Man Claiming Half of Facebook Suffers Setbacks 127
itwbennett writes "Slashdot readers will remember Paul Ceglia, the man who says Mark Zuckerberg agreed to split Facebook with him and has the email to prove it. Well, his case took a turn for the worse this week. Two law firms representing him resigned, the judge refused to postpone a hearing to allow his new lawyers to get caught up, and the judge ordered him to turn over computers and electronic and paper evidence."
It's amazing what happens (Score:2, Funny)
Just a thought (Score:1)
I take it that Mr Ceglia didn't "like" this update.
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lol
Stop (Score:3, Insightful)
Enough is enough! Stop with the news about Facebook!
Re:Stop (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Stop (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree, but what else is Slashdot going to report on? Most stories get complaints that they don't belong on the main page. If we listened to those people complaining loudest and hardest, banned all Facebook, Twitter, iterative product releases, generic rants and blogs, flamebait and troll articles, and reviews, what would be left? One story per day, which half the people on Slashdot didn't even understand, because it was too technical?
I agree that there's too much boring, extraneous crap being posted to Slashdot, but this is the way it's always been. There was no glorious, crapless time when everything was relevant, interesting, and geeky. Half the fun of Slashdot has always been trolling the stupid articles, while you wait for a good one to be posted.
And, let's face it, for every article that you consider relevant and interesting, there's someone out there, thinking, "Why the fuck was this posted?" Windows users don't give a shit about Linux 3.0, Libertarians don't give a shit about some Marxist interpretation of The Matrix, graphics designers don't care about the latest I.T. management fad, and teenagers don't understand why anyone would want to talk about the banking industry.
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The Slashdot I remember had no "Politics" section. Then came 9/11 and this place turned into the FOX NEWS of tech.
Just look up slashdot.org at Google/Trends. This isn't what Slashdot used to be.
This place is an asshole now with asshole editors who prefer asshole troll news because they think what works for FOX NEWS must work for this place too.
They're wrong. "News for nerds. Stuff that matters." is long history now. 4chan is more relevant to Nerds that this asshole now.
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> Just look up slashdot.org at Google/Trends. This isn't what Slashdot used to be
Go Canada!
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I've noticed a downward trend in the number of science articles posted here. Nowadays it seems heavily skewed towards YRO and general news tech stories (as opposed to serious geek stories). Bring back the science and nerdery!
On an OT tangent, why the F does logging in send me back to the main page every time? That's amateur hour. Half the time I don't even bother to post a comment because I don't want to have to log in, find the story I was going to comment on, and then find the comment I was going to reply
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Regarding your posting problem, just do what I've mastered:
The beauty of it is twofold, really:
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If we listened to those people complaining loudest and hardest, banned all Facebook, Twitter, iterative product releases, generic rants and blogs, flamebait and troll articles, and reviews, what would be left? One story per day, which half the people on Slashdot didn't even understand, because it was too technical?
I postulate that there would be an upsurge, relatively, in articles relating to the female lead of V for Vendetta, possibly in the nude and lathered in some sort of warmer-than-lukewarm breakfast product.
Just a theory... although I, for one, salute our former meme overlords.
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these days, news.ycombinator.com/ >>>>> /.
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This isn't even news. It's several days old. It's like an editor is dipping into the Wayback machine to post something for July 4 weekend readers to have something to complain about.
Wait, what? (Score:2)
Only half of Facebook suffers setbacks?
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Only half of Facebook suffers setbacks?
Only the good half.
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Only half of Facebook suffers setbacks?
Yes, well... That seems to be what mankind has claimed...
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Completely retarded wouldn't be a setback ..It would be an UPGRADE.
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I tend to be better at English than at Dutch (my native language) and I read it as such too. "Man claiming half of Facebook" sounds more unreal than "half of facebook suffers setbacks".
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Six of one, half a dozen of the other.
Truth will come out base on evidences (Score:2)
He's ABSOLUTELY right (Score:1)
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And I read that trying to figure out what the ManClaiming() function would do.
Return a documentation page for the Claiming() function, of course. Sheesh.
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The Howard Hughes will (Score:3)
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Seems with all those people claiming half of Facebook, we can be certain of only one thing; Mr. Zuckerberg doesn't own ANY part of Facebook.
