US Government: There's Child Porn On the Megaupload Servers Judge! 375
Fluffeh writes "In the ongoing Megaupload saga, Carpathia, the company that hosted Megaupload, is in a tough pickle. The EFF wants the data to remain on the servers so that users can get legitimate data back, the MPAA doesn't want the servers back, because it will lead to piracy. Megaupload wants to buy the servers to get all the data, but isn't allowed to as that would have the servers leaving the court's jurisdiction. The U.S .Government won't pay Carpathia for the time that the servers are sitting idle and has a new song in its repertoire by announcing yesterday that the servers 'may contain child pornography,' which would render them 'contraband' and limit Carpathia's options for dealing with them."
Please! (Score:5, Funny)
Why won't someone think of the children!?
Re:Please! (Score:5, Funny)
Besides the pedophiles, you mean?
Impound all servers... (Score:5, Insightful)
So there "might" be CP on the Megaupload servers. OK, hard to disprove an allegation like that, especially because some of the material on the servers is likely to be encrypted. But there "might" also be CP on one or more of NASA's servers, or on LoC or CIA servers. Also hard to disprove. And there is an even greater likelihood that CP exists on servers belonging to the FBI or TSA.
Clearly, all servers connected to the internet should be impounded, until they can be proven free of CP.
Re:Impound all servers... (Score:5, Insightful)
OK, hard to disprove an allegation like that,
That's what they are hoping for.
Meanwhile, I think the proper response should be "show some actual evidence to support your allegation or STFU". Specifically, the kind of evidence that would be required to obtain a legitimate search warrant.
Ah... Child Porn... (Score:5, Insightful)
Child Porn is indeed one of the root passwords to the U.S. constitution, along with "terrorist". We will soon have "intellectual piracy" on the list.
But invoke any one and apparently the rule of law becomes the wrong kind of blind.
Re:Ah... Child Porn... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Evidence? Warrants? Those things are so Pre-911. The government doesn't need those things any more. This whole Megaupload seizure episode demonstrated that already.
Re:Impound all servers... (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, considering that at least CIA uses blackmail as a tool, it most certainly has child porn on its servers. It would be extremely stupid not to, when you can blackmail quite a few people with that.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
The CIA probably has all kinds of explosives and guns in their headquarters, too! Why hasn't someone called the DHS on these obvious terrorists?!
Re:Impound all servers... (Score:5, Funny)
So there "might" be CP on the Megaupload servers. OK, hard to disprove an allegation like that, especially because some of the material on the servers is likely to be encrypted. But there "might" also be CP on one or more of NASA's servers, or on LoC or CIA servers. Also hard to disprove. And there is an even greater likelihood that CP exists on servers belonging to the FBI or TSA.
Clearly, all servers connected to the internet should be impounded, until they can be proven free of CP.
There's no "might" about it, there's child porn in the "/dev/random" file on my laptop.
Re: (Score:3)
H0 : There is no CP on the servers
HA: There is reasonable suspicion that there is CP on the servers
The burden of proof resides on the DoJ to "prove" that there is a reasonable suspicion that there does in fact exist CP on the servers, and that we must therefore reject the Null Hypothesis. until such time as the DoJ makes such a verifiable claim to this effect, we cannot reject the Null Hypothesis.
Short Version: "I Call"
Re: (Score:3)
Exactly. If I had the inclination (and access to child porn) I could probably put child porn on half the servers on the internet. It wouldn't be hard to write up something that automates it and uploads CP in every file field it crawls online, or even just post a base-64 encoded version in the comment fields of any site that doesn't allow file uploads. In fact, that would be even better, because in your typical CMS, text content is just marked as deleted but actually kept there forever.
I wouldn't be surpr
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
WTF is K-6?
