Comment Re:Ban the use of faucets! (Score 1) 1005
What can be killed by boiling for 20 minutes that isn't dead in one minute?
What can be killed by boiling for 20 minutes that isn't dead in one minute?
I grew up on a farm with well water. We now sell our groundwater to the county. Because of the perpetual contract, drinking our free well water would be a crime. You make your choices.
I'd much rather have RO, pH buffered tap water than water trucked from springs. However, if I'm in the backcountry near the spring, I'd rather have the spring water (boiled for 10 minutes.) Context is key here.
The indictment itself does not equate copyright infringement to theft. I wish people would read the charges before taking an activist position with regard to the charges.
Have you read the indictment? The feds gave them ample opportunity to remove a few very specific items from a very specific server (which was in Virginia). They agreed to do so, and then failed to comply. And that material wasn't any sort of gray area -- it was full length feature films, 39 of them to be exact.
And that has little to do with the indictment. It's way more significant what they did with the money (how and for what reasons they paid people cash rewards, how and from whom they took payments, the steps they took to move cash into and out of US banks, etc.) The "piracy" aspect is not the most serious of the charges.
I used to be a cryptographer, then I took a crowbar to the knee.
You should read the indictment, and become aware of the actual charges being raised and the evidence on which those charges are based. A lot of people have already gone into protest mode without even taking the basic step of reading the actual indictment. What they did with money turns out to be far more significant than the "piracy" components. Some of the things they did would be crimes even if there was no question of the legality or the controversial nature of the business.
Okay, a useful business that stands accused of institutional copyright infringement, for which there is actual evidence.
MegaUpload apparently needed servers in Virginia, banks in the US, Paypal, etc. Read the indictment. If you read the actual charges and understand the evidence it might change your opinion on the case.
They didn't just want to shut down the site! They wanted to prove that the operators knew that what they were doing was illegal, and that they were taking deliberate steps to hide the money! That is central to the indictment, that they knew (because they were told!) that they hosted infringing content, and that they did not comply with removing (very specific) items from a (very specific) server. There's a lot more to the indictment, which I encourage everyone to read before they take an activist position.
A central piece of evidence is the storage of a significant number of full-length feature films on a server in Virginia. There is other evidence that the accused utilized US banks for money laundering.
Read the indictment. They are accused of violating US law in the US, whether they were physically in the US or not.
"What law was MegaUpload breaking?"
The indictment is quite specific, and not a difficult read. I wonder how many of the people who are already in full protest mode have read it?
"They were arrested in NZ."
By New Zealand authorities, in accordance with New Zealand laws.
For me (a mere coyote who has his own ethos and feeds on chaos), their crimes were (1.) being identifiable targets, and (2.) trading in currency instead of barter.
"I am absolutely pissed that the U.S. government has the audacity to do something like this."
So how do you feel about the New Zealand government, which actually did the arresting?
Credit ... is the only enduring testimonial to man's confidence in man. -- James Blish