Not Exactly "Setbacks" (Score:2)
These events are typical. Although it is rough for the new lawyers to lack time to prepare, it is not uncommon for judges to refuse to give more time by delaying hearings. Judges have a lot of cases and need to keep all of them moving along.
As for turning over original documents, that is merely part of the discovery process in U.S. litigation. In fact, it would be exceptionally sloppy, indeed, perhaps even malpractice, for the defendants to fail to insist on the production of the originals whenever authe
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Either the law firms both independantly came to the conclusion that Ceglia's claims were, to put it delicately, without merit.
Or both law firms were given some less than honest incentive to drop the case.
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Usually they resign because they have become "professionally embarrassed". In other words, they have discovered that their client was telling them lies.
Wow. WAY too fishy. (Score:2)
but, there is nothing to justify the judge postponing the hearing in this situation. with this, basically that citizen's right to defend his case is effectively being denied. the only situation in which he could be expected to defend his case would be that he was a lawyer himself or had legal training. and since he hired legal help as per law because he wasnt, he cannot be r
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This is a civil litigation case, he doesn't have the "right" to a lawyer. He can choose to have a legal representative on his side, but it is not a criminal trial... That comes after he gets indicted for attempted fraud. Then, yes, there would be a cause to delay the trial because his lawyers suddenly quit on him.
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(I don't really know your legal system, but I think you're right.)
Morally speaking, I find it abhorrent. A man can be ruined by a lawsuit. Both in the sense that a plaintiff can take everything he owns and in the sense that he can be cheated out of everything and unable to recover it in court. One should have rights in a civil case, as one does in a criminal case.
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He is the plaintiff!
Basically this guy is trying to sue Zuckerberg. He's had two legal teams quit. The judge doesn't think he, as the plaintiff, deserves any more time to prepare his case: he either has a case or he doesn't.
He's not defending a case, he's not being "prosecuted". He's litigating against Facebook and Zuckerberg.
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Both in the sense that a plaintiff can take everything he owns and in the sense that he can be cheated out of everything and unable to recover it in court
I know this guy is a liar. That's not the point. A plaintiff should have rights too. It's common enough for crooks to cheat people, knowing they won't be able to take the matter to court.
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He has a right to make his case. The judge isn't coming down hard on plaintiff's rights, he is likely doing his best to keep the court system moving. In this instance, he believes the plaintiff has had enough time to sort his stuff out and doesn't have any mercy that his lawyers quit since that is not a right and he has already wasted enough time. The judge wants him to present his evidence so basically, these likely-forged emails haven't even hit the courtroom yet. The judge is just trying to expedite thin
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I don't disagree with you, I was responding to the AC who said this:
This is a civil litigation case, he doesn't have the "right" to a lawyer
I do find that abhorrent.
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I'm going to to assume that English isn't your first language, because that's not a sensible reading of what you originally said.
A man can be ruined by a lawsuit. Both in the sense that a plaintiff can take everything he owns and in the sense that he can be cheated out of everything and unable to recover it in court.
this parses as:
A man can be ruined by a lawsuit in the sense that a plaintiff can take everything he owns.
A man can be ruined by a lawsuit in the sense that he can be cheated out of everything and unable to recover it in court.
The first instance suggest that a plaintiff can ruin a man through a lawsuit. The second instance suggest that a plaintiff can cheat a man through a lawsuit, i.e. ruin a man with a lawsuit that has no merit.
Your reply also makes little sense with regards to your initial argument.
It's common enough for crooks to cheat people, knowing they won't be able to take the matter to court.
Surely the problem then would be the lack of a lawsuit? I.e. a crook can cheat a man out
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The second instance suggest that a plaintiff can cheat a man through a lawsuit, i.e. ruin a man with a lawsuit that has no merit.
???
A man can be ruined by a lawsuit in the sense that he can be cheated out of everything and unable to recover it in court.
This means that 1) Someone cheats you out of everything you own 2) You, the plaintiff, can't recover said things in a court (and additionally end up with legal fees). I.e., you are ruined by the lawsuit that you filed.
Perhaps I could have written more clearly, but it most certainly does mean what I said it does.
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Perhaps I could have written more clearly, but it most certainly does mean what I said it does.
