And that is... what? A sanity check? Oh the COURTS ordered it? So it must be fine and dandy?
Of course not. Welcome to the Moron Club. The courts (which do appear also to be a members of the Moron Club) do their work based on the laws passed and other previous judgments, making the lawgivers obvious members of the Moron Club too.
The fact is that:
1) The Pirate Bay does nothing criminal. They host no illegal material nor do they link to it. They host a list of hashes not derived in any way from illegal materials. They are just data that are useless on their own.
2) Blocking access to information is censorship in it's pure form. No democracy should allow any form of censorship.
3) Any block can be easily circumvented. It's nothing but symbolic and does more harm than good on every level.
I'm in New Zealand where the US FBI is getting the NZ Government to charge the owner of MegaUpload 'Kim DotcCom' on their behalf. There is nothing wrong with this, it is part of NZs responsibilities. However, the FBI have been duplicating the MegaUpload harddrives while in New Zealand despite not being permitted to.
More importantly they escalated (using obvious bogus claims) a civil matter (aiding in copyright infridgement) into something that would give them access to both Interpol and extradition: Multinational conspiracy to commit fraud and grand theft.
In reality, MegaUpload was not part of some global conspiracy or similar to do anything criminal. They sold sharable storage space and bandwidth. Their business was similar to the countless other similar businesses and it was only their popularity that set them somewhat apart from the others. Despite not being a US company they still complied with DMCA-rules and provided an easy-to-use interface for copyright owners to use to remove infringing data.
The Swedish attorney general (justitsminister) first went on a 2-week vacation in the USA, paid for by the MPAA/RIAA. Just days after returning home she signed a search warrant (thus violating both the Swedish constitution and the separation of powers) for TPB. This warrant was then exceed more than 10-fold as they removed countless servers not related to TPB, and again when the many unrelated servers wasn't returned in a timely manner. They also vandalized the datacenter by disabling/destroying surveillance cameras.
Interesting enough, nothing illegal was found on any of the servers, and of course the raid only caused 48 hours of downtime for TPB.
It has EVERYTHING to do with both USA and Wikileaks. The charges are bogus and Sweden has already proved that they are willing to bend over backwards for the USA in the matter of the illegal and unconstitutional raid on The Pirate Bay's servers. It is obvious that the USA will file for extradition the second Assange is in Swedish custody, charged with espionage. As this is an offense both in Sweden and in The USA, and Assange not being a Swedish citizen, the extradition should be a simple matter of stamping some papers.
For once I don't agree with Bruce Schneier... I don't think the US *created* Stuxnet, but maybe they customized it and used it against Iran.
On the principle of making cyberwarfare I think it's a valid way to fight that doesn't cost too many lives and in this case was guaranteed not to have any collateral damage in the form of civilians hurt.
Let there be no question about it: Iran must be prevented at all costs from acquiring nuclear weapons. If that fails we must revive the cold war strategy of a first strike in order to eradicate their capability to wage war. Fortunately the lunatics in charge are easily provoked so the obvious strategy must be to make them attack with nuclear weapons (which of course should be intercepted before they do harm), and then strike back with a similar and now justifiable nuclear attack that efficiently both destroys the megalomanical regime and their capability to create more nuclear weapons. Hopefully what rises from the ash is a new and more reasonable regime, like we saw it in Japan after they got hit by the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs.
Not necessary. Just kick it off the net. You can easily flood most private low-bandwidth machines off the net without breaking a sweat bandwidth-wise yourself. If the attacker switches, repeat and rinse.
The core issue is this: Did Sweden provide guarantees that they would not extradite Assange to the US, as he's facing a cruel and unusual punishment there, possibly even a death sentence? - Basically it should be mandatory to return an extradicted person to the country from where this person was extradicted whenever the trial is over, or when the sentence is served, thus making certain that further chain extradition does not happen.
In the UK, it's already illegal not to disclose encryption keys on request. Being senile or having internet induced ADHD isn't a defense either.
Which means that it is now illegal to protect your information if you have a crappy memory (for whatever reason). It follows directly from the obligation to disclose; if you cannot be sure to remember the keys/passwords, you're knowingly attempting to break this law, and that has to be a crime in itself.
Amazing really - a civilized country has actually made it a crime to have a bad memory, because it is also a crime not to protect sensitive information.
