All Hail Kim Dotcom
Last week we talked about Kim Dotcom , founder of MegaUpload , and the cult of personality surrounding his court case. I mentioned a New Zealand judge’s ruling that the warrants used in the raid of Dotcom’s mansion were invalid. Since then, his extradition hearing has been postponed until March 2013. He should feel as jolly as ever knowing this is nothing but the government’s way of evading its inevitable loss.
I strongly believe all of the government’s current evidence will be deemed inadmissible in court and it’ll be forced to use someone else as the piracy boogeyman . One day after the announcement of the new date, Dotcom proposed an alternative plan to the FBI: unfreeze his funds for living and legal expenses, and he’ll turn himself over.
Good times with the pirates. Good times.
Bureaucratic Creepin’
Twitter made a good move earlier this month by releasing its first Transparency Report, which lists government requests for user information, government requests to withhold content and of course copyright holders’ ubiquitous DMCA takedown notices. The disturbing part is the fact that the government requested user data 679 times in the past half-year alone. About 75 percent of the requests were at least partially granted, but it’s difficult to say whether this is passive compliance on Twitter’s behalf because it’s been openly forced to provide such information in the past.
On a similar note, Representative Ed Markey (D-MA) revealed that federal, state and local police made 1.3 million demands for user cell phone data in the past single year. God only knows why they need so much information, but with their bloated salaries and infinite spare time to screw around, I’m really not surprised.
Porn and Trolls and Stuff
Jennifer Barker of Louisville just wanted to look at some porn. But now she’s being extorted by a company who didn’t like the fact that she downloaded one of their movies online. The basic premise of the court case is “Pay up or everyone will know you watch porn.” Unfortunately the company doesn’t realize that watching porn is more of an open secret than anything else, and its role-play as a copyright troll will end soon enough.
In Soviet Russia, Internet Search You
On Tuesday Russian-language websites participated in a SOPA-era blackout in protest of the “DumaBill 89417-6.” The legislation is one of those “protect the children” schemes so often veiled over attempts at internet censorship. Seeing how more people voted in the last Russian election than exist in general, I’d say it’s not too far-fetched to guess why the government would want to keep information away from voters.
In the end, no big deal because Tor.
Did You Lose Internet?
Monday was our generation’s Y2K moment. We were warned that millions and millions of people were going to be shut out of the internet due to Malware created by those damn Estonians (and one token Russian guy). What ended up happening: not much. And, considering how many warning we were given about the possibility of computer infection, the process was really just an international IQ test.
If you lost internet connection Monday, you lost in life.
Come On, Syria
WikiLeaks released a lot of information about Syrian authorities last Thursday. So far nothing major has been discovered, but who knows? Read through them and maybe you’ll find that one special needle in the haystack. If not, you can always impress your friends with your new knowledge of Middle Eastern dictatorships.