Clarity and precision in language is necessary for clarity and precision in thought. :)
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I've always felt that there is a simple way to allow for fairness in civil cases.
1. Based on the amount at issue, the court declares a budget for legal fees (say 5% of what is at stake - how's that for reform!).
2. Both sides select legal counsel. The court pays half the budget to the lawyers for each side in accordance with some schedule, with the lawyers having to show that they're being effective/etc.
3. The case is decided - so far the court is the only one to pay a dime to anybody.
4. The loser is then li
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but, there is nothing to justify the judge postponing the hearing in this situation.
The judge didn't postpone the hearing.
Ohhhhh I see.... (Score:1)
Anyone else not get that the first time you read the headline?
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No, silly. A man is claiming that half of Facebook has suffered setbacks.
The other half may be down as well, but someone else must lay claim to that. Slashdot needs to fill it's daily quota of headlines. News for nerds, stuff that matters, and all that.
dZ.
Either way he's not going to get anything... (Score:2)
Regardless of the honest status of his claim, he is not going to get anything but a lawyer bill. Why is this so obvious or should be? Simply look around at whats been going on in the cyber world of leaks and the ramping up of taxpayer funded cyber security and social network infiltration forces. i.e. http://www.seankerrigan.com/docs/PersonaManagementSoftware.pdf [seankerrigan.com] or do a search on "us gov fake people" and wonder how many are here on Slashdot? But the point is why would this guy be allowed to challenge face
One thing we're forgetting... (Score:1)
With the MySpace-like down-trending that Facebook is going through, Mr. Ceglia might end up being awarded nothing if he wins outside of worthless stock.
50% of 35 milllion is enough (Score:2)
Myspace still was values 35 million. If you would give me half of that value in stocks i still would not complain.
The whole point probably was to get a quick settlement from facebook, a sort of, why would facebook risk 50% of 250 Billion if they could settle for some millions. Even if the odds of winning for paul ceglia were only 1% the settlement still could be a good deal.
what this probably means (Score:2)
The Man Who Owns 84% of Facebook? (Score:2)
Paul Ceglia: The Man Who Owns 84% of Facebook? link [businessweek.com]
"Ceglia sifting through old files in his western New York home to find assets to pay back his clientele. He says he came across a document signed in 2003 by Mark Zuckerberg, then a freshman at Harvard and now chief executive of Facebook. He says the document is a valid contract that entitles him to an 84 percent stake in Facebook"
"Mr. Ceglia's high-profile representation .. recently withdrew from the case at a critical juncture .. Mr. Ceglia is carrying on
Or the judge got sick of this stupid case (Score:3)
Zuckerberg may be a twit but he did code. Paul Ceglia [wikipedia.org] is a pure bullshit artist.
Re:Or the judge got sick of this stupid case (Score:5, Insightful)
Having your legal team resign is a bad sign. Despite most peoples view of lawyers, they are bound to act ethically and if they have reason to believe you're engaging in a fraud they won't represent you.
Re:Or the judge got sick of this stupid case (Score:5, Insightful)
Having your legal team resign is a bad sign.
Yeah, considering the suspicions surrounding the legitimacy of Ceglia's contracts and emails, this is very likely a sign that the lawyers figured out that his evidence is indeed forged. I'm sure that's (at least part of) what you meant. But I'm equally sure that there are readers who are unfamiliar with the case and the suspicions that Ceglia's evidence trail consists of forgeries.
Re:Or the judge got sick of this stupid case (Score:5, Interesting)
Yea, that's pretty much what I'm saying. I'm wondering how much of a compulsive liar this guy must be if he honestly thinks he can forge an email trail. I guess it's worth a shot for a few hundred million dollars though.
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Yea, that's pretty much what I'm saying. I'm wondering how much of a compulsive liar this guy must be if he honestly thinks he can forge an email trail. I guess it's worth a shot for a few hundred million dollars though.
This is why we need PGP signing or something like that to become mainsteam. This would have cleared things up so much quicker. Damn you email clients stuck using technology decades old, we need to move on to stop fraud like this from even being attempted. I can't believe that in this day and age, they are /still/ using techniques similar to handwriting matching (well, sentence construction matching in this case, but you know what I mean) when there are soo many better ways of verifying your identity.
