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.
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?
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.
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.
I would argue that if you dont want to have these techniques made open in court, then dont use these techniques to pursue someone who will have charges brought up in court. National security investigation techniques implies that this was a case of national security. Seems a bit petty to use these resources to defend disney, pop music, and porn.
We've had this argument in the UK with the security services bringing charges against terrorists. The way round it is for a judge to decide what is not permissible to be questioned by the defence in so far as it would endanger operational security. This generally just means hiding the identities of certain witnesses (e.g. undercover operatives) which seems fair enough to me.
If the secret service uses (say) wiretapping to record evidence against potential terrorists, then this should be revealed in court so that the defence can challenge anything necessary. It doesn't mean that they have to reveal every single technical detail of what they did.
What annoys me (and I live in NZ) is that while Kim Dotcom is almost certainly a sleezy guy and hardly trustworthy, he didn't break any laws in NZ.
The NZ law enforcement agencies should have told the US agencies to get lost and released a press statement giving the details.
You are aware of the existence of Extradition Treaties? Just because everyone on slashdot doesn't think Kim Dotcom has done anything wrong doesn't mean there aren't criminal charges against him.
I would recommend for this guy to apply for political asylum as nothing can be worse than being deported to the U.K., the biggest police state in the world. CCTV camera's everywhere and people getting arrested for posting pictures to Facebook.
Yes, in the UK we have CCTV cameras in public places which will record your criminal activities in those public places. Big. Fucking. Deal.
You will only get arrested for posting pictures to Facebook if you are breaking a law. The fact it's on the internet doesn't give you a magic exemption from your country's laws.
I understand this guy founded a software company, but he's not exactly been a public figure until now. What's with all the fascination over this investigation?
He's someone who has made a lot of money from starting and then selling his own technology company, and then has gone to live somewhere where he can do drugs, creepily stalk women and play with guns, which is every libertarian slashdotter's dream.
If you're going to do a limerick, you should make it scan properly:
There once was a man from Belize
Who suffered a weird heart disease
When offered revivial
He'd cry for survival
"Not in front of the press, oh no please!"
It's not that difficult, you'd done all the hard work.
I read at -1 because I happen to be a troll aficionado, for your information. Occasionally there are some really great ones, OP wasn't one of them.
He wasn't trolling, that was blasphemy
If it wasn't for the trolls I don't think slashdot would be half as much fun. Totally off-topic, but what happened to the MyCleanPC trolls? They were fucking hilarious.
Maybe it's because McAfee has written a lot about his interest in fucking drugs [*]? And that something like "bath salts" which he eulogises can have extremely powerful effects, including heart attacks?
Also, there is no fundamental principle that "your" information belongs to you. Information is not something that can be owned. Period. On the other hand, the fundamental principles of free speech and free thought protect our rights to know, record, store, process, and communicate information, however we see fit, no matter what the subject.
So you wouldn't have a problem with your medical, work and financial records being made available to everyone on the internet?
Funny, I thought you fundamentalist libertarians were in favour of privacy.
Your right to free speech does not include the right to do whatever you want. Freedom of speech is a socially agreed compromise, not one of the fucking Ten Commandmants handed down by God.
Yes, the same websites that we "others" all use to keep informed. Force that website to "forget" something, and you're taking away my right to be informed.
If you have a right to be informed of everything, then no one has any right to any privacy whatsoever.
I thought you paranoid rightwingers were in favour of privacy? Or is that only privacy from the government enforcing democratically agreed laws?
We have people drizzling down their legs at the thought of eight year olds working ten hour days
Yes, but people like you don't actually see anything wrong with that, do you? You're just pissed off that not everyone is as rabidly fgree market and reactionary as you, and that there is a general feeling even in the US that some things are unacceptable in the name of making more money for rich captialists.
My view is that while Nigel Farage is probably one of the best political options out there for the UK
Then you are an idiot, who knows nothing about UK politics. He is an extreme right wing, xenophobic, racist, anti-progressive chimp of a fuckwit, without even the intelligence of Enoch Powell or the charisma of Oswald Mosley. I'm sure he goes down well in the US.
there's too many Brits either afraid of "sweat shops", "long hours", and all that 19th century crap
You say that like it's a bad thing. Britain fought WW2 to defeat the Nazis, who are just the intellectual predecessors to UKIP, and make a land fit for heroes, which means everyone, not just the rich bastards at the top. Despite a start on genuinely progressive taxation to re-apppropriate wealth from the few to the many, this was largely halted by the mad-as-a-bag-of-squirrels Thatcher in the 1980s.