On the other hand, there is the UK, where CCTV surveillance is everywhere. Not the same country.
There's a huge difference between being watched in public by CCTV and have your private online activities made from your home computer logged. You have an expectation of privacy when you're in the privacy of your home, and not when you're out in public. Whether you're seen by by your neighbor or the mailman or some CCTV cameras doesn't matter. You know you're out in public and there you have no expectation of privacy.
1) Google should take their photos from a human height, i.e. 6-7 feet, not 10 feet or more. This is what people see so that's what Google should show. 2) What are you hiding? - You can put up a hedge or similar which obscures things, but a 6-foot solid fence? - You MUST be hiding something!
Seriously, I think it's a runaway trend to put up tall fences, walls and so on. You need to open up and face the world, not shield yourself from it. It's arrogant and somewhat hostile to do separate yourself from the world like that.
403 is exactly right:
"The request was a legal request, but the server is refusing to respond to it"
No, because you're not talking to the server your requested. A gateway before the server is refusing to let you access the real server. This is why a code in the 45x series is better as several parental control systems already use 450 to signal gateway censorship.
There are two sides to any discussion, 'settled' or not.
The discussion about climate change has at least two sides and it has not in any way, shape or form been settled yet. How can anyone even claim that there's a consensus concerning climate change when the basics are still being discussed?
The issues: We don't know if there's any unusual change occurring now. Some even argue that we're seeing no unusual change now. We don't know what kind of changes are natural and which are human influenced. We don't know what caused the changes seen in the far past. The Sun obviously plays a part but how much does it affect the things we see and we've seen? Until we fully understand the natural processes, we cannot even begin to make guesses about how humans are influencing them.
I don't pirate because the people who created media have expressed their wishes quite clearly; If I value it, then I'll pay the price they ask.
However, suggesting that you are forced to break the law is absurd. There is no real threat to your well-being by having the latest music/TV/movies/software. Even if you argued that your quality of life would suffer without your favourite show or game (a BIG stretch), there's plenty of other crap to choose from.
Excuse me, but... bullshit!
Why should I have to wait/live without while John Doe can get everything, just because he lives in a different place than me?
I have money in hand - I want to pay! But they don't want to sell. I find it perfectly reasonable that if they refuse my money I'll just steal the stuff instead. After all, it's their choice that it is so.
Which is better/worse: The known evil of the US abusing their control power to steal domains and disrupt business for those they do not like (as the result of bribes, misguided politics or plain stupidity), or the possible evil of groups in the UN imposing national politics on the greater Internet?
I personally prefer to deal with the known, and the known is that the US has been grossly abusing their current power on the Internet - and that needs to be stopped.
Quite true, quite true. I stopped pirating music when Amazon MP3 came around: Download plain and simple well-tagged MP3 files. That's a technology I'm willing to live with for my music.
I tried it once...
Looked for something not out here in Denmark (or in the rest of Europe for that matter) and found it on Amazon US as MP3 download. Tried to buy and was told that I couldn't do that because I live in the wrong place.
Looked some more and found it on iTunes US. Tried to buy it and was again told that I couldn't do that because I lived in the wrong place.
Now I turned to TPB and found it there. So, as nobody wanted to sell the thing to me, I downloaded it from TPB and have enjoyed it since.
It is still unavailable for me to buy (it's download only) so I cannot pay even if I really want to - and I do. Even found the artist on twitter and asked how to pay directly but received no answer. Everybody quite obviously wants me to steal it! - or move to the US and buy it there.
Actually - as this thing is going it is more than likely that the US will loose and fail to get any extradition or other conviction.
Remember, everything hinges on thumped-up charge of conspiracy to commit copyright infringement which is ludicrous because MegaUpload did not sell access to the illegal stuff, nor did they ask or otherwise entice the pirates to use their services. They were just one of many cloud storage and sharing service providers that both pirates and everybody else used. You paid for longer storage time, more storage space and more bandwidth to access/download. Access was free otherwise, which means that downloaders didn't pay for access but paid for ease of access.
Oh, and when the US loses this case, I can't wait for the counter-suit for damages. I would laugh my pants off when the US government is ordered to cover the damages incurred during this farce of a trial. I hope Kim Dotcom takes them to the cleaners and take everything to the max. Get them to pay so obscene amounts that heads will have to roll and the collaboration with the copyright MAFIAA is dropped like a hot potato.
