On Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 11:30 PM, James Smith <ja...@smithwaysecurity.com>wrote:
> I can only imagine the bloodbath this will cause.!! Show me a file sharing site with no illegal content! This is just insane. What's quite interesting is that Rapper/Producer Swiss BeatZ is the current CEO of megaupload how ironic. > > -----Original Message----- From: Steven Bellovin > Sent: Friday, January 20, 2012 12:07 AM > To: Suresh Ramasubramanian > Cc: ja...@smithwaysecurity.com ; NANOG > Subject: Re: Megaupload.com seized > > I don't mean either -- I've only skimmed the indictment. But from the > news stories, it would *appear* that they got a search or wiretap warrant > to get at employees' email. I don't see how that would make it "not > private". (Btw -- "due diligence" is a civil suit concept; this is a > criminal case.) The prosecution is trying to claim that the targets > had actual knowledge of what was going on. > > I do know Orin Kerr, however. He's a former federal prosecutor and he's > *very* sharp, and I've never known him to be wrong on straight-forward > legal issues like this. He himself may not have all the facts himself. > But here are two sample paragraphs from the indictment: > > On or about August 31, 2006, VAN DER KOLK sent an e-mail to an > associate entitled lol. Attached to the message was a screenshot > of a Megaupload.com file download page for the file Alcohol 120 > 1.9.5 3105complete.rar with a description of Alcohol 120, con > crack!!!! By ChaOtiX!. The copyrighted software Alcohol 120 is > a CD/DVD burning software program sold by www.alcohol-soft.com. > > and > > On or about June 24, 2010, members of the Mega Conspiracy were > informed, pursuant to a criminal search warrant from the U.S. > District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, that thirty-nine > infringing copies of copyrighted motion pictures were believed to > be present on their leased servers at Carpathia Hosting in Ashburn, > Virginia. On or about June 29, 2010, after receiving a copy of > the criminal search warrant, ORTMANN sent an e-mail entitled Re: > Search Warrant Urgent to DOTCOM and three representatives of > Carpathia Hosting in the Eastern District of Virginia. In the > e-mail, ORTMANN stated, The user/payment credentials supplied in > the warrant identify seven Mega user accounts, and further that > The 39 supplied MD5 hashes identify mostly very popular files that > have been uploaded by over 2000 different users so far[.] The Mega > Conspiracy has continued to store copies of at least thirty-six > of the thirty-nine motion pictures on its servers after the Mega > Conspiracy was informed of the infringing content. > > (I got the indictment from http://static2.stuff.co.nz/** > files/MegaUpload.pdf <http://static2.stuff.co.nz/files/MegaUpload.pdf> > -- while I'd prefer to use a DoJ site cite, for some reason their web > server is very slow right now...) > > On Jan 19, 2012, at 10:48 PM, Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote: > > Er I'm sorry but do you mean joesch...@corp.megaupload.com type >> emails, or joesch...@hotmail.com type emails? >> >> If megaupload's corporate email was siezed to provide due diligence in >> such a prosecution - it would quite probably not constitute private >> mail >> >> On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 8:49 AM, Steven Bellovin <s...@cs.columbia.edu> >> wrote: >> >>> >>> >>> The Megaupload case is unusual, said Orin S. Kerr, a law professor >>> at George Washington University, in that federal prosecutors >>> obtained >>> the private e-mails of Megaupload’s operators in an effort to show >>> they >>> were operating in bad faith. >>> >>> "The government hopes to use their private words against them," >>> Mr. Kerr >>> said. "This should scare the owners and operators of similar >>> sites." >>> >> >> >> >> -- >> Suresh Ramasubramanian (ops.li...@gmail.com) >> >> > > --Steve Bellovin, > https://www.cs.columbia.edu/~**smb<https://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb> > > > > > >