Which is kind of important. It seems self evident to me that if you have a class of motorcycle limited by power output, then you shouldn't be able to increase its power. Get an unlimited licence instead, when you are entitled to.
Here in the UK, there is a limit of 33bhp for 2 years after passing your test (if you're under 21, otherwise you can go straight to an unlimited power bike). Whether you agree with it or not, the fact is that you have to stick to that limit and you shouldn't be able to easily tune or derestrict your bike to make more than that. You can have an awful lot of fun on a lightweight 125 or 250cc bike that has 33bhp anyway.
You can't stop people breaking the law, but you can certainly make it more difficult.
The point about this is that he was caught out doing something wrong. If everyone was doing the same, it wouldn't be news. He is the exception that proves the rule.
No one is saying that there are no dishonest politicians in Europe, merely that the system makes it hard for them to get away with receiving actual bribes.
There are plenty of ways to bribe people, perhaps you would like come out to this extremely nice 5* restaurant whilst we discuss the matter. Don't forget to bring your wife/mistress too.
Michelin stars which are the international restaurant rating system only go up to 3. Or, at least, the highest ever given is 3.
-- please mod this as off topic, because it is.:-)
OP sounded like an American. 5* probably refers to the badge his local McDonald's "maitre d'" wears.
Exactly: after all, what is lobbying? No, the nice gentleman from facebook is not trying to buy my vote on this matter. We are simply good friends who like to take lunch together. Only I have a chronic habit of forgetting my wallet, but he's more than happy to foot the bill. He's also quite fond of my wife, and loves to treat her to the occasional gift of exquisite diamonds and spa trips. But it's okay: he never tries to influence my vote. We're just friends.
Pure and utter bullshit. Politicians have to declare any interests, and if anything as blatant as this happened, the person responsible would be sacked. Here in the UK there is a huge ongoing fuss about MPs expenses, and that is just people feathering their own nests, not accepting gifts from outsiders. And a few years ago there was the whole Neil Hamilton "cash for questions" fiasco.
You can't judge all public officials by the apparent low standards of US ones.
However, as a large semi-stationary platform it would be ideal.
For whom?
In pondering this, I see many more sinister applications than civilian ones.
Balloons/blimps/whatever are relatively easy to shoot down, certainly compared with small drones, so I'm not sure how sinisterly effective they would be.
Slashdot Mirror
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
I would argue that if you dont want to have these techniques made open in court, then dont use these techniques to pursue someone who will have charges brought up in court. National security investigation techniques implies that this was a case of national security. Seems a bit petty to use these resources to defend disney, pop music, and porn.
We've had this argument in the UK with the security services bringing charges against terrorists. The way round it is for a judge to decide what is not permissible to be questioned by the defence in so far as it would endanger operational security. This generally just means hiding the identities of certain witnesses (e.g. undercover operatives) which seems fair enough to me.
If the secret service uses (say) wiretapping to record evidence against potential terrorists, then this should be revealed in court so that the defence can challenge anything necessary. It doesn't mean that they have to reveal every single technical detail of what they did.
What annoys me (and I live in NZ) is that while Kim Dotcom is almost certainly a sleezy guy and hardly trustworthy, he didn't break any laws in NZ.
The NZ law enforcement agencies should have told the US agencies to get lost and released a press statement giving the details.
You are aware of the existence of Extradition Treaties? Just because everyone on slashdot doesn't think Kim Dotcom has done anything wrong doesn't mean there aren't criminal charges against him.
I would recommend for this guy to apply for political asylum as nothing can be worse than being deported to the U.K., the biggest police state in the world. CCTV camera's everywhere and people getting arrested for posting pictures to Facebook.
Yes, in the UK we have CCTV cameras in public places which will record your criminal activities in those public places. Big. Fucking. Deal.
You will only get arrested for posting pictures to Facebook if you are breaking a law. The fact it's on the internet doesn't give you a magic exemption from your country's laws.
Oh yeah, forgot about the allegations of experimental drug use on part of said millionaire.
I don't think they're allegations so much as paranoid boasts by the man himself.
Yes, I know I stole if off Mrs Merton.
I understand this guy founded a software company, but he's not exactly been a public figure until now. What's with all the fascination over this investigation?
He's someone who has made a lot of money from starting and then selling his own technology company, and then has gone to live somewhere where he can do drugs, creepily stalk women and play with guns, which is every libertarian slashdotter's dream.
There once was a man from Belize
Who suffered a weird heart disease
When offered revivial
He'd cry for survival
"Not in front of the press, oh no please!"
It's not that difficult, you'd done all the hard work.
I read at -1 because I happen to be a troll aficionado, for your information. Occasionally there are some really great ones, OP wasn't one of them.
