P2P Defendant Destroys Evidence, Case Defaults

neoflexycurrent writes "A court in Texas has thrown the book at a defendant accused by the RIAA of file sharing. The court determined that she had intentionally wiped her hard drive clean, so it entered the most severe sanction possible — default judgment against her. The record companies now just have to ask the court how much they want in damages."

Check the toilet.

[tacarat]

I'm guessing she actually just flushed the files before SWAT moved in.

Re:Stupid?

[m874t232]

The question for me is: How did they proved the data was destroyed after the defendant receivced the court order?

Isn't it obvious? They couldn't find any pirated files, so she must have wiped it clean!

Virus?

[rm999]

If I were her, I would install kazaa, download every different version of "BritneySpearsNaked.exe" and run them all. Wanting to see britney spears naked is not illegal, and it would make it awfully hard for them to prove she purposefully destroyed her own computer.

So my

[jlebrech]

Automatic Police Raid detection system that detonates my harddrive with a small plastic explosive is totally useless. They'll asume i had whatever they want me to have had on my pc.

Wireless... you gotta love it!

[NineNine]

You gotta love borrowing other people's (or the public's) wirelesss connections, when it comes to stuff like this. All they've got is a MAC address, and a general vicinity (within xxxx feet from this WAP). Excuse me while I fire up some torrents...

Re:So my

[shawb]

Physical destruction of the hard drive on police raid would be WAYYY too obvious. That's why you install powerful electromagnets in the door that pulse and fry the hard drive (and likely other internal components) when the computer is being removed from the room. Since the data on the hard drive would have "proven your innocence" and... I donno... the data was there before they took it... then the default judgement would be in your favor. I assume if they get default judgement then it would be trivial to countersue for lawyer fees. And then you can get them for destruction of property...

Unless, of course, they somehow figure out that you had an electromagnet in the doorframe.

Re:So my

[masklinn]

Better: reencode all your mp3s to ogg files, they won't realize that's music!

Don't destroy the evidence, let them do it for you

[trip11]

If you are worried that someone will take your hard drive and try to read the valuable contents on it, I offer a simple, low tech solution. Switch the leads on the power connector! Its as simple as undoing a few screws and switching the 12V and ground leads. Two snips with the dikes, two drops of solder, and you're done. Screw everything back in place and appropriatly adjust the power connector coming out of your power supply. Now I would recomend doing this long before you recieve any sort of court order so they can't claim you were tampering with evidence. When they go to plug your hard drive into the examining system *zap*. "sorry, um you never asked if my hardware was ATX compliant judge" Note: I am not a lawyer and you should not think this would get you off the hook by any means. In fact frying the police department's computer may piss the judge off. Second, this will likely void your warnenty, fry your motherboard, ruin your hard drive, and end up in your death. But hey, this is slashdot, crackpot ideas on how to modify your hardware to screw the justice system seem right up our alley.

Re:This seems bogus.

[Jekler]

If anyone is ever rewarded for destroying evidence, witness tampering, etc. It is an open invitation to continue that behavior. Instead of learning not to commit the crime (or even not to get caught) you teach the defendant to cover their tracks more thoroughly. On the one hand, giving the defendant the benefit of the doubt is great. But if you allow them to stretch that doubt, and even actively widen the margin of doubt, then nothing at all is a crime so long as the defendant has enough time/resources on their side. You end up with arguments which sound like: "I'm sorry your Honor, there's nothing you can do to prove my client had no reason to incinerate the victim and eject their ashes into space. As it was explained, although my client did have a signed a contract with the victim which clearly stated he was not murdered, my client was then forced to use that contract as kindling to prevent himself from freezing to death in July. My client has a delicate metabolism, 90 degree weather is not enough to sustain my client. Again, it is regretable that all the scientists and the judge who could confirm his condition passed away. No your Honor, that's not a threat. Your predecessors did suffer from a rare form of 'My Body Can't Be Found' syndrome."

Re:What the?

[bky1701]

Best excuses of all:

"I use windows, it's not my fault, blame gates!"
"I use Mac OS, don't blame me, it's somewhere in there... I just forgot where... and it seems the OS did, too."
"I use Linux, so it's in there, you are just not looking in the RIGHT /mp3 folder. Look in the other one, /mp3-56765555666543. Or /mp3-44356544454...."

