 100% happy about doing wrong, it is okay to do wrong. An idealist is an extremist who dares to suggest that if you believe something to be wrong maybe you should consider doing just the tiniest bit less of it. RADICAL EXTREMISTS!
Julian Assange, Kim DotCom, Richard Stallman, they are all hated because they don't just say on accasion we do wrong but actually expect us to change, claim that if we keep doing X there are consequences! Linus Torvald is loved because he has no opinion and just lets us do what ever we were doing.
We love environmentalists just as long as we don't have to anything about, love opensource just as long as we can keep paying companies to lock us into walled gardens and Kim DotCom reminds us to much that filesharing is not just about copying a file from your friend but a huge economic battle between two ways we can run our economy in the future. Thinking about the effects of this battle going either way would do us good but thinking hurts and the Simpsons are on, a show that for a quarter of a century hasn't changed ANYTHING. We like that. It is safe.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
You would be surprised how much of a country is run by underlings thinking they are doing the best thing and what their masters want and then the masters find out and go "you did WHAT!?!"
True, but the responsibility goes with the delegation of authority. Just like when people delegate authority to their drunk selves and then wake up in the morning and look in the mirror and say, "you did WHAT!?!" - they're still responsible.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I didn't have a problem with him until I read his wikipedia page. Now I have a big problem with him. I suggest you do the same. If you're basing your opinion of him on the fact that you liked downloading things from megaupload and hate the MPAA, you're missing a lot of real info. He's a class A jackass. Anyone who changes their last name to something that stupid is right up there with Chad Ochocinco.
Wow, MIAA/RIAA shill? How much they pay you?
He's a jackass? He's not part of the industry that sicks police on a 9 year old girl. And as much as you have a right to change your name to something you want, he changed his name to something he liked. Doesn't matter if it's stupid or not, it's his legal last name. To not like someone because of their last name sounds bad, in fact, almost sounds racist.
I never to rarely used Megaupload. And when i did, if was for legal stuff. I don't need megaupload, i have been getting my stuff from USENET and torrents sites since you could. But regardless, so what? He had a business of storing files. He worked with the MIAA and RIAA when asked, and even that is being used against him. It's a bullshit charge, from a country that has NO POWER over another country, except by trickery, deceit and bullying, which is what is going to be exposed in trial.
Be seeing you...
I agree on the right to due process, but before making idealistic declarations
actually consider how it would be achieved and how little benefit it would be.
if they are willing to break the law "to get a bad guy" then I have to wonder why we even bother with courts and due process at all.
Allow me to introduce you to at least 95% of our beloved law enforcement personnel.
"The ferrets, they're every where I tell you!"
A kiwi sheep fucker might want to correct me [...]
Given your user name, I get this disturbing feeling your desire to talk to sheep fuckers stretches beyond a simple challenge to correct your knowledge of legal issues regarding the interactions betwixt the judicial system and national law enforcement agencies in New Zealand.
but before making idealistic declarations actually consider how it would be achieved and how little benefit it would be.
You mean, consider what it would mean if the CIA hadn't turned the entire Middle East against us by selling arms to both sides just for shits and giggles? If they hadn't run the world drug trade through the 80s, leaving all of Central America and most of Mexico under the control of the drug cartels? If they hadn't made the whole world hate us by running secret torture prisons through the 2000s (and probably still do it today)? If we didn't have to undergo irradiation by an unlicensed medical imaging device to board a plane just because the DHS think silly little things like auditable 3rd party calibration would give away too many of their secrets? If we actually had the right to sue AT&T et al (never mind the actual criminals in the government) for colluding with the NSA so they could illegally watch every bit we send or receive domestically?
Imagine if agencies like the GCSB had to actually obey the law? How, then, would they secretly get scum like Kim Dotcom, who poses a threat to no one except Hollywood, off for a bit o' the ol' waterboarding? If the KGB (yeah, sure they don't exist anymore) couldn't just go around assassinating political rivals with conspicuous, almost flamboyantly exotic poisons (then again, I suppose they do that more-or-less openly and with permission from their government, so, perhaps not the best example)?
Yeah... How little that would achieve. Why, Americans might feel safe traveling places more exotic than Western Europe and Australia, and where would that leave us? Why, practically anarchy, I say!
