Megaupload busted by the fed, Anon retaliates. SOPA/PIPA

[revnort]

The feds, perhaps as a message to the anti-SOPA/PIPA sentiment just busted megaupload. Anonymous is responding as noted below.

Anonymous attacks: http://www.mercurynews.com/nation-world/ci_19777444?source=rss

Anonymous is in the process of staging its "largest attack ever" -- more than 5,000 loosely associated hackers taking down websites belonging to government and recording industry organizations in response to Thursday's shutdown of the file-sharing site Megaupload.com.
The Department of Justice unsealed an indictment against Megaupload.com on Thursday, arresting its founder -- Kim Dotcom, formerly known as Kim Schmitz -- in New Zealand and charging her and at least five other company executives with violating privacy laws.
In response, the hacker collective known as Anonymous announced a collaborative attack against government and recording industry websites, successfully taking down the site of the Department of Justice -- which coordinated the case against Megaupload -- and the Recording Industry Association of America. As of 3 p.m. Pacific time, Justice.gov and RIAA.com were failing to load, along with other stated targets such as UniversalMusic.com and the Utah Chiefs of Police Association homepage.

The Megaupload.com arrests occurred one day after websites including Wikipedia, Google (GOOG) and Craigslist participated in a large-scale online protest against two congressional proposals intended to thwart online piracy.
Virginia-based Megaupload is considered a "cyberlocker," in which users can upload and transfer files that are too large to send by email. Such sites can have perfectly legitimate uses. But the Motion Picture Association of America, which has campaigned for a crackdown on piracy, estimated that the vast majority of content being shared on Megaupload was in violation of copyright laws.

This will be interesting regarding megaupload. This really is the crux of the argument having to do with user generated content.

Megaupload charged...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-...illion-u-s-criminal-copyright-conspiracy.html

Megaupload.com, a file-sharing website, was shut down while companies and individuals associated with it were charged with running a criminal enterprise that cost copyright owners more than $500 million.
Charges against seven individuals, Megaupload Ltd. and Vestor Ltd. were unsealed today in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, after four of the defendants were arrested in Auckland, New Zealand. Three of the suspects remain at large, according to a Justice Department statement.
“This action is among the largest criminal copyright cases ever brought by the United States and directly targets the misuse of a public content storage and distribution site to commit and facilitate intellectual property crime,” according to the e-mailed statement.
The Megaupload indictment was filed as the U.S. Congress considers anti-piracy legislation supported by the movie and music industries that has prompted a backlash from companies including Google Inc. and the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation Inc. as well as Web consumers. The opponents say the Stop Online Piracy Act in the House and the Protect IP Act in the Senate would promote online censorship, disrupt the Web’s architecture and harm their ability to innovate.

Hmm, good thing there are a million other ways to do the same thing. I doubt this will slow any pirates down...

 

[MC BumSlap]

Good night sweet prince!

 

[Dug]

This is a good example of how big government via its laws, mandates, regulations, etc moves to misguidedly enact the interest of major players in the market place (RIAA, Hollywood, etc) at the expense of other market place entities (file sharing and hosting companies) and will potentially create a butter-fly effect of unintended consequences that will effect the market place as whole in relation to the the internet.

As for the action's of Anonymous, well DoS attacks do not accomplish anything and can/will be countered by these larger entities (especially the DoJ). In the end this case will make it to court and so their response is feeble (Anonymous) at best and probably lends weight to the arguments being pushed by the DoJ and the interests they are supporting/representing (the music industry, Hollywood, etc).

 

[revnort]

This is a good example of how big government via its laws, mandates, regulations, etc is moving to enact the interest of one segment of the market place (RIAA, Hollywood, etc) at the expense of another sector of the market (file sharing and hosting companies) and will potentially create butter-fly effect of unintended consequences that effect the market place in relation to the the internet.

As for the actions of anonymous. Well DoS attacks does not accomplish anything and can/will be countered by these larger entities. In the end this case will make it to court so their response is feeble at best and leads weight to the arguments being pushed by the DoJ and the interests they are supporting (music industry, hollywood, etc).

Agreed. DDOS attacks are pretty much worthless. Especially since they are like industry group sites. WGAS?

 

[Asphaultnaut]

yet another example of "no need to create more laws when laws already exist to do the same thing".