Next time you reinstall windows or linux...

[eagl]

Make sure you retain a lawyer the next time you reinstall windows or linux, because you never know if the RIAA is going to hit you at random.

I recommend suing Bill Gates the next time he buys a new hard drive, on the theory that he's deleting evidence. No actual proof is required, merely wiping a hard drive (identity theft protection, right?) is PROOF he's up to something!

Re:Stupid?

[hcob$]

Stupid. If there was anything left to find, or anything hat pointed to when the wiping was done, then the disk was not wiped. More likely this person only wiped specific folders. To say it again: You have to wipe the complete drive. You have to sacrifice your installation. Only then will no evidence be left and no evidence that can tell when the drive was wiped.

Which is why I have 3 degauss rings built inside my case... One for each axis... If they want my data, they are going to have to work really hard to find anything.

Re:Stupid!

[Cro Magnon]

More severe cases only put the files into the Windows waste basket and emptied it.

I can't help but wonder if anyone ever tried to put the files into the wastebasket and DIDN'T empty it.

Re:Stupid?

[lardbottom]

I would mod you down, but *yawn*.

Simply give your computer to Jimmy Hoffa. I'm sure the fishes would like swimming through the case next to your Nvidia card and internal neon tube lighting. Someone who fileshares recklessly probably wouldn't think about it anyway. (criminal mind?)

However, claiming it was stolen by reporting it is stupid. Most deductibles for home theft won't even cover it. It's mostly just a waste of time to report something like that. It's not like anyone does anything. I did get a stolen bicycle back once. I was floored. But I registered the number, so it was traceable. Most of the time, I doubt there would be anything traceable from your computer, unless you got it from Dell (or similar).

Some people think the law is black and white, but it's very gray to me. People get let off the hook for hainous things because of the heart-strings of the jury/judge/policeman, and others get whacked mercilessly for small things because of the color of their skin. It's all so stupid.

Besides, compounding pointless "stupidity and recklessness" comments with bad spelling makes sense only to you.

Re:Stupid?

[DaveV1.0]

Of course if you keep all your documents on a second hard drive, you can:

1. get a third drive.
   
2. copy data you want to keep to third drive.
   
3. wipe second drive.
   
4. swap second drive with third drive
   
5. disassemble second drive
   
6. take second drive parts to local recycling center. Remember, that hard drive is about 90% aluminum.
   
7. Profit!
   

Re:wow

[computational super]

when criminals would be transported to Australia for trivial thefts... we regard it as barbaric.

Now, now - I've been to Australia a few times in the past year, and I wouldn't say that being transported there is barbaric. Unpleasant, sure, but still a fitting punishment for a trivial theft or minor copyright infringement.

Re:Don't destroy the evidence, let them do it for

[jimicus]

Seeing as the circuit board in question generally has the power connector soldered directly onto it, that's a non-issue.

However, "buying another drive of the exact same model" is interesting. Seems to me that if you combine the "switch the power connections" with "use an antiquated hard drive which they will almost certainly be unable to source another of" would solve the problem.

Suddenly I forsee a huge market in 20 year old 5MB hard drives.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Stupid?

[KlomDark]

Yah, but virii are like cops - Never there when you need them...

Seriously, where do you go to intentionally get infected with an RC virus? Would be a good defense, but...

Re:wow

[hummdinger02]

I am trying to think of a trivial crime that could get me a free flight to Australia. :-)

Re:Stupid?

[jo42]

My wife's iPod Nano was stolen out of a gym locker; perhaps it'll be found later containing mp3s with tags clearly indicating they're illegally downloaded copies. Am I going to be held responsible?

Now, don't be giving the RIAA any new idears...

Re:Stupid?

[sabernet]

do that but replace "degauss rings" which wouldn't work well with the HDD shielding with "thermite detonator":)

Re:wow

[computational super]

forcably deported to an undeveloped country

What country are you calling undeveloped? Australia has Steve Irwin [discovery.com], John Howard [wikipedia.org], kangaroos, almost 200 acres of arable land...

... Ok, maybe you have a point there.

Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't download songs. The Internet is for porn [google.com] anyway.