Just give us a damn age range if you're going to inform us internationals
Re:Please! (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
K is for "Kindergarten". That's a pre-grade-school "grade" that most kids enter around age 5 or 6 (depending on what part of the year you were born in). Grades 1-6 are called "Grade School", grades 7 and 8 are called "Junior High" and grades 9-12 are called "High School". Some kids get through High School in 3 years instead of 4 by either accelerated classes, joining the military, taking early college classes or dropping out. The age ranges are somewhat variable as I have said, so most Americans refer t
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Vatican City's age of consent is 12.
So yes, there are some countries where 12 year olds are fair game, but 11 year olds are forbidden fruit.
Re:Please! (Score:5, Funny)
I am clutching my pearls even as we speak.
Do you think it's possible there could also be T E R R O R I S T S using this too?!?!?!?
Re: (Score:3)
Won't someone think of the planted evidence?!
Just think of what is uncovered when it shows MPAA has put data on megaupload's servers, not unlike the youtube case. I dont' even need to know specifics to guarantee this would happen because this is a commonly used service.
Re: (Score:3)
Yes, you got lots and lots of trouble. I'm thinking of the kids in the knickerbockers, shirt-tailed young ones, peeking in the pool hall window after school. You got trouble, folks! Right here in River City!
And if we were in the 50s. (Score:5, Funny)
There's Communist propaganda on them there servers, or in the 1600's there be witch craft on em!
Re:And if we were in the 50s. (Score:5, Funny)
There IS witchcraft on them. What else could make those pictures move?
And Communist propaganda, almost certainly.
Don't be silly (Score:5, Insightful)
The US government wouldn't try to use communism as a boogyman. Terrorist! Get with the times!
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Whoosh
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(Terrorism is the new communism)
Re:And if we were in the 50s. (Score:4, Funny)
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When a witch and a communist love each other very much, you get a terrorist?
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The strawman is a terrorists today, no longer a communist.
Re:And if we were in the 50s. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:And if we were in the 50s. (Score:5, Funny)
Throw the servers in water!!! If they don't drown, they be in congress with Satan!!!!
Re:And if we were in the 50s. (Score:5, Funny)
Satan is in congress? I KNEW IT!!! That explains everything!
Crimes Against Humanity (Score:5, Insightful)
Christ, get me out of this shithole banana republic.
Re:Crimes Against Humanity (Score:4, Insightful)
Shut up and think of the children!
And let us spend ridiculous amounts of taxpayer dollars trying to shut down more websites that aren't even hosted in the country so that we can gain absolutely nothing from doing so!
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Shut up and think of the children!
It seems part of the problem is that some people are thinking of the children. Just, you know, in a different way.
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Anyone thinking of the children constantly has to be a pedo.
And unlike a lot of other "anyone who does $action he has to be a $boogeyman" arguments, this could actually be true. I mean, think about it, how much time do you spend thinking about girls (or guys, depending on you)?
Re:Crimes Against Humanity (Score:5, Insightful)
Or a paranoid parent who thinks everyone else is chester the molseter. Seem to be a lot of those actually, the mass media is pretty much bankrolled on scaring the piss out of them, by portraying pretty much everything as a danger thats going to kill their children.
Ever notice how polls keep showing that people think the crime rates are going up and there is more violent crime today than 10 years ago? Ever wonder why they keep getting that same result, even when the exact opposite trend is the reality?
I personally chaulk it up to the fact that lowering violent crime rates isn't going to kill your children so its not worth talking about.
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I'm sorry; were you under the impression that the very definition of crime was in any way related to advancing the goals of humans as a thinking, feeling populace?
Re: (Score:2)
Recently? Yeah, kinda.
Re:Crimes Against Humanity (Score:5, Informative)
Isn't collective punishment a crime against humanity?
Only if it happens during war-time by a power foreign to the victim.
Article 33 of the 4th Geneva Convention:
Article 33. No protected person may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.
Article 4 defines who is a Protected person:
Persons protected by the Convention are those who, at a given moment and in any manner whatsoever, find themselves, in case of a conflict or occupation, in the hands of a Party to the conflict or Occupying Power of which they are not nationals.
So, unless a Megaupload user is
he cannot claim that this is a war crime.