Cyber or not, the solution is the same: Turn the tables. Bully back! Make the bully the victim. It works like a charm.
Just be prepared to go to any length necessary in order to match and respond in kind.
Example: The bully beats up weaker kids and steal their lunch money (classic). Solution: Beat up the bully and steal all his money. Bigger brothers of the weak kid are the best to use here, but parents and even the odd biker will do. Just lay it on him and don't hold back. Make sure the bully knows that he asked for it and if he goes to anyone, he'll get it much worse next time.
Example: The bully uses psychological means only to intimidate the victim, and this happens at a school. Solution: Respond in kind! My elementary school equivalent teacher actually did this and for about a week he singled out the bully and ran him hard while making sure that the pupil knew that this only happened because of what the bully had done. The result: No bullying at all for the rest of the years until we moved on to high school.
It's all about making to bully know and feel how it is to be the victim. If the bully turns out to be a sociopath unable to make the empathic connection he'll do something really stupid and then just let the police handle it. With any luck his career as a menace to society is over before it even began and he'll spend his life locked up in institutions where he belongs.
In the UK this is going to be reminiscent, for a lot of people, of the English Defence League - a bunch of neo-nazi football hooligans who stage rallies against 'Islamists' in English town centres, as a shallow pretext to harass and attack people with dark skin.
Stupid wording... The Islamists are real and the regularly breed fanatics with bombs intented to kill 'infidels'. It's just too sad that hooligans use the valid threat as an excuse to go out and commit violence against anyone looking a bit foreign... Muslim or not.
Have we actually seen pictures of Trayvon Martin as he looked on that day?
Many sites have been showing that the 'cute' picture used by most news outlets were several years old and from a time before Trayvon got into the 'gangsta' lifestyle; pictures of him with gold teeth, tattoos and gang paraphernalia has appeared. If he looked anything like that when Zimmerman encountered him, he's be more than justified shooting him IMHO.
After all, it was a Florida black youth gang that set the record in brutality against non-gang victims; this gang held up rental cars leaving the Miami Airport, and for convenience they always shot the victims dead before robbing them ("it was easier that way"). The gang was caught after the tourist industry in Florida suffered badly, the leader fried in the electric chair long ago (he did most of the killings) and the rest are gonna look at the world through bars for the rest of their lives, serving dozens of life sentences without parole consecutively.
They've been testing this for a while - We've already had the first complaints against someone spamming an email that only exists in exactly one place: Online as the result of some (trivial) javascript. Turned out that if you Googled the page, the result snapshot included the javascript generated email... In other words - it's already there and this will effectively kill javascript as a way of hiding functioning mailto links. Okay it would be fairly simple to add a condition based on the User Agent as GoogleBot is easily identified but it will make things a bit more complicated for the average user.
There is no stealing when it comes to file sharing! - There's possibly copyright infringement which has nothing to do with stealing or theft.
Please look up the definition of theft. It concerns the unauthorized change of ownership of an item, i.e. the owner loses the item while the thief gains it. When you make a copy, theft can never be an issue unless the original is lost as part of the copying process. If you just make a copy without touching the original it can never be theft as the owner never loses control of the original.
The only reason the word theft or stealing is used is to make the copyright infringement sound worse. In reality it is a very innocent process that only results in a loss if the copy replaces a sale.
Problem is that this doesn't happen much. Less then 5-10% of piracy has a lost sale associated; it is mostly opportunity-based (the pirate is only interested in the item because it is free - he would never pay for it). The bulk is a form of pre-sale where the pirate resorts to an illegal copy because a legitimate copy isn't available (in the desired format), and usually results in a sale when a legitimate copy finally becomes available.
MegaUpload sold bandwidth primarily (for premium users) and ads for the rest. They never sold anything in the way of pirated software, games, movies and music.
They are obviously not in any way more involved in piracy than the owners of the roads in areas with a peak in crime. Sure, the roads are essential to the criminals in the area, but they could do without if they really had to, just like the pirates now are using other cloud hosting now that MegaUpload isn't there.
Slashdot Mirror
And that is... what? A sanity check? Oh the COURTS ordered it? So it must be fine and dandy?
Of course not. Welcome to the Moron Club. The courts (which do appear also to be a members of the Moron Club) do their work based on the laws passed and other previous judgments, making the lawgivers obvious members of the Moron Club too.
