Megaupload (Because I was guilted into it)

Greetings sports fans. So I did say I was going to this post in my last post (I've added a link this in there) and I'm actually doing it. The main reason is that my friend Jamie mentioned me in the his podcast (highly recommended) and said that he would provide his listeners with a link to this if and when I do write it. Commence guilt trip. But, that's enough blabbering from me, down to the matter at hand: Why nobody has Megaupload go-ed bye-bye?

So, if you are reading this, you are either connected to the Internet or I finally got that book deal I wanted. For now, let's assume you have Internet access. One of the really interesting uses of the Internet is storing files online so that they can be accessed by many people. There were several really creative and some down right moronic ways thought of to this, but the one that really took off were called "file lockers."

Anywho, the concept of a file locker is simple: You sign up and you get some storage space on a server. You can then upload files and manage who can access them. You make it public, so that anybody can download it, or private, so that only you and/or selected other persons could download it. Of course, we all know there is no such thing as a free lunch, so "where's the money?" you ask. Well, let me tell you.

Some file lockers charged for their services, but some, like Megauplaod, were freemium. What they did is they put ads on the site and before you download something, unless you paid the membership fees. Sounds reasonable, right? Yes and then it gets hinky. So, not only did you have ads, but it seems that the site paid uploaders every time a file was downloaded. Not only that, but files that were not downloaded frequently enough were removed. But, it gets even more sinister and here's where the illegality comes in.

It's obvious that if somebody uploads illegal copies of TV, movies and music, then it will get downloaded more often than a picture of me on the beach. This pretty much encourages illegal file sharing. If offending content was found, it was removed, however it is alleged that the user accounts were not suspended or terminated. I have a distinct memory of reading somewhere that uploaders could pay to upload anonymously, thus even if the content was marked as illegal, it could be taken down, but not traced back to them. I cannot for the life of me find that article again and thus state this as a recollection that I can not back up. Moving swiftly on.

There was also the related website Megavideo, which was also somewhat devious. It has been alleged that all this infringing content was not searchable through the site's main search functionality, but was accessible to those who had the link. Again there is the same allegations of content being taken down without punishing the offenders and so on and so forth. Although there was a de jure legal use for the site, the de facto primary use was for the distribution of illegal content. So, the United States Government decided to do something about this.

About 2 years ago (2009), criminal investigations were started into the activities of Megaupload Inc., with a whole lot of red tape. The company itself is based in Hong Kong and a lot of the key people, including founder and chief Kim Dotcom, were in New Zealand. Well this went on for 2 years and we arrive in the present. Actually more like the recent past, but here we go.

A few months earlier, the US government had brought forth two acts called the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Proctect IP Act (PIPA) and this got everybody up in arms. That's a whole other kettle of fish, to be fried on another day. The main point is on January 18th 2012, a large number of websites "blacked out" and replaced their normal content with a page explaining why they are protesting SOPA and PIPA. On January 20th 2012, Dotcom and associates were arrested (alt article) and several assets were seized in a multi-country raid.

A large number of people think that this was a sort of backlash reaction to the blackouts, but it was in fact timed to coincide with a party Dotcom was hosting at his house, so that all the eggs would be in one basket, so to speak. These arrests were the culmination of a 2 year long investigation, with the cooperation of the police in all countries involved. Of course, nobody bothered to check that and Anonymous did their usual retaliation bit. Although the charges are being laid by the US, the police in all the countries involved were a part of the investigation, thus solving any jurisdictional issues.

I will be a little evil at this time and point out that there were millions of dollars worth of stuff seized, including some art, tech and a few luxury cars.There were also large accounts frozen and so on. The irony here is a large number of people justify piracy by saying it only affects the super rich guys in the super rich studios/labels, which kind of describes these guys. Not really sure why everybody is so vociferously supporting them, but I'm sure they have some really good reasons. Let's look at how exactly Megaupload is defending themselves.

The main defense that has been put forward is either "The majority of our traffic (and therefore business) was legitimate" or "we always took down infringing content." The first defense is, in my opinion, a big steaming pile of shit. That is like saying "You can't shut down my shop because only 10% of my income is from selling drugs." I don't at all doubt that there were users who were using in a fully legal manner, but that's really beside the point. The point put forward is that those in charge were aware of this infringement and actively promoted it. As for the second argument, takedowns were only effected if provided if a notice was provided and as said before there was no real punishment for the uploaders.