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Actually I hope the evidence DOES get shown in court.
Then when Facebook shows it up for the forgery it is, he can kiss his original settlement goodbye for putting "a fraud upon the court".
And then, my favorite part, the feds clap him in irons on perjury charges and he spends a few years behind bars.
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Then when Facebook shows it up for the forgery it is, he can kiss his original settlement goodbye for putting "a fraud upon the court".
Yeah, I hope so too... But I think it's beyond our hopes already, in that the way in which he got a new case going was to show his "new evidence". And I'm pretty sure that if he is forging evidence, Lord Zuckerberg is not going to let this go at having the case dismissed ;-)
BTW, are you confusing this with the Winkelvoss twins? I don't think there was a prior settlement with Ceglia, just a case that he lost?
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They figured out the facts in the case.
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Paul Ceglia, is that you?
I'm on the "Zuckerberg is an ass" side of the fence but this guy's argument looks pretty weak. If that $1,000 meant so much to him, why didn't he go after Zuckerberg several years earlier?
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....so now facebook is big enough to buy judges. And the reign of the corporate overlords continues. *yawn*
As much as I dislike Zuckerberg, in this case it sounds like this guy is a total scam artist. Facebook hired a linguistics expert to compare the E-mails Ceglia claims prove his case against known E-mails written by Zuckerberg during the same time period. The results are not encouraging [time.com] for Ceglia, and are quite convincing. There's some significant differences in writing style, and there's well established research that writing styles are mostly fixed, people write the same way routinely unless deliberat
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>ultra-liberals,
How the *fuck* does political proclivity come into play here?
Explain, in detail.
--
BMO
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Liberals are anti-government? That's news to me.
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Re: not legally binding (Score:2)
In my opinion, emails can be legally binding, if it is an established communication channel, or if both parties act in accordance with the agreement described in the emails.
If you really want to have it your way, what do you think about EULAs being binding?
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what do you think about EULAs being binding?
They should not be. How do you prove that a particular person was the person who clicked on "I Agree?" It is not like you have a copy of a contract, with the person's signature on it.
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what do you think about EULAs being binding?
They should not be. How do you prove that a particular person was the person who clicked on "I Agree?" It is not like you have a copy of a contract, with the person's signature on it.
They can't be, because it's not in exchange for anything -- you've already bought the product, you own it free and clear, so violation of the EULA would not be theft of anything.
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Being legally binding is a separate issue from the burden of proof. A written contract is legally binding, but if you can't prove who wrote the signature on it, it's not enforceable. Conversely, you may not be able to prove who clicked on the "I accept" button, but it's still legally binding in theory (so if, for example, someone testifies they saw you click it, the contract is enforceable).
Electronic contracts (Score:5, Informative)
>Last I checked, emails weren't legally binding, as a contract is
Check again.
Congress passed the ESIGN act [wikipedia.org] to prevent people from repudiating contracts that were made electronically. That was the foundation of the e-commerce boom (otherwise, how would you expect companies to sell on the Internet when people could just say "Oh, that wasn't a real contract, it was just electronic.")
Btw, a contract doesn't need to even be written to be a contract. The written form helps in establishing what was contracted, though.
A contract requires an offer, an acceptance, and consideration (exchange of value).
If you hash out terms for a business deal over email, and at the end you accept it, you just made a contract.
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A contract requires an offer, an acceptance, and consideration (exchange of value).
Well that is part of it, a contract must be for something that is Legal, and both
parties need the mental capacity to enter into the contract. Even Business Law 101
teaches that.
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Not nearly as big a problem as with verbal contracts.
Yes, verbally agreeing is also legally binding contract. It is just harder to prove which is why people making contracts prefer something that is harder to run away from, but legally there is nothing magic about a signature or a fax.
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truly informative and accurate.
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I notice how a lot of people responding to you are going on and on about states and statutes (although I'm not sure they know what statutes are), etc. What they don't seem to know is that, except in certain extreme circumstances, contracts are a civil matter. Although there may be some local laws that make certain kinds of contracts weaker or stronger, when there is a dispute, it is the job of an arbiter or court to decide the matter.
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For example many years ago I walked out of a bar rubbed my eye and my con