The fact is that:
1) The Pirate Bay does nothing criminal. They host no illegal material nor do they link to it. They host a list of hashes not derived in any way from illegal materials. They are just data that are useless on their own.
2) Blocking access to information is censorship in it's pure form. No democracy should allow any form of censorship.
3) Any block can be easily circumvented. It's nothing but symbolic and does more harm than good on every level.
I'm in New Zealand where the US FBI is getting the NZ Government to charge the owner of MegaUpload 'Kim DotcCom' on their behalf. There is nothing wrong with this, it is part of NZs responsibilities. However, the FBI have been duplicating the MegaUpload harddrives while in New Zealand despite not being permitted to.
More importantly they escalated (using obvious bogus claims) a civil matter (aiding in copyright infridgement) into something that would give them access to both Interpol and extradition: Multinational conspiracy to commit fraud and grand theft.
In reality, MegaUpload was not part of some global conspiracy or similar to do anything criminal. They sold sharable storage space and bandwidth. Their business was similar to the countless other similar businesses and it was only their popularity that set them somewhat apart from the others. Despite not being a US company they still complied with DMCA-rules and provided an easy-to-use interface for copyright owners to use to remove infringing data.
You have forgotten!
The Swedish attorney general (justitsminister) first went on a 2-week vacation in the USA, paid for by the MPAA/RIAA. Just days after returning home she signed a search warrant (thus violating both the Swedish constitution and the separation of powers) for TPB. This warrant was then exceed more than 10-fold as they removed countless servers not related to TPB, and again when the many unrelated servers wasn't returned in a timely manner. They also vandalized the datacenter by disabling/destroying surveillance cameras.
Interesting enough, nothing illegal was found on any of the servers, and of course the raid only caused 48 hours of downtime for TPB.
Troll alert...
It has EVERYTHING to do with both USA and Wikileaks. The charges are bogus and Sweden has already proved that they are willing to bend over backwards for the USA in the matter of the illegal and unconstitutional raid on The Pirate Bay's servers. It is obvious that the USA will file for extradition the second Assange is in Swedish custody, charged with espionage. As this is an offense both in Sweden and in The USA, and Assange not being a Swedish citizen, the extradition should be a simple matter of stamping some papers.
For once I don't agree with Bruce Schneier... I don't think the US *created* Stuxnet, but maybe they customized it and used it against Iran.
On the principle of making cyberwarfare I think it's a valid way to fight that doesn't cost too many lives and in this case was guaranteed not to have any collateral damage in the form of civilians hurt.
Let there be no question about it: Iran must be prevented at all costs from acquiring nuclear weapons. If that fails we must revive the cold war strategy of a first strike in order to eradicate their capability to wage war. Fortunately the lunatics in charge are easily provoked so the obvious strategy must be to make them attack with nuclear weapons (which of course should be intercepted before they do harm), and then strike back with a similar and now justifiable nuclear attack that efficiently both destroys the megalomanical regime and their capability to create more nuclear weapons. Hopefully what rises from the ash is a new and more reasonable regime, like we saw it in Japan after they got hit by the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs.
Wi-Fry? - As in Ethernet Killer?
Root the zombie?
Not necessary. Just kick it off the net. You can easily flood most private low-bandwidth machines off the net without breaking a sweat bandwidth-wise yourself.
If the attacker switches, repeat and rinse.
The core issue is this: Did Sweden provide guarantees that they would not extradite Assange to the US, as he's facing a cruel and unusual punishment there, possibly even a death sentence? - Basically it should be mandatory to return an extradicted person to the country from where this person was extradicted whenever the trial is over, or when the sentence is served, thus making certain that further chain extradition does not happen.
In the UK, it's already illegal not to disclose encryption keys on request. Being senile or having internet induced ADHD isn't a defense either.
Which means that it is now illegal to protect your information if you have a crappy memory (for whatever reason). It follows directly from the obligation to disclose; if you cannot be sure to remember the keys/passwords, you're knowingly attempting to break this law, and that has to be a crime in itself.
Amazing really - a civilized country has actually made it a crime to have a bad memory, because it is also a crime not to protect sensitive information.
On the other hand, there is the UK, where CCTV surveillance is everywhere. Not the same country.