Even Kim Dotcom himself couldn't claim protection under article 33 of the Geneva Convention:
Moreover, the "punishments" that the Geneva Convention speaks about are executions, and grave bodily punishments, not mere deprivation of access to one's data.
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That may be so, but they are similar situations in that everyone is being punished (in different ways, obviously) for the actions of a few. Much like with DRM, the TSA, the Patriot Act, etc.
not mere deprivation of access to one's data.
A small evil is still an evil.
Re: (Score:3)
"Christ, get me out of this shithole banana republic."
Since when do we grow banana's?
Re:Crimes Against Humanity (Score:5, Informative)
From wikipedia: In practice, a banana republic is a country operated as a commercial enterprise for private profit, effected by the collusion between the State and favoured monopolies, whereby the profits derived from private exploitation of public lands is private property, and the debts incurred are public responsibility. Such an imbalanced economy reduces the national currency to devalued paper-money, hence, the country is ineligible for international development credit and remains limited by the uneven economic development of town and country. Kleptocracy, government by thieves, features influential government employees exploiting their posts for personal gain (embezzlement, fraud, bribery, etc.), with the resultant deficit repaid by the native working people who “earn money”, rather than “make money”. Because of foreign (corporate) manipulation, the government is unaccountable to its nation, the country’s private sector–public sector corruption operates the banana republic, thus, the national legislature usually are for sale, and function mostly as ceremonial government.
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I'm a firm believer in the 'two term' policy. One term in office, one term in jail.
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Not in any meaningful sense, with U.S. jurisdiction going global.
Kim Dotcom was free to leave, too.
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Yeah, just like Julian Assange.
Evil (Score:4, Insightful)
Jesus fucking christ the US government and its excuse for a "justice" system is evil. Evil fucking pieces of shit.
Re:Evil (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, of course. It was produced by lawyers. The CP argument is awful and I'd love to see the lawyer fired, disbarred, or tarred and feathered for it. Guesswork has no place in court. It MIGHT contain nothing but complete copies of the Bible. It probably doesn't, but it MIGHT.
It SHOULD be considered entirely legitimate data until evidence is presented that it isn't.
Re:Evil (Score:4, Funny)
Well I am sure there is some CP on it somewhere.
Probably bestiality, pro terrorism, and lots of other good stuff as well.
Re: (Score:3)
You know, I hate that the government usually likes to compound charges and reasons for holding your assets, but really there probably is CP on those servers. Of course, there's probably CP on Google's servers and Yahoo's servers and probably just about everywhere you might expect there to be terabytes of files accessible from the Internet that no one regularly goes through manually. That's the just way it goes. Welcome to the world of "everything is illegal".
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
"social retards" (Score:4, Interesting)
This is completely unrelated to the issue at hand... however it is relevant to the parent:
A lot of people who commit crimes against children *are* people that have other mental/social issues. No, having such deficiencies doesn't make one an abuser, but it certainly doesn't disqualify somebody from being one either.
Two recent cases in Canada:
a) Randall Hopley (abducted a child)
b) Allan Schoenborn (murdered his three children)
They'd basically qualify as the types of socially-inept persons mentioned.
While some people are good at masking it, one must be mentally ill in some fashion to commit such harm against a child. Often such illness manifests itself as awkwardness in other parts of life.
Again, being socially inept (or mentally unsound) does not in any way make one an abuser, but at the same time it hardly excludes one from being such a person any more than does a businessman in a suit+tie.
Re: (Score:3)
Gee, it's almost like the completely corrupt "War on Drugs" or "War on Terror." Crazy stuff! It's like they don't even care about making any change to the world at all other than making it easier to make more money in the future doing the same stuff!
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I could make an honest rational argument if I tried. I'm not sure the same is true for our government's lawyers.
Re: (Score:3)
Because others are evil the US government cannot be? Is that your argument?
Come back when you have some reasoning that actually attempts to justify this morally.