People worrying about SOPA just this week are really late to the party.

And people thinking Google/Facebook/etc are heroes in all this when they're doing the same or worse without oversight...it is to laugh.

 

[JackTheTripper]

"According to network data assembled by security vendor Palo Alto Networks, MegaUpload usage accounted for a full 25-percent of the corporate network traffic it monitored. PAS's security software monitored the gateways of 1,636 businesses worldwide—most of which employed more than 2,500 people—and recorded traffic numbers over a week's span."

http://gizmodo.com/5877750/megauplo...ll-corporate-trafficmore-popular-than-dropbox

 

[UDRider]

yet another example of "no need to create more laws when laws already exist to do the same thing".

People worrying about SOPA just this week are really late to the party.

And people thinking Google/Facebook/etc are heroes in all this when they're doing the same or worse without oversight...it is to laugh.

Doing what?

Yes, they are not heroes, but hey they helped to spread the word to prevent this piece of legislature from passing. It did benefit their business model, and gave them tons of positive publicity, but they did help.

 

[Jakemate]

They're trying to take our pr0n away from us.

It's now time to take up arms!














Oh, what? Like any of YOU have d/l'd anything but porn rips from them.

 

[spddrcr]

They're trying to take our pr0n away from us.

It's now time to take up arms!














Oh, what? Like any of YOU have d/l'd anything but porn rips from them.

Dude porn downloads from megaupload?
you are totally doing it wrong:|

 

[Jakemate]

Email links.

FL I torrent.

 

[msethhunter]

This song came to mind immediately


[youtube]KOqk_q4NLLI[/youtube]

 

[Idontdotrix]

I find it hilarious the guy who wrote the bill has a pirated image on his own website

go Anonymous. you guys seem to be the only ones capable of getting the assclowns' attention these days

 

[black cx]

megaupload ceo cars being impounded

http://www.autoblog.nl/image-gallery?file=0_Divers/Inbeslagname_Supercars_Kim_Schmitz/

 

[/dev/null]

That'll teach them to have servers in the US. They had a few in Virginia or something which gave the feds jurisdiction to move. The fallout from this is starting to come in, lots of companies that were using them for hosting lost everything and since what was seized is evidence they aren't going to get it back anytime soon if ever.

It's nice when a small group of companies can make donations and provide high paying jobs (some of the congressional staff that drafted PIPA/SOPA jumped straight to high paying lobbying jobs right afterwards) to get the DOJ to criminalize something that belongs in the civil courts.

E Plurbus Unum should be changed to Invitatio Ad Offerendum.

 

[Eldritch]

Fuckin' Murder. This assault on free communication over the Internet is truly the last stand of Liberty. It is on this battle ground that the future of humanity shall rise to a better world or fall to the shackles of fascism and tyranny. I fear far too few realize the gravity of these objects currently in motion.

 

[Diezel]

Fuckin' Murder. This assault on free communication over the Internet is truly the last stand of Liberty. It is on this battle ground that the future of humanity shall rise to a better world or fall to the shackles of fascism and tyranny. I fear far too few realize the gravity of these objects currently in motion.

Dude, we saw this SAME shit go down with Napster. It's an ENDLESS cycle. Megaupload is gone, and will be replaced with another one.

 

[Mike95060]

OK dumb question, how did Megaupload earn so much $$$$ for its CEO? Advertising clicks?

 

[Marlowe]

Dude, we saw this SAME shit go down with Napster. It's an ENDLESS cycle. Megaupload is gone, and will be replaced with another one.

Napster was one thing, and clearly targeted at copyright violation, but Megaupload was just another forum or dropbox; You posted what you posted, and other people grab it.

Should the hoster be responsible for user-provided content? That would pretty much take down the Internet as we know it.

 

[morthrane]

Dude, we saw this SAME shit go down with Napster. It's an ENDLESS cycle. Megaupload is gone, and will be replaced with another one.

Is this the cycle that comes when BARF gets shut down because one user managed to piss off the wrong people by uploading copyrighted content?

 

[Marlowe]

Is this the cycle that comes when BARF gets shut down because one user managed to piss off the wrong people by uploading copyrighted content?

Pretty much.

Or we all warm up the pitchforks, but that's the way we are headed.

Sad sacks preserving what's left of their business model, vs. the rest of us.