Wow, you really eat this shit up. You do realize I wasn't speaking about the US in particular, it was a generalization since you said all agencies with their authority.
You can list as many of the negatives as you wish but your argument has no merit if you only include those. I don't care about the current battle with Kim Dotcom.
Of course, all intelligence is gathered through the use of torture and state licensed assassins wander the world in search of depriving foreign and domestic citizens of the life and liberty alike. Makes perfect sense.
I am not really sure where the whole travel point is going as it is patently incorrect. We do have the right to AT&T et al, actually. Since you have brought the corporations up, non-state agencies are ones with greater authority. It is a readily acknowledged fact of civilization that governing bodies allow smaller specializing policing agencies to break laws in the interest of the people. If you want the sublimation of these agencies the only thing that would have happen is non-state agencies would gain the power in that vacuum and the legitimacy of the states authority would be undermined.
Then we should throw G.W.Bush Jr. under the bus along with Praetorious and any other politician. Oh and don't forget Bill Gates, Elison, Jobs and a whole host of others such as most of Hollywood and RIAA. Hell lets just start throwing everyone under the bus that I don't like, which means Humans since we can't live with them and they bring property values down.
Personall, I don't give a damn how much of an a*hole dotcom is since I don't have to put up with him at all. All I want is the service he provided where I was able to share some of my large artworks - bmp drawings in hi-rez that I sometimes create.
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
As you said it is the "Right to due process" a right cannot simply be circumvented because it is inconvenient, or cost not efficient. Murderers get this right and go free because of lack of evidence. Why is it that what Dotcom (assuming he is completely guilty) is worse than a murderer making it ok for his rights to be ignored? Because he "stole" from some rich people?
Rights are regularly circumvented for this very reason, they're called exigent circumstances. Your weirdly hyperbolic sarcasm aside, I wasn't talking about Kim Dotcom or NZ. Don't really care about them. I was mainly speaking non-violent intelligence gathering to preclude violence.
If you really want to drag it out, this doesn't have to do with what should be but with what is. Stop barking at the status quo and reality, he was made out to worse than a murder too bad. He stole from rich people, shouldn't have been that dumb. That simple. You want to commit crimes know who you are commiting them against and don't be surprised when you get caught or held for what is flimsy legal reasoning or downright illegal. It's like pissing off the mob and expecting not to have your family tortured or something.
Wow, you really eat this shit up.
Every single point I made (with the possible exception of the Russian government actually having control of their own intelligence agencies - I'd call that one open to debate) amounts to pure documented fact. Not speculation, not even stretching the data to fit an information vacuum.
Though, I suppose you might not remember the Iran Contra affair. You might not have flown in the past 10 years. You might not read Slashd... Oh... No, I guess you do. Huh, funny that.
You can list as many of the negatives as you wish but your argument has no merit if you only include those.
Remind me which branch of the US government controls the GCSB (in case you need a cite for that one, click on the FP link for this very thread) or the KGB? Or hey, we can throw the Mossad in there if you like. I could go on, they pretty much all have a list of publicly known sins a mile long. The US only dominates the list out of sheer volume, not as anything special.
We do have the right to [sue] AT&T et al, actually.
No, we don't, actuallydon't . I am not really sure where the whole travel point is going as it is patently incorrect.
Funny, the US Department of State seems to know what I meant. Perhaps you should re-read it if you didn't get it the first time?
Woh, calm down looks like you're too far in the frenzy of your orgasm to notice I was not disputing, nor in anyway arguing the historical precedent of those incidents.
I was saying that in the context of an argument if you only take into account what benefits you, then you really aren't actually producing an argument. You are simply restating something I learned about in 6th grade.
Again...refer to above before throwing around hyperlinks like it means anything. In case you still don't understand this concept it means that while an agency may do something wrong in the moral context of a citizens understanding you have failed to actually list any of their worth. By saying all these agencies should cease to be please actually consider their historical precedent and use before spouting off 4-5 incidents in the 20-21st century.
Reread your article bud, they declined to hear. Does not amount to not having the actual right to sue them. Nor did you specifically say what to sue them for beyond the generalization of their inclusion with government agencies.