Re: (Score:3)
Still no moral justification for the malicious handling of the data innocent MegaUpload customers? The fact that the US won WWII is kind of beside the point.
HD MTF (Score:2)
Conjecture is insufficient rationale (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Conjecture is insufficient rationale (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
Every congresscritter's laptop may as well, I demand a search!
Hey, what? My money paid for the damn thing!
It is pretty much a certain (Score:5, Interesting)
BTW, Bill Gates has tons of child porn on his computers and that is a fact, in fact most Republicans host and profit from child porn and I can proof it. They all own shares in companies that index the internet and when you do that, you are going to index child porn sooner or later. With the introduction of image search and the thumbnailing of said images on servers owned by the search engine companies such as Bing, these companies have child porn and serve the images to the world. Since these companies run their search engine for profit, they profit from child porn and so does anyone who has shares in them.
By the same token, every ISP transmits child porn and every airline and postal company out there traffics in it too. Just recently a man in Hollland was arrested on a flight with childporn, since KLM did not refund his ticket, they profitted from the rape of children.
Disgusting ain't it?
Funny, that this kind of logic is never used in the US to hold gun companies responsible for gun crime. Maybe it is a clear message, pedo's just got to up their campaign donations.
Did they try the old terrorist spiel yet? Can't be far behind.
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BTW, Bill Gates has tons of child porn on his computers and that is a fact, in fact most Republicans host and profit from child porn and I can proof it.
Same here. Once you've printed 100s of copies to cover the walls and ceiling it's too late to fix bad registration, trapping or low-quality fonts.
Re: (Score:2)
I believe that this very argument has been used against gun companies in the past. I don't believe it actually worked but this is a slightly different situation in that the government has already taken over the servers.
Well, sort of.. If they actually had full control of the servers then they would have to pay the hosting company for the servers until such time as they release them. Instead they are abusing the hosting company by not letting them use the servers for anything else, not letting them provide t
why are they not paying the landlord holding (Score:2)
why are they not paying the landlord for holding the servers? and don't they have the right to sell them off to recover costs or at least wipe them and then sell them off?
benefits if "cloud" storage? (Score:5, Insightful)
This us an example of why I think cloud computing and in particular cloud storage is risky. At any time some government somewhere may decide to seize the servers for some reason that has nothing to do with you. Then where's your data?
Or they may go out of business-- not just the people you thought you were dealing with but possibly subs in some unknown country.
Re: (Score:2)
What difference does it make it it's cloud storage, rented dedicated servers or the entire datacenter is owned by the company in question?
Whichever way, with a court order, the feds come in and shutdown your shit before any form of due process has taken place.
Gathering evidence ruins the company.
To quote Lord of War (Score:5, Interesting)
Thank god we live in a world where suspicion alone does not constitute a crime
Well....I guess we used to. I guess it all goes out the window when it comes to "piracy".
Its been a long time since the truth mattered. (Score:2)
To quote Totenberg it wasn't the truth that mattered: “It's the seriousness of the charge".
You get tickled by "may" now??? (Score:2, Interesting)
How about the whole attitude of the governments in developed countries "to prevent" crime?
It started with the recognition of the right of the shitty Middle Eastern state called "israel" to "preventive" strikes in the 70s, then the excuse to "prevent" something is used universally and pervasively through all spheres of government/private citizen interaction.
Stupid speed limits (55mph) on highways, stupid laws on school buses, stupid TSA, the hunt for any Muslim who dares to estalblish Shariah in his own land
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If you, westerners, were worth a dime of your own beliefs you would fought tooth and nail to incorporate the following article in your man-made "constitutions"
Don't lump all of us together. We'd break off and create a sane country if we could.
Re: (Score:2)
It started with the recognition of the right of the shitty Middle Eastern state called "israel" to "preventive" strikes in the 70s, then the excuse to "prevent" something is used universally and pervasively through all spheres of government/private citizen interaction.