There's a huge difference between being watched in public by CCTV and have your private online activities made from your home computer logged. You have an expectation of privacy when you're in the privacy of your home, and not when you're out in public. Whether you're seen by by your neighbor or the mailman or some CCTV cameras doesn't matter. You know you're out in public and there you have no expectation of privacy.
Depends on the situation. I think I have/had the source code for everything I ever worked on.
Same here. I don't know anyone in the IT departments I've worked that doesn't. We don't trust our code to the corporate crappy backups.
There are two things here:
1) Google should take their photos from a human height, i.e. 6-7 feet, not 10 feet or more. This is what people see so that's what Google should show.
2) What are you hiding? - You can put up a hedge or similar which obscures things, but a 6-foot solid fence? - You MUST be hiding something!
Seriously, I think it's a runaway trend to put up tall fences, walls and so on. You need to open up and face the world, not shield yourself from it. It's arrogant and somewhat hostile to do separate yourself from the world like that.
403 is exactly right:
"The request was a legal request, but the server is refusing to respond to it"
No, because you're not talking to the server your requested. A gateway before the server is refusing to let you access the real server. This is why a code in the 45x series is better as several parental control systems already use 450 to signal gateway censorship.
There are two sides to any discussion, 'settled' or not.
The discussion about climate change has at least two sides and it has not in any way, shape or form been settled yet. How can anyone even claim that there's a consensus concerning climate change when the basics are still being discussed?
The issues: We don't know if there's any unusual change occurring now. Some even argue that we're seeing no unusual change now. We don't know what kind of changes are natural and which are human influenced. We don't know what caused the changes seen in the far past. The Sun obviously plays a part but how much does it affect the things we see and we've seen? Until we fully understand the natural processes, we cannot even begin to make guesses about how humans are influencing them.
"then I have to break the law to do so."
I don't pirate because the people who created media have expressed their wishes quite clearly;
If I value it, then I'll pay the price they ask.
However, suggesting that you are forced to break the law is absurd. There is no real threat to your well-being by having the latest music/TV/movies/software. Even if you argued that your quality of life would suffer without your favourite show or game (a BIG stretch), there's plenty of other crap to choose from.
Excuse me, but... bullshit!
Why should I have to wait/live without while John Doe can get everything, just because he lives in a different place than me?
I have money in hand - I want to pay! But they don't want to sell.
I find it perfectly reasonable that if they refuse my money I'll just steal the stuff instead. After all, it's their choice that it is so.
Which is better/worse: The known evil of the US abusing their control power to steal domains and disrupt business for those they do not like (as the result of bribes, misguided politics or plain stupidity), or the possible evil of groups in the UN imposing national politics on the greater Internet?
I personally prefer to deal with the known, and the known is that the US has been grossly abusing their current power on the Internet - and that needs to be stopped.
Quite true, quite true. I stopped pirating music when Amazon MP3 came around: Download plain and simple well-tagged MP3 files. That's a technology I'm willing to live with for my music.
I tried it once...
Looked for something not out here in Denmark (or in the rest of Europe for that matter) and found it on Amazon US as MP3 download. Tried to buy and was told that I couldn't do that because I live in the wrong place.
Looked some more and found it on iTunes US. Tried to buy it and was again told that I couldn't do that because I lived in the wrong place.
Now I turned to TPB and found it there. So, as nobody wanted to sell the thing to me, I downloaded it from TPB and have enjoyed it since.
It is still unavailable for me to buy (it's download only) so I cannot pay even if I really want to - and I do. Even found the artist on twitter and asked how to pay directly but received no answer. Everybody quite obviously wants me to steal it! - or move to the US and buy it there.
Actually - as this thing is going it is more than likely that the US will loose and fail to get any extradition or other conviction.
Remember, everything hinges on thumped-up charge of conspiracy to commit copyright infringement which is ludicrous because MegaUpload did not sell access to the illegal stuff, nor did they ask or otherwise entice the pirates to use their services. They were just one of many cloud storage and sharing service providers that both pirates and everybody else used. You paid for longer storage time, more storage space and more bandwidth to access/download. Access was free otherwise, which means that downloaders didn't pay for access but paid for ease of access.