This is a statement of caution, not at a demographic of the travel of people to foreign nations or their mood about going there. I have friends who have been to China, Russia, Mongolia, Tibet, the Middle East as well Africa. They were not so afraid that they opted to stay in Europe. You have to understand that there is a risk everywhere and whether or not the state cautions in those area it is not equivalent to the statement of their general malaise in the travel to these places.
Pot, meet kettle.
If somebody is a douche or not has no bearing on whether the actions taken against him and his company are legal and befitting the alledged crime or not.
In theoretical universes, sure.
In the real world how you act has consequences. Your past actions DO GET HELD AGAINST YOU in a court of law and the damn well should be. Previous actions show patterns. People don't actually change, sometimes people aren't bad but do bad things. They may only do it once out of some need or ignorance. People who lie, cheat, and still over and over again don't suddenly stop doing it. He is getting what he deserves.
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Reread your article bud, they declined to hear.
Declined to hear an appeal to a lower court's ruling that we couldn't sue. As the US has no higher authority to petition for redress - We can't sue, simple as that.
you have failed to actually list any of their worth.
I maintain that they have no worth. You've said nothing to counter that, but, as I obviously can't prove a negative, I guess that ends the thread.
DGSE is France's external intelligence agency not a terrorist group. It is the equivalent of the US CIA, UK SIS (MI6) and NZSIS. However, I don't those examples spend their time blowing up Greenpeace ships.
You're pretty silly. Slashdot may have hardons for assange and stall man are 2 of the biggest hypocrites on the planet. Dot com is nothing more than a fraudster and a thief using ignorant people like you to fanboy for him.
You can't name one redeeming quality about him that isn't entirely self serving and will no longer be his concern the instant it no longer benefits him directly.
He isn't fighting for your rights, he's trying to keep the shit he stole and hide behind some righteous pretend cause.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
I think of blowing up green peace related stuff as counter-terrorism work myself. They aren't exactly law abiding citizens or even ones you'd actually want to be around.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Are we reading the same /. ?
I see lots and lots and lots of people rooting for a career criminal who made copyright infringement a business concept. The exact kind of people you do not want to be associated with when you are interested in a sane copyright reform, because they are more useful to those crying for more and stricter laws than to anyone fighting for the public good.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
You (The U.S.A) is already killing people you don't like in other countries and then letting POTUS announce the killing.
So, what's stopping you?
Well said!
...I'm tired of various entities somehow being above the law and able to just say no whenever they want. The things they do are on the taxpayer dime. They are arms of the government, which is a servant of the people. In no way are they nor should they ever be above the law, period.
Yeah, but given your theme of "people who lie, cheat and steal... don't suddenly stop doing it", I'd be far more worried about a nation's intelligence agency apparently selling out to a foreign corporate cartel - what else might they have done?
I dunno, it appears to me that's exactly what an argument is. If you were taking into account what benefits both sides, it would be compromise, or cooperation, or synthesis, whatever. If you aren't actually arguing with him, from this seat in the audience I'd say you're not doing too well (and if you are, I'd also say you're not doing too well).
Also, this:
The not so funny thing about due process is that if you stop following it even a little, you're not actually following it. "So what if I treated the perp a little roughly, he's still got his teeth, right?"
Furthermore, this is the GCSB, the New Zealand equivalent of the NSA. I imagine there's a heck more than a little benefit in having an intelligence agency that's trustworthy - and in being able to determine if it is or is not.
I'd say the same for the DGSE, but I'm sure I'd get in trouble for blowing up their stuff.
Has there always been this much Dotcom-hate on /., or is there the beginning of an astroturf campaign going on here?
One anti-Kim post and you say there's an astroturf campaign going on?
I can only assume you're a paid Megaupload shill.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
You and Kimmie should go get a room if you want to suck each other's dicks. There's a time and a place.
Dotcom is amazing. As a criminal, you simply have to admire his drive, guts and ability. Of course he's a criminal scum-bucket
I don't admire any criminal's "drive, guts and ability". Sorry, but that sort of admiration for something just because it is done well is morally and philosophically offensive.