This is off-topic, but it could be argued that Israel has been in a state of war ever since the Suez Crisis possibly, and the mid-60s certainly. Taken out of context individual attacks might be seen as "preventative", but taken as a whole they are simply one more blow on a long, protracted war. It is primarily a low-intensity conflict for sure, but it is still a war.
Re:You get tickled by "may" now??? (Score:5, Insightful)
- government cannot limit freedom of individuals under a pretext to prevent crime
in principle I agree.
but in the real world, please name ONE country that acts properly, here. go ahead, I'll wait. go show me one that will not trample on citizens' rights in the name of 'fighting bad guys', whatever bad guys are defined as, locally.
this is human. this is not american. humans are evil stupid bad creatures and this is the government we ALL get. ALL of us.
we have failed to create truly fair and just governments or countries.
there is no where to move to; its a world wide phenom.
just stop trying to say its the US. its EVERYONE. every leader thinks this way. you disagree?
Re: (Score:2)
We have one better - government may not limit freedom, period.
Unfortunately, it's ignored. What's written is important, but following it is key.
Make no mistake... (Score:3, Insightful)
We're watching Carpathia being placed in this chokehold to send a message here to other data centers: This could be you.
Why the hell... (Score:5, Insightful)
... were the data on the Megaupload servers being stored unencrypted?
If I were offering a service like Megaupload, I'd encrypt all the data, give the uploader the key, and then forget what it was. I'd build a decrypter into the client-side download engine, so anyone downloading the files can type in the key (into their browser) so they get the original plaintext.
That way the hosting service has plausible deniability, and can say something like "We're offering a secure service to our users -- we encrypt your data to give you the assurance that we, ourselves, aren't snooping on you." They're still subject to DMCA takedowns, if someone comes to them with a URL and key, but not subject to fishing expeditions like this one ("show me everything on your servers, hey look kiddie porn").
All the serious kiddie porn folks are probably off on Freenet anyway...
Encryption against the model... (Score:4, Informative)
Megaupload's model was not like Dropbox: it was not a storage service but an advertisement/subscription sponsored distribution service. (And it had deliberate incentives to encourage the distribution of copyrighted content and effectively ignore the takedown obligations required by the DMCA...)
Thus the files can't be encrypted binary blobs, because the point was that anyone with a URL should be able to fetch the file, so encryption wouldn't help on the storage.
Re: (Score:3)
Nope, you couldn't. Because behind the scenes Megaupload used content deduplication: multiple users who uploaded the same content would get different URLs, but it was stored in a common store.
Not only was this needed for efficiency, it was also needed to implement Megaupload's fake-takedown system: it would allow a content provider to take down single URLs pointing to a file, but the file itself never went away and any OTHER URL pointing to that file would still work.
Erm -- the behaviour would be identical if deduplication were not used. Efficiency is the only reason it was necessary. And I think your use of the phrase "fake-takedown system" implies a value judgement that isn't entirely justified.
Oh nosss (Score:2)
Child p0rn, not good, that means we will be able to prosecute the US government for being in the possession of such materials....
Seriously though, this is what I do not like about these situations...the gov. takes whatever they want whenever they want with no regard for accountability
to the users of megaupload that paid for legal service and are using it legally....and the gov. ties the hands of any company dealing with this along the way....to me sounds too much like a setup , a precedent being set so they
Facebook servers "may" contain kiddie porn (Score:2)
Maybe we can shut down facebook to investigate? Or, when you reach a certain size, you're immune to prosecution?
Nice to see the America way of corruption and greed, lies and boogie-man politics are as alive as ever. What a crock.
Re: (Score:3)
Maybe we can shut down facebook to investigate? Or, when you reach a certain size, you're immune to prosecution?
Actually, yes. That is precisely the case.
You should celebrate our truly objective system. Everyone knows exactly how much influence they have on government. You just tally the numbers present in the corners of your green "influence papers".
Over Simple Solution it would never happen (Score:2)
Why can't users' have the fast track option where they can elect have their data verified by the FBI, by giving the Feds specific legal permission to investigate without the need for a warrant. FBI checks their account for CP and Copyright Infringement. If their account is clean, their data is given back, and then purged from Megaupload as it is no longer evidence as it has been confirmed that suspicions were false for this particular user.