He wasn't trolling, that was blasphemy
If it wasn't for the trolls I don't think slashdot would be half as much fun. Totally off-topic, but what happened to the MyCleanPC trolls? They were fucking hilarious.
Methylenedioxypyrovalerone. MDPV.
Please... you're showing exactly how much you know about chemistry.
You drug-addict chemist types are fucking touchy about typos aren't you?
[*] pun intended
McAfee clearly thinks he's living in some sort of action movie, I'm sure he'd appreciate it.
Also, there is no fundamental principle that "your" information belongs to you. Information is not something that can be owned. Period. On the other hand, the fundamental principles of free speech and free thought protect our rights to know, record, store, process, and communicate information, however we see fit, no matter what the subject.
So you wouldn't have a problem with your medical, work and financial records being made available to everyone on the internet?
Funny, I thought you fundamentalist libertarians were in favour of privacy.
Your right to free speech does not include the right to do whatever you want. Freedom of speech is a socially agreed compromise, not one of the fucking Ten Commandmants handed down by God.
Yes, the same websites that we "others" all use to keep informed. Force that website to "forget" something, and you're taking away my right to be informed.
If you have a right to be informed of everything, then no one has any right to any privacy whatsoever.
I thought you paranoid rightwingers were in favour of privacy? Or is that only privacy from the government enforcing democratically agreed laws?
We have people drizzling down their legs at the thought of eight year olds working ten hour days
Yes, but people like you don't actually see anything wrong with that, do you? You're just pissed off that not everyone is as rabidly fgree market and reactionary as you, and that there is a general feeling even in the US that some things are unacceptable in the name of making more money for rich captialists.
My view is that while Nigel Farage is probably one of the best political options out there for the UK
Then you are an idiot, who knows nothing about UK politics. He is an extreme right wing, xenophobic, racist, anti-progressive chimp of a fuckwit, without even the intelligence of Enoch Powell or the charisma of Oswald Mosley. I'm sure he goes down well in the US.
there's too many Brits either afraid of "sweat shops", "long hours", and all that 19th century crap
You say that like it's a bad thing. Britain fought WW2 to defeat the Nazis, who are just the intellectual predecessors to UKIP, and make a land fit for heroes, which means everyone, not just the rich bastards at the top. Despite a start on genuinely progressive taxation to re-apppropriate wealth from the few to the many, this was largely halted by the mad-as-a-bag-of-squirrels Thatcher in the 1980s.
(it is actually licence category based)
Which is kind of important. It seems self evident to me that if you have a class of motorcycle limited by power output, then you shouldn't be able to increase its power. Get an unlimited licence instead, when you are entitled to.
Here in the UK, there is a limit of 33bhp for 2 years after passing your test (if you're under 21, otherwise you can go straight to an unlimited power bike). Whether you agree with it or not, the fact is that you have to stick to that limit and you shouldn't be able to easily tune or derestrict your bike to make more than that. You can have an awful lot of fun on a lightweight 125 or 250cc bike that has 33bhp anyway.
You can't stop people breaking the law, but you can certainly make it more difficult.
No one is saying that there are no dishonest politicians in Europe, merely that the system makes it hard for them to get away with receiving actual bribes.
There are plenty of ways to bribe people, perhaps you would like come out to this extremely nice 5* restaurant whilst we discuss the matter. Don't forget to bring your wife/mistress too.
Michelin stars which are the international restaurant rating system only go up to 3. Or, at least, the highest ever given is 3.
-- please mod this as off topic, because it is. :-)
OP sounded like an American. 5* probably refers to the badge his local McDonald's "maitre d'" wears.
Exactly: after all, what is lobbying? No, the nice gentleman from facebook is not trying to buy my vote on this matter. We are simply good friends who like to take lunch together. Only I have a chronic habit of forgetting my wallet, but he's more than happy to foot the bill. He's also quite fond of my wife, and loves to treat her to the occasional gift of exquisite diamonds and spa trips. But it's okay: he never tries to influence my vote. We're just friends.
Pure and utter bullshit. Politicians have to declare any interests, and if anything as blatant as this happened, the person responsible would be sacked. Here in the UK there is a huge ongoing fuss about MPs expenses, and that is just people feathering their own nests, not accepting gifts from outsiders. And a few years ago there was the whole Neil Hamilton "cash for questions" fiasco.
You can't judge all public officials by the apparent low standards of US ones.
However, as a large semi-stationary platform it would be ideal.
For whom?
In pondering this, I see many more sinister applications than civilian ones.
Balloons/blimps/whatever are relatively easy to shoot down, certainly compared with small drones, so I'm not sure how sinisterly effective they would be.