I don't think that Heinrich Himmler was amazing because of his excellent organisational skills.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Wow, MIAA/RIAA shill? How much they pay you?
Fuck off. A lot of us would agree that Kim Dotcom is a twat. It doesn't mean we love the MIAA/RIAA.
To not like someone because of their last name sounds bad, in fact, almost sounds racist.
WTF are you talking about? He chose a stupid last name, it's not some obscure sub-cultural reference.
He had a business of storing files.
He had a business model of making a lot of advertising money off visitors using his site to store files that infringed on copyright. You can pretend as much as you want that most users were just storing their old backups of self-generated content (and I'm sure some was), but we all know that the volume was because of people sharing copyrighted movies, music or whatever.
So personally, I have zero sympathy for him. He exploited the law to make money for himself. If you think all digital information should be freely shared, that's up to you, but that doesn't in any moral sense give you the right to make money off it.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
All I want is the service he provided where I was able to share some of my large artworks - bmp drawings in hi-rez that I sometimes create.
What was so unique about Megaupload that you can't share your artworks in one of a million other ways?
I've seen this argument on slashdot before, that Megaupload was some sort of technological breakthrough, is it true, or just pro-Dotcom FUD to obscure the fact that he made his millions off allowing people to share copyrighted material?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
There's a lot of talk about Dotcom's "horrendous" past, but it's documented fairly well on Wikipedia, much of his supposedly horrendous past, whilst I'm not defending it, was from when he was much younger and seems to be more about naivety and stupidity than anything.
Bollocks, you don't naively and stupidly become a criminal when you're young, unless you're of a criminal disposition (i.e. a lazy, stupid, entitled arsehole who thinks mug punters are fair game). Criminals are scum. The fact that Dotcom made his money from the unauthorised copying of copyrighted material says more about the fucks who used his service and allowed him to leech his millions than it does about the validity of copyright.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Nobody quite seems to think through why he should be able to make money from other people breaking copyright, it's just assumed that breaking copyright is a reasonable end in itself. I suppose his benevolence in setting up the Megaupload servers gives him more of a right to make money than the original creators of the content, because, as we all know, digital media cost nothing to copy, therefore they must cost nothing to create, therefore it should not be possible to make money on people just copying "your" work.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Well said, that man.
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I think of blowing up green peace related stuff as counter-terrorism work myself. They aren't exactly law abiding citizens or even ones you'd actually want to be around.
Fuck you, Greenpeace are a legitimate non-violent protest group. Funny how everyone here's in favour of free speech if it's to allow neo Nazis and homophobes to chant their filth in public, but as soon as someone makes a genuine political protest against the Establishment, it's "fuck those hippies". See Occupy Wall Street.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Yeah, changing your last name is ridiculous.
I heard that the lead guitarist from Guns and Roses changed his surname to Dotorg. And he's suing Rob Malda! What is the world coming to?
Fact is, over here in germany the local hacker organizations see this awfully 'cool' Kim a little different. Want a little history about him? Guess that would be better for you. Kim (or by his old handle Kimble) is known since the ages of diskette game sharing. He would be remebered as the guy SELLING the shit in school and clubs not sharing it for free. When the internet came along in its early pre-forms (BTX for germany) Kimble had a service running, that enabled you as a user to access tons of pirated crap for money sped monthly. When the service was found he got his ass out of the fire by selling the information about his users, THOSE WHO ACTUALLY PAID HIM FOR IT!!!!
This scheme goes on trough the days of Usenet in germany. I would not be surprized if he'd sell out his users again. He just works that way, once a judges whore always a judges whore. There is some serious stuff in the history of kim dotshit. I'm happy to know about it as a member of the Chaos Computer Club. This should be the chance for you to stop idolizing an corporate idiot out of being uninformed.
Start looking at the real heroes working for the Piratebay.
Bang on. And our Prime Minister, who by law oversees the GCSB, has evaded, dissembled, obfuscated, changed stories and had "memory lapses" in his various explanations of what he knew and when regarding this case. The government is going to great lengths to avoid showing what a precarious position it's in and how easily its hold on power could vanish if some embarrassing revelations come to light.
In other news, astrophysicists have announced that they now know what all that dark matter is: it's stupidity.