If the account has CP or infringing materials found,
excellent... (Score:4, Insightful)
This is a great full-proof way of destroying any information based business: claim there is a possibility they got child porn.
YouTube could have child porn: Let's take down YouTube!
Facebook profiles could have child porn! Lets take down Facebook!
Apple engineers could keep a stock of child porn on their secret labs: Let's raid the Apple headquarters and confiscate all their equipment!
Any computer could be used to store and view child porn! We must confiscate ALL computers!
The Internet could be used to send child porn! We must turn off the Internet, go back to a time where television and newspapers rule the world, to protect us from child porn.
Really, who needs SOPA PIPA ACTA when you can just claim "child porn" and get a free pass to do whatever the hell you want to do.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
...or there may not be (Score:2)
But you can't prove they DON'T contain child pornography!!
Of course, you also can't prove that unicorns DON'T exist, but that's irrelevant, of course. Now, go watch American Idol or the terrorists win.
There might be WMD too! (Score:5, Interesting)
What about the Fed's computers? (Score:3)
A reasonable comparison (Score:2)
Suppose there was a large apartment building, and child pornography was found in one apartment. Should the government have the right to indefinitely hold the belongings of the residents of all of the other apartments in the building?
Circling (Score:2)
Civil Suit for Slashdot Editors? (Score:5, Informative)
Some folks just complain about spelling and grammar to be pedantic. In this case, however...
Including or omitting punctuation is really important. The headline is, "US Government: There's Child Porn On the Megaupload Servers Judge!" Think the missing comma changes the meaning?
moral police (Score:2)
...may? (Score:3)
may contain child pornography
May? MAY?!?
Yeah, and I may be a terrorist, with 5 nukes in my house, ready to blow the fuck out of the nearest airport.
I may be able to push a button on my wall and cause my house to transform into a missle launcher and blow the local precinct sky high.
I may have a legion of ninjas that are ready to murder every government official when i click my heels 3 times.
But I've never been arrested for these things. Why? Because may shouldn't be good enough for the fucking law.
Good grief. I don't care one way or another about Megaupload, but holy shit has our legal system gone to fucking hell.
Microsoft's Bing probably has it too (Score:3)
Microsoft's Bing probably has it too, in droves. In fact, any decent crawler may have it.Why sholdn't they? You don't realize until it is too late I guess.
Re: (Score:3)
You don't realize until it is too late I guess.
According to Nancy Pelosi, you need to download it to know what's in it.
Then it follows that it is illegal to download anything off of Internet because anything could be a forbidden material. Even PGP signed files are not sufficient.
I "may" be a billionaire (Score:3)
I "may" have a nuclear bomb in my basement. I "may" be able to fly by flapping my arms really fast.
May is such a loaded term, and then combined with the magic boogie-man of "child porn", why, that's a justification for just about *anything*.
And while we're on this subject, why don't we go after the RIAA for Child Porn? I mean, it seems like a pretty fair deal, we have plenty of proof:
Ringo Starr: "You're 16, you're beautiful and you're mine" ...and others. Hell, half of the RIAA's catalog is about jailbait. I think the FBI needs to investigate.
Gary Puckett: "Young Girl, get out of my mind"
Sting: "Don't stand so close to me"
Funny (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
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AND seizing all the mail received or sent there as "evidence."
Where is the warrant describing the things seized? Does it say anything about the data I uploaded?
Does it say anything about the data of Carpathia's other customers?
Re: (Score:3)
If elections could change anything, they'd have been outlawed ages ago. My guess is that people simply voted for the lesser evil. Which he probably even was, compared to the alternative of corpse/dud bombshell combo.
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Back under your bridge, troll.
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And I'm highly allergic to those nuts. But you think anyone cares?
Re: (Score:2)
Nice to see we've got our priorities in order...