There is sort of the further complication that of them trying to rip off youtube, but that's something I haven't really looked at and don't feel well informed enough to comment. I would recommend that you read the linked article.

So, in all of this a lot of facts got jumbled up and a lot of people assumed things that were not true. There facts a touch murky, but with a bit of time, one can wade through and see what's going on. I guess it was a matter of bad timing on a couple of fronts. The bottom line is that they have been arrested, denied bail and will face an extradition hearing on February 22 2012. For now, Megaupload is gone and I don't think it's going to come back any time soon.

TVShack (let's get this one out of the way shall we)

Alrighty then sports fans, I'm back. There's been quite a bit of stuff happening and I really hope that I can catch up with it all. So here we go. I'm going have a pick at TVShack and MegaUpload, which have been the focus of the media recently. So, let's start with the earlier story of TVShack shall we?

TVShack was a very popular streaming site for TV shows, movies, music videos and the like. It was a fairly unique one in the way it operated. TVShack was not simply a link site, that is to say a site simply with a list of links to streaming videos of the content, they went half a step further. Although they did not host any of the videos themselves, but instead embedded the videos into their site. What was really the problem here was the nature of the videos posted.

By now I am sure you have guessed, or more likely know, that these videos were illegal copies of movies and TV series. On June 30 2010, the domain TVShack.net, amongst others, was seized and replaced with what many would call an "evil message from the man." Of course, TVShack.cc (.cc is the TLD for the Cocos Islands, which is an Australian territory) was created as a replacement (see bottom of this article) with all the same content on it, remember that there were videos embedded in the site. A few short months later in November, British police paid a visit to the creator of the site, one Mr. Richard O'Dwyer of Sheffield.

The site was brought down and Mr O'Dwyer was arrested on charges of copyright infringement. Further the United States requested that he be extradited to face trial in America. Of course his lawyers stated fervently that the site contained no infringing content, but merely links to said content, which reported as such by the media. You'll note that I stressed on the fact that he embedded (again with the stress) the content on his website. For all intents and purposes that is pretty much the same as hosting the content yourself.

Now I have been searching long and hard for literature on this subject and frankly, I am a bit disappointed. Practically every article I have read so far maintains, sometimes in very strong words, that site simply linked to infringing content, which is false. There is then the further assertion that the "dual-criminality" argument required for extradition fails as he did not download any of the content himself. Well, I can neither confirm nor deny this, but if he did watch any of the links on his website, which is quite possible, a copy of the video will have been stored on his computer, thus counting as a download.

Now, I say it's quite possible because of how TVShack worked. Users would submit links to the site for consideration. These links would then be checked by the moderators to ensure that they were indeed what they said. Once checked, the video would then be embedded in the site. So, if Mr. O'Dwyer did watch one of these videos, then it would technically be a download.

No, I'm not trying to point out technicalities to prove the case against him, I am pointing out counter-arguments to the technicalities proposed by his lawyers. Well, long story short, it was recently ruled that he shall be extradited to the States. A lot of people cried foul that this was done at this time due to SOPA/PIPA, but it has been an ongoing case for a while, he appeared before a magistrate in June 2011.

Long story short, the magistrate ruled that he may be extradited. It is my understanding that if found guilty he stands to get up to 10 years in prison, but we will simply have to wait and see how it goes.

Why the movies are wrong (Surprise, Surprise)

On the lighter side of life, my friend @zarino tweeted this link, which got me thinking about hackers in popular culture. Think about your favorite movie and/or TV hacker. My vote goes to Alec Hardison, but that's irrelevant. In any "hacking sequence" you see the hacker typing away furiously on a keyboard and all sorts of random green text on a black background. The green on black dates way back to the old days and I have no clue as to why they used those colours, but everybody loves it.

Anyway, you see them typing away furiously at a console screen and all sorts of text just popping up.

IT'S ALL WRONG!

Sadly, hacking is really not that glamorous. It's mainly typing one or two commands or even just a button click. That is preceded by actually coding the tool you are using but nobody types that fast, especially not when programming. Just by the by, the text that appears in the link is a program of some sort. Haven't read all the code, so not sure what it does. All I can say is that it looks something from the C-family.
*****EDIT******
Turns out they last change the site a touch since I visited it. It appears the code is part of the Linux kernel.