Oh, and when the US loses this case, I can't wait for the counter-suit for damages. I would laugh my pants off when the US government is ordered to cover the damages incurred during this farce of a trial. I hope Kim Dotcom takes them to the cleaners and take everything to the max. Get them to pay so obscene amounts that heads will have to roll and the collaboration with the copyright MAFIAA is dropped like a hot potato.
Cyber or not, the solution is the same: Turn the tables. Bully back! Make the bully the victim. It works like a charm.
Just be prepared to go to any length necessary in order to match and respond in kind.
Example: The bully beats up weaker kids and steal their lunch money (classic).
Solution: Beat up the bully and steal all his money. Bigger brothers of the weak kid are the best to use here, but parents and even the odd biker will do. Just lay it on him and don't hold back. Make sure the bully knows that he asked for it and if he goes to anyone, he'll get it much worse next time.
Example: The bully uses psychological means only to intimidate the victim, and this happens at a school.
Solution: Respond in kind! My elementary school equivalent teacher actually did this and for about a week he singled out the bully and ran him hard while making sure that the pupil knew that this only happened because of what the bully had done. The result: No bullying at all for the rest of the years until we moved on to high school.
It's all about making to bully know and feel how it is to be the victim. If the bully turns out to be a sociopath unable to make the empathic connection he'll do something really stupid and then just let the police handle it. With any luck his career as a menace to society is over before it even began and he'll spend his life locked up in institutions where he belongs.
In the UK this is going to be reminiscent, for a lot of people, of the English Defence League - a bunch of neo-nazi football hooligans who stage rallies against 'Islamists' in English town centres, as a shallow pretext to harass and attack people with dark skin.
Stupid wording... The Islamists are real and the regularly breed fanatics with bombs intented to kill 'infidels'. It's just too sad that hooligans use the valid threat as an excuse to go out and commit violence against anyone looking a bit foreign... Muslim or not.
Have we actually seen pictures of Trayvon Martin as he looked on that day?
Many sites have been showing that the 'cute' picture used by most news outlets were several years old and from a time before Trayvon got into the 'gangsta' lifestyle; pictures of him with gold teeth, tattoos and gang paraphernalia has appeared. If he looked anything like that when Zimmerman encountered him, he's be more than justified shooting him IMHO.
After all, it was a Florida black youth gang that set the record in brutality against non-gang victims; this gang held up rental cars leaving the Miami Airport, and for convenience they always shot the victims dead before robbing them ("it was easier that way"). The gang was caught after the tourist industry in Florida suffered badly, the leader fried in the electric chair long ago (he did most of the killings) and the rest are gonna look at the world through bars for the rest of their lives, serving dozens of life sentences without parole consecutively.
Just a group of them, adding group hysteria to the pot of utter lunacy!
They've been testing this for a while - We've already had the first complaints against someone spamming an email that only exists in exactly one place: Online as the result of some (trivial) javascript. Turned out that if you Googled the page, the result snapshot included the javascript generated email... In other words - it's already there and this will effectively kill javascript as a way of hiding functioning mailto links. Okay it would be fairly simple to add a condition based on the User Agent as GoogleBot is easily identified but it will make things a bit more complicated for the average user.
There is no stealing when it comes to file sharing! - There's possibly copyright infringement which has nothing to do with stealing or theft.
Please look up the definition of theft. It concerns the unauthorized change of ownership of an item, i.e. the owner loses the item while the thief gains it. When you make a copy, theft can never be an issue unless the original is lost as part of the copying process. If you just make a copy without touching the original it can never be theft as the owner never loses control of the original.
The only reason the word theft or stealing is used is to make the copyright infringement sound worse. In reality it is a very innocent process that only results in a loss if the copy replaces a sale.
Problem is that this doesn't happen much. Less then 5-10% of piracy has a lost sale associated; it is mostly opportunity-based (the pirate is only interested in the item because it is free - he would never pay for it). The bulk is a form of pre-sale where the pirate resorts to an illegal copy because a legitimate copy isn't available (in the desired format), and usually results in a sale when a legitimate copy finally becomes available.
MegaUpload sold bandwidth primarily (for premium users) and ads for the rest. They never sold anything in the way of pirated software, games, movies and music.
They are obviously not in any way more involved in piracy than the owners of the roads in areas with a peak in crime. Sure, the roads are essential to the criminals in the area, but they could do without if they really had to, just like the pirates now are using other cloud hosting now that MegaUpload isn't there.